For many years, a banned book has been privately circulated among Cambridge University students: the title page of the book reads the following sentence: "if u slip, u will still have 3 seconds to live"

For many years, a banned book has been privately circulated among Cambridge University students:

The title page of the book reads the following sentence:

"if u slip, u will still have 3 seconds to live"

(If you are not careful, there are only 3 seconds left)

For more than a hundred years, there has been a mysterious student club at the University of Cambridge in the UK: its members never act during the day, and the outside world does not know their true identities. However, when night falls, people will find their dexterous figures on the exterior walls and roofs of some buildings.

These people are agile and can climb to the top of a certain college without the help of any professional tools. For them, climbing the school building at night was a huge pleasure. This is the famous "night climb" club at the University of Cambridge.

For "night climbers", climbing the exterior walls of some colleges is only a little harder than using ladders. Beginners use these buildings as practice places before challenging some more difficult academys. It's a bit like practicing on Scottish Highlands first and heading towards the Alps. "Night Climbers" never use ropes or any auxiliary equipment when climbing walls, so some people have been injured over the years - some are more of bad luck than poor technology. Fortunately, no one has ever died.

Night Climbers come from the "Night Climb" club - a group officially registered at Cambridge University and has a long history like other student clubs. It may be a bit exaggerated to call it a club, but they have been passed down one by one, and their organizationality is not inferior to any other Cambridge community. Since they only operate in the dark, their members often claim to themselves under pseudonyms and the outside world does not know their true identities, so this society is quite mysterious. "Night Climbers" are by no means those students who have nothing to do and spend their time after the bars are closed.

This book of Night Climber rarely appears on mainstream platforms, and the Cambridge school is even more secretive about it. There is no author in this book because everyone involved is the author. This is the secret and adventure of the students. As the book says, "the student who is hard to make a living in the school". The excerpts from today's tweet come with the last chapter of the Chinese version that was finally released after 80 years, like a farewell letter to youth. There are no more teenagers, but everyone has the memories of teenagers.

It's time to say goodbye

The rest of the thing now is to say goodbye. Let our figure disappear into the night of love as gracefully as possible. Sublime and funny are often only a thread in time and space, and now we are standing on that line. We no longer have to climb the drain pipes and exterior wall grooves. The youthful years that have not yet grown up, just like the kindergarten period in my memory, will gradually fade in our memories, and it is time for us to say goodbye.

The French have a saying: First love is the only true love. This sentence is about the first love, but it may be more suitable for somewhere in the first love. Each of us is nostalgic for a place in our hearts, and love it more than elsewhere. This place may be his alma mater, his birthplace, his current home, or his spending a holiday with someone. He may not be able to give a reason to favor this place, but it is there, time dilutes other memories, but it is still as new.

travels through the turbulent waves of the times, and certain specific memories can never be washed away. After tides, it still stays where it is. There are some things we can tell people, and there are some things we keep in our hearts, but no matter what, we will always remember these things. They are invisible milestones in our journey to life. They are always hidden, and we don’t even pay attention to it, until at some point, a light illuminates them, as if sunlight shines on the island, allowing us to see it, and it feels both far and clear. Or maybe, there is a corner hidden in our hearts that only we know but not others.

No matter what it is, each of us has something worth remembering in our hearts. Think about it, we realize that love is infectious and can spread spontaneously.We may fall in love with a city because we have loved one, or fall in love with a city we are in love with. Simple things can lead to unpredictable results, and there is often a strange connection between things and results. Simple love, if hot enough, may blur the focus of love, and this love will continue until we fall in love with everything around us passionately.

Cambridge is the love in our hearts. Thousands of young students are at a sentimental age, and every year they have to experience the same life experiences. But everyone has their own personality and will have their own way of accepting these things. Their memories of Cambridge may be that they gathered together for three or five old friends, or that they received a beautiful report card from Zhou Zhou and Yueyue’s hard study, or that they were carnival on the football field, or that they were early morning coffee in the cafe, or a night party with beer binge drinking, or a hilarious 21st birthday party. However, this is not the case with our memories of Cambridge. In our memory, Cambridge has countless drains and lots of exterior grooves and spires, which is a place for us to take risks. We will think of those nights we spent with our friends, in which we integrate into the night together and observe this world that does not belong to us with our eyes.

Picture/Climber is climbing from the groove of the Eagle Door exterior wall to the top of the new courtyard corridor

Now, it's all over. When night falls, we will sit on the armchair next to the fireplace, wearing comfortable slippers, holding a book in our hands. When we need to go out, we will put on polo shirts and black sneakers, yawning while thinking about going back and continuing to sleep. While studying at night, we no longer want to stay up to an hour and finish the next chapter. In fact, there are many new things in this world waiting for us to conquer, and we must be ready at all times.

The future is smiling at us and sending invitations to us. It is waiting for us. We should win its care. The future will not tolerate people who are not enthusiastic about life. It requires us to devote all our body and mind, so we will have fewer and fewer memories of the past. We almost no longer look back and experience the past. Now that it is time to say goodbye, from yesterday to tomorrow, we will put down this book and answer a few questions that we have never asked ourselves before.

First of all, why do we start climbing at night? Is it an irresistible adventure instinct. Do we treat our lives as dice to have the pleasure of gambling with our destiny? Is it to imitate people who are better than us, and we follow them whatever they do, so as to think that we will catch up with them? Is it because that stimulating fear that attracts us? Or is it purely because the animals on their bodies are looking for an outlet for release?

The correct answer is obviously not the last one. The previous answers may all be desirable, because human motivations are more complex than the strangest compounds. The main reason for starting night climbing may be to improve your self-discipline, but it soon becomes very enjoyable. Opportunities are also one reason.

htmlOne autumn more than 0 years ago, we walked slowly on the Cambridge campus and felt desperate because of our mediocrity. At that time, we were not interested in anything. Even simple things are difficult, and even the simplest tasks are difficult for us to complete. At that time, we had just skipped the tutor's class because we felt it was too troublesome to go through the entire campus to attend classes. Our lives have reached the point where we are eating and waiting to die. We have completely lost interest in life and urgently need a huge change.

We stoke the last bit of energy of our heart and swear to accomplish the most difficult things we can think of. We no longer want to be depressed by a lot of boring trivial matters in life. We want to re-enter life, but not in a humble and silent way, but by doing something big, as the opening remark of life. This idea is the only hope in our hearts. If you think about this in your heart, you feel that life will be easier. Exercise a self-disciplined personality and make it easier to succeed in doing things.But what should we do to achieve this goal? That was the darkest period of our lives.

picture/Are you a good person or a bad person? Or to put it another way: "Come down, or I will beat you down, come down!"

And at that moment, we raised our heads and saw the spire of King's College Chapel . Isn't this the answer we want? Although we knew that climbing the chapel was interesting at that time, we were always afraid of heights. Neither psychologically nor physically, I have reached the level of climbing. I have only a strong desire, that is, I will never want to be idle again. If we can do this, we should be able to overcome the fear of heights. In this way, we began our night climbing career.

Many climbers may have started climbing for the same reason. It is the easiest way to overcome your personality flaws. When you don’t start climbing, your heart may be filled with fear; but when you really start climbing, you will see yourself slowly overcoming your fear. When you reach a certain height, your vision will also expand, you can see the world around you and see yourself more clearly. Imagination has also been developed. Climbers will find that they have become an indispensable member of the entire climbing team. For someone who loves the sport, this stimulation will only benefit him and it will not hurt him.

The problem is, if we often feel fear when climbing, why do we still like it? This question is really hard to answer. Partly because of a sense of accomplishment, partly because of a stimulus of taking huge risks, although we subconsciously know that the danger is very small. The climber would keep saying to himself in his heart: "If something like this or that happens, I will go down." However, he knew that this would not actually happen. The handrail may break occasionally, but the main support will never break when climbing. The dangers imagined in your mind are often much greater than the actual danger.

The stimulation and pleasure felt during climbing is probably due to this sense of crisis. A more primitive sense of fear is a kind of protection for oneself. When danger approaches, the mind will become sharper. This instinct accumulated and passed down from the daily lives of human ancestors was activated in the climbers. When we seem to lose something, we feel that it is so precious.

For climbers, they are like standing on the edge of the abyss. The possibility of falling or falling or falling is slim, but climbing on the edge of the building has to make him think like this. He couldn't help but think of what would happen if he walked forward. He was shocked again when he realized how late it was to realize the possibility of this. The sun will still shine on the earth, and the waterfalls will still roar. Climbers will suddenly realize that perhaps it was the first time in their life that they felt like this: how friendly the sun is, how fresh the green trees and grass are.

There is a kind of fear that almost turns into love, that is the fear that climbers enjoy. In a paradoxical noun, this is a brave fear—it loudly declares its existence, but it is not an insurmountable obstacle for climbers who want to overcome it. The climber enjoys this fear because he knows he can overcome it.

Finally, we might ask ourselves, can the positive impact of climbing for climbers last long? Judging from our precocious personality, we believe that this influence is lasting.

After a difficult climb, the excitement on the climber's face often can only last for two or three days, but after this excitement gradually disappears, there will still be a lingering feeling in his heart. Because you need to use your imagination in a lot and often during climbing, your imagination has also been trained for a long time. The personality is no longer as casual as before, but becomes planned. No longer always thinking about what you will do, but think more about whether you can do it and whether you can do it well. Each goal is accomplished, the next goal will be easier to achieve.

Now, we sit in the armchair by the fireplace, smiling while recalling our past in Cambridge. Really happy.Over the past few weeks, we have felt as good as college, and it feels so easy to get out of the house, and before that, we have gone out so few times. We took photos together, climbed together, cheered together, drove more than 50 miles to Cambridge at night, night after night. We drove back before dawn, hedge passed by our eyes, wheels rolled across every corner, everything was in control. Moonlight is like water, and this world sleeps in the night. We recall our companions who have poor climbing skills and strive to climb upwards in easy climbing places; we recall our companions who have good climbing skills and win our admiration in difficult climbing places. We comrades who fought together in those years know each other very well. Yes, it's really fun.

Occasionally, we temporarily put down the book and add firewood to the fireplace, but we feel a vague uneasiness in our hearts. The days now seem to be too comfortable. The outdoor night is as paint as paint, and it seems to make us move incredibly. The moon in the sky also smiled, as if she wanted to tell us that the world she saw was actually very big. We sat on the chair and just moved. Is it the power to act or the powerlessness to act for their calls? Cambridge is right there, over an hour’s drive away, and the roof of Cambridge is calling us.

When we don’t want to act, the wind blows the windows harder, as if mocking our hesitation: “You lazy people, life lies in action. Sitting by the stove all day is to stop life. Take out the polo shirt you used to wear and put it on and go out. The dark night and the wind have always been your friends, don’t abandon us. Let’s take you to see some secrets, just like we used to, let’s have another party.” The strong wind continued to shake the windows and lure us out. When we don’t want to go out, it changes its tone again, accusing us of cowardice and accusing us of lack of passion for life. Its accusation reminds us of the uneasy soul of our past, and its accusation is like giving us a better self.

It has used up all kinds of methods and finally achieved its effect. We began to doubt ourselves and developed all kinds of great fears, but we didn't know what it was. We looked at the car fenders, our eyes wide and round. At this time, my old friend came to the room, and we looked at each other and laughed as usual. Others can't know what we are thinking deep in our hearts.

We have entered one era and entered the next era. When we close this book, what we close is thirty years of time, the years have passed until the past becomes longer than in the future. However, there are other successors to the climbing career. At this moment, maybe a dozen climbers were climbing the Cambridge building. They don't know each other and it's unlikely to meet each other. They are in groups of three or three, adventures there, while also looking for themselves. Inadvertently, they will also find what we have found, which is a love for Cambridge architecture and climbing, and a love for the thrill of night and darkness.

Until then, when the strong wind blows a piece of paper on the street and blows it to the roof, they will also sincerely love it. On that piece of paper, perhaps also carries the stories of lumberjacks in Canadian lumberyards, as well as the stories of sunshine and rivers. This kind of love will become tolerant, not even words can be expressed, and not even reason can be understood.

related books

"Cambridge Night Climber"

Whipple Snaiss

Xia Yang Translation

The gates of each college will be closed at 10 o'clock in the evening, isolating the simple and quiet college life from the outside world. A group of people started to act...

This is a fun guide on how to climb the buildings within the University of Cambridge. The author is Noel H. Semmington and his friends who have experienced climbing events. This book consists of fifteen short chapters, and selects several of the most representative climbing locations at Cambridge University. It uses a first-person narrative tone, supplementing the climbing logs of previous generations and photographers' video materials, and records the stories of a group of climbers in the early 20th century.They gathered together because of their hobbies, risked losing their degree, freedom and life, broke the serious rules of academic holy land, and climbed various challenging buildings on Cambridge campus. What youth and extreme sports collide with is not out of control, but the joy of conquering fear, the tempered personality, the friendship of mutual trust, and the spiritual growth gained through the years of confusion.