Chapter 115: Words Written on the Chinese Language Exam Paper

During the first and second periods in the morning, the teacher lectured up front while Jiang Nian pried his eyelids open with his fingers.

Deep blue, shall we just activate it directly?

Forget it, save the love for the afternoon.

It's all his fault—he scrolled through a few TikToks of college girls, maybe cosplayers, last night, and ended up dreaming with constant jolts, utterly ridiculous.

Wait, can you just send me the link to those jeans?

Slap, slap—he smacked his own face; no more scrolling tonight.

It's really not fun at all—TikTok and life alike get yellower the more you scroll.

"Alright, now we begin dictation." A digital voice crackled from Qian Bao's little bee speaker, overly hypnotic with its hiss, "Take out your notebooks. This dictation has ten words and six fixed collocations."

Jiang Nian mechanically pulled out his dictation notebook, heard only Qian Bao pronounce a "c." Dazed and half-asleep, he wrote "coser," then slowly closed his eyes.

He jolted awake suddenly, realizing they were still dictating, and was startled.

"Which one now? Which one now!" Jiang Nian asked frantically.

Li Hua was busy with his cheat sheet and turned his head.

"Third one. How far have you gotten? Coser? You little brat."

Jiang Nian took a deep breath—ridiculous, he'd slept for half a minute and still dreamed. Waking up, his heart pounded hard, his mind unusually sharp.

He had no time to deal with Li Hua; he swiftly wrote down the fourth word. Then he turned to check Zhang Ningzhi's dictation and filled in the first three words.

After dictation ended, he passed the notebooks forward and finally exhaled.

"So sleepy."

The class had just finished dictation, and voices were growing noisy.

During this time, loud talking was permitted and would not be reprimanded.

"Why did you just fall asleep?" Li Hua patted him, curious. "Aren't you usually alert? You never nap in class."

"I—" Jiang Nian could never admit he'd been obsessed with women last night.

Too stupid. He'd get roasted by a jerk like Li Hua.

Switch it up.

"Played a four-character game."

"Love and Deep Space?" Li Hua snapped his fingers.

"Man, you're oddly complicated, Hua," Jiang Nian said flatly. "I want to know—you're roleplaying as the male lead or the female lead?"

"Obviously the male lead—I'm a tall, rich, handsome guy, naturally seamless immersion," Li Hua spouted more nonsense; even passing dogs shook their heads.

Zhang Ningzhi, listening nearby, looked burdened with worries.

During the big break for morning exercises, the autumn air was cool.

The hallway was chaotic, drowned in the stirring march music. Jiang Nian descended the stairs in his school jacket, zipper half-open—admittedly, the uniform was durable.

Since the small-town high school had lax rules, they only issued uniforms for summer and autumn. At fifty or sixty yuan, it wasn't expensive, but quality depended entirely on the thickness of the leadership's family tree.

At seventeen or eighteen, you couldn't look bad in anything.

In this weather, running in a jacket would be hot; not wearing one would be chilly. Only a few brave souls ignored others' stares and came downstairs in short sleeves.

On the third-floor hallway, he spotted Song Xiyun and walked over to ask.

"Not running? Where's Xu Qianqian?"

"We're excused, no need to run," Song Xiyun said, somehow sounding guilty.

Jiang Nian wasn't even a local from Class Four of the Olympiad!

Just some outsider from another class!

"Oh oh, your teacher's really laid-back. Your class gets periods of menstruation once a month and they don't care—but yours is once a week?"

"Our homeroom teacher's a man," Song Xiyun whispered.

"Do you have some misconception about men? I'll post you on Tieba," Jiang Nian said, glancing into the classroom—Xu Qianqian lifted her head from her seat.

Their eyes met, they instinctively looked away, then both raised their middle fingers.

Went downstairs.

By the end of the run, most boys had stripped off their jackets entirely.

Jiang Nian had taken his off the moment he started running; girls, for various reasons—or maybe because they weren't hot—mostly stayed bundled up.

The third and fourth periods were originally math, but the math teacher had an emergency. He swapped with Old Liu on the spot, turning two math periods into two Chinese lessons.

Instantly the whole class erupted—who understands the feeling of two English classes followed by two Chinese classes?

It meant the entire morning was self-study, free to catch up on homework.

"What? These two Chinese classes?"

"Then take a good rest."

The most bizarre thing about this subject was that your score was basically none of your business.

The most forbidden phrase was: "I studied hard, next time my score will definitely drop." You could never understand how someone scored seventy, nor how someone scored one hundred thirty.

Old Liu played it creatively—he knew the third and fourth periods would flow seamlessly into Chinese.

If he taught normally, hardly anyone would listen; some wouldn't even lift their heads until dismissal.

So he simply had the whole class participate in teaching, rotating by study groups.

"Yesterday's test paper—the classical Chinese translation, one section per group, evenly divided. Don't rush. One group at a time, come up and present."

As soon as he finished speaking, the class erupted.

"No way?"

"Kill me—I didn't even review."

Old Liu listened to the class's wailing, his expression as calm as still water. He even sipped slowly from his thermos, then uttered just one sentence to complete a two-level reversal.

"Hurry up and finish translating the Classical Chinese; next class we're watching Aerial China."

The class fell silent for an instant, then erupted in a chorus of "Oh!"

"Hooray!"

"Aerial China! Aerial!"

"Shh, don't shout!" Old Liu looked like he was about to turn into a Xiao Huangdou meme, "It's only third period—do you want me to get dragged off by the grade coordinator?"

The class burst into laughter, then scrambled to translate the Classical Chinese. Some pulled out their Chinese vocabulary book to cross-reference phrases; others debated enthusiastically.

Li Hua scratched his head in desperation, "There's so much in the sixth paragraph—how am I supposed to translate it?!"

He turned his head and saw Jiang Nian pulling out his phone.

"You little rascal."

A quick snap, a quick search—both their problems vanished instantly.

"Awesome!" Li Hua gave a thumbs-up.

He snatched the assigned phrases from Jiang Nian's hands and instantly calmed down. Glancing at the noisy groups around him, he shook his head.

Jiang Nian had just finished marking key points when he noticed Zhang Ningzhi still flipping through the Classical Chinese dictionary.

Honestly, he thought the thing was useless—thick as a brick, rarely used anyway; better to just snap a photo with your phone.

"Can't find it?"

"Mm." Zhang Ningzhi whispered.

"Oh, this word translates to—" Jiang Nian sneakily glanced at his phone again, then gave the answer, even taking time to check the next line.

Groups took turns presenting their translations one after another; when it came to Group Six, Zhang Ningzhi stood at the far left of the podium, next to Jiang Nian.

She stared down at her paper, tense.

In contrast, Jiang Nian was relaxed—because the audience below was even more so. Aside from Group Seven, about to go up, and a few behind them, hardly anyone was listening.

But that was fine—if Old Liu wasn't here and it was just the Chinese rep running things, you could just mumble anything.

Like, "Eight hundred soldiers sprint toward the northern slope."

The translation activity lasted from third period until the first ten minutes of fourth period, then all eyes turned to Old Liu—if he backed out now...

Don't even think about it. Don't even think about it.

Old Liu clearly had no intention of flaking. He turned and said,

"Class rep, come up and turn on the multimedia."

"Oh!!"

The whole class erupted—then was immediately hushed by Old Liu. He delivered a long, roundabout speech, but the meaning was simple:

Be discreet.

Watch quietly. No need to bring the grade coordinator over.

This was probably the most united the class had ever been: someone pulled the curtains, someone stood guard at the door, a few ran up to the multimedia podium.

Zeng You in the front row quietly opened his phone and skillfully dimmed the screen to its lowest brightness.

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The classroom dimmed. Jiang Nian leaned back in his chair, ready to watch Aerial China. Something he'd never bother with on his own became a delicacy in Chinese class.

Sigh, if you don't watch it, you're not Chinese.

Since we're not learning anyway, even Animal World would do.

Zhang Ningzhi seemed distracted. She glanced at the projected video, then stole a look at Jiang Nian—burdened with worries.

Her eyes lowered, and finally she wrote a line on the Chinese test paper she'd just finished. After hesitating, she poked Jiang Nian's arm with her finger, signaling him to look.

Friendly book recommendation: This Celebrity Just Wants More Money

The mercenary of the entertainment industry—prices clearly marked, fair to young and old alike; whether it's the Big Three film festivals and the Oscars, or Baby Bus, you pay, you get what you pay for.