A couple of days ago, during a mock trial session on “Debate and Eloquence,” I caught sight of Yu Qiuyu again.

Back in high school, I forced myself to read “Mountain Dwelling Notes,” “Bitter Journey Through Culture,” and “Boundless Traveler”…

Why did I force myself?

Mainly because my essay writing skills were so poor back then (and honestly, they still are). I had to memorize sentences from these essays to piece together my own writings.

Tonight, I walked into the classroom as usual, feeling quite relaxed, but by the time I left, it was hard to maintain that initial calm.

Recalling My First Class Cadre Election
I can’t remember any class cadre positions I held in elementary school. My first time as class monitor was in middle school, at the age of 12, in the second year. On the first day of school, I found out I was still in Class 100. Back then, our school had five classes for the second year: 99, 100, 101, 102, and 103. Due to the high school entrance exam, the top-performing students from each class were reassigned to Class 101 (while the lower-performing students from Class 101 were moved to other classes). The main criterion for this reassignment was the final exam results from the second semester of the first year. I had ranked fifth in my class that semester, but I wasn’t selected for Class 101, which left me puzzled. However, being too young to fully understand, I didn’t dwell on it and simply went to register for Class 100. After registration, the teacher immediately appointed me as class monitor without any discussion. To this day, I still find that decision abrupt! As it turned out, my tenure as monitor lasted only one day… The next morning, a relative who knew about my situation took me to see the school’s disciplinary officer. After clarifying the situation, I was finally transferred to Class 101. Once there, I realized that academic performance wasn’t the main criterion for being placed in the “key class.” Some classmates who had ranked 20th or even 30th in their previous class had made it into the key class due to their parents’ influence… This left me with the first deep shadow of my academic life. Of course, this brief stint as class monitor also came to an early end…

Dizzy in the afternoon, I stood in front of the bookshelf and spent more than half an hour flipping through Russell’s “China Question”, excerpted two pages,

I have to be convinced by Russell’s vision in 1922. Most of the Chinese problems he predicted happened later.

After roughly reading “The Spirit of Laws”, it is of course impossible to read the original work. This is a “miniature color print”, which is actually a “obscene color print”. (not with pictures)

Since Darwin’s theory of evolution dominated the field of biology 150 years ago, almost the entire world has embraced the concept of “natural selection, survival of the fittest.”

All theories are meant to be questioned, without a doubt. To accept a theory as truth without critical thought is a desecration of truth itself.

Most truths, even when questioned, remain unchallenged because they are sufficiently rigorous and scientific, allowing future generations to repeatedly question and still acknowledge their validity.

On August 4th, my father was hospitalized due to illness, and I rushed back from school. A few days later, when I returned home, some relatives suggested that I consult a fairy lady for my father’s sake.

With a skeptical attitude, the next day, my uncle took me on his motorcycle through winding mountain roads to a household in a neighboring town.

From a distance, I saw an old house with a red brick “stove,” about the height of a person, piled in the center of the cement yard outside the main gate, topped with a large pot.

Today, I’ve been pondering this question: Is what’s yours truly the best?

From an economic standpoint, most Chinese people would undoubtedly agree that what’s yours is the best. Otherwise, why would we have moved away from the era of communal living?

The household responsibility system is indeed remarkable, but it also brought about a significant downside: the lack of guaranteed fairness!

The reason why most Chinese people believe that what’s theirs is the best is primarily because, during the era of communal living, order was maintained solely through spiritual motivation and class struggle. Initially, this model was successful. After several five-year plans, China did improve significantly, but the fundamental issues were not resolved. This eventually led to the Cultural Revolution, a period that remains incomprehensible to later generations. Of course, many attribute this to individual, systemic, or ideological issues. I believe it’s none of these. It’s a clear and serious issue of legal thinking. The root cause lies in the absence of legal thinking, leading to lawlessness, which rendered the societal systems of fairness and efficiency weak and ineffective.

Zeng Guofan Experimental School is my alma mater for high school. It’s quite a serendipitous connection, as I was fortunate enough to be part of the first batch of students at Guofan High School. I studied in Class 1 and Class 4, and even served as the class monitor and vice-monitor in both classes. I was also the vice-president of the first student council.

When I went back last year, I noticed that the number of classes had increased from over 20 when we graduated to over 60. When Guofan High School first started, the high school department only had three classes. We all gathered on the second and fourth floors of the art building, living a carefree life with few worries. Occasionally, some distressing incidents would occur, but they would soon dissipate like smoke.