Chairman Mao taught us: "Chinese people are not afraid of death, so how can they be afraid of difficulties?"
I have been influenced by this saying since I was young. I have worked hard to learn how to overcome hardships on my own and I know that it is better to rely on oneself than on others.
So, Bai Lin and I gathered the tools and equipment and spent an hour nailing the bolt on the dormitory door.
I rubbed the finger that was accidentally injured and sighed, "I finally feel safe."
Song Qiqi smiled, checked it, and clapped her hands: "Not bad."
Song Qiqi is the most stable girl in our dormitory. She comes from the north, studies very well, and always gets scholarships. Zhao Xiaotang is the complete opposite of her.
To use Bai Lin’s original words, Zhao Xiaotang is not from Earth.
Zhao Xiaotang is sometimes a little bit self-obsessed, to a degree that is far beyond the reach of us.
I remember the month of military training when the school took all the freshmen of our class to a new soldier training camp in the suburbs of City A. It was a completely deserted place. The so-called barracks were just big sheds with nothing in them. We could only sleep on the floor with the blankets and mats we brought with us.
We had to wait in line for a long time to use the restroom, let alone take a shower. We didn’t take a shower for a week under the scorching September sun, and we didn’t dare to change into our military uniforms.
Our counselor felt sorry for seeing a group of delicate girls being tortured like this, so he discussed with the instructor and led us to a town a few miles away, where we rented a bathhouse to take a shower, and then walked back in a team.
When I was showering, I found that the color of my military uniform was fading from my sweat on my skin. After I applied hot water and soap, the camouflage green color also faded from my body.
In the middle of the night, it was Bai Lin and I's turn to stand guard at the barracks gate. I vaguely heard someone washing something inside. I carried my wooden gun and went to see what was going on. Unexpectedly, I saw a woman standing by the sink, getting some water. Her hair was disheveled, and her snow-white skin glowed in the moonlight, like a beautiful snake.
Bai Lin's hands trembled, and he pulled me and said, "Forget it, maybe he drowned here."
I was shocked and a little bit scared. But I said bravely, "I am not brave in any way. I am not afraid."
"That's great. I'll leave it to you. Xiaotong, go ahead. I'll collect your body tomorrow morning." Bai Lin patted me on the shoulder and prepared to turn around.
"No!" I grabbed her and said, "You... you go back to stand guard alone, I... am worried."
So I clenched my fists and slowly approached her along the wall, and Bai Lin was forced to follow.
When I walked a few steps away, the other party noticed our movements and turned back to smile at us.
She is a beauty, but not a snake. She is my roommate Zhao Xiaotang.
This is not the most shocking thing. There is a large basin at her feet, filled with freshly washed quilts...
"You wash the quilt?" I asked in shock.
She smiled at me and said, "Yes, the quilt cover and sheets all smelled of sweat, and even the cotton wool inside didn't feel clean, so I washed them all."
For the next week, Zhao Xiaotang's quilt was not dried, so she had to sleep next to Song Qiqi. The quilt hanging in the vent of the barracks became a legend in the department.
This is the first impression Zhao Xiaotang gave me.
Now Zhao Xiaotang is addicted to the Internet and obsessed with meeting online friends, one after another. Every time she meets an online friend, she will definitely bring the three of us who are left with her. We use Zhao Xiaotang's beauty as bait, and then heartlessly blackmail her for a big meal, just to improve the boring cafeteria life.
Now, the man with glasses sitting across from me in Pizza Hut is also one of Zhao Xiaotang's online friends. Fortunately, Pizza Hut had an extra seat at the table for five people.
Song Qiqi and I sat on one side, Bai Lin and Zhao Xiaotang sat opposite us, and the man with glasses sat in the extra seat.
Bai Lin smiled and said to the man with glasses, "Guess who among the four of us is Xiaoxiao."
Zhao Xiaotang and him met when they were playing Fantasy Westward Journey. She was called Xiaoxiao in the game, and the ID of the man with glasses was Murong Qingfeng. When I first saw the man with glasses, and then thought about the name Murong Qingfeng, I felt a little disillusioned.
Brother Murong felt a little embarrassed for a moment. His eyes quickly swept across the four of us through the lenses and finally stopped at me.
"Are you Xiaoxiao?" he asked gently.
"Huh?" I almost choked.
However, we had an agreement among the four of us that whoever he decided on would be the one and we would not be able to object, in order to repay Zhao Xiaotang for sharing the happiness with us.
The three of them all smiled at me secretly. The corners of my mouth twitched involuntarily, but I had to admit defeat.
It seems that today is not a good day to go out.
Seeing that I didn't deny it, Brother Murong was delighted, and then he treated me with great care and attention. I never play online games, so in order to avoid being exposed, we tried to find other things to talk about, and once professional topics were involved, Bai Lin or Zhao Xiaotang would evade them.
However, Brother Murong was always obsessed with the online game and started to ask me to recall the first time "Xiaoxiao" and "Murong Qingfeng" met.
Zhao Xiaotang changed the subject and asked, "By the way, why did you choose the last name Murong? Is your last name Murong?"
When Brother Murong heard this, he became even more interested and said, "No, actually my last name is Mu. From the perspective of the origin of the last name, the predecessor of our last name was Murong, which was later simplified. If we talk about the ancestor, it should be the Xianbei tribe."
Bai Lin nodded as if he understood something: "Oh. Then our Russian teacher must be the same."
It would have been fine if she didn't say it. As soon as she said it, I really thought of Mu Chenghe. Then I thought about changing his name to Murong Chenghe, and letting him go back to ancient times, grow long hair, tie his hair into a bun, and then smile at me.
I suddenly felt a chill.
It is a tragedy for women and a shame for men that he looks like this.
Brother Murong saw my strange expression and quietly asked the three of them, "What happened to Xiaoxiao?"
Bai Lin said: "You have confused her."
"confused?"
"My eldest brother is Murong Qingfeng, and my master is Murong Chenghe. It's really hard for her to choose between these boys from the Murong family."
"Master? Did she meet him in Journey to the West?" he asked.
I patted Bai Lin's head angrily: "Don't listen to her nonsense."
Brother Murong's original name was Mu Hai, which was indeed very different from his ID Murong Qingfeng. He studied interior design and now works in a decoration company.
"So you are a designer." Song Qiqi asked.
"What designer?" Mu Hai laughed at himself. "Nowadays, when renovating, homeowners want to save money, look good, and be practical, but they are unwilling to spend money on design. For houses with a budget of less than 100,000 or 200,000 yuan, there is no such thing as a design style. The toilets, kitchens, and TV walls are all the same."
Listening to Mu Hai's complaints, I suddenly realized that this guy is not as bad as we expected.
"Alas..." Song Qiqi also sighed, "We still have more than a year to graduate. It's really hard. I don't even know what I want to do."
Bai Lin lowered his head: "My mother asked me to go back to my hometown to find a job. She said that I don't know anyone in City A, so it's going to be difficult."
Zhao Xiaotang said: "Xiaotong is better, her family is local."
I opened my mouth but said nothing. In fact, every family has its own problems.
In the blink of an eye, I'm already a junior. I've been spending my days in a daze. When I think about leaving the campus and facing the society, I feel very uncomfortable.
When we talked about this topic, the four of us all became depressed. Mu Hai paid the bill, and considering everyone's depressed mood, he decided to go sing.
Normally, a girl shouldn't go to meet online friends, especially to sing karaoke in a karaoke bar. But with four people together, they were brave enough not to be afraid of anything, and since they were free anyway, they accepted Mu Hai's suggestion.
I yelled until my throat was dry, and walked out of the room to go to the bathroom, and unexpectedly ran into Mu Chenghe. Although I only saw his back, he could not escape my eyes even if he turned into ashes.
He seemed to be on the phone, facing the window.
I tiptoed a few steps closer, intending to eavesdrop on what he was saying so I could share it with the class as gossip. Unexpectedly, just as I closed the distance of two meters, he finished talking on the phone and turned around.
I quickly turned around, pretending to be passing by, with my back to him, and then prayed in my heart: You can't see me, you can't see me.
At this moment, Bai Lin came out of our private room to go to the bathroom. He saw me, and then saw Mu Chenghe on the other side. He stood at attention and shouted, "Hello, Teacher Mu, Teacher Mu, what a coincidence." Then Bai Lin turned around and said to me, "Xiaotong, didn't you see Teacher Mu? You're behind me."
I rubbed my forehead, turned around helplessly and said, "Hello, Teacher Mu."
"Are you guys here to sing?" he asked.
Nonsense, if you come to the music city and don’t sing, how can you eat
"Yes," Bai Lin nodded obediently, "People in our dormitory are meeting their online friends."
"Netizen?" Mu Chenghe looked inside cautiously through the space created by Bai Lin. "Whose netizen?"
"Uh... mine." Bai Lin shook his head again, "No, no, no, it's Zhao Xiaotang's." It seemed that this was not appropriate either, so he confessed righteously, "No, actually, it's mine."
Zhao Xiaotang chose French and was not in Mu Chenghe's class, so of course he didn't know her. But Bai Lin changed his words twice, which made others feel like he was making excuses for me.
Mu Chenghe probably didn't believe it either. He glanced at me and said, "Hasn't the school told you many times not to meet your online friends casually? Personal safety is very important."
It was the first time I saw him speaking so seriously in private, like a little old man.
Bai Lin said with a smile: "Teacher, we promise to protect ourselves. Please be merciful this time, we will never dare to do it again."
Even though Bai Lin made such a promise on our behalf, Mu Chenghe was still worried. He left his cell phone number to Bai Lin and me and said, "I'm leaving first. Please call me if there is an emergency."
He walked a few steps and then turned back: "Classmate, I have a good suggestion for you."
"What?"
"If you like singing, you can practice the song "Who Doesn't Say My Hometown Is Good" more."
"Why?"
"You'll know if you listen to it." He smiled, "I remember it was the version sung by Peng Liyuan."
It turns out that this person is a fan of Aunt Peng
Bai Lin and I came back from the toilet and saw Song Qiqi holding a microphone and singing softly. She has a good voice. It is said that her mother was a member of the factory's art troupe when she was young, specializing in propaganda, which has influenced her to some extent. Therefore, Song Qiqi's folk songs are particularly pleasant to the ear.
Song Qiqi has been different from the other three of us since the day she entered school.
She is a good student, kind-hearted, and virtuous person. She gets the first-class scholarship every year. She joined the party this semester and is said to be an eighth-grade piano player. In short, no matter from which aspect, she is beyond our reach.
Our school is well-known for its science and engineering, especially physics, which has won many awards at home and abroad and is at the forefront, but it is not good at liberal arts. It is hard to imagine that Song Qiqi was admitted to the English Department with the highest score in the department. Sometimes I feel sorry for her.
When I asked her about it once, she calmly explained, "University A is so good, a nationally renowned university, and I've loved learning languages since I was a kid, so I came here."
I sat down on the sofa: "Please sing me a song called "Who Doesn't Say My Hometown Is Good?"
"You sing?" Zhao Xiaotang asked.
"No, we listen." I said seriously.
Zhao Xiaotang was puzzled.
Bai Lin smiled and said, "It's a task assigned by Teacher Mu."
"Who is Teacher Mu?" Mu Hai interrupted, presumptuously thinking that we were talking about him.
"Go away. I wasn't talking about you." Bai Lin said.
I turned on the original sound, and Aunt Peng Liyuan's voice came out from the speaker:
"The green mountains are closely connected
White clouds circling the mountains
Terraces and green fields
Waves of singing carried by the wind... "
I know this song and have heard it many times, but I never noticed anything strange about it before, so I looked at the subtitles on the projection and pondered every word. When the song goes, "Hey, who doesn't say my hometown is good, Deeryo, eryo--"
Aunt Peng's piano playing sounded so melodious and graceful, with a profound charm.
Bai Lin suddenly realized what was going on and then burst into laughter.
I shouted angrily three times: "Xiaobai, laugh again!"
I love singing the most, no matter it is Chinese, foreign, ethnic, popular, Mandarin or Cantonese, as long as it pleases my ears, I will love to hum a few lines.
After careful comparison, I found that besides the original version sung by teacher Ren Guizhen, there are many other versions of the Shanxi folk song "Who Doesn't Say My Hometown Is Good". Probably because the song is nice and famous, many people later sang it.
The version sung by Aunt Peng that Mu Chenghe asked me to listen to was indeed the most soothing one.
After this exploration, I found that many folk songs use the plucked sound. For example, in the song "Fengyang Flower Drum" that I sang when I was a child, there is a passage: "I hold the gong in my left hand and the drum in my right hand, and sing with the gong and drum in my hands. I can't sing other songs, I can only sing the Fengyang song. The Fengyang song is so loud, so loud, so loud..."
Later, I discovered that Jay Chou also used this technique in his song "Drift", and it felt like everyone on the street was singing "De'er Piao, De'er Piao".
On a morning when the autumn wind was blowing.
I got up with my eyes squinted to brush my teeth, and while squeezing the toothpaste, I habitually sang the line: "Who doesn't say that my hometown is great, De'eryo, Yi'eryo".
I didn't react at first, until Bai Lin, who was washing his face next to me, looked at me with a surprised expression: "Xiaotong, sing it again."
I repeated "de'er yo yi'er yo". Although my tongue was not very flexible yet, those trembling sounds were still particularly obvious in this cold morning.
I screamed and hugged Bai Lin together: "Xiao Bai, I succeeded, I succeeded, I can finally stop being looked down upon."
I was so ecstatic that I knew full well that if I didn't move forward I would fall behind. I kept shaking my head and saying "de'er yo yi'er yo" as I walked on the road. People who passed by me looked at me with a weird expression.
Then, I followed the method Mu Chenghe taught me to remove the "得".
After two or three days, he finally uttered a slow [р] and could even imitate Mu Chenghe's long turn.
From then on, I showed off my musical skills in the dormitory every day.
Bai Lin, who could only flick his tongue stiffly two or three times, finally couldn't help it anymore and said to me angrily: "Look at you, you are such a mean person!"
I sat down, propped up my chin, and sighed quietly: "Ah, it's so lonely like snow."
In the afternoon, the four of us went to the extensive reading class with our books.
After only ten minutes of class, the counselor knocked on the door and called the extensive reading teacher out. When he came back, he conveyed the exciting news that the counselor wanted to tell us.
"A leader will come to our Foreign Languages College for inspection in the next two days. The college has notified all classes to suspend classes this afternoon for cleaning."
As soon as the teacher finished speaking, we cheered. It was a pleasant surprise that I had escaped two extensive reading classes. Every extensive reading class was like this: we were asked to go downstairs to prepare, and then each of us stood up and translated a paragraph in class, and then the teacher corrected us. It was really boring.
Bai Lin packed up his books excitedly and said, "Leaders, I love you!"
The extensive reading teacher adjusted his glasses and said, "I said..."
As soon as he spoke, we fell silent.
"Do the students love to work so much?"
We all smiled sheepishly.
He also laughed: "You don't like to work, you don't like to study."
Hit the nail on the head.
The Russian class in the evening went on as usual.
Before Mu Chenghe entered the classroom, Xiaobai led a group of girls to rub their hands and move their elbows, looking like they were determined to answer Mu Chenghe's questions today.
As soon as the class started, Mu Chenghe asked everyone to turn to the vocabulary list of the previous unit, and then said: "Which student would like to..."
"I do!" I raised my hand.
I suddenly interrupted him in the middle of his words.
The fellow student next to me, who had originally made up his mind to answer the question this time, poked me unwillingly: "Classmate, you react too quickly, at least give others some chance."
Mu Chenghe narrowed his eyes, motioned for me to stand up, and asked, "Class representative, are you willing to do this before I even finish speaking?"
"Yes." I nodded sincerely.
It's just reading a word. I finally learned how to play the words, so of course I have to show it off in class to make up for my previous shame.