On the Road at Twenty-One

This page was translated by AI

2026 has been the most eventful of my twenty-one years. Last autumn I entered my school’s final year, but there were no classes, so I treated it as my gap year.

In my free time I went around to a lot of places. The rest of the time I spent preparing for the zhuanshengben exam. The plan was to get into a public undergraduate university, and I had been working toward that. I thought life would go the way I had pictured, steadily…

One afternoon in March I woke up, opened my Mac, and scrolled Douyin as usual. Then a video showed up. All I remember is that it said zhuanshengben students could go study in Hong Kong too. I looked up some info, then opened MU’s website.

It felt as if, in that moment, my life had pressed some unknown button…

At first I only meant to apply casually. I had prepared nothing, and I did not submit a language score.

The next working day, a reply came. Academic Affairs said I had to provide a language score. The CET I had submitted was not accepted.

I was a little disappointed, though I knew I probably would not go anyway. I had been preparing for this zhuanshengben for so long. How could I give that up?

Then April came. We finished the exam, and a classmate and I planned a trip.

During the trip I received an interview invitation from MU, though by then I had assumed my application had gone nowhere.

So after the holiday I told my mom I wanted to sit the IELTS, just to try.

I did not know what I was walking into. A student who had only just reached the CET-6 baseline, wanting to get IELTS to 6.0 in a month.

All I remember of that month is working like crazy, getting up early and staying up late, doing papers, memorizing material, practicing speaking.

In mid-May the zhuanshengben results came out. I had been admitted to a public university. I remember my mom was so happy. I had gone to private schools all my life, and this time I had finally gotten into a public one!

You ask if I was happy? I suppose I should have been. Wasn’t this the goal I set for myself three years ago, when I entered junior college?

But I still could not accept it. I kept feeling this was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

García Márquez said, “Living is for the telling.”

We are not telling the days we have lived. We are telling the days we remember.

Years from now, will I be able to tell of twenty-one? Will I be able to tell my golden age…..

So I tried even harder to get away…. I thought I needed a new place to reshape myself.

Later, a week before the exam, I received a conditional offer from MU.

I ran to the kitchen, excited, to tell my mom. Then came the 50,000-yuan deposit to hold the place.

All my mom asked was, “Do you think you can go?”

I hesitated, then said, “I don’t know. I only know I will try as hard as I can.”

I only needed the language score to enroll.

Then I sat the exam as planned. The days waiting for the score were anxious.

That afternoon at two, I opened the mini program. The status had finally changed to “Results released.”

I tapped in. A huge 6.0 sat in front of me.

I yelled without thinking.

Looking back now, all of it feels too dramatic.

I am sitting in MU’s computer lab, writing this.

In this time I have met many people, and also a senior who has been very good to me.

I do not know my future. I also do not want to imagine what it would have been like if I had gone, as planned, to that other school.

But one thing I am sure of.

In this moment, my soul feels free.

From here to anywhere.