Shen Zhixia looked up, and for some reason, the moment her eyes met Lu Huaiyuan’s, she suddenly felt terribly wronged.
“He said he can’t issue the recommendation letter.” Her voice already carried a hint of tears.
“Don’t worry. Let’s find out exactly what’s going on first.”
Seeing Shen Zhixia’s tear-filled eyes, Lu Huaiyuan’s heart tightened along with hers.
As he gently patted her back, he looked toward Captain Li, who was sitting nearby.
“Comrade Captain, what exactly is going on? Are there still some procedures we’re missing? Just tell me what needs to be done, and I’ll take care of it.”
Captain Li looked at the well-matched young couple before him and sighed helplessly.
“It’s not that I’m deliberately making things difficult for you, nor is it a matter of paperwork. The admission requirements have changed this year.”
He opened a drawer and took out a brand-new document with a red header, spreading it across the desk.
“This is the relevant document I only received yesterday. It clearly states that this year, candidates registering for the College Entrance Examination must be ‘unmarried’ and no older than twenty-five. These are mandatory requirements. There’s nothing I can do about it.”
Captain Li’s finger pointed to a particular line in the document, and when he read the words “unmarried,” he emphasized them.
Shen Zhixia’s gaze followed his rough fingertip and landed on those stark black characters against the white paper.
A sharp buzzing seemed to ring in her ears, cutting her off from every sound around her.
All the effort and hope she had poured into these past few months flashed through her mind.
Before this single official document, everything turned into a ridiculous pile of dust.
A speck of dust from an era could become a mountain when it fell upon an ordinary person.
Shen Zhixia swayed, suddenly feeling as though the world were spinning around her.
If it had not been for the broad, powerful hands firmly supporting her shoulders, she would almost have collapsed onto the floor.
“There’s really no room for compromise?” Lu Huaiyuan pulled Shen Zhixia closer into his arms and asked, still unwilling to give up.
Captain Li shook his head.
“This is national policy. The entire county, province, and country must strictly implement it. Go home. There’s no point staying here any longer.”
Outside the office, the early summer sunlight remained bright and glaring.
Monkey and the others still had no idea what had happened inside. They were leaning against their bicycles, chatting and laughing as they waited.
When they saw Lu Huaiyuan half-supporting, half-embracing Shen Zhixia as they came out, they immediately stopped talking.
Lu Huaiyuan briefly explained the situation to them.
“How can she not be allowed to register? This policy changed way too quickly!”
“We had everything ready, and now the east wind isn’t coming!”
“All right, enough. Stop complaining.”
Monkey stopped the brother who was about to continue grumbling, pushed Shen Zhixia’s bicycle over, and secured it to the back of his own.
“Sister-in-law, it’s a long way home, and it’ll be tiring. Let Brother Lu give you a ride. I’ll take your bicycle for you.”
Lu Huaiyuan gave Monkey a grateful look.
On the way home, the atmosphere was quiet and oppressive, nothing like the lively mood they had set out with.
Shen Zhixia held tightly onto Lu Huaiyuan’s clothes, resting her head against his broad back with her eyes closed.
Lu Huaiyuan tightened his grip on the handlebars.
Before long, he felt moisture spreading across the back of his shirt.
His heart ached terribly, but he said nothing, simply making every effort to keep the bicycle steady.
When they reached the outskirts of the county town, Monkey gave Lu Huaiyuan a signal.
He then quietly led the other brothers down a side road and disappeared without a sound.
By the time they returned to the Lu family’s old residence, lunchtime had already passed, but Su Ya was still waiting eagerly.
The table was filled with delicious dishes, all of them Shen Zhixia’s favorites.
The moment she heard movement in the courtyard, she wiped her hands and hurried out to greet them.
“Our future college student is back! You must be starving. Hurry up and wash your hands, then come eat!”
Before she could finish speaking, she saw the dejected, ashen expressions on their faces, and the smile on Su Ya’s face immediately froze.
“What happened? Did that snobbish Zhao Meiyun cause trouble again?”
As her mother-in-law took her hand and led her inside, Shen Zhixia, who had already composed herself, felt her eyes grow sore again.
“It’s all right. Mom is here! The sky isn’t going to fall!”
In the end, Shen Zhixia could not hold back her tears, and they began streaming down her cheeks.
“Don’t cry, don’t cry!”
Su Ya brought Shen Zhixia to the dining room and sat her down, continuously wiping away her tears.
But the tears flowed like a floodgate that had been opened, becoming heavier the more she wiped them away.
Shen Zhixia sobbed, unable to say a single word.
Just as Su Ya was becoming so anxious that she nearly stamped her feet, Lu Huaiyuan finally finished parking the bicycles and walked inside.
He repeated the regulation that married people could not register, explaining it to his mother in a weary voice.
After hearing him, Su Ya’s eyes reddened as well.
“What kind of rule is that? Our Zhixia has been getting up early and staying up late these past few months, exhausting herself until she’s lost so much weight. She was finally about to see the light at the end of the tunnel, so how can they just tell her she can’t take the examination anymore?”
The sumptuous lunch that had originally been prepared for a celebration had now become an agonizing sight.
The braised pork had already congealed with fat, while the steamed fish had long since gone cold.
The three of them sat around the Eight Immortals Table, yet no one touched their chopsticks.
On this afternoon that should have been filled with laughter and joy, even the air seemed to carry a suffocating heaviness.
After barely forcing down a few mouthfuls of plain rice, the young couple returned to their room on the second floor.
Shen Zhixia lay down on the bed without even changing her clothes.
She turned her head slightly, her eyes staring blankly at the desk nearby.
Stacked neatly there were the Self-Study Series for Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, piled nearly as high as a person, along with stacks of mimeographed examination papers.
The treasures that had accompanied her through countless days and nights had, in the instant that official document with its red header had casually crashed down upon her, become nothing more than an absurd pile of useless paper.
A thought suddenly occurred to her.
Had she never been meant to hope for any of this in the first place?
She had already successfully married into the city, and she would no longer repeat the original Shen Zhixia’s fate.
Perhaps she should be content.
But the Hero gold-nib fountain pen still lay quietly there. She had only just filled it with ink before leaving that morning.
It had been a gift from Lu Huaiyuan.
She suddenly realized that the reason she was so devastated was because this man had done so much for her over the past few months, and she did not want to disappoint him.
Shen Zhixia closed her eyes and buried her face deep into the quilt. Tears silently seeped from the corners of her eyes, soaking the pillowcase.
Perhaps she had cried until she was completely exhausted. Before long, she drifted into a heavy sleep.
Even in her dreams, however, her brows remained tightly furrowed.
Lu Huaiyuan sat in the rattan chair on the balcony, a cigarette he had not lit held between his fingers.
Watching Shen Zhixia’s pained expression even as she slept, the eyes that had always remained calm and in control were, for the first time, filled with profound frustration and helplessness.
That morning at the Shen family home, he had been able to silence Zhao Meiyun effortlessly with fifty yuan.
Over the years, he had been able to rely on his fists and connections to move freely around the county town.
He had always believed that he could protect her properly beneath his wings.
Yet when faced with a sudden change in policy, when confronted with that official document bearing the two words “unmarried,” all the abilities he had been so proud of suddenly became a huge joke.
On the way home, he had even crazily considered spending a large sum of money to forge a recommendation letter and register her first.
But a fake could never become real. If it were exposed one day, the consequences for Shen Zhixia’s future would be devastating.
He himself could afford to take a few risks, but when it came to Shen Zhixia’s future, he did not even dare to gamble.
The room was utterly silent.
The only sound was the monotonous, dull ticking of the clock beside the bed.
Downstairs in the dining room, Su Ya silently cleared away the cold dishes from the table.
She moved as quietly as possible, even carefully muffling the crisp clinking of porcelain plates.
The entire house was frighteningly quiet, and Su Ya hardly dared to breathe too loudly.
She was afraid that even the slightest sound might disturb the nerves of the two children upstairs, which had already been stretched to their limit.
Until…
Toward evening, the sound of a jeep finally came from outside the courtyard as its engine was switched off.