The college entrance examination in the 1980s was held from around July 7 to July 9. The one Zhou Yu was taking was the 1986 National college entrance exam.
Come to think of it, ever since attending Lu Cheng’s Children’s Day parent-child event, only about a month remained before Zhou Yu’s own college entrance examination that year.
Overall, Zhou Yu’s life of studying and reviewing during that month was not much different from before. The only noticeable change was that she had clearly increased the amount of time she devoted each day to reviewing high school material.
Every morning and afternoon, Zhou Yu spent her time revising high school subjects. Occasionally, she would also have the system pull up past exam papers and practice tests for her to complete. As for the several hours each evening, she continued studying medical knowledge.
Of course, Zhou Yu had not asked the system to provide the actual examination papers from 1986. She had no interest in cheating by obtaining the test questions or answers in advance.
Besides, this might simply be a world from a novel or a parallel world. The college entrance examination questions here might not be exactly the same as those from the 1986 exam in the world she originally came from.
Time passed quickly, and in the blink of an eye, it was the morning of July 7, the first day of the college entrance examination.
At around six o’clock, the system reminded Zhou Yu in her mind that it was time to get up. It had to be said that System 088 was far more effective than an alarm clock. As long as it spoke a single sentence inside her consciousness, Zhou Yu could wake up instantly.
Today was Monday. Under normal circumstances, Lu Cheng should have been attending school, but his school had started summer vacation a week earlier. As a result, he did not have classes today. Early that morning, Lu Cheng had already begun clamoring to go with his father to see his mother off to the college entrance examination.
Originally, Zhou Yu had not wanted Ji Jing and Lu Cheng to accompany her, but she could not withstand Lu Cheng’s insistence. In the end, she relented and agreed.
The examination site was in town, not particularly far from where Zhou Yu lived. It took less than half an hour on foot to get there.
The three of them walked side by side and soon arrived at the entrance to the examination site. By the time they got there, a large crowd had already gathered around the area.
Zhou Yu waved to Lu Cheng and Ji Jing before saying, “You two should head back first. I’ll be taking exams all day today.”
“It’s fine. We’ll wait for you near the examination site. When you come out after the morning exam, just look toward where we’re standing now. We’ll be waiting here so we can have lunch together,” Ji Jing said with a smile. Beside him, Lu Cheng nodded repeatedly in agreement.
“All right then. Take him somewhere cooler while you wait. Don’t let him get heatstroke.” After speaking, Zhou Yu reached out and ruffled Lu Cheng’s hair before turning and walking into the examination site.
Without realizing it, Zhou Yu had already spent nearly half a year in this world from the novel. During those six months, Lu Cheng had changed tremendously. Originally, he had been skinny and undersized, looking no more than four or five years old. Now he had been raised into a fair, chubby little boy, and had even shot up by around ten centimeters in height.
Even so, at not quite one meter twenty tall, Lu Cheng was still a tiny little radish compared to Zhou Yu’s one meter sixty-eight and Ji Jing’s one meter eighty-six.
In truth, this was the first time anyone had accompanied Zhou Yu to a college entrance examination. Before she had turned eighteen, both of her parents had passed away one after the other. So when she took the college entrance examination in her previous life, no one had come to see her off.
Throughout the entire examination period, Zhou Yu had spent it all alone.
When Lu Cheng had insisted on coming to see her off today, Zhou Yu had actually been quite happy. She simply had not shown it on the surface.
The subject for the morning exam on July 7 was Chinese. After receiving her test paper, Zhou Yu gave it a quick glance and immediately realized that none of the questions were particularly difficult. After a moment’s thought, she began answering them.
The exam lasted three hours, but Zhou Yu finished in less than two. In fact, if it had not been Chinese, a subject that required writing so much, she estimated she could have completed it in about an hour.
However, even though she had already finished answering every question, the college entrance examination did not allow early submission of papers. So instead of leaving, Zhou Yu carefully checked her answers twice more.
At last, the time came to hand in the papers. Only then did Zhou Yu submit her exam and head outside toward where Lu Cheng and Ji Jing were waiting.
As soon as she walked out of the examination site’s gates, she spotted Ji Jing and Lu Cheng from afar in the crowd. Ji Jing’s expression looked off, while Lu Cheng appeared so upset that he seemed on the verge of tears.
“What’s wrong, Cheng’er?” Zhou Yu stepped forward and asked in confusion.
“Mom, they said married people aren’t allowed to take the college entrance examination. Have you and Dad already gotten divorced?” The more Lu Cheng thought about it, the more wronged he felt. Unable to hold it in any longer, he burst into tears.
Zhou Yu immediately felt a headache coming on. How had she forgotten about this?
Back in the 1980s, there were eligibility requirements for taking the college entrance examination. One of them was that candidates had to be under twenty-five years old and unmarried.
When Zhou Yu had registered for the examination using her identification papers, she had even wondered why her marital status was listed as unmarried rather than widowed.
But now she had no way of explaining it.
She couldn’t exactly tell Lu Cheng that the man beside him wasn’t his biological father, and that his real father was already dead, could she?
Yet if she couldn’t tell him the truth, how was she supposed to explain being able to take the examination as an unmarried person?
“When Dad left in a hurry to return to the army before, he didn’t have time to register the marriage with your mom. By the time I came back, your mom was already preparing for the college entrance examination. We figured we’d wait until after she finished the exam and then go get the marriage certificate,” Ji Jing explained on Zhou Yu’s behalf.
Zhou Yu had just breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that the matter had finally been smoothed over.
Little did she know that the explanation only made things worse.
Lu Cheng looked at the two of them suspiciously before asking, “Really? Then I’ll be there to watch you get the marriage certificate with my own eyes.”
Why did Zhou Yu feel as though that question was a giant trap waiting for her?
But she couldn’t exactly deny it now. All she could do was brush it aside and change the subject. “All right, all right. Stop crying. Let’s go have lunch.”
“Fine…” Lu Cheng replied reluctantly.
As he walked away, he did not forget to turn back and glare several times at the two old women who had been speaking ill of his mother.
Those two old women had said things like, “Your mom divorced your dad,” “Once your mom gets into college, she’ll abandon both you and your dad,” and “Such a handsome young man and such an adorable little boy. Soon he’ll be without a wife, and you’ll be without a mother.”
Zhou Yu failed to notice Lu Cheng’s little actions, but Ji Jing explained why Lu Cheng had started crying and repeated everything the two middle-aged women had said.
After hearing Ji Jing’s account, Zhou Yu felt rather embarrassed.
Still, to keep Lu Cheng from overthinking things all day long, she gently reassured him, “Mom won’t abandon you. Don’t listen to their nonsense.”
“Then will you abandon Dad?” Lu Cheng seemed to have picked up on the implication in Zhou Yu’s words and refused to let the matter go.
For a moment, Zhou Yu was rendered speechless by the question.
Originally, she had intended to let the topic die through silence, but seeing the expression on Lu Cheng’s face, as though he was about to burst into tears again, she surrendered. “No, no. I won’t. Stop crying already.”
Zhou Yu truly couldn’t understand it. Before Ji Jing had arrived, Lu Cheng had been quite well-behaved. He rarely cried and certainly hadn’t been this difficult to deal with.
But ever since Ji Jing showed up, Lu Cheng had become much more troublesome. He would pout, act spoiled, and cry at the drop of a hat. It was enough to give anyone a headache.
Still, Zhou Yu wasn’t genuinely annoyed by this side of him.
On the contrary, she felt that a Lu Cheng who cried and acted spoiled was what a normal child should be like. Because of that, she often found herself indulging him a little more than she otherwise would.
“Mom, what do you want to eat for lunch today?”
No one noticed the slight curve that appeared at the corner of Lu Cheng’s lips.
Deep down, Lu Cheng understood perfectly well that his mother was especially vulnerable to this tactic of his. As long as he acted spoiled and pitiful, she would agree to most things.
“What does Cheng’er want to eat?” Zhou Yu asked.
She herself had no particular preference. She wasn’t a picky eater and could eat just about anything.
But Lu Cheng was dissatisfied with that answer. Putting on a serious expression, he said, “Today is a big day because Mom is taking the college entrance examination. Of course we should eat whatever Mom wants.”
“All right then. Let’s have some rice and order a couple of dishes and a bowl of soup. What do you think?” Seeing that the little rascal was showing some consideration for once, Zhou Yu did not refuse again and made a suggestion.
“Sounds good. We’ll do whatever you want,” Ji Jing replied. He had even less to say on the matter.
After all, whether it was Lu Cheng or Zhou Yu choosing the dishes, it was never his turn to order. His only role was to pay the bill.
The three of them found a restaurant. Zhou Yu casually ordered two meat dishes, one vegetable dish, and a soup. After eating a simple meal and resting at the restaurant for a while, they headed back toward the examination site.
The weather in July was already becoming quite hot.
By noon, the heat was almost unbearable.
With the weather being so scorching, Zhou Yu once again suggested that Lu Cheng and Ji Jing stop waiting for her in the afternoon and head home first.
But neither of them agreed.
Instead, they simply told her not to worry and assured her that they would find a shady place to wait for her.
Zhou Yu was in a hurry to get into the examination hall and simply could not win against the stubborn father and son. In the end, all she could do was remind them to stay out of the heat and be careful not to get heatstroke.
The afternoon subject was mathematics.
For a top student like Zhou Yu, it was even easier than the morning exam. The mathematics questions on the college entrance examination in the 1980s were not particularly difficult, and for someone like Zhou Yu, they were almost laughably simple. Out of the three-hour exam period, she spent less than an hour completing the entire paper.
However, since early submission was not allowed, Zhou Yu could only review her answers over and over again. By the end, she was actually starting to feel sleepy.
After all, she had not taken her usual afternoon nap.
Still, out of respect for the college entrance examination, Zhou Yu ultimately fought off her drowsiness. Rather than putting her head down and sleeping, she propped up her cheek with one hand and nodded off repeatedly.
At long last, the time to hand in the papers arrived.
Zhou Yu quickly submitted her exam and got to her feet, hurrying toward the exit. She was a little worried that Lu Cheng and Ji Jing must have been suffering in the heat outside.
As soon as she left the examination site, she once again spotted the father and son with ease.
After all, Ji Jing’s height was exceptionally rare in the rural areas of the 1980s.
What was more, Lu Cheng was currently asleep on Ji Jing’s back. From a distance, the pair stood out from the crowd like cranes among chickens.
“Cheng’er fell asleep? Why didn’t you take him home to sleep?”
Walking up to Ji Jing, Zhou Yu lowered her voice out of concern that she might wake Lu Cheng.
“At noon, when I saw he was getting sleepy, I offered to take him home so he could rest. But he absolutely refused. He kept holding onto me and wouldn’t go back, nor would he sleep. Then, when it was almost time for the exam to end, he couldn’t hold on any longer and fell asleep on my back.”
As he spoke, Ji Jing leaned closer and explained quietly beside her ear, a smile on his face.
As Zhou Yu listened to his description, she could immediately picture the scene.
The corners of her lips lifted uncontrollably.
This child really was a lot like her. If he skipped his afternoon nap, he would inevitably become sleepy in the afternoon.