Chapter 38

What’s wrong?

After his wife hung up the phone, Ji Fu finally spoke up.

“...This already counts as bullying,” Ji Mu said, then gave it a grim verdict after recounting the incident.

She was usually low-key and down-to-earth, unlike the district chief’s wife—that was just part of supporting her husband’s public image.

But that didn’t mean she had no temper.

Her children were her Achilles’ heel.

She didn’t mind if classmates’ families occasionally took small losses, but seeing her son constantly bullied made her utterly unbearable.

“It’s not that serious!” Ji Fu frowned, thinking: “You know your son—he drove a sports car straight to school, which triggered all the trouble afterward.”

This conflict was probably started by your son too, only to be slapped back in return.

Maybe it’s not all bad.

It’ll save him from being clueless about his place, thinking he can skip school just because he’s good at racing.

Without the advantages his family provides, which create barriers for most people, what’s his racing talent worth?

He’s only just started senior year—if this setback shocks him into realizing his mistakes and starting to study hard, it’s better than failing the exam and having to repeat a year, or worse, giving up completely.”

“...” Ji Mu had nothing to say.

She knew her husband had always prided himself on retaking the exam after failing, studying day and night with his hair tied to the beam and a needle pricking his thigh—and now, seeing his son suffer, he saw it as his son beginning to walk his own path to success.

But he never considered: can today’s children be compared to those of the past?

What if her son just collapses and never recovers?

When her son was brought home by his younger brother, she immediately rushed over to ask him gently, but Ji Yangyang gave a vague reply and walked straight into his bedroom.

Tonight, he’d been hit hard.

The pain of having your dream crushed by reality—how could anyone understand?

The world doesn’t revolve around individual will.

The next day.

The second half of the class placement exam proceeded as scheduled.

After the afternoon science exam ended, the whole school came alive—some checking answers, others playing around, and still others gossiping.

Huang Zhitao approached He Chen, who was refusing to attend evening self-study and was preparing to leave school, hesitated repeatedly, then finally asked: “He Chen, can you please not let Ji Yangyang speak up on stage like that?”

“Sure!” He Chen looked at Huang Zhitao’s face, smiled, and nodded. Before she could process it, he left campus.

“What did he say?” Qiao Yingzi sidled up, wrapping her arm around her stunned friend: “Did he refuse?”

Ji Yangyang and He Chen’s racing incident had spread last night, but everyone was too busy with today’s exam to start talking about it until now.

“He didn’t say a word—he agreed...” Huang Zhitao still couldn’t believe it.

“That’s brilliant!” Qiao Yingzi was also stunned, then praised: “A verbal agreement has no real binding power—whether he keeps it depends entirely on his personal integrity.”

Even if He Chen agreed, if Ji Yangyang can’t overcome his own psychological barrier, it’s better for him to just step up and accept defeat outright.”

That’s a tough hurdle for someone as proud as Ji Yangyang.

And he’s also giving you a favor—imagine how Fang Hou would feel if he found out; he’d probably start brooding again.”

“Is it really that calculated?” Huang Zhitao gasped: “Could he just not be that petty?”

Qiao Yingzi burst out laughing, leaving Huang Zhitao speechless.

At that moment, Fang Yifan appeared as usual, popping out from nowhere with a grin, greeting them as if nothing had ever happened.

The two friends immediately dropped the subject, teased Fang Yifan about his thick skin, then asked how his exam went, worried he’d fall behind and not be in their class anymore.

“I think I did really well,” Fang Yifan puffed out his chest confidently: “Don’t believe me? Think about the last multiple-choice math question—it was so hard, none of you got it right, but I did. Doesn’t that prove something?”

“You just got lucky,” Qiao Yingzi and the others teased, but still hoped their childhood friend would outperform himself and stay in their class as always.

“Just wait and see!” Fang Yifan was utterly confident.

Scores were quickly graded and posted in the main hall of the teaching building; everyone rushed over to check their results.

The most eye-catching, of course, was the top thirty listed at the very top.

“Number one! My little brother Lei’er is amazing!” Fang Yifan spotted his cousin Lin Leier ranked first in the accelerated class and immediately shouted.

Others turned to look with envy and surprise.

In school, top-scoring geniuses still held serious appeal.

Sure enough, this outsider was a genius—he’d even pushed down Qian Sanyi, the former district top scorer, who now had to settle for second.

Qiao Yingzi and the others could only fall further back.

But that wasn’t the most shocking part.

When Ruan Liuzheng walked over, she first spotted her own name in the accelerated class, counted down to the 21st position, and was just feeling pleased when her deskmate Xia Xue nudged her to look lower—there, at the third-to-last spot, was He Chen’s name. She froze in disbelief.

Even though it was third-to-last in the accelerated class, that meant he was ranked 28th overall in the entire grade!

For He Chen, who had always been a “middle-of-the-pack” student in every high school exam before summer, this improvement was absurdly extreme.

The key point: she’d worked herself to exhaustion and only got 21st, while He Chen, who hadn’t studied at all this summer, skipped evening self-study, went to bed early and woke up early, suddenly shot up to just a few spots behind her.

Would he overtake her in the next exam?

What happened to our deal: “You handle being beautiful, I handle earning the money”?

Ruan Liuzheng’s emotions turned painfully complicated; she stared fixedly at He Chen’s name on the accelerated class list.

“Impossible! How could this be!” Fang Yifan and the others finally snapped out of their shock over Lin Leier’s sudden rise to first—and completely refused to accept He Chen’s meteoric rise.

Then Fang Yifan started pushing through the crowd, checking class by class—his name wasn’t in any of the regular classes, until finally, in the foundational class, Qiao Yingzi and Huang Zhitao spotted it right away.

“Last place? Fang Yifan, didn’t you say you did well?”

Fang Yifan fell silent, biting his fingers, especially as he stared at Ji Yangyang above him and heard his childhood friend Qiao Yingzi mock them as “two lost souls destined to suffer together”—he couldn’t accept it.

Normally, he’d just laugh it off.

But now, with He Chen’s equally irrational ranking standing right beside his, his heart sank.

Worse still, with this ranking, he’d definitely have to report to the foundational class—while He Chen became his goddess’s classmate.

The feeling of your enemy inching closer to your goddess—how could anyone understand?