Chapter 5 — Forgot Admission Notice

This time her voice was completely different from last night, no longer blaming and angry, only the plea of a mother in extreme panic. "Miss Liu, I beg you, which school did Ran Ran accept? Which city did she go to?" Ms. Liu was silent for a few seconds, perhaps digesting this wild truth. A mother only came to ask her daughter which university she passed the entrance exam to after her daughter left home. “To Ran was accepted into a school one thousand three hundred kilometers from here.” She announced the name of that school. The moment she heard it, the phone in her mother's hand almost fell down. It is a leading university ranked in the top three in the country. It is a place where many parents dream of wanting their children to enter. Her daughter passed the entrance exam there, but she didn't even know the name of the school. 7 Three days later. Mom and dad took the high-speed train for ten hours to that southern city. They didn't know my dorm room number, didn't know my department, didn't even know my major. They only know the name of one school. Mother stood in front of the giant gate of that university, looking at the students passing by, like a bird lost in a strange forest, dim and anxious. “Go to the school's admissions office and look up its information.” Dad said. They went to the admissions office and made their intentions clear. The staff member looked at them, looking a bit awkward: "Are you two parents of students? But we cannot arbitrarily disclose students' personal information, we need the consent of the students themselves." “She is my daughter!” Mom is impatient. "His phone can't be called, we can't contact him!" The staff member looked at them awkwardly: "So let's do this, I'll help you two contact her department's academic advisor, so the advisor can confirm with her." Wait forty minutes. The advisor called back. "Hello parents, I have contacted my classmate To Ran. She said everything is normal now, there is no need for parents to come to school. Her original words were, tell you two to go home." Mom's hand holding the phone trembled: "Did he just say those words?" "That's right. She said she was very nice and told you two not to worry." No need to worry. Tell you two to go home. These two sentences are like two doors, gently, politely, without any emotions, closing in front of them. Mom refused to leave. She stood at the school gate all afternoon, watching every girl go out, trying to find my face in the crowd. But this school is too big. In a campus of tens of thousands of people, she almost couldn't even remember what I looked like. Not an exaggeration. In her phone's photo album, she flipped through hundreds of photos, all of which were of her sister. My photo, the most recent one, is a family photo from three years ago. Furthermore, in that photo, I was standing at the far edge, with half of my shoulder blade cut off. At dusk, dad pulled mom out of the school gate. “It doesn't want to see us.” Dad's voice is very low. “It's useless to find it on purpose, it just makes it even more offensive.” Mother stood under the streetlight, the light casting a long shadow. “Old To, have I failed as a mother?” Dad didn't answer. "I don't even know its college entrance exam, I don't even know which city it went to. It's been in my stomach for ten months, yet I have to look at the surveillance camera to find out whether it's at home or not." She squatted down, sitting on the side of the road, covering her face with her hands. Not crying. It's something deeper than crying. It's the feeling of suffocation rising from the chest when a person suddenly realizes he or she has made an irreparable mistake. Dad stood next to him, lighting a cigarette. The toxic smoke dissipated in the humid air of the South and was soon no longer visible. “Let's go home.” he said. “Give her time.” "How long?" "Don't know." The next day they took the high-speed train back. During the ten-hour journey, the two did not say a word. Mom leaned against the window, watching the scenery outside quickly recede. Ran Ran once walked this road alone. Twenty-four hour blue train, hard seats. No one saw her off, no one picked her up, no one knew what time she arrived. But a mother like her was applying sunscreen on her skin that day

in Sanya Sea. 8 After returning home, the days did not become any easier because the truth was known. On the contrary, it is even more difficult. Because of knowing, details that were previously completely unrecognizable began to float to the surface one by one. When my mother sat in the living room in a daze, she would suddenly remember something. For example, Ran Ran's eighteenth birthday. “Lao To, when is Ran Ran's birthday?” Dad raised his head and thought for a long time: "It seems like autumn? September or October or something?" “I don't remember clearly either.” Mom's voice is very light. "I have never forgotten Duong Duong's birthday. Every year I prepare it a month in advance. Ran Ran's birthday, when was the last time you celebrated it?" The two looked at each other, unable to answer. My sister sat next to me doing homework, her pen stopped. “My birthday is July 12.” I said, without raising my head. "When I was in the third grade of elementary school, my sister told me. She said she always couldn't remember, so she asked me to remember for her."