Lin Wanxing met with Professor He on a Saturday morning.

After the finals against Yongchuan Hengda Youth Team that day, Lin Wanxing very much wanted to meet with Professor He.

But Wen Chengye’s father suddenly arrived in Yongchuan, slapped his son, and required her to be present to handle the situation. Meanwhile, Professor He was called back to the hospital for an emergency consultation. Thus, they missed each other.

It was both regrettable and secretly relieving.

Just as Professor He had been quietly observing her all along, she also didn’t know how to face Professor He.

But the gratitude she needed to express and the words she had cried out at the door without being heard still needed to be said in person.

Finally, on a weekend after the students’ second mock exam, Professor He happened to be free, and they decided to meet and talk.

After confirming the location, Lin Wanxing took Wang Fa to the sports equipment street in the city, wanting to buy a sports backpack.

Wang Fa patiently analyzed for her which sports bag had good weight-bearing capacity, which was lighter, basically describing them according to outdoor hiking specifications.

However, after searching for a while, Wang Fa couldn’t help asking: “Where exactly are you going?”

“Sanmin School.”

“School?” Wang Fa was finally somewhat surprised.

“Yes, Professor He regularly donates to Sanmin County Middle School, and they’ve invited her for a lecture. Professor He asked me to accompany her,” Lin Wanxing looked back at Wang Fa and said with certainty, “So we’re going to Sanmin County.”

At 9:00 in the morning, she would go to Professor He’s home. She would do simple makeup for Professor He, and then they would set off together for Sanmin.

The makeup requirement came from Professor He, who hoped to look younger and more energetic in front of the children.

The list had been repeatedly simplified but remained quite long. Lin Wanxing checked her cabinet and felt the need to update her equipment.

“You know how to do makeup and hair styling?” After hearing her plans, Wang Fa’s point of surprise was strange.

“Though I have quite an attractive appearance, I was also a prominent figure in university, and some occasions require extra grooming,” Lin Wanxing answered honestly while swiping her card.

“Indeed,” Wang Fa said.

Lin Wanxing carried the paper bag and walked out of the store with him, feeling something wasn’t quite right: “Normally, shouldn’t you respond with ‘you look good even without makeup’?”

They stood at the roadside railing, covered by the light and shadows of the camphor trees. Wang Fa stopped walking and looked down at her for a while.

Just as Lin Wanxing was starting to feel a bit embarrassed by his gaze.

She heard Wang Fa say softly: “I meant the ‘quite an attractive appearance’ part.”

—

On the day of the formal meeting with Professor He, Lin Wanxing took the earliest high-speed train to Yongchuan.

Following the address Professor He had given, Lin Wanxing brought a bouquet of pink geraniums and paid a visit.

It was a green security door with a red Chinese knot hanging on the handle.

The address was no longer Shu Yong and He Youting’s original residence, but Lin Wanxing still stood at the door for a while.

She could no longer quite remember why she had wanted to find Professor He back then.

Perhaps she was too desperate and wanted to find evidence that Shu Yong had issues, so she had to talk to Professor He.

Or perhaps her psychological state was already problematic, so she wanted to be completely miserable, to make herself utterly desperate.

In any case, that was a chaotic and blurry past.

But that closed iron door and the damp, cold rainy night outside the corridor had been deeply imprinted in her consciousness. So much so that even as time passed and the scene changed, she could still feel the trembling from that time.

During those struggling days, she very rarely thought about Professor He, let alone had any related emotions.

When Wang Fa told her about Professor He’s emotional journey, that iron door that had once been closed to her reappeared in her mind.

A brown security door with, a brass handle, with the brand logo in the upper right corner—a rhinoceros with its head held high.

The plastic film was still on the door, although the edges were peeling up, probably because the owner was too busy to ever think about removing it.

She seemed to have cried outside the door.

Because Professor He told Wang Fa that she had been crying, asking Professor He to believe her at that time.

Although the door never opened for her that day, it wasn’t entirely useless.

Only today did she realize how correct and important her decision to go to Professor He’s home had been.

The efforts she had made with gritted teeth, the countless doors she had knocked on, were not entirely in vain.

No one knows what’s behind the door—possibly hopeless emptiness, but perhaps also a woman who has similarly suffered through sorrow but still wants to try again.

Switching the bouquet to her right hand, Lin Wanxing raised her left hand and pressed the doorbell.

With a soft “ding-dong,” after a while, the door opened.

Sunlight shined through the window grilles into the room.

It was an utterly simple room, with just a dining table and television in the living room, not even a sofa.

Professor He stood alone inside the door, wearing an apron, her hands still wet, momentarily stunned. Behind her was a room that looked empty, with lunch boxes and a few unwashed bowls on the dining table.

They stood facing each other for a while before Professor He came to her senses.

She wiped her hands on her apron, trying to welcome her with a gentle smile, but her slightly trembling lips betrayed her true emotions.

“Wanxing, it’s been a long time,” Professor He said, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Professor He,” Lin Wanxing handed her the flowers, “We’ve finally met.”

—

There were many mountains on the way to Sanmin.

The high-speed railway was built between mountains and passed through many, many tunnels.

But the actual Sanmin County was a rare plain area surrounded by mountains. The scenery was beautiful, with the Cang River running through the county town. The river water was clear and peaceful, reflecting the true appearance of the sky and mountains.

Unlike the imagined county town, Sanmin County was a modernized town. The roads were flat and orderly, with impressive bridges and buildings.

Lin Wanxing saw KFC, McDonald’s, chain hotpot restaurants, and the familiar Yongchuan Mega Supermarket. It seemed that the donations Professor He mentioned had led Lin Wanxing to subconsciously think this was an impoverished county.

“I’m from Sanmin. This place has developed in recent years,” sitting in the middle school’s reception car, with the street scenery receding outside the window, Professor He timely answered her confusion.

“What was it like before?” Lin Wanxing asked.

“Before? Before, because we were in the mountains, travel was difficult, and we were a famous poverty-stricken county,” Professor He said. “Later, the general environment improved, reform and opening up happened, and then we caught the rise of e-commerce. Mountain agricultural products became popular, and life gradually improved.”

“Yes, and now life is too good. Today’s children don’t study properly. That’s why we specifically invited Professor He back to tell students how we studied diligently in our time,” said the middle-aged vice principal who came to receive them. “There are too many options now, and kids don’t have their minds on studying. The other day, my nephew’s daughter argued with my granddaughter, saying her cousin went to work in an electronics factory in the city and earns twice as much as her grandfather, the principal, so studying is useless. My granddaughter couldn’t argue back, so she came home crying.”

For some reason, Lin Wanxing thought of Qin Ao from the past.

The boy had also proudly mentioned that after high school graduation, he would work at his uncle’s hardware factory.

Looking at Professor He’s serene face, Lin Wanxing suddenly realized that what the school wanted Professor He to talk about seemed different from the lecture topic they had decided on after the discussion.

“That era must have been very difficult,” Lin Wanxing asked.

“In the past, my family lived in the mountains. We raised pigs, and my parents never went to school. The hardest part wasn’t going to school, but having the idea to go to school,” Professor He said.

“Then how did you get this idea?” Lin Wanxing was curious.

“It was my mother. Once, my parents went to the county town to sell pigs. By chance, they passed by Sanmin County Middle School. At that time, Sanmin County Middle School was just a dilapidated cement building. My mother said she heard classes in session, with students reciting ancient poems with their teacher. The classroom recited one poem after another, and she stood outside the fence listening. She listened as long as the class went on and felt she had never heard such beautiful sounds before. It was also the first time she felt aspiration. So she discussed it with my father and decided that no matter what, they would send me to school.”

Professor He’s educational experience was similar to countless other educational stories that took place on this land during that era.

They crossed mountains and valleys, leaving early and returning late. Not only did they have to study, but they also had to help their families with farming. In winter, their hands were covered with festering chilblains; in summer, after walking mountain paths, their legs were full of swollen bumps from insect bites. They sometimes slipped and rolled down hillsides, and sometimes fainted in classrooms due to malnutrition.

But she learned many, many ancient poems, which she could recite one by one to her mother when she got home.

“Later, I asked my mother which poems she heard that day, but she couldn’t say. She said this one seems like it, that one too, this one sounded good, that one too. In the end, she only recognized one. I did well in school, finished junior high, got into high school, and was admitted to Yongchuan University, becoming the first female university student from our town.”

Recalling the past, Professor He still had a proud expression.

“Yes, my mother said that after Professor He went to university, other villagers’ parents envied her and were willing to send their children to school. My mother also had the opportunity to go to school with her brother because of Professor He,” the accompanying female teacher said.

Sanmin County Middle School was now close at hand, the weather was fine, and the Cang River flowed deep and still.

When it came time for the lecture, Professor He didn’t talk about her educational experience.

For most children nowadays, hardship is in the past, and no one will be inspired to study hard because of someone else’s story.

With the changing times, Professor He realized that children needed something else. Perhaps it was the feeling her mother had standing in front of the school building—a moment of aspiration and a seed of hope.

Lin Wanxing helped Professor He plan the lecture content, suggesting she tell some interesting medical-related stories. Their discussion topic at the time was “Future Surgery.”

The school auditorium was newly built in recent years, well-equipped, and filled with lower-grade middle school children.

Led by teachers, they were called to the auditorium to listen to the lecture.

At the beginning, the children were all well-behaved, with their hands properly folded on the auditorium tables, sitting upright.

When Professor He began showing fantasy clips of the “Future Surgery Workshop,” the students gradually became attracted.

Like scenes from a science fiction movie, patients’ lesions were fully displayed in three dimensions.

Imaging technology, virtual reality, and artificial reality technology made disease diagnosis and surgery precise and three-dimensional, with doctors performing surgery assisted by robots.

And “pre-surgery” would replace actual surgery, with diseases being cured before they occurred.

As the lecture content deepened, the students’ attitude changed from initially just “obediently” listening to becoming fascinated.

Sometimes they pointed at the screen in wonder, sometimes they whispered to each other. When the surgical robot equipment unfolded, the entire auditorium erupted in admiring gasps.

The entire lecture was scheduled for one hour, but Professor He spent only half an hour with the students imagining future surgery.

The remaining time was arranged for students to freely ask questions.

When checking the lecture process with Professor He, Lin Wanxing suggested using random numbers to pick auditorium number plates, making the process more random, and allowing students to lead the second half of the lecture content.

School leaders initially opposed this idea when they heard it, worried that students might say the wrong things or ask the wrong questions.

But Professor He was confident and wanted to accept this challenge.

In any case, when Professor He announced on stage that the next activity would be random questions, the audience was in an uproar.

Some students were excited, even eagerly raising their hands; others became nervous, fearing they would be chosen.

But regardless, every student in the auditorium began to try to recall the content just presented, thinking about what they still wanted to know.

“Teacher, have you operated that surgical robot?”

“No, but we have young doctors who have gone for training.”

“My parents want me to be a doctor in the future, but if robots will do all the surgeries, will I be out of a job?”

“As it currently stands, surgical robots are just assistants to doctors. But if in the future humans can be free from the troubles of disease, every doctor would probably be happy to be unemployed.”

“Teacher, how did you decide to become a doctor?”

“Yongchuan University Medical School was the best school and major I could attend with my college entrance exam scores at that time, so I chose the best.”

…

Lin Wanxing sat in the audience, listening to Professor He answers the children’s questions with gentle, simple language.

Most were answers they had prepared in advance, until—

“Do you have anything you particularly regret in your life?” A student who stood up asked such a question as the Q&A session was coming to an end.

Professor He, who had been answering questions with humor and wit until now, finally froze.

The auditorium was silent for a long time, with every pair of eyes fixed on her on stage.

Under the spotlight on the podium, one could see her graying hair at the temples. Sometimes her gaze flickered, sometimes her brows furrowed slightly, as if she was lost in a long recollection.

The vice principal hosting the lecture was afraid Professor He would be unable to respond.

“What I regret most is that because I was too insecure about my background from the mountains, I chose the wrong person to be my husband.”