My hometown is far away in Moscow.

Train 003 19

The playground was deserted, with large snowflakes dancing in the biting wind. Hu Yi wrapped his coat tighter around himself and trudged through the thick snow toward the low wall at the edge of the playground.

Just as he was staggering along, a sudden, furious shout came from behind him from the head of student affairs: "Hu Yi! Get back to class!"

Hu Yi was startled and quickly turned around to look, only to find that the head of the teaching department who had rushed after him had turned into a strange blond-haired, blue-eyed man. Without thinking twice, he climbed up the wall in three quick steps and jumped down.

With the ground seemingly just below his feet, yet his body appeared to float in mid-air, unable to touch the ground. Hu Yi felt a profound sense of unease, frantically pawing and kicking with his hands and feet, but finding no foothold. Just as he was gripped by fear, the sound of Yu Quan's singing suddenly drifted through the blizzard. As the melody slowed, the originally high-pitched male voice grew increasingly deep and eerie:

I will cherish every smile and every cheer.

Surpassing myself... I shine in the future... My dreams are becoming clearer and clearer.

Every footprint is a brand new beginning.

"Someday... I'll make you... see... how much... I have... no..."

Hu Yi suddenly opened his eyes, reached out and pulled off his headphones, groped in the darkness to turn off the Walkman next to his pillow that was about to run out of power, and turned his head to look out the window.

He was currently in a hard sleeper compartment on train number 19, an international train from Beijing to Moscow, stopping at 52 stations and taking six days and seven nights. By the starlight outside, he could vaguely see that the train was traveling through an endless primeval forest.

They had been traveling through the towering trees for two days, and they still hadn't left the forest. Just how big was this forest? Hu Yi stared blankly for a while, then picked up his watch from the small table beside his bed and checked the time: 6:30 a.m. Beijing time. He stretched his legs, which had been curled up for hours, and carefully sat up, arching his back.

This was the fourth day since the train departed. The sleeper berths were short and narrow, and Hu Yi, who is 1.85 meters tall, found it very uncomfortable to lie on such a small bed for a long time. Moreover, there was another girl in the compartment, so everyone had to sleep fully clothed. It was mid-October, and the weather was still a bit hot when they left Beijing. The lack of showers on the train further reduced their sleep quality.

A tightness ran through his body; although he had just woken up, he felt even more tired than before he went to sleep. Hu Yi got up, grabbed his cigarettes and lighter, gently opened the compartment door, and walked through the narrow train aisle to the connecting area between the carriages.

The air here is fairly fresh. Hu Yi stretched, leaned against the wall, lit a cigarette, and, accompanied by the clattering of the train, recalled his dream. He couldn't help but chuckle at his reflection in the train door. He was at the age where he would get annoyed by his parents' nagging, but being away from home didn't bring him any melancholy; on the contrary, he felt extremely excited.

The decision to study in Russia was made officially a month after the college entrance examination. Although his mother reluctantly listed many alternative countries, Hu Yi's family was only slightly better off than an average working-class family and did not have much savings. Even if they sold everything they owned, it would be difficult to afford to send him to study in a developed country.

So after repeated discussions with his parents, he finally chose the Moscow Automotive and Highway Institute recommended by the study abroad agency. The tuition and accommodation fees were less than two thousand US dollars per year, and with living expenses and other costs, three thousand US dollars a year would be enough.

At the time, three thousand US dollars was equivalent to about 25,000 yuan, roughly the annual salary of an average dual-income family in the city. Although young Hu Yi was quite irresponsible, he had already developed a vague understanding of the value of money. He knew that his parents had to scrimp and save and rely on the financial support of both sets of grandparents to barely support him through his studies.

Thinking of all this, Hu Yi suppressed his excitement, a faint sense of apprehension creeping into his heart: once he got there, he had to change his high school habits and study as hard as possible, so as not to waste the tuition fees. He exhaled the last puff of smoke, stuffed the cigarette butt into the ashtray on the wall, returned to the private room to change the batteries in his Walkman, curled up his legs, lay down on his side, and drifted off to sleep again.

When Hu Yi opened his eyes again, it was already broad daylight. He vaguely heard a rustling sound, and when he turned his head, he saw Yu Feifei sitting cross-legged on the opposite bed, eating bread while flipping through a beginner's Russian textbook.

Yu Feifei is a tall girl with fair skin. Her personality is as gentle as her eyebrows, which are of suitable thickness. Her hair is slightly longer than the short, neck-revealing hair that is common among high school girls. Her willow-leaf eyes are slightly long. Her features are not particularly outstanding on their own, but they are quite pleasing to the eye when paired with her oval face.

"Working so hard so early in the morning?" Hu Yi propped himself up and yawned sleepily.

"Hehe, I'm hungry, I'm getting up to eat something." Yu Feifei smiled shyly and pointed out the window: "Look, it's snowing."

"Snow?" Hu Yi leaned closer to the window, and sure enough, a few snowflakes were drifting down from the sky outside. "Snowing in October? Where are we?"

"The next stop seems to be Novosibirsk." Yu Feifei put the bread and books aside, got up to tidy up the bed, and then sat down to stare blankly out the window.

"Siberia?" Hu Yi recalled the romantic descriptions of this frozen land in novels and movies, and couldn't help but feel a little excited. He leaned on the small table and tried to look into the distance.

It was a desolate wasteland, with nothing but the gradually thinning trees. He lazily withdrew his gaze, stood up to stretch, and then realized that his upper bunk was empty. Just as he was about to ask, the door to the private room opened, and Li Baoqing, carrying a washbasin in his left hand and a bowl of freshly made Master Kong beef noodles in his right, squeezed in with a smile.

"Awake? Want to eat? I still have some instant noodles." Li Baoqing had slightly dark skin, small eyes, a big mouth, broad shoulders, a thick back, and a somewhat fleshy face. He was a little shorter than Hu Yi. He had trained in javelin on the school's track and field team in middle school and was very strong. He was a rather honest and conscientious sports student, kind-hearted, and a bit dull-witted. He was very polite to everyone and always had a simple and honest expression on his face, never smiling or speaking.

"I'll go wash up first." Hu Yi shook his head, took out his washbasin from under the bed, draped a towel over his shoulder, and walked out of the private room with his toothbrush cup.

As the sun rose, it was breakfast time, and many compartment doors were open, filling the train with the rich aroma of various flavors of instant noodles. The journey of the past few days had left everyone exhausted. Several middle-aged passengers sat or stood in the aisle, their faces haggard, staring blankly out the window with expressions of utter despair. Hu Yi quickly washed up in the cramped restroom and returned to his compartment.