Feeding pigs? You said it yourself, Old Ge!

It remains a mystery how the father-in-law managed to placate the mother-in-law last night, but the two of them actually left for work together this morning.

The mother-in-law was still beaming with a radiant glow!

It left Cheng Xuemin completely dumbfounded.

"Big Old Cheng, hurry up! We're almost late, stop dawdling!"

Inside the room, Cheng Xuemin was giving instructions to his wife, even carrying in a brazier so she could stay tucked warmly in bed and not get up—just for today.

Once Cheng Xuemin finished his exams, he would be able to dedicate himself entirely to staying home and taking care of her.

Moreover, with the final exams over, Feng Jiamo would also be starting her winter vacation, meaning she could readily help look after her older sister as well.

"I know, I know! Go on, go on! Jiamo is already urging us!"

Feng Jiayou was speechless. While this man was thoughtful, he was just as Jiamo had said—nagging and repeating the same instructions over and over again, as if she were a three-year-old child.

"Oh, by the way, remember to drop off that novella at *People's Literature* today!"

Seeing Cheng Xuemin nod and head out the door, Feng Jiayou called out another reminder from beneath the covers.

"Understood, understood. There's only one exam this morning, so I'll hand in my paper early, drop off the manuscript, and then come right back to make you lunch!"

There was only a math exam this morning, which for Cheng Xuemin was basically junior high school knowledge—he could rattle it off effortlessly. Turning in his paper an hour early was an understatement.

Thus, he would be able to submit his exam and deliver the manuscript to *People's Literature* well before nine o'clock.

"Big Old Cheng, Big Old Cheng, will you let me read *Affection of a Family*?"

On the way to Peking University, sitting in her older sister's usual spot on the back of the bike, Feng Jiamo started acting up again, demanding to read the manuscript of *Affection of a Family*.

"Stop making a fuss and trying to snatch it! We're about to be late!"

Cheng Xuemin was utterly speechless. He was riding a bicycle—what on earth was she trying to grab?!

"Then tell me, how did you write my parents into the story?!"

"Did you write my mom as particularly bougie and melodramatic? And my dad as extremely dashing and debonair?"

Fine!

Feng Jiamo certainly knew her own mother!

But Cheng Xuemin wasn't about to admit to that. She could just wait and read its publication in *People's Literature* herself.

Pedaling furiously and rushing all the way, Cheng Xuemin and Feng Jiamo finally dashed through the campus gates just as the warning bell rang.

"Big Old Cheng, I'm coming back for lunch too, make sure you wait for me!"

Before Cheng Xuemin's bicycle had even come to a complete stop, Feng Jiamo jumped off and sprinted toward her classroom, tossing instructions over her shoulder without looking back.

Wait for you, my foot!

Cheng Xuemin wished he could split himself in two to run errands in both directions; where on earth would he find the time to wait for her and ride back together for lunch?

"Old Cheng, guess what?! You got a perfect score on your English exam yesterday, awesome!"

The moment Cheng Xuemin rushed into the classroom and sat down at his desk, Ge You's eyes lit up when he saw him, and he eagerly leaned over to share the good news.

"The results are out already?"

The English exam had only been held yesterday afternoon, and the results were already out?

Still, how many points he scored came as no surprise at all to Cheng Xuemin; his heart remained as calm as an ancient, undisturbed well.

After all, the difficulty of the college entrance examinations in this era was roughly equivalent to the high school entrance exams decades later.

Especially English!

That was foundation work at its most basic level. Believe it or not, if a primary school student from later generations were brought in to take the test, Cheng Xuemin wouldn't even be surprised if they scored a perfect score.

The English tests of this era were simply something one had to experience to understand.

To an elite student like Cheng Xuemin, who had easily aced the TEM-8 (Test for English Majors) in a top-tier 985 university, it was truly child's play multiplied by child's play.

"They're out!" Ge You nodded repeatedly, smiling with unconcealed smugness. "Old Cheng, guess what I got on the English test?"

"What did you get?!"

Cheng Xuemin turned his head to look at him and asked.

Though he quickly realized he had asked a foolish question. Asking Ge You what he "scored" was an outright insult to the very concept of an "exam."

He should have asked him outright: How many points did you copy?

Since the examination halls hadn't been rearranged and even the seating assignments remained unchanged, Ge You had taken the test sitting right next to Cheng Xuemin.

Therefore, for yesterday's three subjects, basically Cheng Xuemin wrote down an answer, and Ge You peeked over to copy it down right beside him.

The proctor had simply turned a blind eye; as long as it didn't disturb other students from taking the exam, how anyone copied didn't matter in the least!

"80 points!"

"If you hadn't turned in your paper so early yesterday, Old Cheng, and left me no time to copy the English composition, I could have scored at least ninety-five points and easily snagged second place in the whole class!"

"Amazing, truly amazing. You got eighty points without even writing the essay, Old Geezer, you're even more incredible!"

Indeed!

Twenty points for the English composition left uncopied, yet Old Ge still managed to score eighty points—does that mean he didn't write a single word of the English composition at all?

"Haha, I owe it all to you, Old Cheng! Let's keep it up for the math test this morning and strive for second place in the class!"

Ge You burst into loud laughter!

Fine, why didn't he just say he was going to tie for first place in the entire grade?

Still, Cheng Xuemin didn't mind; as long as Uncle Ge was happy, that was all that mattered.

About half an hour later, Cheng Xuemin finished writing the entire math test paper and prepared to hand it in immediately so he could rush over to *People's Literature* to submit his manuscript.

"Old Cheng, Old Cheng, wait! Wait! I haven't finished copying yet!"

Seeing that Cheng Xuemin was about to turn in his paper without even bothering to review it, Ge You, who was completely falling behind in his copying, cried out anxiously from the side.

"Hurry up then, Old Ge, wrap it up! I'm in a rush to make a trip to the Literature Press!"

With a corner of his test paper held firmly in Old Ge's grip, Cheng Xuemin could only urge him impatiently.

"Right away, right away! Old Cheng, what are you going to the Literature Press for anyway?!"

"Since you're heading over and I've got nothing to do, how about I go with you?"

Old Ge blabbered away at Cheng Xuemin while frantically continuing his rapid copying.

"I'm going to submit a manuscript!"

Cheng Xuemin waited another ten minutes for Old Ge, and the two of them handed in their papers one after the other.

"You're just deceiving yourself!"

The proctor was the math teacher, Old Ma, who truly didn't know what to do with this Old Ge. Having watched him cheat and copy right under his very nose, he was left speechless and could only pretend not to see it.

Seeing him shamelessly hand in his paper right along with Cheng Xuemin, Old Ma pointed a finger at Old Ge, wanting to scold him but unable to find the words—a classic case of profound exasperation and disappointed expectations!

"Teacher Ma, Teacher Ma, I checked Old Cheng's test paper myself; it's definitely a hundred and twenty points. Teacher Ma, you've got something to brag about again!"

"No time to chat! Old Cheng is going to submit a manuscript to the Literature Press today, and I have to go with him. See ya, teacher, we're off!"

Planking his test paper straight onto Math Teacher Old Ma's desk, Ge You bolted out in a hurry, chasing after Cheng Xuemin while shouting, "Old Cheng, wait for me! With me accompanying you to submit your manuscript at the Press, it's guaranteed to get accepted!"

"Cheng Xuemin is going to submit a manuscript to the Literature Press?" Old Ma didn't register it at first. Then, hearing Ge You's hollering outside, it finally clicked. His expression turned blank of speech, while a silent *what the hell* echoed in his mind.

This student Cheng Xuemin was truly extraordinary. Previously, a single piece like *The Herdsman* had caused quite a sensation, and now he was going to directly challenge the Literature Press?

"Cheng Xuemin is going to submit to the Literature Press?"

Old Ge's shouting was simply too loud. Coupled with the fact that students were taking exams and the entire school was otherwise quiet, his ruckus carried all the way upstairs to the homeroom teacher Old Zhang's ears, and even reached the principal's office!

Instinctively, they all stood up in unison and rushed to the outer corridor to look down at the courtyard below.

Just in time to see Cheng Xuemin riding his bicycle, already nearing the school gates!

"Old Zhang, Cheng Xuemin from your class wrote another manuscript and is going to submit it to the Literature Press this time?" The other startled teachers all turned to look at Homeroom Teacher Old Zhang and asked.

"I suppose so!"

What could Old Zhang possibly say?

Although Cheng Xuemin was a student in his class, from the very beginning of the semester, he had only attended classes obediently for those first few days.

After that, his figure was rarely seen. Whether he had been writing manuscripts lately, or what kind of manuscripts he had written—Old Zhang, as his homeroom teacher, was just as much in the dark.

"Old Ge, are you really giving up like this and not taking the exam?"

Cheng Xuemin knew why Old Ge was acting so reckless and self-defeating; it was because he had no intention whatsoever of taking next year's college entrance examination.

His family didn't expect him to get into a university anyway, so they were already pulling strings to try and get him into a song and dance troupe.

"Yeah! If I had your talent, Old Cheng, of course I'd take it! Even if I had half of your talent, I'd take it!"

"But the truth is, I'm simply not cut out for studying!"

Pedaling his bicycle, he complained bitterly to Cheng Xuemin, "Besides, that song and dance troupe my dad found for me has some damn audition tests too. My dad really can't help me with that part; I have to do it myself!"

"But I don't know the first thing about any of that!"

"How about this, Old Cheng? Help me brainstorm a bit—how should I handle this audition?"

"An audition?! You mean for talents and arts?" Cheng Xuemin was startled at first, but then his mind quickly sifted through his memories, and he realized he actually had related memories of this.

Pig farming?!

To Cheng Xuemin's utter astonishment, the talent and arts audition for Old Ge to enter the song and dance troupe turned out to be a performance of feeding pigs, which genuinely took him by surprise.

"Yeah! It's all about talents and arts!" Ge You continued with a bitter expression.

"Talents and arts are easy to deal with! Just pick whatever you're good at!"

Cheng Xuemin held back a laugh and continued to ask, "How's your singing, Old Geezer?"

"Do you think a tone-deaf throat like mine would work, Old Cheng?"

"...Well then, dancing? Or something like wind and string instruments? Surely there must be something?"

"Old Cheng, do you think raising and feeding pigs would work?! That's my strong suit, I'm best at that!" Suddenly, Ge You blurted that out completely out of the blue, instantly making Cheng Xuemin lose his composure in laughter.

"Raising and feeding pigs... if you perform it well, I suppose it could work!"

Since Old Ge himself had brought it up, he must have already had a draft in mind and thought it through.

It was just that raising and feeding pigs seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with a talent show no matter how you looked at it.

"Do you really think it'll work, Old Cheng?"

Instead, Old Ge asked with complete seriousness, making it clear that he had already set his mind on raising pigs.

Well, then there was nothing more to say!

In another time and space, Old Ge had indeed performed the act of raising and feeding pigs, successfully passing the song and dance troupe's audition in one fell swoop.

Therefore, Cheng Xuemin had to encourage Old Geezer!

"It'll work! It'll definitely work! Back when you were sent to the countryside as an educated youth, Old Geezer, the pigs you raised were proof enough. You know more about this than anyone else, and you're the best at feeding pigs. I'm rooting for you, you can definitely do it!"

"Alright then! Pigs it is! I'm not boasting to you, Old Cheng, when it comes to raising pigs, I really have too much experience!"

"Old Cheng, do you know that when a male piglet is one month old, it has to be castrated?"

"Old Cheng, do you know what it means to castrate a little boar?! It's basically..."

Oh, give it a rest, Old Geezer!

Dropping that sudden comment on Cheng Xuemin made a cold shiver run instantly down his pants.

Around ten o'clock, Cheng Xuemin and Ge You finally arrived at the Literature Press!

"Xuemin, you're here?! Perfect, there are two royalty payment slips here, take them back with you later!"

This was fantastic!

Coming over to *People's Literature* nowadays, the very first thing Editor-in-Chief Zhang Guangnian would say when greeting Cheng Xuemin invariably involved royalty slips.

The reality was that *Director Qiao Assumes Office* had been reprinted and published by far too many newspapers and magazines. Although most of them essentially feigned ignorance to get a free ride, there were still quite a few conscientious publications that occasionally sent little surprises Cheng Xuemin's way.

"Alright, alright, thank you, Teacher Zhang!" Cheng Xuemin quickly took them and said to Zhang Guangnian, "Teacher Zhang, I'm here to submit a manuscript this time. Could you help me look it over and review it?"

With that, Cheng Xuemin temporarily laid the royalty slips aside and pulled a thick stack of manuscript paper from his briefcase.

"Submit a manuscript?! Didn't you say you didn't have the time recently..."

"This thick?"

Zhang Guangnian was initially taken aback upon hearing this. When he had personally solicited a manuscript from Cheng Xuemin earlier, hadn't the young man claimed he had no time lately because he was being closely watched by his mother-in-law?

How was it that he had turned around and come to submit a manuscript again? Besides, with a manuscript this thick, it had to be at least fifteen or twenty thousand words, right?