Chapter Nineteenth: Cutting Melons and Chopping Vegetables
In the afternoon, it was Chinese language class. Su Can chopped and sliced all the way to the composition topic, annotating and correcting errors. The 1998 middle school entrance examination Chinese comprehension test was an essay by Zhu Ziqing called "Spring". The theme was "Yearning for Spring", "Sending off Spring" and "Painting Spring". When Su Can read it, he actually had a somewhat enjoyable taste, but the questions that came out seemed very superficial, and answering them was effortless.
The essay topic was a bit special, "Give me one day". The limited 600-word grid made Su Can feel like it was a joke, compared to the tens of thousands of words he usually wrote in his reports, this essay's word count was more like scratching an itch.
Su Can thinks that his writing maturity may be stronger than that of his peers, but when faced with such a topic, what should he write about? He is used to the verbose style of later generations, and to be honest, it's still a bit difficult to condense something essential into 600 words.
Su Can's eyes flashed with inspiration, and he retrieved many fragments and images from his memory bank. He picked up his pen, but hesitated again, wondering what impact it would have on the current situation if he wrote like this. However, there seemed to be no other choice now, so Su Can finally picked up his pen and started writing on the test paper with a scratching sound.
This time, Su Can handed in his paper much later than usual, almost at the last twenty minutes when the bell rang. When he finally submitted it, the invigilating teacher, Xiao Rihua, couldn't help but take a closer look at him. Considering how quickly he finished the math test this morning, it was surprising that he handed in his paper so late, only one step ahead of Shen Lu. However, many students started handing in their papers soon after, and Xiao Rihua didn't have time to review Su Can's work carefully. Judging from his performance on today's language test, writing a 600-word essay seemed like a chore for him, and it was likely that he wasn't an outstanding student in terms of moral character, intelligence, physical ability, aesthetics, or labor skills.
Su Can left the examination room without knowing what Xiao Rihua was thinking, still hesitating about his composition, wondering if he had written it correctly or not.
The first day of the exam passed quickly, and everyone persisted in not checking the answers or reviewing the questions. When Su Can returned home, he also turned on the news broadcast, including local news from Xia Hai City. Today's Xia Hai City news focused on their middle school entrance examination, capturing scenes of parents waiting anxiously outside the school gates, which was quite spectacular.
Both parents did not disturb Su Can, who was quietly watching the news at this moment. For them, Su Can's recent performance has been extremely surprising. He sat with his eyes wide open, intently watching the news broadcast, and didn't seem like their own son who used to be very interested in Hong Kong and Taiwanese martial arts dramas. This unfamiliar feeling made Su Can's parents feel a little dazed, but at the same time, they felt an inexplicable sense of comfort.
Su Can's heart was turbulent, in 1998, the Yangtze River, the first largest river in the Republic, due to natural causes, triggered a flood disaster, and the Yangtze River basin was hit by a massive flood. This was the second major flood disaster since the founding of New China, more than 40 years after the previous one, but the resulting damage to property was even more severe.
In my impression, Xiahai City was not severely affected at the beginning of summer because it was not located in the Yangtze River area. However, due to continuous heavy rainfall and upstream riverbank breaches, the lower-lying areas of the city had a high water depth of up to half a meter, causing certain losses to the property of Xiahai City people, flooding some commercial street shops on the ground floor, and also a machine room. At that time, the entire city's communication network was cut off for three days.
These had little impact on Su Can at the time, but what was most memorable was one evening when he and his parents were walking home through that street area, the water was waist-deep, which made him remember the flood vividly. It was in the second half of 1998.
Now watching the news broadcast in June, there was a large-scale rainfall in the Yangtze River Basin. Some experts have expressed concern. The experts of this era are different from those of their own future era. Most experts of this era are truly talented and practically learned, and they dress more simply on TV, just like academics. They are fundamentally different from the pseudo-experts "called beasts" in the future. Therefore, the strong rainfall that began in June also caught the attention of some experts.
Su Cang certainly did not know the specific time of the flood outbreak, but at least so far there has been no report of disaster, confirming that all this has not yet arrived. What he can do is not to shout loudly about the news of a huge disaster that will come, which would only make countless people think he is mentally ill.
Whether we can prevent disasters from happening now depends on whether our composition can be confirmed.
The second day's exam was English in the morning and science (physics and chemistry) in the afternoon.
The English audio tape has a relatively high degree of oralization, which may not be easy for the whole scene, but for Su Can, it's almost something that can be understood at once. It's not because he has a good grasp of English, after all, even in the future, he didn't pass the English level 4 exam in a third-rate university, but with an English level 3 degree, facing these ordinary and common greetings and daily conversations like taking the bus to where, these are not obstacles for Su Can.
Understanding and even writing an essay in English to welcome foreign friends to play at Xia Hai are not obstacles.
All the way, Su Can became more and more handy, the glasses girl next to him stood up, revealing her good figure, also leaving without looking back, Su Can followed her to hand in the paper. When walking out of the examination room, the entire square was obviously quieter, at this time, those who dared to hand in their papers and leave were all strong players.
Afternoon science comprehensive
For Su Can, who can handle the internal exercises with ease, these questions may have many pitfalls, but they do not hinder his checking and filling in the gaps. When the bell rang for half an hour, Su Can was already tackling the last question.
3 minutes later, the answer sheet is completed, then fill in the machine-readable card, roughly check, and everything is done.
The exam started exactly forty minutes ago.
No one submitted their paper.
Su Cang was extremely bored, he didn't want to stay for another forty minutes or so, so he put away his pencil, earbuds, and packed up his stationery into his bag, then suddenly stood up.
The girl with glasses next to me who was working on chemistry problems turned her head and looked over.
Some of the stifling atmosphere made Xiao Rihuazhang dazedly look at Su Can.
Several top students in the exam room couldn't help but stare at Su Can in shock, this set of questions had a relatively high difficulty coefficient, but it shouldn't be too difficult for them, yet they didn't expect to finish all the questions in just 40 minutes!
When Su Can walked out of the examination room, he finally felt what it was like to be in a state of complete silence.
Every classroom was packed with examinees, but everyone was writing desperately for their own future, struggling to kill each other. On the surface, it was dull and depressing, but in reality, it was extremely fierce and treacherous inside.
But all of this seemed to have nothing to do with him, Su Can walked through the corridor towards the stairs and then left. In the process, he passed by an examination room, where two people showed unbelievable expressions, one was the deputy class leader of San Zhong, Dong Qingyun, who couldn't understand how Su Can could leave so early after submitting his paper, had he given up?
Another person was Tang Yu, who watched Su Can walk along the classroom through the corridor and disappear at the window, her thoughts were roughly the same as Dong Qingyun's, so she buried her head in disappointment and continued writing.
The last half day was a comprehensive test of liberal arts history and politics, which is also Su Can's weakness.
When entering the examination room, everyone looked at Su Can with a strange expression. Yesterday, he handed in his paper twenty minutes after the first person, who was also the best student in this examination room, had done so. In Xiao Rihuas eyes, Su Can was probably one of those bad students who gave up on himself. After all, even the top students from Tsinghua and Peking Universities would not dare to be so arrogant.
As expected, in the subjects of Politics and History, Su Can finished his papers ahead of time. Xiao Rihua couldn't help but take a glance at Su Can's answers, only to find that they were somewhat uneven, sparse, and not as densely written as those of some top students. He let out a soft hum, confirming his suspicions - this was the level of Third Middle School.
