That summer, Lin Zhixia thought that attending a key high school was the beginning of a dream.
Later I realized that this was the first lesson that taught her "ordinaryness".
From the top student in junior high school to the "average student" in high school,
She was stuck in an awkward position, with an out-of-reach academic leader in front of her and parents behind her who wanted their daughter to succeed.
"Zhixia, if you work harder, you will definitely be able to charge forward!"
The teacher's expectations became a curse that she couldn't get rid of at her desk late at night.
"Why are you just not as good as the kid next door?"
Her mother's questioning made her sit on pins and needles at the dinner table.
"Lin Zhixia, this question... Thank you."
And that boy named Shen Juan was the only secret she dared not reveal in her troubled youth.
Three years, more than a thousand days and nights.
There are countless "Five-Year College Entrance Examinations" to finish, and there are tears of quarrels and reconciliations with best friends,
There is the sourness of a secret love that ends in vain, and there are still ordinary numbers on the report card after hard work.
When the bell rings for the last exam of the college entrance examination,
She closed the pen cap, without the pride of a knight sheathing her sword, but with an almost numb calmness.
Until one afternoon in college, she opened the dusty diary——
Inside were yellow ginkgo leaves, crumpled admission tickets, and small notes that had been passed around the entire classroom.
At that moment, all regrets, joy, grievances and persistence came roaring.
It turns out that being vigorous is never the standard feature of youth.
A tribute to our most ordinary, yet unique three years of high school.
