Chapter 9: A Busy Life

  The university is no longer as unattainable and colorful as Li Sansheng had imagined; Li Sansheng believes that the only true university in China is Peking University, which was headed by Mr. Cai Yuanpei as president in the 1920s and 1930s, while China's current education can only be compared to Japan's level 50 years ago and the UK and US's level 100 years ago. Since a country's education is related to its future and national destiny, this is also why our society has already become polarized and contradictory.

  Nowadays, most of what we see and hear is a crazy scene in this society. The prices of goods in a developing country are already much higher than those in developed countries. An ordinary citizen of a developing country can't even afford to buy a place to live in their beloved country, no matter how hard they work until death. The price difference between Shenzhen and Hong Kong, which are just separated by a river, is also astonishing. This has led to the farce of people from Shenzhen going to Hong Kong to buy soy sauce. It's ridiculous that Shenzhen, where housing prices and living costs have risen to absurd levels, still wants to create the city with the happiest people in China. This is indeed a sorrow for our country and society.

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, has become like in Matthew's Gospel, to those who have more will be given, from those who do not have, everything will be taken away.

  So Li Sanyuan thought he was just one of the countless people who were numb and cold-blooded in this already chaotic world, struggling hard to survive. It's not that he was calm, but rather helpless.

  If Mr. Liang Qichao were to see the lives of university students today, would he think that his famous essay "Ode to Young China" was a naked satire of today's university students?

  Li Sansheng gets up at 6:30 every morning, after washing up, he goes to the northern playground of the school downstairs in the dormitory building to run ten laps, and then either practices a set of Yang-style Tai Chi or practices his grandfather's hand-pushing style Baguazhang. It's not as mysterious as what's written on TV, but it's ordinary, just like those old men who exercise at the foot of the city wall in the morning, but with an extra touch of spirituality.

  The three guys in the dormitory, except for Ye Yansong, could get up on time every day. The other two would sleep as late as they wanted at night and wouldn't wake up until they naturally woke up. At first, the three guys in the dormitory didn't understand why Li Sansheng could get up at 6:30 every morning. Li Sansheng smiled and said that early birds catch worms, but these guys definitely didn't know what he meant. Helplessly, Li Sansheng had to explain it in simpler terms, saying that there were many beautiful girls jogging in the morning, and they could wait for them like a hunter waiting by a tree stump, which would bring unexpected gains. Moreover, there were especially many beautiful senior sisters.

  Three guys were extremely excited after hearing, so the next morning they used N methods to force themselves and Li San Sheng to get up together. After arriving at the playground, they found that they had been fooled by Li San Sheng. The whole playground was empty, not even a bird, let alone beautiful girls. The three guys were so angry that they chose to go back to sleep without hesitation. Li San Sheng smiled and continued running his own steps. Unless it's a rainy day, Li San Sheng would sit in the dormitory, something that the other three people would never understand.

  After running, I simply went to the nearest canteen to have a light breakfast, and then rushed back to my dormitory, making sure not to be late. Before the school library opened, I arrived at the library and returned all the books I had finished reading.

  Li Sansheng couldn't help but thank his three roommates, who never considered reading their main business. Since they got library cards, they stored them with Li Sansheng. Li Sansheng was also happy that he could borrow more than ten books at a time, which was his weekly reading volume. In fact, Li Sansheng liked buying books even more, because that way he could leave his thoughts and notes on the book, and when he opened it again one day, he would have different ideas.

  After returning the book, Li San Sheng took the books he needed for his morning class and the ones he borrowed from the library to rush to the East Building of the Central Teaching Building, where his classroom was located.

  The university's hardware facilities are satisfactory, with a top-ten library in the northwest, fixed classrooms that don't require searching every day, two national-standard sports stadiums, an indoor sports hall, a tennis center, and a student activity center. Li Sansheng smiled wryly, saying that if it weren't for these facilities, they wouldn't be able to attract so many children from wealthy families, creating a virtuous cycle.

  At 8:00 am sharp, Li San Sheng attends every class on time. Although the courses are mostly public and don't seem that important, he still insists on attending every single one without any record of truancy. His attendance rate is even higher than the class committee members who take roll call every day. The classroom is mostly filled with girls, with Li San Sheng being the only boy. The few boys in the class are all absent, leaving Li San Sheng to carry the flag for the boys. It has to be said that the self-discipline of the girls is still stronger than that of the boys. Fortunately, during their freshman year, these girls are relatively good students.

  The first lesson is Mao Deng, which all Chinese university students have to read, that is, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory. Now most universities have changed it to "Mao Zedong Thought and the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics". The teacher is a graduate student who has just graduated for two or three years. It seems that he has already gotten used to the performance of students in this school when taking this course, and the numb teacher starts to teach by rote. Meanwhile, the lovely students in our motherland also ignore the teacher as usual, doing their own things at the bottom, in short, they don't listen to the class.

  Li Sansheng looked up and met the teacher's gaze, giving him a bright smile and nodding his head. The teacher also had a good impression of this boy who always sat in the far left corner by the window during class, nodded back in response and continued teaching.

  Li San Sheng still sat in his own territory on the left side of the window, but today when he arrived at this seat, it was already surrounded by four of the most beautiful and lively girls in the class. They had taken over the surrounding area, leaving only a small corner for him. Li San Sheng furrowed his brow, feeling a bit uncomfortable as he walked to his seat, put down his book, and smiled at the three girls who were acquaintances but not close friends before sitting down.

  Jiang Xiaoxiao, Lin Xuer, Yan Bing and Song Yani are considered the most beautiful girls in the tourism management class. The four of them come from a higher social background than ordinary girls, so their life trajectory is destined to be different from that of ordinary girls. Most of the time they spend playing, for them university is just a piece of paper, no matter how much more they think about it, they can't think of anything else.

  Lin Xue'er is considered one of the prettiest among them, with a height of 1.73 meters and a figure honed from practicing dance and yoga since childhood, as well as a face that rivals those of showbiz stars. With just a simple makeup look, she already makes those boys from rural towns feel inferior and too shy to glance at her. Moreover, it seems Li San Sheng has heard his three dorm-mates mention this girl before, who apparently was already considered the campus belle by the senior students in her second year of college shortly after enrolling.

  Lin Xue'er has never lacked boys' attention since she was a child. If it weren't for her love of playing and having fun in high school, and if she hadn't had a falling out with her father after the college entrance exam, she wouldn't have ended up at this school that seemed destined to have nothing to do with her. But Lin Xue'er is a proud and strong-willed girl who, once she's made a choice, won't regret or doubt it.

  After entering the tourism management class, it was only natural that she became the most proud and beautiful princess in this class of beauties. This fully satisfied her own vanity, and most of the nine boys in the class had already made a move on her, but Lin Xue'er, who always looked down on others, naturally didn't think much of them. There was only one exception - the boy who would only smile slightly when he saw her, with clear eyes that were free from any impurities. When facing her, he wouldn't use the same flirtatious gaze as most boys did, and his confident body language made Lin Xue'er feel uneasy. She thought this was Li San Sheng's way of showing disrespect to her.

  Lin Xue'er thought that if she had met such a boy before, she probably wouldn't have given him a second glance. She didn't look down on boys from poor families, but rather those who were poor and lacked backbone. Lin Xue'er found it strange, so she chose to take a step closer to Li San Sheng, who was wearing ordinary clothes paired with a pair of simple black cloth shoes that seemed destined to be forgotten in her memory.

  Li Sansheng thus entered Miss Lin's eyes with such a demon-like identity, but at this time Li Sansheng did not know his own good fortune.

  The rest of the three or four girls mostly also had the same idea as Lin Xueer to tease such a boy.

  Li Sansheng smiled and said hello, then didn't plan to have anything to do with the four princesses who were spoiled by the boys in the class and the college. Li Sansheng had never had a good impression of women who were spoiled by men and didn't know their place.

  "Are you still reading 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments'?" Jiang Xiaoxiao picked up Li Sansheng's borrowed book from the library, Adam Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", and asked with a bit of amusement, because Jiang Xiaoxiao thought that this one of Adam Smith's most famous works was a book about ethics.

  "Uh-huh, borrowed from the library." Li Sansheng nodded and said affirmatively.

  "You still like this kind of book?" Jiang Xiaoxiao teased, she naturally didn't know what this book was about. Jiang Xiaoxiao didn't know so she would tease, the other two girls also started laughing, only Lin Xue'er didn't laugh, because she knew what this book was.

  "That's Adam Smith's equally famous masterpiece, 'The Wealth of Nations'." Lin Xueer couldn't help but laugh at her three close friends for being so plebeian, and could only sigh that they were uncultured, which was truly frightening. Otherwise, she explained, their group would have been ridiculed by Li San Sheng just after graduation without knowing what hit them.

  "We sympathize with the suffering of others, and as far as possible, we put ourselves in the place of those who are afflicted, that we may enter into their feelings and be affected by their influence." said Li San Sheng calmly, this is one of the more famous sentences from Adam Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments".

  Li Sansheng was actually telling this group of pathetic, laughable and childish girls that they should try to experience the lives of those who are less fortunate than themselves. Only then will you know how happy your own life is and cherish it.

  But Li Sansheng didn't quite agree with that, because he thought that a person who hadn't experienced something and stood in that position would never truly understand the heart-wrenching feeling. So Li Sansheng told his friends not to say they understood someone's feelings when they were suffering, as it would make them appear insincere and fake, and they wouldn't really understand those feelings.

  Just like the series of patriotic demonstrations triggered by this year's Diaoyu Islands incident, many people do not understand why after so many years have passed we still have to do things this way. And in our reality there are still so many "Han" and "Ri" tribes (Korean and Japanese pop culture fans), Li Sansheng sometimes wants to see these guys get slapped left and right for being traitors who fawn over foreign cultures, because from a young age Li Sansheng heard about this shameful history of the entire Chinese nation from his grandfather's mouth. His grandfather would always say that if you weren't alive in those times then you will never know the hardships and pain of those times.

  Lin Xue'er sat beside Li Sansheng, while the other three girls sat in front of him in a row. At this time, the Mao Zedong Thought teacher seemed to see that they were chattering and looked over with some displeasure. Li Sansheng smiled apologetically and the teacher didn't say anything else, while the three girls in front also felt a bit embarrassed and turned around like that.

  "Do you like reading books?" Lin Xue'er seemed to think that Li San Sheng was quite interesting and also wanted to understand the world of this boy who didn't bat an eye, thinking he was a small person.

  It's possible that Lin Xue'er didn't know that when a woman wants to understand a man's world, she has already entered his world and can't pull herself out in the end.

  "Hehe, I'm a parent who didn't plan well for my own future," Li Sansheng said with a smile. Li Sansheng's smile would never make anyone feel dazzled, just like the sunset giving people a very comfortable feeling.

  "You think you can succeed like this, a bit naive, right?" Lin Xue'er heard Li San Sheng's words and felt that Li San Sheng was a bit naive and childish. Because Lin Xue'er also understood that after entering this university, it is already destined that the distance between you and success will only get farther and farther away, mostly just an illusion.

  "As long as you keep enriching yourself every day, there will come a day when you can get what you want. Standing still will never get you anywhere," Li San Sheng said calmly.

  It seems that Lin Xue'er was quite in agreement with this sentence, and after listening to it, she did not refute Li San Sheng, but thought about something with a thoughtful expression. Li San Sheng didn't say anything else and continued to look at Adam Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", which is also a book that the Premier has advocated for companies to read nowadays.

  Looking at the proud girl sitting next to him, Li San thought that she couldn't understand his world after all. He felt that his life was...

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