"Brother Ye! Brother Ye! Wake up, wake up, we're almost there!"
Deep in a haze of sleep, Wang Ye suddenly felt someone shaking his shoulder.
Opening his heavy, drowsy eyes, he was taken aback.
Where is this?
Didn't he fall asleep in his bed?
How did he end up on a minibus now?
The young man next to him shaking his shoulder seemed familiar, but he could not remember who he was.
Wang Ye blankly turned his head to look at the window beside him, discovering a layer of white fog on the glass.
Just as he began to lift his hand, preparing to wipe the window to see what was happening outside, he was startled to find himself wearing a thick down jacket!
Being in his thirties and having experienced so much in society, he was able to keep his calm.
Wang Ye calmly reached out his hand, wiping the glass with his sleeve. Finally, he could see the situation outside.
Just one glimpse, and he was stunned again.
Beyond the window was a boundless….. white expanse.
It was night, and the minibus was hurtling down a wide-open road. Under the dim yellow street lights, big flakes of snow, like goose feathers, were swirling in the air, slowly covering the ground.
The accumulation of snow on the roadside was already about a meter high!
He had not seen such heavy snow in many years...
This question suddenly surfaced in Wang Ye's mind.
He attended university in Moscow where, in that godforsaken place, it snowed for at least six months a year.
This kind of heavy snow fell commonly enough to be unremarkable.
However, ever since he returned to China after graduation, he had not seen such heavy snow.
Just as he had this thought, the minibus passed in front of a big gate.
The gate was simple, practically crude, being just a wide-open iron fence gate visible from the road.
Directly opposite the gate was a large, gray-white building. Not very tall, but it occupied a vast area.
The square main building, like a giant block of stone, had several attention-catching black Russian letters "Российскийуниверситетдружбынародов" on it.
Wang Ye recognized it immediately - it was the "Peoples' Friendship University of Russia"!
Which was his alma mater…
In an instant, memories flooded back like a tidal wave.
Wang Ye recalled that this scene was supposed to be from January 1st, 2001, when he had just arrived in Moscow to start his study abroad journey.
Currently, they were on a minibus traveling from the airport to the university.
But the thing was, all of these happened twenty years ago!
He had clearly already returned home and had been living in Peng City for many years!
Could it be that he was dreaming...
.........
Turning again to look inside the minibus, he saw seven or eight youthful faces beaming at him.
All were about 17 or 18 years old, both boys and girls, their faces were filled with smiles and anticipation.
Some of them seemed familiar to Wang Ye, but he failed to recognize others.
At that moment, the boy sitting next to him - the one who had woken him up - said with a smile, "Brother Ye, we've arrived at the university. I heard that it's vacation time now at school, we will have to wait a few more days before classes start."
A thought flashed through Wang Ye's mind, and he blurted out, "Liu Xiaojie?"
The boy paused for a moment, and responded, puzzled, "Huh? What's up, Brother Ye?"
Wang Ye's heart fluttered. It really was Liu Xiaojie!
However...
This was the Liu Xiaojie from over a decade ago!
He was one of his closest friends during his university years.
After they graduated, Wang Ye returned to China, while Liu Xiaojie stayed to further his career in Russia.
They hadn't seen each other in more than ten years, and gradually lost contact.
Don't find it strange that Wang Ye forgot his other classmates. If you study at a university in China, you're generally familiar with your classmates; perhaps you can even remember many of their names a decade after you graduate.
But studying abroad is completely different.
Relationships among students are more distant because everyone is just a part of the same batch studying abroad, and we only shared classes during the preparatory course.
Once we moved on to our specializations, we may not be in the same class anymore.
Furthermore, everyone was busy with their own things: some were diligent in their studies, while others spent each day holed up in their dorm rooms, playing computer games.
Quite a few were working while studying, and we almost never saw these classmates.
Taking into account these circumstances, how could everyone be close?
So, after studying for a few years, you only really know a few of your classmates well. With the majority, you only know their names and faces. You couldn't say you had any real relationships with them.
Moreover, it's normal to forget their names, especially when you've hardly been in touch since graduation, over a decade ago.
…
Opening a sliver of the car window, the chill wind rushed towards Wang Ye, taking him by surprise and sharpening his senses.
"Don't open the window, Brother Ye. It's freezing. I've heard nighttime temperatures here could drop as low as -20 or -30 degrees," Liu Xiaojie, shivering from the cold, hastily said from next to him.
Wang Ye gave a smile and closed the car window with a "snap".
Although he didn't know exactly what happened, whether he was dreaming or reborn, he was now 18 years old once again...
Many people have fantasized about what they would do if they could live their lives over after reaching adulthood.
Now, his chance had come!
As for his "second" life, Wang Ye was already eager to start!
How many times, while recalling his experiences studying abroad, did he realize how many opportunities he'd missed!
No exaggeration to say, if he'd seized even one of those opportunities, his life wouldn't have been so lackluster and powerless as it later became...
But that's life. When an opportunity is in front of you, most people fail to realize how rare it is.
Only a minority seize the chance and become the so-called successful people.
…
The old minibus rattled into the campus, parking in front of a low but long old building on the left side of the road.
Wang Ye was very familiar with this place—Friendship University's preparatory dormitory building, commonly referred to as "Building 6".
The dormitory area of Friendship University had thirteen buildings. Apart from Building 13, which was a high-rise, the rest were old-style structures with just six floors.
It's said these buildings were built forty years ago, around the time the university was founded.
The street outside the dormitory area was named "Miklukha-Maklai Street". One side of the street was the teaching area, and the other side was the dormitory area of Friendship University.
The team leader in the front seat of the minibus stood up and reminded everyone, "Please take your luggage. Be careful not to leave anything behind. We have already arranged your dormitory. I'll help you guys with the check-in process, and then take each of you to your designated rooms. You can rest in the dormitory hall for a while."
The students on the bus each got off, pulling their suitcases. Wang Ye intentionally waited until the last to collect his luggage from the back of the bus.
He couldn't remember what his suitcase looked like anymore. So to avoid grabbing the wrong bag, he would instead retrieve his last...
When he finally went to collect his luggage, he found that besides a huge hard plastic rolling case, there was also a bulging red net bag. Through the net, he could see the blue plastic washbasin it contained, which had two big white plastic bags stuffed into it.
Taken aback for a moment, Wang Ye reached out to pull the case and found that he could hardly move it—it was just too heavy!
Struggling to pull down his suitcase, he then hung the red net bag on the retractable handle of his suitcase. Then he finally followed behind the others, ready to enter the dormitory...