Chapter 48: Separation and Departure 3

The next morning, before the start of the new semester, Xie Wanying took her mother to the train station.

As the moment of parting approached, Sun Rongfang looked at her daughter, with a thousand words on the tip of her tongue, yet her lips trembled, not knowing what to say. All she could do was nag incessantly, “Take care of your health above all, your health is the most important. Mom doesn’t ask for anything else, just that you stay safe and healthy—”

“Mom, I know.” Xie Wanying extended her hands and embraced her mother tightly.

Sun Rongfang hurriedly wiped away the tears at the corner of her eyes, holding back, until after her daughter had finished the hug, when she turned around resolutely and walked straight into the ticket checkpoint with her luggage.

Watching her mother’s figure get smaller and smaller until it disappeared at the end of the platform, it was like returning to that scene from the middle school textbook, “Back View,” except this time it was the mother’s back view, not the father’s. In each family, sometimes it is the fatherly love that’s greater, sometimes it’s the motherly love.

Xie Wanying stared at the ceiling, trying not to let her tears fall. She didn’t have the right to cry, she still had many things to do, to change her own life and her mother’s.

Turning back, she walked out of the train station with determined steps.

When she returned to the dormitory that night, Xie Wanying found out: Were none of her roommates planning to come back to the dormitory tonight?

Ring, ring, ring, the phone in the dormitory rang.

Jumping down from her bed, Xie Wanying walked over and picked up the receiver.

“Hello, is this Xie Wanying?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Teacher Ren informs us that we need to go to classroom xx in the teaching building for a meeting tomorrow. He is the counselor of our class.”

This was the first time she heard the voice of one of her classmates, a boy. His voice sounded a bit muffled, and his tone was standard. He seemed to be someone not good at talking. After saying this, the other side didn’t seem to know what to say next and fell silent for a while.

“I understand, thank you, classmate.” Xie Wanying took the initiative to resolve the awkwardness.

“No problem, no problem.” The other side hurriedly hung up the phone.

Having toured the campus, she knew where the teaching building was. Xie Wanying wasn’t worried, but she was accustomed to arriving early at the classroom to wait for classes to start, so as usual, she took her backpack and notebook and everything, finished breakfast early, and hurried to the teaching building.

When she arrived at seven o’clock, she could see people everywhere in the campus reading English or reciting medical textbooks. After all, this was Guoxie, the gathering place for the proud and top students from across the country.

With competition, the blood inside her seemed to boil with fervor.

Upon reaching the classroom, as expected, it was empty. After making sure she hadn’t gone to the wrong classroom, she chose a seat in the third row in the middle of the front, which was the most suitable for listening to the teacher and viewing the blackboard. She put down her backpack, took out a new textbook received at the start of school, and started reading it closely.

As time passed, more and more students arrived in the classroom. The chatter around her gradually increased. Anyway, without the teacher present, the students were all free to do as they wished.

Checking the time, it was seven fifty. The teacher would probably arrive soon. Xie Wanying put the textbook back into her bag, not wanting to give the teacher the impression that she didn’t respect him speaking. At that moment, she suddenly turned her head and realized: Hey, that’s not right, the seats beside her on both sides were empty, and what’s more, nobody was sitting in the rows in front or behind her.

What was going on? Her eyes then broadened further, and whoosh—row by row, quite a few students, perhaps forty or fifty, were seated, all of them looking at her, some even covering their mouths to laugh.