Chapter 671: Chapter 670: Knocking Down Three at Once

That night, Miao Hongqi cried for a long time.

Wang Xue woke up in the middle of the night and thought there were ghosts around, almost kicking her off the kang (traditional Chinese bed-stove).

The next day, Miao Hongqi, with puffy eyes like a rabbit, joined the revision group with an energetic spirit.

She wanted to attend teachers’ college and then come back to send all the children out.

She was determined, but the progress of the revision class was not very smooth.

April, full of passion;

May, striving hard to study;

June, passion fading;

July, no news about the reinstatement of the college entrance exam;

August, still no news…

The number of people in the revision class dwindled day by day.

The enthusiasm for applying to university was like hot water left outside in winter, the heat quickly escaping.

On the day with the fewest people, only Miao Hongqi was left.

Ironically, the one who first wanted to give up was the one who persisted the most.

Miao Hongqi spent the long nights alone, accompanied only by mosquitoes and fireflies.

The next day, radios and newspapers across the country announced the same message—

The college entrance exam has been reinstated!

Despite being broadcasted over and over, countless people still flocked to the commune and street offices to ask about it, only believing it when they heard it themselves.

This was also the case in Lan County, but not including those from Ten Miles Team.

Sitting in the Educated Youth Corps lounge chair, Sie Yufei, with his legs crossed, boasted, “Five months, you should all thank Xiao He…”

“Right, right, thank her, thank her; Brother, please move a bit, you’re blocking the books behind your stool!”

“Eh? You haven’t finished revising yet?”

“Well, well… we thought there wouldn’t be an exam this year…”

Educated Youth Corps was in chaos.

So was the village.

Many people were full of regrets—if they had known the examination would be reinstated this year, they would not have slacked off alternating between days of work and days of rest!

The initial enthusiasm had now turned into a rolling pin for beating.

“Disappointing scum, I told you five months in advance about the exam reinstatement, and you haven’t even finished half the book? What were you thinking?”

“Asking you to study is like asking for your life, am I not your mother, would I harm you?”

“You deserve a beating, even first graders are more sensible than you…”

There’s no medicine for regret in this world, no matter how much you rue the past, it has already become a fixed outcome.

Amid fathers hitting and mothers scolding, the revision class was once again overcrowded.

You show me the palm prints on your face, I show you the welts on mine, suddenly making everyone feel less alone.

Li Dahe came to pass on news, walking in and immediately understanding what these little bastards had gone through after seeing their miserable states.

Uncle Team Leader sighed deeply, his tone full of sympathy: “Indeed.”

Some things are like this, people ignore warnings no matter how many times they’re repeated, not realizing the regret and pain until the knife is already in their own flesh.

He took the opportunity to lecture them, “Now you know to study hard? What were you thinking before?”

Someone whispered in defense, “Back then, wasn’t it because Lin Nianhe and the others stopped coming?”

“You’re good at making comparisons,” Li Dahe said with a laugh tinged with exasperation, “They stopped coming because they were sick!”

“This…”

They only saw that Lin Nianhe and the others stopped attending the revision class, never considering the reasons behind it.

Some people said that Lin Nianhe and her friends didn’t come because they were sick, but no one believed it—

Lin Nianhe getting sick was normal, nothing out of the ordinary as eating food, but what about Wang Shumei and Wen Lan? How could it be such a coincidence?

Hence, those who were already absorbed in their studies concluded that there must have been a change in the news, which is why Lin Nianhe and her friends didn’t show up.

…

Lin Nianhe was indeed sick, and she hasn’t gotten better by today.

Not only her, but Wang Shumei and Wen Lan were also infected by her.

In the clinic, the three sisters lay side by side on three hospital beds, three pretty girls with their faces covered in chickenpox, silently enduring.

Getting chickenpox at the age of twenty was pretty absurd.

All three getting knocked down at once was even more absurd.

“Hezi, tell me, what illness haven’t you had? Just say it in advance, so I can prepare myself.”

On the hospital bed, Wen Lan weakly squinted her eyes, trying to merge the three shadows in front of her into one.

Strangely enough, during this bout of collective illness, Wen Lan’s symptoms turned out to be the most severe; from the onset, her fever hardly subsided.

Lin Nianhe was applying medicine to Wang Shumei when she heard this, pondered for a moment, and replied: “I’ve had quite a few illnesses that I’ve never had before, but Sister Lan, we can’t prove this round of chickenpox was transmitted by me to you two, right? Dr. Zhou even said that there’s an incubation period for this disease… We can’t rule out the possibility that you two got it first and I showed symptoms first!”

Wen Lan closed her eyes.

This time, there were no double images.

“Cough cough…” Wang Shumei held her shoulder, turning to Lin Nianhe, “Nianhe, help me scratch a bit, it’s so itchy.”

“Okay.”

Lin Nianhe, who was experienced, stretched out a finger and gently scratched around the edge of the pox.

“Like monkeys picking lice off each other.”

She pursed her lips, not forgetting to care for Wen Lan: “Sister Lan, where are you itchy? I’ll help you.”

Sister Lan: “My fist is itchy.”

Lin Nianhe: “…”

“Thud, thud, thud.”

Someone knocked on the hospital room door.

Lin Nianhe and Wang Shumei quickly straightened their clothes and also adjusted Wen Lan’s bedcover, then responded: “Come in.”

It was Chang Shihong who entered.

Originally, Chang Shihong had been assigned to the transport team, but after working there for two months, he found it lacking interest. Wong Xiao also thought it was a pity to use his talents for just deliveries, so he was transferred to the commune to specifically take care of construction planning in Lan County.

Now, with high-rises springing up all over Lan County and the work focus shifting to construction, Chang Shihong became the least busy person.

And since he had previously had chickenpox, the glorious task of delivering meals to the three girls fell on him.

Su Yuncheng and Sun Guanghui also really wanted to take care of them, but Lin Nianhe and Wang Shumei looked at themselves in the mirror and directly declared that if those two dared to enter the hospital room, they would jump right out of the window.

Helpless, dealing with the sick was tricky; they could only follow their wishes, checking in every day on time, stationed just a door away.

Chang Shihong carried three lunch boxes and also held three newspapers: “Big news! The college entrance exam is being restored! Quick, papers that Brother Cheng and Brother Hui specially grabbed for you, take a look.”

Unexpectedly, the three girls didn’t react much to the news, all there was, was boundless silence.

Chang Shihong: “…?”

The hospital room quieted for a while, and after a few seconds, Chang Shihong understood why they wore such expressions.

The clinic was just a hundred meters from the commune, and the noise at the front of the commune could be clearly heard in their hospital room.

The three had already been excited.

Now, they just wanted to be quiet for a while.

However, clearly, peace was a luxury for the moment.

Lin Nianhe scratched her cheek, received the lunch box with a thanks, and then asked, “Did they mention when we can register?”

Chang Shihong clearly wasn’t very concerned about this matter, he never asked and crisply replied: “I don’t know!”