October 2023: Fragments

I record some of the most impressive moments from my teenage years, all of which have appeared in my dreams these past few days.

(1)

After graduating from high school, Brother Jia, Brother Peng, and I spent all day playing games in my small room, playing Warcraft, one dozen at a time, and in the evening we went to eat barbecue, gnaw on chicken feet, and then walk around the square. At that time, I felt too happy, so happy that it was unreal.

On the curb, I asked Brother Jia: “Are you so carefree only now? Do you think there will be such happy times in the future? I feel like I am always in pain after work.”

Brother Jia thought for a while: “There must be. There will be greater happiness and greater pain in the future. Be optimistic.”

(2)

Let’s talk about Warcraft again. At that time, Brother Jia and Brother Peng and I worked at the highest record of nine hours a day without moving anywhere. At that time, we were playing a custom campaign, the map of Legend of the Condor Heroes, with Jia Ge the mage, me the warrior, and Peng Ge the nanny. The strange thing is that it comes in waves. The first few levels are very easy and you can pass them no matter what. Later, I found out that I couldn’t pass the middle level because I didn’t make enough preparations in the early stage, so I restarted it. Every time I failed, I was summarizing. The failure just now was because the second player was not fully prepared. Later at night, the three of us had something to do almost every second after the start. No matter how relaxed the monster was in the early stage, we didn’t dare to relax at all.

We played for a whole day, and by the end of the game I was so dizzy that I felt like stars. Finally, I finally defeated a boss. At that time, we were so excited that we thought we must have passed this level, but later we found out that there was another level. The big monster touched us and half of the blood was gone.

“Let’s go, let’s stop fighting and eat barbecue. No one can pass this level.” We sighed.

This is so like life.

(3)

After graduating from junior high school, all those who were ahead of me in the high school entrance examination left Wangkui and went to study in Harbin and Daqing. My two best buddies with similar grades to me, one went to Daqing Experimental School and the other went to Daqing No. 4 Middle School. At that time, everyone from Wang Kui’s family who had some conditions was sent to Daqing.

I was extremely depressed throughout the summer vacation. On the weekends a few weeks before the start of high school, we organized a trip to visit our junior high school teacher. When I finally left, Teacher Xin kept me here and told me (roughly speaking): “I know you have been comparing yourself to your two deskmates, but you have to admit that you are indeed not as good as others intellectually. If you want to pass Wangkui No. 1 Middle School, you don’t have to work hard, you have to work very hard, very hard, very hard.”

That “try hard, work hard, work hard” sound was like three swinging bells vibrating in my mind for a long time.