Chapter 395: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 395: College Entrance Exam Essay, Written in One Go

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

At nine o'clock in the morning, exam time arrived.

The proctor handed out the test papers, and everyone began answering.

In the classroom, every student's pen landed on the answer sheet, gathering into a rustling sound.

Wang Xiaohua first filled in his admission ticket on the answer sheet, wrote his name, then answered skillfully, just like the countless exams of the past three years; his heart was very calm, with few waves.

From multiple-choice questions to ancient poetry, then to reading comprehension, Wang Xiaohua almost completed all the questions in one go.

By the time he wrote the essay, he still had more than an hour left.

This year's essay topic was a material-based essay.

The gist of the given material was that there was a self-made tycoon who was generous and enthusiastic about charity; one day, he learned of three struggling families living in hardship and decided to provide aid to these three families, and the three families made three different choices: one family was very grateful and happily accepted, one family hesitated before accepting and declared they would repay it, and the last family refused his kindness, considering it a form of charity.

This material-based essay could be written from a very wide range of angles, with plenty of room for free expression.

One could write from the tycoon's perspective, or expand from the three families' choices and reactions.

When Wang Xiaohua saw this material-based essay, the first thing that floated into his mind was just two words: "Choice."

Choice determines fate.

Different choices bring different lives.

This was his insight gained from the impoverished life he had experienced these past years.

He thought of the various choices his mother had made in her life; his mother actually had many opportunities to change her life, and when she was young she was so beautiful that she clearly could have made a better choice in marriage, but ultimately she chose a man who was nothing but honest.

For a woman, this was the most important crossroads in life; by making such a choice, it meant she chose to spend the second half of her life accompanying poverty and struggling with hardship.

But she was completely unaware, not realizing the seriousness of this matter at all.

Later, when giving birth, she had already given birth to two sons but still wanted to have a third, violating national policy, resulting in severe punishment; the family, originally dirt poor, became even poorer.

Later, amidst the rumors and gossip with villagers like He Dazhu and Yang Dafu, the various choices she made were also not very wise, to the extent that she ended up in prison, burdened with heavy shackles, causing cracks to appear in the feelings of the originally impoverished couple, and she didn't know how to mend this crack, to the extent that it later evolved into various family conflicts.

Later, choices like opening a shop, building a house, and doing masonry work—she kept making the same mistake over and over again.

Her life obviously lacked the ability to make choices.

Choice is very important, and mastering the ability to choose is even more crucial.

The reason we study is actually not for money, nor for so-called lofty ideals, but to master more opportunities to choose, to possess the ability to make choices at critical moments in life, to raise our upper limit and stabilize our lower limit.

Wang Xiaohua decided to use his mother's life as the entry point to write an essay about life choices.

"My mother, she is almost fifty years old this year, has toiled for half her life, and has never enjoyed any blessings.

She seems to have lived in poverty and misfortune her entire life.

Whenever someone asks about the hardships she has suffered in this life, she always tells others: Only by eating the bitterest bitterness can one become a person above others.

I used to deeply agree with this.

But as my age increased and my knowledge and experience grew, I discovered that most of the time in her life, she was just eating hardship for no reason...

Reviewing most of her life, at the critical nodes of life when choices needed to be made, she seemed to always have "bad luck" and "bad feng shui" accompanying her, to the extent that almost every important choice she made was wrong.

Poverty and misfortune, like lingering ghosts, entangled most of her life.

But upon careful thought, the choices she made seemed to be caused by so-called "fortune," but more so had their inevitability.

Just like the third family given in the material, when her mother faced the "gift" given by others, she often chose to refuse because it carried a "nature of charity."

She could clearly choose to accept, improve her current predicament, and make life better, but she did not do so.

Refusing charity seemed to have become the last bottom line and dignity of the poor.

In this regard, not only was my mother like this, but my father was even more so.

It's not that refusing charity is bad, but always feeling that others are giving charity, looking down on oneself, and refusing with hostility, disregarding the actual situation—then the road of life is destined to get narrower and narrower.

To maintain so-called face and dignity, leading to eating hardship for no reason, leading to being unable to turn things around, and thus having its inevitable result..."

Wang Xiaohua, using his mother as the entry point, told the story leisurely, discussing the importance of choice in life.

He wrote fluently with a flowing pen; the language of the entire essay was very simple, without piling up ornate words, but it was natural and smooth, sincere and touching.

At the end of the essay, he wrote like this:

"Children of poor families who want to escape poverty, besides studying hard, also need to make correct choices at every important juncture in life. And I am the same. The college entrance exam does not mean the end. The college entrance exam is actually just the beginning; the various choices I need to face next are what determine my life.

For example, which university to apply to, what major to choose, after university whether to continue further studies or choose to go out and work...

These choices do not have standard answers like the college entrance exam papers, nor are they reflected in specific scores.

They are intangible and invisible, light as air, seemingly without weight.

So some answer casually, some answer recklessly, and some choose prudently.

And different choices will, twenty years later, give different scores to our life's exam paper.

By then, when we look back on the first half of our lives, we will suddenly discover that the exam papers we casually submitted twenty years ago in our youthful recklessness, the universities we casually chose, the jobs we settled for—all turned into bullets, hitting right between our eyebrows..."

After writing the last paragraph of the essay, Wang Xiaohua put down his pen and let out a long breath.

He wrote this essay in one go, not even altering a single character; so-called natural and smooth, nothing could be more so.

Looking at the clock hanging in the exam venue, at this time there were still nearly fifty minutes until the exam ended.

That is to say, Wang Xiaohua only used less than thirty minutes to finish this essay.

Even Wang Xiaohua himself was surprised at how he wrote it so fast.

Although he finished the test paper early, he did not leave the exam venue early like some people.

He carefully checked the answers on the answer sheet twice, correcting errors in time, until the exam end bell rang and the proctor came to collect the test papers and answer sheets, only then did he stand up and leave the classroom.