Chapter 25: Life Is More Than Just the Present Struggle

Liang Yonghe couldn't understand why, despite his excellent academic performance, he was assigned to watch over a remote mountain area.

Li Xian, on the other hand, had a pretty good guess. To Wu Guohua, the bag of pine nuts that Liang Yonghe's mother had painstakingly picked through the entire night was worth no more than a fire lookout.

As he dashed up the stairs, this thought ran through Li Xian's mind.

He, along with Wang Wensheng and the others, rushed upstairs with the intention of reaching the roof through the corner door in the stairwell.

However, when they reached the fourth floor, they found the door had been blocked from the outside. The group tried kicking and pushing the door, but it seemed that it had been securely latched from the outside, refusing to budge.

Seeing this, Li Xian quickly made a decision, pushing through the crowd and running back downstairs.

The dormitory arrangement at the forestry technical school was rather peculiar; the boys' and girls' dormitories faced each other, and the distance between the buildings wasn't large. Since they couldn't get to the roof from this side, Li Xian, in his haste, dashed directly into the girls' dormitory.

A man entering the girls' dormitory was like throwing a catfish into a pond full of frogs, causing a series of screams and angry shouts.

Ignoring the chaos, Li Xian pinpointed Liang Yonghe's location and sprinted to a room on the fourth floor. Inside, a female student was in the middle of changing clothes, and when someone kicked the door open, she screamed in fright.

But Li Xian had no time to pay attention to this.

At this moment, Liang Yonghe was sitting on the edge of the fourth-floor roof, staring blankly at the ground below.

Below, the school's teachers and administrators had already rushed over and were trying to talk him down with earnest words.

Some asked Liang Yonghe to think about his parents and family, warning him that taking his own life would break their hearts. Others were school officials spouting clichés about how problems should be solved and that suicide was not the answer.

Listening to the commotion below, Li Xian wished he could seal all their mouths with some 520 adhesive.

He recalled a post by a psychology expert he had read on Zhihu about depression. It mentioned that when a person is trapped in negative emotions, they can easily fall into complete self-denial, believing they are worthless.

In such a state, trying to use guilt to make them snap out of it is almost impossible.

Sure enough, after hearing the attempts to persuade him, Liang Yonghe trembled and took another step forward.

The tiles on the roof clattered down, causing a chorus of gasps from below.

"Seven Inches!" Li Xian shouted.

Hearing his voice, Liang Yonghe's foot hesitated.

Looking in the direction of the voice, Liang Yonghe took off his glasses, wiped his tears, hesitated for a moment, and finally called out, "Xianzi, my dad sold our family's cattle to pay for my schooling. During plowing season, he pulled the plow himself. We have three kids, but I'm the only one who went to school. For so many years, I've studied like crazy, never daring to slack off, just so I could find a good job, leave the mountains, and bring them to the city for a better life.

Before I came here, my dad was even planning a banquet at home. I can't face him now that I've been assigned to a mountain area!"

Li Xian shouted back, "Stop with the nonsense! I'm not here to talk you out of it! We're brothers, so I came to see you off. By the way, what do you want done with your stuff after you're gone? Should we burn it for you or send it back home?"

"Huh?" Liang Yonghe was stunned by the question—he hadn't considered this at all.

Seeing that Liang Yonghe's emotions had loosened, Li Xian quickly continued, "Seven Inches, I'm not here to persuade you; I just think that you're too talented to waste your life like this!"

Liang Yonghe was puzzled, "I'm talented?"

"Of course! Talented!" Seeing that Liang Yonghe had paused, Li Xian climbed onto a desk below the window and dangled himself out of the window: "What's 5544 divided by 24?"

Almost instinctively, Liang Yonghe blurted out the answer, "231!"

This display drew gasps of admiration from the onlookers. Liang Yonghe's mental arithmetic skills were something Li Xian had always been impressed by—this guy's major was accounting.

Hearing the answer, Li Xian pulled a girl who had hastily thrown on some clothes and was watching the scene through the window to his side, pointing at Liang Yonghe, "Isn't my buddy amazing?"

The girl timidly nodded.

Satisfied with her response, Li Xian turned to shout downwards, "Can any of you do that?"

Naturally, the crowd below shook their heads.

"See?" Li Xian spread his hands towards Liang Yonghe.

"But what good is it? I've studied accounting for four years, and now I'm still being sent to watch over a mountain? Xianzi, there's no future in this!"

"How can you say there's no future?" Li Xian immediately retorted. "Seven Inches, this assignment isn't based on ability; it's about connections, background, and how much money your parents slipped Wu Guohua! Just because you were assigned to a forestry site doesn't mean you're not capable. With your skills, you can find a job anywhere! You don't have to rely on some school assignment!

I've been assigned to street sweeping in sanitation. I was just thinking 'to hell with it, I'll quit and start a business.' I've already got it figured out. I have some capital; come winter, we can start trading timber in the forest. We'll start with one truckload at a time, and when we have enough capital, we'll build a fleet. We'll be making a thousand or eight hundred bucks a day.

We'll buy houses in the forestry bureau's compound, big houses, marry wives with long legs and big hips, and bring our parents to live with us. We'll do this together. Five years—no, maybe in two years—we'll be doing better than everyone else who got assigned to good units! Do you believe it? Without relying on our parents or connections, they're not necessarily better than us!

By the way, is there anything you've always wanted to do but haven't had the chance to?"

Li Xian rambled on, painting a grand picture of the future. In the end, he changed his tone.

A glimmer of hope appeared on Liang Yonghe's face, "I want to go to Beijing… I've heard the roast duck there is really good. I want to take my mom and dad there."

Seeing that Liang Yonghe had calmed down, Li Xian shouted, "Then come down. We'll earn enough money and go together, okay?"

Liang Yonghe hesitated.

Li Xian, like coaxing a child, continued to speak of many hopeful things about the future. After more than twenty minutes, Liang Yonghe finally took a step back, his eyes filled with hesitation as he looked down.

Catching this movement, Li Xian shouted once more, drawing his attention back to himself, "Seven Inches, don't look at them. If you come down now, people will definitely gossip about you behind your back. But you're not living for them, and you're not living just for this assignment. Life is more than just the present struggle; there's roast duck, and your mom and dad!"

Hearing this, Liang Yonghe collapsed onto the roof, crying his heart out.

After another ten minutes of silence, he got up, wiped away his tears, and walked towards the corner door, unlatching it.

Seeing this, Li Xian felt as if all the strength had been drained from his body. He slowly climbed down from the window and lay flat on the ground.

"You were… really amazing just now. What's your name?"

Beside him, the girl who had been watching the scene unfold with bated breath finally exhaled deeply, gathering the courage to approach Li Xian and ask.

Li Xian opened his eyes, looked at the girl standing over him, and grinned, "I can tell you my name, but did you know you're not wearing a bra?"