For two consecutive weekends, Zhou Xiu spent her time in the library, studying until her brain felt like it was going to burst.
When she returned to the Xi household, she ran into Xi Shaoyuan, who had just come back from outside. He was dressed in sportswear, his body steaming with heat, and his forehead was drenched in sweat, which was pouring down like water from a faucet. He kept wiping his face, but the sweat just kept coming.
“Wait, Zhou Xiu,” Xi Shaoyuan called out to her.
His gaze fell on Zhou Xiu, noticing her slightly pale face.
He reached into his backpack and pulled out a brand new test booklet with a yellowish-brown cover. The name “Mr. Wang” was prominently displayed on the cover.
Zhou Xiu was taken aback.
This was the test booklet she had wanted for a long time. Not knowing Mr. Wang’s question style or the scope of his tests, she had been studying aimlessly, feeling like a headless chicken. Her brain was still throbbing from all the cramming. Zhou Xiu tiredly rubbed her temples.
“Take it,” Xi Shaoyuan said, offering her the booklet.
Zhou Xiu looked confused. She couldn’t understand why this wealthy young master was suddenly being so kind.
“Consider it an apology, alright?” Xi Shaoyuan said lazily.
Zhou Xiu shook her head and sincerely declined, “I don’t need it.”
He ignored her refusal, unzipped her backpack, and stuffed the test booklet inside. “The difficulty of the competition class exams is too much for you to handle. I was wrong before, okay?”
He quickly added, “I’m sorry. Let’s just forget about that incident.”
Still in a daze, Zhou Xiu walked back to her room. She rubbed her aching head and pulled the test booklet out of her bag.
Then she casually tossed it into a corner.
…
Another week passed.
On Wednesday, during the math competition class, Zhou Xiu had her pencils, ruler, and pen neatly arranged on her desk. Even in the half-hour before the test, she was still engrossed in her book.
Qi Yaguang glanced at Zhou Xiu, who was sitting in the corner, frantically studying.
Seeing Zhou Xiu’s desperate attempts to cram, Qi Yaguang felt a bit of the resentment in her chest dissipate.
Class monitor Xu Haobo reminded Zhou Xiu, “Last-minute cramming won’t help.”
“Since you’re planning to switch to the biology class anyway, you don’t need to work so hard. Give others a chance.”
The students around them chuckled.
The biology class next door seemed like an easy ride—lots of experiments and memorizing but not much else. If the extra points from the competition hadn’t been cancelled, they might have considered joining the biology class too.
Ten minutes before the test, Qi Yaguang collected everyone’s bags and textbooks and placed them at the front of the room.
She noticed that Zhou Xiu was still reading her book and smirked.
Only students who were struggling would try to make the most of every second.
Qi Yaguang watched Zhou Xiu’s focused study session, feeling a bit puzzled.
Could it be that Zhou Xiu was fooling the students of Class 24 with this facade of diligence? Only ignorant students would believe that someone who studied like this could actually do well on the test!
After all, the threshold for math competitions was high. Students without natural talent were always left out. Hard work and effort didn’t count for much in the face of competition.
Zhou Xiu glanced at Qi Yaguang but didn’t respond.
It wasn’t until Mr. Wang walked in with a stack of test papers that Zhou Xiu closed her book and put away all unrelated items.
Mr. Wang’s exams were always different from other teachers’.
Confident in his ability to craft challenging exams, he would only distribute the test papers at the last minute. No one knew what the questions would be until the very moment the test began.
If you didn’t take his class seriously, you were likely to crash and burn. Even if you did take it seriously… well, you could still crash and burn.
Only students like Xie Cheng could handle Mr. Wang’s quirky style.
The nature of math competitions was unpredictable and erratic, very different from the style of the college entrance exams. In other words, if you could handle Mr. Wang’s tests, passing the provincial competition would be no problem.
Once the test papers were handed out, Zhou Xiu looked at them for a moment before starting to write. This time, there were no multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank questions—only proofs.
There was no chance to guess or gamble on the answers.
As the test papers were distributed, a sense of despair spread throughout the classroom.
The two class periods flew by, and the bell for the evening self-study session rang.
The top students, exhausted from the test, packed their bags and headed home, murmuring among themselves:
“Mr. Wang must be trying to weed out the slackers with this test. It was brutal.”
Normally, if the test had a balanced distribution of points, everyone could demonstrate their true abilities. But with difficult questions, more than a few students would end up with low scores.
Maybe… the new student really did make Mr. Wang angry.
In some ways, Mr. Wang could be very stubborn and direct, with a peculiar temper.
The students from the Winner Class glanced sympathetically at Zhou Xiu. They hadn’t been classmates for long, and soon they might part ways.
No more chances to see Zhou Xiu continue to show off.
But in reality, Zhou Xiu hadn’t shown off much in the competition class. After joining, she blended in like a regular student, so ordinary that it was as if she had accidentally wandered into the math competition class and would soon find herself back where she started.
Maybe Class 24’s grades were just too low. When someone with slightly better grades appeared, they stood out more.
A student from Winner Class who was friends with Hua Xu sent her a message.
“Your desk mate might have bombed the test.”
After the exam, Zhou Xiu calmly packed her pencil case.
She was about to put her thermos into her bag when Qi Yaguang suddenly snatched it away.
Qi Yaguang looked at the thermos, which was so worn that the paint was peeling off, and slowly read out loud: “Hope… Project, or something?”
Could this be a thermos from Project Hope?
Qi Yaguang stared at it as if she had seen a ghost, then put it back down. She glanced at Zhou Xiu—her shoes, her clothes—nothing special.
They seemed to be brand-name items, so Qi Yaguang averted her gaze.
At Hua Xu’s house.
Hua Xu received her friend’s message and took off her headphones.
“Huh? Did Xiu Xiu really bomb the test?” She couldn’t believe it.
To her, Zhou Xiu was incredibly strong. No matter what she did, she was always confident and composed. Hua Xu had never seen anyone as smart as Zhou Xiu.
But if she bombed, she bombed.
Poor Xiu Xiu.
Yu Qingyan watched as Hua Xu invited everyone to play games together. After a few rounds, she noticed that Hua Xu had switched to studying math, with the large screen displaying “Rules of Logarithmic Functions.”
Yu Qingyan was at a loss for words.
She couldn’t help but wonder if Hua Xu had tricked them into studying under the guise of playing games.
Hua Xu called Zhou Xiu, “Xiu Xiu, are you free? Come over to my place. Yu Qingyan and a few others are here.”
Normally, Zhou Xiu would politely decline such invitations. But after all the stress from preparing for the test, she felt like her mind was finally relaxing, like her feet were sinking into soft cotton.
Zhou Xiu thought for a moment and said, “Alright.”
Hua Xu sent her the address.
Just then, Xu Qing finished cleaning up the lab equipment. After receiving Hua Xu’s request, he turned off his screen and walked over to the neighbouring class, knocking on the door.
“Zhou Xiu, I’m also going to Hua Xu’s house later. Do you mind sharing a ride?”
Zhou Xiu shook her head.
Xu Qing and Zhou Xiu walked downstairs together, heading out of the school and down the street until they found his family’s car.
He opened the car door for her. This was Zhou Xiu’s first time sitting in Xu Qing’s car.
Only after the heater was turned on did Zhou Xiu’s frozen brain start to catch up. She was going to Hua Xu’s house, but had she been too impulsive to get into Xu Qing’s car like this?
Xu Qing asked, “Was the test difficult? I heard it was really tough.”
Zhou Xiu thought for a moment, then honestly replied, “It was a bit challenging.”
Xu Qing didn’t ask any more questions.
…
In the office of the 11th-grade department.
After collecting the test papers, Mr. Wang didn’t leave work. Instead, he started grading them at lightning speed, getting angrier the more he graded, which only made him work faster.
Just then, the biology teacher, who had just finished teaching the competition class, returned to the office and stretched, ready to pack up and go home.
Mr. Wang, already in a foul mood, couldn’t resist picking a fight. “You look just like a dumb rock today.”
“And you walk like one too.”
The biology teacher’s face gradually filled with confusion. “What??”
He respected Mr. Wang, who was older and more experienced, but this was too much. Was Mr. Wang just bullying him for being an honest person?
Mr. Wang finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and started yelling, “Your class has plenty of students. Why are you poaching from ours?”
“Don’t you have any shame?”
The biology teacher was baffled and outraged. “Hey, that’s not—”
When had he ever poached Mr. Wang’s students? Could he even if he tried? Wasn’t it always Mr. Wang who aggressively snatched their top students?
Wait, no, that’s not right either. In reality, any student who had the chance would fight tooth and nail to get into Mr. Wang’s class. When had there ever been a reverse flow? The biology teacher from the Rocket Class had no idea why he was suddenly being blamed.
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