Dreams in a Cave Dwelling: The 1965 College Entrance Exam

On the loess plateau in 1965, eighteen-year-old farm boy Li Jianguo gets a chance to change his fate: news that the national college entrance exams are being reinstated spreads through the commune like a clap of thunder. By day, he swings a hoe to earn work points; by night, he devours books by the light of a kerosene lamp. With his dream of leaving the loess hills buried deep in his heart, he begins a journey of exam preparation, chasing hope amid poverty and hardship.

The hoe in the cornfield and the pen in the cave dwelling make up his entire world. Faced with the production team's backbreaking farm work, his family's straitened circumstances, and fierce competition for the village's mere two slots, Li Jianguo never wavers. The eggs his mother secretly saves, the study materials his father buys with the sweat of his brow, the villagers who lend a hand when a crisis strikes during the canal excavation, the mutual encouragement of his classmate Er Ya, and the selfless guidance of Teacher Wang, a sent-down youth, all give him the strength to keep going.

The red paper announcing he has passed the preliminary exam brings a brief moment of joy, but does nothing to ease the pressure. The news that the exams have been moved up, a sudden high fever just before the test, the barrier of English vocabulary: one hurdle after another stands in his way. He rushes between the cornfield and his desk, holding firm amid both doubt and hopeful gazes, and uses a young man's stubbornness and resilience to defy the limits of his era and the trials of fate.