Thirty-first, Lantern Festival

  Although it was already after 9 o'clock when I got back home from the lab class in the evening, I still stayed up late to finish one more chapter, to celebrate this special day today!

  Today is not only November 11th "Singles' Day", but also a great day for the debut of Qiyuan Female Frequency on the starting point! And my humble work has also been recommended in the classification of Qiyuan Campus thanks to this east wind! On such a happy day, I naturally want to repay everyone's support with diligent updates!

  P.S. The evening wind would like to thank editor Xiang Xiang for her patience and enthusiasm, and thank her for helping with the beautiful cover of this book!

  The first Friday of the new semester is the Lantern Festival. Class teacher Lu invited all classmates to her home on Saturday night to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

  Mr. Lu's partner is Dr. Zhang Zhanxiang, the deputy director of the emergency department of the affiliated hospital. Before the Spring Festival, the school allocated a two-bedroom and one-living room apartment to them. It has just been renovated, and furniture and appliances have not been purchased yet, so the house looks empty, but it can accommodate all 30 classmates in the class, otherwise there would be no place for so many people to stand.

  As mentioned earlier, Mr. Lu is from Suzhou, while Dr. Zhang is a northerner from the Northeast. One wraps wontons and the other dumplings, which just happens to satisfy the taste buds of classmates from all over the country.

  However, the majority of students in Class 3 are still from this province. Among the boys, only Ning Yi is from Shaanxi, Fang Xing is from Anhui, and Zhang Yong is from Henan, but they don't know how to wrap dumplings yet. Among the girls, only Bai Yun from Beijing and Zhu Roujin from Tianjin can wrap dumplings.

  Lin Fanghua's parents both worked in Beijing for two or three years in the late 1960s, and during the construction of the third front, they also used to improve their lives by wrapping dumplings. So Lin Fanghua can also wrap dumplings, but not very well. Seeing Dr. Zhang busy over there, she came over to help voluntarily. There were also Zhou Yu and several other girls from the south who were interested in wrapping dumplings and followed to learn.

  Many hands make light work, and soon the Tangyuan and dumplings were almost all wrapped up. The pots started to cook on the gas stove. One pot for Tangyuan and one pot for dumplings. Because the pot was not big enough, they could only be cooked in batches, taking out a pot of cooked ones and then cooking the next pot.

  As soon as some were scooped out and brought outside, they were quickly devoured by classmates one after another. The more you rush to eat, the better it tastes. So everyone was eating with great interest. However, it's clear that dumplings are still more popular, which also proves that the northern proverb "nothing is more delicious than dumplings" makes sense.

  Later, several female kitchen helpers also went outside to eat and have fun with everyone. Lin Fanghua, however, calmly found a small plate, poured some vinegar on it, added chili sauce and a little white sugar. Then, she savored the dumplings with her homemade dipping sauce.

  Dr. Zhang beside him looked and chuckled: "You're not a southerner, how come you eat northern dumplings so authentically?"

  Lin Fanghua explained a bit, and then asked Teacher Zhang in the Northeastern dialect she had learned from the sketch comedians which corner of the Northeast he was from. (Note: Medical students are used to calling all doctors at the hospital "teachers" because when they go to the hospital for internship and practice, these clinical frontline doctors will be their instructors.)

  Ms. Zhang was amused by her northeastern dialect and burst out laughing. The two chatted happily, talking about their hometowns and then Ms. Zhang's work. She said that the emergency department of the hospital is very hard to work in and also lacks staff, even interns are not available.

  Lin Fanghua also knew about this situation: every year when the school arranged for final-year interns to go to hospitals, it could be said that almost every department could rotate through, but only emergency medicine was not allowed. I don't know if it's because the school and hospital leaders all thought that emergency medicine is too important, requiring medical staff to make quick decisions and fight for every second, and even if interns went there, they would have very little opportunity to practice hands-on, and the teachers wouldn't have time to mentor them, so they simply didn't send them.

  Regarding this policy, Lin Fanghua didn't think so. However, now that she has gotten to know the deputy director of the emergency department, she had an idea. So she proposed to Teacher Zhang that she wanted to go to the emergency department for internship during her free time and holidays. She promised to only observe and not get involved, not to cause trouble for the emergency department, hoping that Teacher Zhang would agree. Teacher Zhang thought about it and felt that it was no big deal, just needing to inform herself and the department, so she agreed to her request.

  From then on, Lin Fanghua didn't have to attend English classes, but she would always find time to go to the emergency department for internship in the afternoons when there were no classes or on Sundays, and was even busier than her classmates.

  The next day, Sunday morning at nine o'clock, Lin Fanghua and Luo Manli met with Dai Ping and Liang Jiahui at the entrance of the boys' dormitory and set off towards the second-hand bicycle market in the east of the city. It turned out that Dai Ping and others had offered to accompany them to buy a second-hand bicycle for commuting.

  The university is called a university, also because its campus is often very large. Moreover, the medical university is divided into East and West campuses, plus the affiliated hospital on the west side of the West Campus, making the activity area even larger. Although the current curriculum is still mainly concentrated in the East Campus, it takes more than ten minutes to walk from the girls' dormitory to the farthest Teaching Building 5. Therefore, after freshman year, students will gradually buy second-hand bicycles for transportation. There's no need for a new bike, first, it's easy to lose, and second, after a few years of graduation, you'll have to deal with it, so buying a new one would be a waste.

  Students buying cars usually rely on receiving hand-me-downs from graduates or relying on hometown connections. Lu Manli and Lin Fanghua didn't have any such connections, so they were left with no choice but to go to the used car market. Dai Ping had bought a car last semester under the guidance of local "old-timer" Liang Jiahui, and this time he volunteered to accompany the two girls to buy cars. Lin Fanghua naturally knew what was going on in his mind. Although she could have asked her brother for help, she went along with it out of consideration for her classmate. Meanwhile, Lu Manli thought that Dai Ping and the others were genuinely kind and helping their female classmates buy cars, not realizing that she was actually the "main character".

  Two boys took two girls and rode for over 40 minutes to the old car market in the eastern suburbs. Liang Jiahui introduced that this was originally a spontaneously formed "black car" market, but it has been rectified by the local public security department in the past two years and has become a relatively standardized market. However, there are still many people secretly selling stolen cars, and the inside is mixed with fish and dragons, making the two girls speak less, and everything is handled by the boys.

  Entering the market is like entering a huge parking garage, only with many more vendors calling out and customers selecting cars. The condition of the cars ranges from 50-60% to brand new, and the brands include all major domestic manufacturers. The models and styles range from lightweight women's bikes to heavy-duty ones, and you can even see the latest fashion trend - racing bikes with curved handlebars like a sheep's horns. As for mountain bikes, they won't become popular for several years yet.

  It would be a real challenge for Lin Fanghua to choose on her own. Fortunately, Dai Ping and local resident Liang Jiahui came to the rescue, and Liang's fluent local dialect made the vendors dare not quote random prices. Before long, they helped the two girls each pick out a bicycle, and after paying, everyone rode their bikes down the street, enjoying the wind in their hair.

  Luó Mán Lì was very happy and said that after going back, she would wash the car again and make it look better. Dài Píng of course immediately said he wanted to come help.

  Roman said thank you and then inadvertently saw the keychain hanging on Liang Jiahui's car, and couldn't help but ask: "Liang Jiahui, your car keychain looks great! It looks like a blue sneakers to me, is it?"

  Lin Fanghua took a glance and found that the keychain indeed had a pendant in the shape of a basketball shoe. Did this guy buy a pair last year? One blue, one red, both boys and girls have them as gifts. She couldn't help but think to herself, fortunately, her red keychain was still unused in the drawer. It's better not to use it from now on, lest Liang Shuang sees it and spreads rumors. Because of their usual gossip sessions, Liang often mentioned Liang Jiahui, and the sisters all guessed that she had a crush on this boy.

  Four people strolled around the street for a while, and in the afternoon, two girls treated the boys to dinner as a thank you. Then they rode their bikes together to the Cultural Park in the western suburbs to watch the Lantern Festival.