Chapter 12

Xu Lian was stunned upon hearing their conversation; could she really have that kind of background?

Su Cheng's head buzzed, then she lightly bit her lip; the only thing she had more of than Su Li was Jiang Xiangnan, and now Su Li actually had someone by her side too?

She picked up the water on the side, took a sip, and said, "It's not like Jiang Xiangnan can't get into Shengde."

Xu Lian also knew Jiang Xiangnan could get in, but him being able to go was one thing, and the fact that Su Li's new boyfriend also came from there was another.

They had all previously felt that Su Li's life was just going to be like that.

Once a bright, sunny little princess liked by everyone, she then fell from the Key Class, becoming a student in a regular class just like them, or even worse off; at least they didn't live amidst rumors, and Su Li's last Monthly Exam score was even worse than her Grade 1 Final Exam, so they were all looking forward to seeing her continue to drop in the Midterm Exam, and then live a life far inferior to theirs in the future.

But her mindset seemed better now; she wasn't like before, frequently keeping her head down with not a single friend around, and now she had people with her, and she could still smile just like in the past.

It was widely acknowledged that Su Li's smile was beautiful and highly infectious, making anyone who looked at her feel better.

Xu Lian felt a sourness in her heart; it turned out Su Li was different from them, the little princess was still a little princess, and even if she fell for a moment, there would be others protecting her, letting her live well.

Su Cheng harbored a sense of unwillingness in her heart; Su Li had already lived a good life for over a dozen years, and after just a few months of decadence, her life was good again? Although it couldn't compare to her own at the moment, Su Li had never actually lived the life she had before.

Why was it so unfair?

Su Cheng took the water and walked toward the gymnasium.

Because the sports meet was about to start, the physical education teachers weren't holding classes anymore, letting the students who signed up practice their own events.

The School Basketball Team that Jiang Xiangnan was on had a game in November, and he had started extra training now.

She had to go see him; she adjusted her mindset, as Jiang Xiangnan wouldn't like to see her looking unwilling.

Just as she entered, a burst of excited screaming came from inside; Su Cheng stood at the entrance and looked over, only to see the boy wearing a black short-sleeved shirt dodge everyone trying to intercept him, reach under the basket, and leap fiercely—the ball went in, and the moment he jumped, his lean, muscular waist was revealed.

The girls around screamed even louder.

Su Cheng looked at the popular Jiang Xiangnan, and the bit of unhappiness in her heart was instantly forgotten, followed by a sense of pride.

The person who liked her was Jiang Xiangnan, whom all the girls in the school liked.

At this time, in Class Thirteen.

Twenty minutes had already passed; the English teacher stood on the podium, looked at the entire class, and said, "Are you done yet?"

A huge crowd in the class was still buried in their writing, howling one by one.

Su Li heard the howling, glanced at the test paper, and thought this kind of paper should be fine for her and Zhao Jiu.

The English teacher for Class Thirteen was different from the English teachers of other classes; she was very strict, and upon hearing their howling, she said in a stern voice, "Usually, none of you take English seriously, writing homework for other subjects during English morning reading, and now you know it's hard? The problem is, I don't see you doing well in other subjects either."

"For this short quiz, people in the Key Class finished in ten-plus minutes, or twenty minutes at the latest."

"Right now, there aren't even a few people in our class who have finished."

"You guys don't even look at the gap!" The teacher walked down; Su Li was biting her pen, looking at a physics problem with the quiz paper covering it; she sensed something, quickly pulled the paper straight, pretended to still be writing, and then pressed an arm over the edge of the paper.

Su Li looked at the paper bulging because of the exercise book underneath, and as Teacher Yu approached, she buried her head a bit lower; Teacher Yu's eyes shouldn't be that sharp, right?

Teacher Yu walked to the back, and Su Li breathed a sigh of relief, starting to check her own paper; at this moment, there was a sound of chairs scraping the floor behind her.

Su Li and Chen Xue turned their heads, only to see a hand reach out and fiercely snatch Zhao Jiu's paper; Zhao Jiu was stunned for a moment, subconsciously pressed down on the paper, then looked up and met Teacher Yu's gaze.

Gouzi shuddered and let go of his hand.

"Zhao Jiu, doing other homework, and doing it so openly? At least learn from Su Li and use a paper to cover it."

Su Li quickly turned her head back.

Teacher Yu swept a glance at her, then looked at Zhao Jiu; after Zhao Jiu finished, he didn't even cover it, just put it to the side.

Qian Lei saw this, his eyes wide open; he was still struggling with the front side, and Zhao Jiu had finished both the front and back?

"Zhao Jiu, when you have time, study more Chinese; your English essay for the entrance exam went off-topic."

"I've taught for so many years, and this is the first time I've seen someone go off-topic on an English essay." Teacher Yu swept a faint glance at Zhao Jiu, then looked at Zhao Jiu's quiz paper and said, "Alright, stop writing, let's go over the problems."

She took Zhao Jiu's paper and started explaining; by the time class ended, they had only finished the first side of the paper, and a large group of students had dense notes written on their papers.

The bell for the end of class rang at this moment, the teacher handed the paper back to Zhao Jiu, and Qian Lei quickly took it for him.

"I won't explain the rest; those who did the second half, find Zhao Jiu to check your answers, and by the way, ask him how he did it."

"Everyone else, count how many you got right."

Teacher Yu left, and the group of people in the class was surprised; he actually got them all right?

A group of people immediately surrounded Zhao Jiu; Qian Lei pressed down on Zhao Jiu's paper and copied the answers at lightning speed: "Slow down, I'm checking first."

Zhou Xinxin held her own paper and said, "Qian Lei, you're correcting from start to finish, what are you checking! Just copy it directly."

Qian Lei shook his head: "No, I've decided, I want to be a top student, starting with checking answers... Hey, don't crowd."

Chen Xue turned around, unable to stand him: "Can't you check later!"

Zhao Jiu was closest to him!

Qian Lei didn't even lift his head and said: "Don't I know you guys? Once the paper goes out, can it come back in one piece?"

Chen Xue couldn't deal with him; she thought about it, Su Li came down from the Key Class and did it so fast, her accuracy rate should be quite high too.

She pulled Su Li's over; in this situation, it was easiest to check answers when there weren't many changes, unlike Qian Lei, which was no different from copying it all over again.

She rummaged through the quiz paper that Qian Lei was hogging, managed to pull out a small half, and then compared it with Su Li's; going all the way down, they were exactly the same.

"Su Li, you got them all right too!" Chen Xue exclaimed excitedly; as soon as Liu Jiajia heard this, she immediately sat back in her seat and patted Chen Xue's desk: "Quick, quick, quick, let me record the answers for the back. I'll try to finish writing before evening self-study."

The people surrounding Zhao Jiu were surprised; although they knew the gap between the regular class and the Key Class, after Su Li fell, her score in the last Monthly Exam was ranked in the teens in the class, and they had always thought the gap wasn't that big; after all, during the Monthly Exam, the first place in their class had squeezed into the top one hundred.

It turned out that after Su Li recovered her state, she was this strong?

Su Li looked at their gazes, then looked at the physics problem she had spent a whole class period on and only managed to get to the second sub-question, feeling that they had overestimated her.

"Su Li, why is this one A!" Chen Xue was confused.

Su Li: "..."

How could someone who had been working for ten years still know how to do these problems?

She had just glanced at it and picked it.

How would she know why?

"Feeling?" Su Li said. Chen Xue's mouth opened slightly; if that was the case, it was useless for them to know the answers, as the person next to them couldn't provide an explanation.

"Forget it, let's check the answers first, we can ask Teacher Yu about the wrong ones later." Chen Xue lowered her head and began checking answers with Liu Jiajia, making corrections with a red pen. Once finished, Su Li's test paper was taken away.

Chen Xue and Liu Jiajia looked at the incorrect questions there, attempting to find the logic themselves.

Behind them, Zhao Jiu watched the classmate who had taken the paper and felt pressure for once. Although he had just felt like he was holding everyone back a short while ago and should be proud of the current situation, the higher their expectations were, the worse he and Su Li could not afford to perform on the Midterm Exam.

Zhao Jiu resigned himself to sitting properly and continued doing practice problems, circling the parts he didn't know or where his memory was fuzzy to make review easier. As it turned out, after one chapter, half of it was blank.

Zhao Jiu: "..."

He leaned back in his chair, rubbed his forehead, and spun his pen with his fingertips. He turned his head to the side and discovered Qian Lei, who was lowering his head like a thief, his side profile looking somewhat excited. Zhao Jiu's gaze drifted downward, only to see him typing.

"Did you guys do that test paper from the Key Class?"

"We all got them wrong by a ridiculous margin, but Zhao Jiu and Su Li actually got them all right!"

"They are simply not human!"

After Qian Lei finished showing off, someone replied: "We did it yesterday, I got half wrong. There's someone in a regular class who got them all right? Even our class representative got over a dozen wrong."

Qian Lei acted like his dad was a big shot while showing off in the group chat.

"We didn't expect them to be this amazing either."

"Clatter"—the pen in Zhao Jiu's fingertips slipped and hit the floor. Qian Lei looked at him, bewildered and full of admiration.

Zhao Jiu bent down to pick up the pen. Was Qian Lei trying to get him killed?

During the running exercise after the second period, Zhao Jiu and Su Li stood in the crowd. Zhao Jiu had one hand in his pocket and asked, "Is the probability of making it in time high?"

Su Li looked at the sea of students in front: "We aren't even sure if that's the right method."

In other words, the probability of the two of them going back before the Midterm Exam was a bit small.

Nearby students looked at the two calm people. What were they talking about?

Zhao Jiu pondered for a moment. Should he take Su Li and transfer back to Shengde first? And come back after the Midterm Exam ended?

Su Li looked at Gouzi's back, guessed what he wanted to do, and said, "Don't give up hope."

"We will make it in time."

Zhao Jiu: "..."

Consequently, after the running exercise ended, Su Li ran back to the classroom, grabbed two small notebooks full of key points, and secretly used a phone to take pictures of a few questions.

Zhao Jiu leaned against the door frame and looked at his secretary: "Are you ready?"

Su Li: "Ready."

They had P. E. next, but the sports meet was about to start, so the probability of the P. E. teacher holding class was low. Even if he did, they could still squeeze out time to study.

Su Li stuffed one of the small notebooks into Zhao Jiu's hand: "I'll give you the physics one first."

These were all supplementary materials for the exercise books, but Su Li used to think the things in these small notebooks were useless, so she never looked at them. Now, they were being put to use.

Zhao Jiu flipped open the small booklet, reviewing as he read. Su Li had memorized the questions in her head and could continue grinding through problems without looking.

The two walked along the road. Since the running exercise had just ended, the few students who were strolling back to the classroom slowly felt the pressure mount the moment they saw Zhao Jiu.

Are they crazy?