Chapter 14: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s. 14

At the beginning of the year, the Film and Television City began construction.

All those courtyards they had bought earlier were requisitioned, and Su Dakui was delighted.

In just a few short years, they had gone from outsiders in Yuanyi Village to one of the village’s wealthy families.

From then on, Su Dakui had no intention of running around and stirring up trouble anymore.

He would live off the rent from their properties, help his eldest daughter and son-in-law build up their household, keep an eye on his second daughter’s marriage and career, and as for his youngest daughter?

Wasn’t she still in school?

She could apply to whatever school she wanted. Even if she graduated from high school and decided she didn’t want to study anymore, Su Dakui wouldn’t say one extra word about it.

Back when they were dirt poor, he had hoped his children would make something of themselves. Now that the family no longer needed the children to bring them success, all he wanted as a father was for his daughters to live comfortable, easy lives.

But his youngest daughter had done him proud. She got into college and went off to study foreign languages.

Beijing Foreign Studies University was a good university too.

After graduating, at the very least she could find a job as a middle school teacher. Wouldn’t that mean a stable life for the rest of her days?

Everything at home was going well, the Film and Television City had begun construction, and it was time for Su Huandan to head to Beijing for college.

That autumn, Su Dakui and Jiang Chunhua personally took Su Huandan to Beijing Foreign Studies University.

At that time, college dorms were mostly eight-person rooms, with each student’s name pasted above her bed. Su Huandan had originally been assigned a bottom bunk, but because she arrived late and only got to the school at noon, someone had already taken it over.

The girl was really something. If she wanted to switch bunks, she should at least have switched the name tag too. The name was still pasted above the bed, yet she had simply made up the lower bunk for herself and sat there watching everyone else bustle around.

When she saw Su Huandan staring at her, she even pretended to be clueless. “Are you trying to get up there? I can move over a little. I mean, I don’t think I’m in your way. You’re acting out of line here. We’re all classmates, and we’ll be living together for at least four years. A personality like yours really doesn’t make people like you.”

The girl rattled off a whole speech. Su Huandan herself had not even reacted much yet, but Jiang Chunhua was already furious.

“Didn’t your parents ever teach you to watch your mouth? You’re so young, yet the first thing you do is throw mud at other people. How can your heart be so filthy?” Jiang Chunhua had a fiery temper to begin with. There was no way she could stand this kind of nonsense.

Ever since she had cut ties with her own family, Jiang Chunhua had become fiercely protective of her children, as if she wanted to make up for everything her daughters had once lost because of her side of the family.

The moment she was challenged, the girl shot to her feet.

“Auntie, don’t think being older means you can just curse people however you want. Was I wrong? I didn’t stop your daughter from climbing to the top bunk. Why was your daughter staring at me like that? So whose heart is dirty, exactly? What, you saw I came to register by myself and thought I’d be easy to bully? Let me tell you, I’m a native Beijinger¹. You outsiders think you can push around a local like me? Not a chance.” Her string of words disgusted all three members of Su Huandan’s family.

The others were all just watching the show in silence, but two girls had quietly moved to stand near that girl. They had already started forming a clique, hadn’t they?

Jiang Chunhua still wanted to speak, but Su Huandan stopped her. “Mom, you and Dad stay right here and make sure they don’t touch this bed. I’ll go find a teacher to deal with this.”

The dorm was on the second floor. Down by the entrance hall on the first floor, there were teachers as well as the dorm manager, all people who could actually handle things. Why waste time arguing?

You could run into this sort of hazing anywhere. She had just been unlucky enough to encounter it.

As soon as Su Huandan finished speaking, she turned and left. The girl instantly realized what was happening and tried to switch the name tag, but Jiang Chunhua shoved her aside at once.

The dorm room immediately went quiet, with only the bullying girl breaking into a sweat across her forehead.

Before long, Su Huandan returned, and both a teacher from the first-floor hall and the dorm manager auntie came with her.

Only then did Su Huandan speak calmly and unhurriedly. “I thought a foreign studies university was a national key university, and that in every respect it ought to conduct itself like a top-tier institution. Unfortunately, the personal character of some freshmen leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t know this classmate’s name, and I’ve never met her before, but she came early, took my bed, and then made all sorts of snide, belittling remarks at me. She kept going on and on about being a native Beijinger. What, exactly? Is this really the kind of bullying new students that still exists in a dignified institution of higher learning?”

Watching his youngest daughter pull this off, Su Dakui was stunned at first, then quickly came to his senses, silently praising her for being sharp.

Exactly. This was school. If there was a dispute with classmates, the right thing to do was to go to the teachers and the school to resolve it. If you rushed in and started grabbing and fighting, then whether you won or lost, you’d already be three parts in the wrong.

Just from the way his youngest daughter handled this, Su Dakui no longer worried at all about her future.

Jiang Chunhua, meanwhile, still looked confused. Weren’t they talking about that girl?

How had it turned into getting angry at the school?

In any case, she had not understood a thing. She only knew that in the end, her daughter changed dorms, moving out of that second-floor room and into the newly built dormitory across the way, the one with four floors. The accommodation fee was more expensive, but the conditions there were much better.

The bathroom was sparkling new, and no matter how you looked at it, it was far more comfortable than the bathroom in the old building.

The dorm room had also just been freshly painted, bright and airy, and the female students in it all looked easygoing as well.

This was good, very good. After that, Jiang Chunhua did not say another word. Once her daughter had made her bed and put away her luggage, the three of them went out again to find a restaurant near the school.

Before leaving, her parents gave Su Huandan quite a bit of money, and this was given to her separately.

When she had left home, her eldest sister, second sister, and even her not-yet-married eldest brother-in-law had all chipped in some living expenses for her.

“The house has a telephone installed now. If anything comes up, call home. Your mom and I will head back first. The family isn’t short of money, so if you’re lacking any, just say so, and we’ll see who has time to bring some over. Once you’re in school, I won’t interfere with how you study, but you’re not allowed to run outside the campus at night. Your father has traveled all over these years, and I’ve seen plenty of children and girls your age get trafficked. You absolutely have to be careful.” What Su Dakui meant was simple: safety mattered most, studying came second.

After seeing her parents off, Su Huandan could not help sighing over how interesting this life of hers had turned out to be.

In her previous life, the family had not been nearly this wealthy, so her parents had still hoped their daughters would make something of themselves. In this life, the family had prospered, and all her parents wanted from their children now was for them to live steady, peaceful lives.

Sure enough, different circumstances really do create different choices and different lives.

After seeing her parents off, Su Huandan returned to the dorm and went with the other girls in her room to the cafeteria for dinner.

The food tasted pretty ordinary. These days, supplies were plentiful, and there were both meat and vegetable dishes available, so what you bought depended on your budget.

Su Huandan wasn’t very hungry, so that evening she only bought a bowl of noodle soup, with two thin slices of beef laid on top.

The noodles weren’t very chewy anymore, but the broth tasted fairly good.

Once they had eaten their fill, they headed back to the dorm together.

After that, they went together to the hot water room² to fetch hot water. When they got back, they washed their faces and feet. They were all freshmen who had registered that day, and after running all over the school from morning to night, they were exhausted. Once they had washed up, they turned out the lights and went to sleep.

The next day wasn’t for classes, but military training³. Their uniforms had been issued by the Academic Affairs Office the day before, when they registered.

Translator’s Notes