Chapter 84

After Ye Qingshui and her husband learned from Grandma Xie about the possible resumption of the college entrance exam, although the news hadn’t yet been confirmed, they clearly began making full use of their time to review.

Xie Tingyu paid close attention every day to the news coming from the capital.

At the same time, he also began preparations for researching biogas for lighting and heating.

He explained his intentions to the village committee, and once the village cadres understood what biogas was, they were all shocked.

With just this thing, they could live like city people, using electric lights? And not even needing to burn firewood?

Although city people didn’t need firewood, every month buying coal was no small expense. With benefits like this, why didn’t city people use it?

“Xie Zhiqing, is this biogas really that effective?” the village committee director asked in a thick local accent.

Xie Tingyu nodded.

He had already prepared some newspaper clippings, and said:

“Using biogas for lighting and heating is not without precedent. In some more developed places, it’s already being used.”

The village cadres looked at each other after listening, silently doing their calculations.

A jin of kerosene cost more than 30 cents, and the poorer ones couldn’t even afford that. So every autumn harvest, some families would press beans for oil and use bean oil for lamps. Firewood might not cost money, but going up the mountain to cut it still required labor. And biogas?

According to Educated Youth Xie, by rotting manure and rice stalks, they would generate biogas.

And manure cost nothing! Could the countryside ever lack manure and stalks?

They agreed readily!

So Xie Tingyu persuaded them for funds to build a biogas pit, and carefully explained the expenses for biogas lamps. The village cadres, whose education was limited, quickly waved their hands:

“Educated Youth Xie, you just go ahead with it! If it works, our Ye Family Village will be the first in ten li, eight villages around!”

That sounded glorious. In this closed-off small village, generations had used oil lamps for light. Once it got dark, families unwilling to waste kerosene could only lie down to sleep. If they could light up lamps like in the city, as bright as day, how comfortable life would be. City people had to pay for electricity, but in the countryside, biogas would be free.

They might not have education, but they weren’t fools. Researching biogas was a big project—why not do something beneficial? Leaving a talent like this unused would be a waste!

Even a girl like Ye Qingshui had invented a water-finding tool; clearly Educated Youth Xie was even more capable!

Last time, Ye Family Village had made a splash. This time, if they got biogas running, they’d shine even brighter.

Whether or not it looked prestigious wasn’t the point. Saving a big sum and making life easier—that was what mattered.

The village director patted Xie Tingyu’s shoulder and earnestly said:

“Comrade Xie, whether or not this biogas pit succeeds, just for having the heart to benefit others, next year’s Worker-Peasant-Soldier University spot will be yours.”

But Xie Tingyu didn’t care about that quota, and declined.

This made the village cadres admire him even more, convinced he was truly a selfless, dedicated comrade who sought nothing for himself.

With the funds, Xie Tingyu began construction of the biogas pit. The cadres even called a village-wide meeting: this year, Ye Family Village would achieve biogas lighting and heating!

After the mobilization and science popularization talk, the villagers’ enthusiasm soared. When asked to volunteer, all the strong laborers raised their hands.

Before this, Xie Tingyu had already done a lot of study, filling two notebooks with notes and materials. Under his lead, Ye Family Village finished building the biogas pit in just half a month.

After the autumn harvest, every household’s firewood shed was piled high with rice stalks. The weather was warm, so manure and stalks fermented quickly…

Xie Tingyu then settled down to focus on biogas research.

The first thing he made was a biogas stove.

The stove was a modified gas stove. At this time, few people used gas stoves because bottled gas was expensive and hard to transport.

When Xie Tingyu connected the stove pipe to the biogas, a crowd of heads gathered around. Ye Qingshui was also watching him.

He struck a match; a tiny flame flared at his fingertips.

“Puff”—the stove made a faint sound, and a small, bluish flame leapt up!

Everyone gasped in amazement.

Not because they hadn’t seen fire before—but because this flame meant they could now cook meals with biogas!

Biogas was really useful!

Burning it didn’t hurt at all—no need to scrimp.

A single biogas pit cost only about thirty yuan to build but could support several households.

The success of the stove gave the villagers hope.

Even the usually critical head of the Women’s Federation smiled:

“This time we’re more fashionable than city folk—using biogas for cooking, while they still burn coal!”

Exactly—everyone nodded.

They had once envied city people with coal briquettes, not needing to chop wood. Unless you’d cut firewood yourself, you didn’t know how exhausting it was. A load from the mountain could be burned up in just a few days.

But now, there was nothing to envy. Biogas burned cleanly, without smell, and saved effort.

Looking at this prototype of modernization—the biogas stove—Ye Qingshui felt nostalgic. From now on, she could boil water and cook without being choked by smoke. With a gas stove, it was easier to control the heat.

Watching the flame in Xie Tingyu’s hand, her heart warmed.

“Educated Youth Xie, we’re waiting for you to make biogas lamps!”

“If we even get lamps, life will be better than in the city.”

“Yes, my grandpa is eighty-seven. He’s never set foot in a city, never seen electric light. Let him see our village light up!”

The villagers all talked over each other, excitement rising higher. The cadres were even preparing to report this to the county and nominate Educated Youth Xie for an “advanced model” honor.

Before this, Ye Qingshui had worried that Xie Tingyu would neglect his studies for the biogas project.

But now, seeing the eager anticipation and joy in everyone’s eyes, feeling the long-held yearning for light, she suddenly let go of that worry.

Forget it. She’d just keep urging her husband to study more whenever he had free time.

…

Meanwhile, at the educated youth camp, they too were launching an intense review campaign.

At this time, the camp had split into distinct factions.

On one side were those who believed the state would resume the college entrance exam and were desperate to study as hard as possible.

On the other side were the educated youths who couldn’t care less about the resumption of the college entrance exam. Among them were some with very low educational levels. Back when the educated youth were sent down to the countryside, there hadn’t been any rule against accepting even those with only a primary school education. Even if they had studied just a few years, once they were sent down they could still be called “educated youth.”

There was another kind too: those with no ambition, content with the status quo. Even if the news of the resumption of the college entrance exam were confirmed, they would remain indifferent.

They simply could not understand the kind of educated youths like Zhou Tingting, who studied late into the night as though injected with chicken blood, eyes reddened from exhaustion, all for the sake of some flimsy news.

There was yet another type, those who were watching and waiting. Deep down, they also longed to go to university, but if the news wasn’t confirmed, then it was fake. When they saw the educated youths clutching their books and revising, they couldn’t comprehend such “foolish effort.” What if the news turned out to be false? Then even if you studied your books to tatters, it would be useless.

How could there be people so stubborn? That wasn’t cleverness—it was stupidity!

Wasting energy was one thing, but buying books to study was no small expense, not to mention supplementary guidebooks. If you wanted to study properly, you had to prepare all these books. There had even been someone who…

After painstakingly saving a little money, squeezing it from between their teeth, spent it all at once because of this possibly false news.

“You just believe whatever Xie Zhiqing says? What are you after, really? Wake up! Are you so desperate for college that you’ve gone mad?”

And wasn’t it exactly that—they were mad with the desire to go to college?

And it was especially those who had once enjoyed better educational conditions—those whose parents and grandparents all had proper jobs—who were the most agitated. They understood very clearly what the college entrance exam meant.

It was an opportunity—the only chance to return to the city with glory.

In labor, they could not compete with the activists, much less with the old farmers. The grain they were allotted each year was pitifully little. They pinched and scraped just to get by. If the college entrance exam really were restored, would they still have to suffer through days like these?

Sun Lingyu kept her mouth shut, swallowing her breath, burying herself in her books.

She too was finding it hard to keep reading, but when she saw that Zhou Tingting and the girls in her dorm carried cheat-sheets in their pockets to glance at even while working, she clenched her teeth and forced herself to keep going.

Li Dahong lifted his head and answered the mocking educated youth: “I like reading, I’m willing to read. You control heaven and earth, but you still think you can control whether I read or not?”

Studying for the exam was already not easy; buying just a few books cost an entire month’s stipend. And now there were people throwing cold water. Those sarcastic remarks, when they reached your ears, truly stabbed the heart.

Obviously, they longed to return to the city, longed to go to university—so why did it look like foolishness, like madness in others’ eyes?

Zhou Tingting shook her head and softly persuaded her dormmates: “What’s the point of arguing with them? Let’s just focus on our own studying.”

Even Shen Weimin couldn’t help but chuckle when he heard such sarcastic words.

They probably didn’t know where Grandma Xie worked, or what exactly had been discussed in the meeting she had mentioned in her letter. If they had carefully understood and judged it for themselves, they would never have spoken like that.

Shen Weimin also continued to closely follow news from the capital.

Not only did he collect all the middle school textbooks, but he also bought supplementary materials—precisely the Handbook of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry recommended by Xie Tingyu and his wife. By following along with the guidebook bit by bit, even he—who had long forgotten all his middle school knowledge—gradually began to get the hang of it again.

…

In September, in the capital.

The Capital Publishing House had just finished printing another eighty thousand copies of the Handbook of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry . Originally, they had worried about sales, but after catching wind of the rumors and riding on the wave of discussion about the resumption of the college entrance exam, they decided to print another fifty thousand copies. The decision carried some risk, but for this major publisher, which made millions in profit for the state every year, reprinting one set of books was a trivial matter.

Every day, the factory director signed orders amounting to hundreds of thousands of copies. If this Handbook of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry didn’t sell, they could just let it sit and sell slowly. After all, this kind of reference book would never really go out of date.

As soon as the books were printed, they were shipped to bookstores across the country. When the bookstores received the set of guidebooks, their managers’ faces turned sour: “Reprinting this kind of book? No one will even glance at it.”

“These days, students are all restless. They don’t even look at proper textbooks, let alone have spare money for supplementary books. Who knows what the Capital Publishing House was thinking?”

The bookstore manager stared at the several thousand sets of books and felt his head pounding.

Meanwhile, Ye Qingshui and Zhou Tingting had gone into town to buy review materials. When Ye Qingshui saw the neglected Handbook of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry in the bookstore, an idea for a business suddenly struck her.

When she got home, she secretly told Xie Tingyu: “I’ve thought of a way to make money.”

Ye Qingshui had spent several months reading through the entire set herself. Its quality was far higher than the Self-Study Series she remembered from her previous life. Back then, a set of supplementary books had sold out completely; many people had to travel to S City and use connections to get them.

After being resold several times, the price could even skyrocket to three or four times higher.

Rather than let those scalpers charge sky-high prices, why shouldn’t Ye Qingshui earn the quick profit herself?

She explained her idea to Xie Tingyu. She counted up all her savings: she had earned eight hundred and twenty yuan from black-market business, four hundred yuan in reward money for the water-finding device, and after deducting daily expenses and house-building costs, plus the two hundred yuan from the capital…

Altogether, Ye Qingshui still had seven hundred and thirty yuan left in her hands. She planned to use it to buy Zhou Cunren’s books.

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