Not Yours, Not Today, Not Ever

Qiao Yueshu is dying when she learns that she did not fail the university entrance exam at all. Her husband took the admission letter that came for her and handed it to her younger sister. She dies with that. She wakes up years earlier, before any of it. The first thing she does is correct her exam application. The second is to walk to the town post office with the pocket money she has saved over six months, twenty yuan, and push it across the counter along with a forged admission letter. If someone comes in a week from now to collect a letter addressed to her, she says, give them this one. The clerk hesitates over the money and then takes the envelope. A week later she collects her own real letter, for the school she chose this time, and goes. Her husband, who thinks she is sulking about nothing, sets off for the university with her sister and the paper in his hand.