Editor's Note

Pave the way with youth, let ideals shine. Starting today, this newspaper will launch a character reporting column called "Youth Chronicles" to tell the growth stories of young people from all walks of life. Our journalists will uphold the mission of young journalists, delve into the youth, improve their writing style, and strive to uncover good stories that belong to this generation of young people.

Welcome all sectors of society to recommend young people to us. Contact email: zbszqb@163.

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Zhang Xinchen's drawing: Cheng Can (images generated with AI assistance)

From many details, Zhang Xinchen's room doesn't look like a 22-year-old girl's room - the furniture is pitifully few, there are no decorations, and even the sheets and bedding are gray. A suitcase by the bedside contained her few clothes throughout the year.

What really fills this room are some things that Zhang Xinchen cares more about - taking care of her paralyzed grandmother and the trivial daily tasks that come with it.

Grandma Fang Weiling is 72 years old this year. For over four years, Zhang Xinchen has been studying with her grandmother. She went from vocational school to vocational school, and then entered undergraduate school. Over the years, she had to make breakfast, chat with her grandmother, and help her take a shower every day. For this reason, she always walks a little longer than other classmates and wakes up two or three hours earlier.

Now, she is a 2025 student majoring in Automation at the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Huainan Normal University, Anhui Province. After singer Joey Yung learned of her story, she sent a VCR specifically to encourage her: "I hope you continue to be the light of your grandmother and the brightest star in your life

Over the years, Grandma has always felt guilty for dragging down her granddaughter, but Zhang Xinchen feels that this path is also where Grandma accompanies her, and Grandma has never been a burden. She never felt like she was "suffering", and even feared that she would "not be able to withstand" the honors she had gained over the years.

Due to family changes, Zhang Xinchen lived with her grandparents in Feidong County, Hefei shortly after her birth. After her father was laid off, he worked in Jiangsu for many years and returned home two or three times a year. In 2021, my grandfather passed away due to rectal cancer. Shortly after, my grandmother suffered a sudden cerebral hemorrhage, which left her with hemiplegia. Only the right half of her body was able to move.

At that time, Zhang Xinchen was studying in a vocational school at Hefei Industrial School, and she took on the responsibility of taking care of her grandmother. My aunt and grandmother who live in Feidong County will come to lend a hand. Wiping her body with a towel is considered taking a shower. The two of them gently lifted Fang Weiling's head and wiped it with a wet towel, which is considered washing her hair. Sometimes, Fang Weiling cries and cries out for pain, and the two can only try their best to comfort each other.

Zhang Xinchen once sent his grandmother to a nursing home for a period of time. But she heard that an elderly person passed away unexpectedly due to the negligence of a caregiver, so she made up her mind to take her grandmother home to take care of her. She remembered the day she brought her grandmother home, her mother was waiting for her daughter at the door with a bowl of pigeon soup. Everyone present couldn't help but shed tears upon seeing this scene.

After careful care, Fang Weiling can now walk with the help of a cane. Later, Zhang Xinchen came to Anhui Urban Management Vocational College to study drone application technology. Auntie has to take care of her grandson, so the burden of taking care of her falls on Zhang Xinchen's shoulders alone.

Zhang Xinchen wakes up at 5 o'clock every day to make breakfast. A cup of milk is the standard configuration, and eggs, corn, pancakes, Steamed dumplings, fried dumplings, Wonton, etc. are replaced. She commutes by electric bike every day, leaves at 6 o'clock, and rushes home after school.

When she was in elementary school, Zhang Xinchen learned how to cook. Her long-standing habit is to set two half-hour intervals between alarms for herself, and the brief "wake-up call" after the first alarm goes off is the "reward" given to herself by this young person who wakes up early.

The challenge of taking care of grandma is not just waking up early. Hemiplegic in bed, grandma's temper is unpredictable, and she loves to get stuck in trivial matters. What to eat "can become a topic of contention between two people.

Although there was only one dish for lunch, Zhang Xinchen tried her best not to repeat it every day, such as braised hairtail, celery stir fried shredded meat, and small river shrimp stir fried eggs... She introduced the latest recipes to the reporter of Zhongqing Daily and Zhongqing Net and murmured, "Delicious.

Zhang Xinchen bought elastic and skin friendly pajamas for her grandmother, but she always thinks they are expensive. She wants the clothes she saw in her phone video, but Zhang Xinchen feels that the quality is not good. Usually, she buys tools to help her grandmother cut her hair at home, and her grandmother feels that she cuts it like a pot top.

Grandma walks back and forth at home every day, hoping to get rid of her crutch soon. When Zhang Xinchen is not at home, she always worries - "What if grandma falls down alone?" She repeatedly reminds grandma, "Be sure to pay attention to safety when walking

Grandma sometimes stays up late due to being upset or frequently wakes up at night. Zhang Xinchen complained, "Just mess with me

Due to frustration and pressure, Zhang Xinchen also thought of "why not just give up reading". But she remembered the words of Wang Ping, the homeroom teacher at Hefei Industrial School: "It's okay if you don't have money to go to school. I'll help you out. You must continue to move forward. One more choice means one more opportunity

The four words' continue upward 'were also engraved in Zhang Xinchen's dictionary of life.

In November 2024, she and three teammates participated in the equipment manufacturing competition of the World Vocational College Skills Competition. She goes home at night to take care of her grandmother, and stays up late studying competition rules, sorting out equipment debugging and troubleshooting skills.

During the competition, Zhang Xinchen was responsible for PPT presentation and command, while other teammates were responsible for dismantling and assembling drones, hovering, emergency landing, and other operations. In the end, they won a bronze award.

With this achievement, Zhang Xinchen was exempted from the entrance examination and enrolled in Huainan Normal University for undergraduate studies. Before reporting, she applied to the school for off campus rental housing and rented a two bedroom, one living room apartment in the Longquan Village community near the school to better take care of her grandmother.

In the eyes of counselor Pang Qiang, Zhang Xinchen is a person who "does not want to disturb others".

On June 6th, before Zhang Xinchen went to Xingtai, Hebei to participate in an event, both the school and the community expressed that they could find someone to help take care of Fang Weiling, but Zhang Xinchen still hired a caregiver at her own expense. Usually, the school wants to contact hospital experts to come to Zhang Weiling for free consultations, and there are also alumni entrepreneurs and Huainan citizens who want to donate to Zhang Xinchen, but she politely refuses one by one.

Tu Xinyu, a cadre of the Propaganda Department of the Party Committee of Huainan Normal University, once went to Zhang Xinchen's rental house to take a photo of a simple white folding table, which was both the dining table of the grandparents and the desk of Zhang Xinchen. A few days ago, the propaganda department of the school party committee had an "eliminated" small office desk. Tu Xinyu wanted to give it to Zhang Xinchen for her study, but she refused the offer.

Zhang Xinchen calculated that her monthly living expenses are nearly 2000 yuan. She has a student loan subsidy and her grandmother has a monthly retirement pension of over 2000 yuan, barely enough for the two of them to live together.

Regarding Zhang Xinchen's incremental progress, Tu Xinyu will share it as soon as possible. He hopes that his classmates can learn from Zhang Xinchen's character. On the campus of Huainan Normal University, there is the Huainan Good Person Hall, which collects the deeds of about a hundred advanced figures, including the story of Zhang Xinchen, inspiring the teachers and students who come and go.

Zhang Xinchen is the only girl in the class. Class monitor Zhang Jierui said, "She gets along well with all her classmates." Pang Qiang remembered, "Since college, she has never been late, left early, or skipped classes for a day

Usually, Zhang Xinchen likes to flip through the books left by her grandfather or sing Cantonese songs in ukulele. These are all means for her to relieve stress and relax, allowing her to detach from the trivialities of life.

Previously, when living in Feidong's hometown, Zhang Xinchen would settle in with her grandmother at night and go out to ride a mountain bike. The more than ten kilometers of cycling made her feel relieved. "The wind blows on me, and I feel relaxed and free, with only the road under my feet in my eyes.

She thought that with a stable job in the future, she might be able to hire someone to take care of her grandmother and travel with her friends. They've asked me out many times, and I can't pull myself away

In fact, she has many fantasies about the future, and her favorite color is blue. She believes that blue represents the sky and freedom. She also kept a corgi dog named "Coffee" for Grandma. Grandma teased the dog when she was free at home, and the dog would jump on the sofa to let the old man touch his head.

Three years ago, when Zhang Xinchen first brought back her little dog, her grandmother complained, "I'm just a useless person and I can't even make a living on my own. What kind of dog should I keep?" Nowadays, she complains that her granddaughter feeds the dog too late and the amount is too small. When chatting with relatives on the phone, she will proactively mention "coffee".

At that moment, Zhang Xinchen understood that her grandmother didn't dislike dogs, but rather didn't like her 'self at that time'.

Zhang Xinchen also has an insurmountable hurdle in her heart - she didn't see her grandfather for the last time because she was in school. Over the years, she has always wanted to make up for this deficiency on her grandmother.

How long can grandma stay with me? I don't want to have any more regrets, "she said.

Reporter Wang Haihan and Wang Lei from China Youth Daily and China Youth Net Source: China Youth Daily

July 10, 2026 Version 01

(Author: Zhongqing Net)