Those Things in the Seventies

In the autumn of 1973, five teenagers walked into Fenghuang Middle School in Yuechi, a small town in eastern Sichuan. Gu Yan is the son of a teacher. He has a pair of eyes that observe the world behind his round glasses. Wan Gang walked from the mountain road of Cuihu Commune and opened the textbook for the first time with a pair of hands accustomed to holding a hoe. Jiang Mei sat quietly in the second row, writing down every word with a red and blue pencil. Lin Ying strode into the classroom on her leather shoes, her chin slightly raised, and her eyes filled with unquestionable determination. Zhao Gang leaned against the wall in the last row, flipping a basketball air needle between his fingers. From criticizing Lin Piao and Confucius to studying engineering and agriculture, from building reservoirs to being caught stealing cigarettes, from the shock of Chairman Mao's death to the confusion after the smashing of the Gang of Four - they grew up in the wave of political movements, studied under kerosene lamps, and spent their youth amid the clatter of enamel jars. In the winter of 1977, when news of the resumption of the college entrance examination came, the five people stood at a fork in the road of their own destiny. This is a story about growing up. It is about how a few ordinary teenagers used clumsy and tenacious ways to find their own way in the cracks of the times. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.