Chapter 164: Showing Off in the Classroom

Damn, how did it get off-topic?

Yu Tongjie broke out in a cold sweat. A score of 38 shouldn't have appeared on his paper. He had clearly poured his heart and soul into it—why, why was it so unfair to him?

What an idiot grader!

Can't recognize my own masterpiece? Can't feel the logical beauty between the lines? A complete set of standard gaokao templates, dancing in shackles from start to finish.

I nearly broke my back twisting around, and I got 38?

Although he knew that for the unified Chinese exam essays, graders habitually suppress scores. A paper that could be full marks gets pushed down to 58, one that could be fifty-something gets pushed down to the forties.

If there's a flaw, they magnify it; if there isn't, they pick one out of thin air.

That way, when students take the gaokao, their Chinese scores end up a little higher than usual.

But this 38 doesn't look like score suppression—that's the kind of score you get for going off-topic. There wasn't a Chinese class today either, so did the essay prompt get off-topic? It was clearly about pers.

Yu Tongjie was numb, unable to believe his Chinese score was only this much.

Demotion to a lower class wasn't likely. With a total of 545, he still held a place in Class 3. Strictly speaking, he should count it as progress.

And even taking a step back, he had a good dad.

Evening reading began, and the students in the class one after another stood up to start reciting chemistry equations.

Only Yu Tongjie sat dazed at his seat, staring blankly at the Chinese essay. His mind was foggy, the sense of defeat obvious. He hadn't even broken 550—could he still win?

The unified exam papers were generally harder than the usual monthly tests and the last diagnostic. He had even joined a group chat to buy "materials," which included some of the actual questions.

It was a group only "people with connections" could enter, with fewer than twenty members in total. Inside, they peddled materials mixed with real exam questions, at a steep 400 yuan per subject.

To be safe, Yu Tongjie bought materials for math, English, and chemistry. It wasn't that he didn't have enough money to buy "materials" for every subject.

It was that he felt there was no need at all to buy biology—Zhong Qing was way too diligent.

If his grades suddenly shot up, she would definitely notice. He had to admit, the biology teacher in his class was truly a weirdo.

Teaching was just a job to her, yet she took it far too seriously—like one of those stubborn, rigid female college students.

Her popularity was entirely propped up by her looks; swap her out for a middle-aged woman and she'd get roasted to shreds.

There was also no need to buy physics—you couldn't muddle through that one. Buying physics would lead to endless trouble; he couldn't just keep buying it next time. Yu Tongjie didn't consider himself that kind of person.

Buying chemistry was fine—the chemistry teacher had a high level of teaching and deep seniority. But she was pretty laid-back by nature, so she didn't really care about the specific grades of people in the class.

English was a definite must. Those were only some of the real questions, and he hadn't copied too outrageously. He scored 125 in English, which wasn't exactly eye-catching in the class.

Besides, the English subject had an element of luck. Sometimes if you got all the multiple-choice questions right in a row, your score would jump up a notch; even if it dropped next time, it would still be perfectly reasonable.

Math 125—effort plus sweat, reasonable.

Wouldn't buying Chinese be a waste of money?

So, he bought partial exam questions for three subjects, and ended up with only 545? A result like this, swapped to a normal occasion, might have only gotten him 510, or even under 500.

In that instant, Yu Tongjie felt the world was a little unreal.

On one hand, the pride of climbing into the Olympiad through effort had been shattered; on the other, the all-in cheating method had also failed to reach its goal.

With that, all his efforts had been for nothing.

If he had prepared properly from the start, even with the unified exam's increased difficulty, relying on his usual efforts alone, he could have scored 530~540.

Then what was the point of spending money and going through all this trouble?

Yu Tongjie thought it over for the entire evening reading period, and finally arrived at a reliable conclusion. It was all the fault of that idiot who threw his book! It threw off his rhythm!

Ring ring ring!!!

The evening self-study bell rang, and the chemistry dictation began.

Ma Guojun, while doing the dictation, turned his head to glance at Jiang Nian. He nudged his black glasses up with his middle finger, called out twice, and waited for Li Hua and Jiang Nian to turn their heads.

Before he could even get the words out, his chubby face couldn't hold it in and started grinning mischievously.

"Jiang Nian, heard your essay got a 38?"

Hearing this, the corner of Jiang Nian's mouth twitched, a bit speechless.

"That's not funny, Chubby."

"Hahaha, what kind of heaven-defying stuff did you write?" Ma Guojun laughed, his chubby face all smiles. "If you're not happy, just say it out and let us have some fun."

"Didn't write anything, just... wrote about persistence." Jiang Nian couldn't be bothered to hide it.

To be honest, writing about persistence was no different from writing about endurance—in the grader's eyes, it was all the same. One glance at the opening, the middle, and the two paragraphs at the end, and straight to 38.

Off-topic, but written fairly neatly, 38.

What the hell.

"Persistence, hahaha." Li Hua laughed along.

It didn't matter if he didn't do the chemistry dictation—after all, this bastard Li Hua scored 96 in chemistry, higher than the score the chemistry teacher got after two whole class periods of testing.

"Get lost, get lost, you ungrateful brat, don't disturb your dad's studying." Jiang Nian was also speechless. He rubbed his face. "Keep yapping and I'll pin you straight to the wall."

Ma Guojun: "???"

Li Hua: "???"

A few minutes later, the chemistry dictation ended. Ma Guojun, while handing in his dictation notebook, asked curiously.

"Jiang Nian, then what's your total score?"

"590."

"Holy shit, not bad. If your essay hadn't gone off-topic, you might've hit 600." Ma Guojun sucked in a cold breath. Li Hua had only just broken 600.

You have to know that in the last diagnostic, Li Hua scored a full 634, and this time he could only manage 604. English could account for at most ten points; the remaining 20 points was the diagnostic's padding.

In fact, Ma Guojun had always treated Li Hua as his exam weathervane.

The unified exam and the school's diagnostic didn't carry the same weight. If you used Li Qingrong as a reference point, you'd end up with nothing at all.

Because Li Qingrong was too strong—every exam was the same for her, the stronger the opponent, the stronger she got.

Li Hua was different. Setting aside English and Chinese and looking at it dialectically, watching the ups and downs of his math and science-comprehensive scores, you could calculate the exam's padding.

Hearing this, Jiang Nian glanced at Lao Ma, then spoke freely in class.

"If you say it like that, I'll have to add a few more points."

Ma Guojun scratched his fat face—he'd always analyzed his grades this way. Last time, he scored 583, Li Hua 634. This time, he got 562, Li Hua 604.

He subtracted 20 points of "water" from his last mock exam's 583, getting 563—almost identical to this exam's 562, meaning he'd stood still.

He didn't dare share his personal "water adjustment" formula with Jiang Nian, so he quietly plugged Jiang Nian's mock exam score of 573 into it, calculating that Jiang Nian should've scored 553 this time.

But Jiang Nian, despite writing an off-topic essay, still scored 590. If he'd been a bit luckier, he'd have hit 600—so a forty-point jump in a month?

Fuck, he's a stone.

"Jiang Nian, you stay in class every noon instead of going home—what are you doing?" Ma Guojun whispered across the aisle, past Li Hua.

Jiang Nian thought he was joking, didn't look up.

"Flirting in class."

Hearing this, Ma Guojun understood—Jiang Nian stayed in class at noon to drill problems. He hadn't noticed before, but now he realized how hard Jiang Nian was grinding.

Some people seem sunny, but inside they're dark. Their sunny exteriors are faked, so the conclusion: Jiang Nian and Li Hua are both "sun-fakers."

Three people in a row? Fuck the grinding!

Jiang Nian saw Ma Guojun's lips moving again from afar, frowning in confusion. It was already dark—why was Fat Baby still on early morning shift?

He nudged Li Hua beside him.

"What's Ma Guojun muttering about?"

Li Hua snapped his fingers. "OK, let me decode that."

He turned sideways, half his body leaning over the aisle to listen closely. Soon he sat back upright, turning to Jiang Nian with a sly grin.

"Nothing. Just cursing us."

"Oh oh, nice." Jiang Nian nodded. "How old is Fat Baby? Still holding grudges like this?"

"Almost eighteen."

"Perfect age for PMS. No wonder he's so irritable."

The people behind them couldn't hold it in—they burst into laughter.

The people in the back raised their heads, staring confusedly at the corner in front, then quickly looked down again.

Sun Zhicheng did well this time—568 total. He guessed five listening questions right in English, and two multiple-choice physics questions too. His luck was insane.

Though still far from Chen Yunyun's score, he'd at least seen a glimmer of hope. More than half a year remained—grades weren't set in stone yet.

The classroom glowed brightly; the front desk's leg-tapping rustled his matcha-colored pants. Night wind poured in through the window, slipping down his collar to his nape—cold and cool, like a woman's hand.

Outside, the sky had turned completely dark, edged with a faint yellow glow. Everything, Sun Zhicheng absorbed with his eyes, felt with every inch of his skin.

He was utterly lost in it, brimming with confidence for the future.

Suddenly, class monitor Tao Ran walked onto the podium, shaking a list with a rustling sound.

"Cough cough, fill out your scores."

Hearing this, the class erupted—students in front and back began buzzing.

"How many did you get?"

"Hah, I won't say—first you tell me."

"Hey hey, Cai Lang, what's your total?"

Fragile voices wove together, growing louder, finally catching the attention of discipline monitor Cai Xiaoqing.

She looked around, frowning.

"Quiet!"

The classroom chatter gradually faded, but the earlier silence didn't return. Low murmurs still rose now and then, whispering softly like flowing water.

Jiang Nian finished his form and slapped it onto Zhang Ningzhi's desk.

"Here."

"What are you staring at? Take it."

In the brightly lit classroom, Le Zhi snapped back to attention, taking the score register from the student in front.

"Oh oh."

The moment he held it, his heart still churned.

This exam, he cheated—bought partial questions from a group of fewer than twenty people. His score jumped dramatically, but the problem was—

He accidentally scored too high.

He stared at the draft paper's 521, and it stabbed his eyes—he felt dizzy. He was such an idiot—why couldn't he just stop copying a little more?

Jiang Nian had already transferred to the advanced class. In this class, only a handful scored above five hundred—still a few left over. The top spot now belonged to Zhou Yuting.

Le Zhi smoothed out the dense score sheet and silently prayed: Please let Zhou Yuting not bomb it—if he ended up first, he'd be ruined on the spot.

If you're class number one, you'd better have the strength to match it.

He slowly found Zhou Yuting's name, glanced at her total: 556. He exhaled deeply.

Fuck, scared the shit out of me—thank god, thank god.

Zhou Yuting performed normally—actually, compared to her last mock exam, she'd improved astonishingly.

Le Zhi relaxed, filled in his own score, and thought of a solution: just raise his score for the next exam.

If he could raise his score before the next major exam—the six-city joint test—he could claim this cheating didn't count.

A month, up eighty points—almost no one could do it.

Except Jiang Nian?

He thought silently, frowning deeply.

Suddenly, the homeroom teacher walked in. Everyone in the class looked up at once. Seeing the teacher's grim expression, they all frowned in confusion.

The stock price dropped again?

Le Zhi also instinctively looked at the homeroom teacher at the podium, until the teacher spoke—his first words surprised him.

"Ah, everyone, pause for a moment." The homeroom teacher's voice was deep, tinged with emotion. "I'll take a little of your time to mention a few things."

"First, our classmate Zhou Yuting performed excellently in this exam. Her total score is 556, ranking first in the class. Let's give her a round of applause."

"Wow!!"

"556? Damn, that high?"

A burst of astonishment erupted in the class, followed by thunderous applause.

"Second, the second-place student is our classmate Le Zhi. His total score is 521—a very auspicious number—and he's made tremendous progress. Let's also give him a round of applause."

The class instantly grew livelier; everyone turned sharply toward Le Zhi.

"Damn, Brother Le is even stronger!"

"Never would've guessed. No wonder I've seen Le Zhi stuck at his desk every day—secretly making a comeback, huh!"

"Yeah, straight to second in the class."

Amid the teasing, Le Zhi's smile was strained, his head buzzing.

"Third, regarding class promotion." The homeroom teacher's voice boomed. "Several slots in the Olympiad class have opened up. Students from parallel classes will be promoted based on scores and willingness."

"In our class, only Zhou Yuting has met the promotion standard. As for Le Zhi, it's unfortunate—but don't lose heart. Keep up the momentum, and you can still catch up to the Olympiad class."

Hearing this, Le Zhi felt a chill run through him. Zhou Yuting promoted?

So the top spot in the class was his now?

Shit.

"Uh, originally there was one opening in Olympiad Class One, but" the homeroom teacher paused, "the situation has changed. There may be some adjustments."

"Zhou Yuting, come with me to the office."

At this, Zhou Yuting stood up from her seat and replied clearly, "Okay."

The whole class watched as Zhou Yuting and the homeroom teacher walked out of the classroom. Faint fragments of their conversation drifted down the hallway, occasionally punctuated by a single word.

Class Three?

The gossipers, like little trumpets, whispered to those beside them.

"Zhou Yuting's going to Class Three? That's Jiang Nian's class, isn't it?"

"Olympiad Class Three? I remember last night there was a couple arguing by the dorm cafeteria entrance—they were from Olympiad Class Three, too. Word is Ji Ming (Head of Senior Year Group) was furious."

"So… is it possible she gets promoted first, then transferred?"

Hearing this, Le Zhi involuntarily shut his eyes in pain. He remembered who had said Ji Ming had a niece at Zhennan High School.

In summary, the cheat was a one-time memory bread, forcibly filling in the basics. (One-time only.)

The continuous cheat only granted one use per day: "Immunity to Fatigue," restoring physical strength and energy.

Then, in Zhang Ningzhi's dream, he solved a few extra math problems.

No powerful study cheat was written—cheats either gave money… or were spent on other things.