"You Can or Can't You" Trilogy
Introduction to the work
"Can you do it?"
This is a father's last words before his death, and it is also a question that an ordinary person spends his whole life answering in this great era.
Part One "1978"
In the winter of 1977, the news of the resumption of the college entrance examination came to Willow Bay with a snowfall. Gu Changgeng, a 31-year-old son of a rightist, stood under the loudspeaker with a bucket of dung and heard the voice that changed his destiny - "voluntary registration, unified examination, and merit-based admission."
But the broadcaster couldn't control the brigade's official seal. The recommendation must be stamped, the political review must be stamped, and his father's "rightist" hat is like an iron gate outside the examination room. Forty-seven days, half a set of old textbooks, 327 pieces of cigarette pack paper, a girl who secretly came to tutor, and the brigade director Ma Zhankui holding an official seal and firmly believing that "you have the final say whether you can do it or not":
Gu Changgeng wants to use an exam to prove: whether it works or not, others should never stamp it.
Part Two "Huangnigou"
After passing the exam, what next? The wave of the 1980s was rolling in, and the bag of "rouge red" rice seeds among his father's relics brought Gu Changgeng back to the land. Some people are proud of the spring breeze in the city, while others are planting rice in Huangnigou. When the standard of "goodness" changed from examination papers to tickets and seats, the winners in the examination room discovered that there was far more than one examination in life.
Part Three "Echo"
Forty years later, an old, yellowed photo was uncovered. The fates of the two generations were reconciled in the echo: the father's last words, the mother's silence, Chun Xing's absence, the Ma family's grievances, those words that were unsaid back then, finally had to be replaced by someone.
