Chapter One: I Am Going to University

In a low-ceilinged, mud-brick house, a young man tossed and turned on the heated kang, the intensity of his pain pulling him back to reality.

Yang Xingwu sat up abruptly. Upon opening his eyes, he found himself in an unfamiliar environment, which immediately made him tense. As he scanned his surroundings—the mud walls, the small, dilapidated window, and the low rafters—a wave of shock washed over him.

He stood up to get off the kang but accidentally kicked a wooden chest at the head of the bed. It emitted a dull thud. The lock on the chest was polished to a shine from years of handling, a relic of a bygone era. Yang Xingwu fell into deep thought.

"What is happening? Wasn't I just preparing my lesson plans? How did I end up here? Was I kidnapped?"

With these thoughts, Yang Xingwu quickly got off the kang, slipped into his cloth shoes, and walked into the main room. He stared at the walls covered in old-fashioned certificates of merit, with a portrait of the Leader hanging squarely in the center.

Seeing this, he stood frozen. As his gaze fell upon the wall plastered with "Outstanding Student" awards, a surge of intense pain struck him again. After a long while, he recovered, realizing that he had transmigrated.

Having absorbed the memories of the original host, Yang Xingwu understood his situation. Yang Xingwu, male, 17 years old. He started his education at seven, entered first grade at eight, junior high at 13, high school at 15, and was now a 17-year-old high school junior, about to face the college entrance examinations.

He was the hope of his entire family, having progressed from the village primary school to the township elementary school, then to the county middle school, and finally to the city high school. His grades had always been at the top, and the wall of certificates in the main room represented his entire legacy. Every villager who visited would offer praise, which, while giving his parents face, placed immense pressure on him.

He recalled his parents' fervent promises: "Study, study hard! Even if we have to sell everything we own, we will put you through university!"

Between the admiration of his siblings and the weight of his parents' promises, Yang Xingwu felt increasingly uneasy. If he could truly get into university, why wouldn't he want to? If he had a choice, wouldn't it have been better for a rural boy like him to attend a technical secondary school? The schooling was shorter, and it guaranteed job placement—a dream for so many.

He had once been full of confidence, but he had failed the entrance exam for technical school. Fortunately, his grades were more than enough for high school, but with a fee of five yuan per semester plus the significant amount of food rations required for schooling, supporting a non-farming student was a struggle for his six-person family.

The failure to get into technical school left a shadow in his heart. He had assumed that with his long-standing academic excellence, getting into university would be a breeze. Only after starting high school did he realize that his knowledge was insufficient for the college entrance exams. After all, the competition wasn't just against the few hundred students in his school, but against other high schools in the city and hundreds of thousands of others across the province. He realized then that with his current grades, even a junior college might be a stretch.

Last year, all higher education institutions, including junior colleges, admitted only 390,000 students nationwide—they were truly the elite among the elite. Yang Xingwu realized that the "excellence" and certificates he had once cherished were nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

The failure of the technical school exam and the looming fear of failing the university entrance exam filled him with anxiety. Yet, he refused to give up, believing his failure was merely a lack of effort. Since starting high school, he had studied even harder, but some things cannot be learned through rote memorization alone, especially in the sciences. The current college entrance exam required not just effort, but innate talent.

This went on for nearly two years until, a few days ago, he collapsed in class. His teachers and classmates were thrown into a panic. After being taken to the hospital, the doctor concluded that there was nothing seriously wrong—it was simply exhaustion coupled with malnutrition. After a day on an IV drip, he recovered enough for his parents to bring him home by cart, only for the current Yang Xingwu to take over his body.

Recalling the original boy's life, Yang Xingwu let out a sigh. "Alas, we are both castaways in this world!"

Reflecting on the boy's experience, he thought of himself. As a fellow "township test-taker," he had been lucky enough to become a high school math teacher, though he had eventually "sacrificed" himself to the crushing pressure of the education system. Fortunately, heaven had given him a second chance.

Since he was living a second life, he would live it well. He didn't crave immense wealth; a simple, comfortable life would suffice. He searched through the original boy's memories for ways to get rich, only to realize it wasn't as easy as he had imagined. The household responsibility system had only been implemented last year, and they lived in an agricultural province in the interior—nothing was convenient. The first generation of ID cards was just beginning to be issued; his village likely wouldn't see them until the end of the year.

In an era where one needed a formal introduction letter to travel, there really wasn't much to do. Black market trading might work in coastal areas, but here, one could only sell a few agricultural products; anything else would land you in trouble. Most families relied on their "chicken-butt banks"—the few eggs their hens laid—to cover the costs of daily necessities.

As for selling eels, loaches, or fish, they weren't far from the Yellow River, but people in the north didn't really eat such things, with the exception of carp. Other fish were ignored. Cooking fish required oil, and at eight jiao a jin, vegetable oil was too expensive for most to waste on fish. People usually just dipped a cotton thread in oil and brushed the pan—that was "cooking with oil." Without oil, even a dog wouldn't eat those fish, let alone selling them for a fortune. If there were a real path to wealth, the shrewd villagers would have flocked to it long ago. They might lack formal education, but they were not stupid.

After much deliberation, Yang Xingwu realized that besides schooling, the only path for a rural person was to toil in the fields. That was fine, too. Studying was a good option—it would fulfill the original host's obsession and provide him with a way to leave the rural life behind, which would make everything else easier. In this era, having the status of a university student would make it much easier to accomplish things in the future.

For a peasant to become a city dweller in this age was as difficult as reaching the heavens. If a woman were beautiful, she might catch the eye of a disabled city resident, allowing her to marry into the city and obtain an urban household registration. Otherwise, getting into a technical school, junior college, or university was the best path.

With this in mind, Yang Xingwu became even more determined to get into university.