Chapter 2: You

Young Li Luo had a stubborn temper.

For the other four people present, imagining Li Luo apologizing was as absurd as Shao Heqi finally gathering the courage to confess his feelings; Jin Yuting losing weight through action for a month; Zhao Rongjun voluntarily striking up a conversation with a girl; or Ying Chanxi desperately chasing after a boy.

But right now, this very thing had truly happened.

So much so that when Ying Chanxi happily agreed and Li Luo smiled in response, the other three gradually came back to their senses.

"Wait… what's the point of apologizing now?" the vice-class monitor Shao Heqi couldn't help interjecting, "There's less than a day left before the Chinese, math, and history-politics exams—can you even catch up?"

"Yeah," added Jin Yuting, her round face dotted with freckles, "Xixi, he just shoved you to the ground—now just saying sorry is enough?"

"No matter how talented he is, he can't get into Yuhang Fuzhong No. 1 with just one day of review."

"Won't we still have to separate from him then? Why are you even helping him like this?"

Listening to the two classmates speak, Ying Chanxi merely shook her head.

Leaves beside the street drifted in the wind, falling along her hair, then she turned to Li Luo and smiled faintly: "So you know how to apologize?"

"That slap of yours was great," Li Luo gave her a thumbs-up, utterly unfazed by the loud slap his childhood friend had just delivered, even praising her, "It woke me up right away."

Hearing Li Luo say this—and smile so happily—even Ying Chanxi paused slightly in surprise.

The girl instinctively looked down at her own pale, slender hand, wondering: Could this slap really have been that effective?

Thinking this, she lifted her gaze again toward Li Luo, her eyes landing on his other, unmarked cheek.

That glance instantly made Li Luo step back half a pace, raising a hand to cover his side, eyes wide with wariness: "Wait… what are you planning?"

"Hmm…" Ying Chanxi, caught off-guard by her childhood friend's instant understanding of her thoughts, felt a twinge of guilt and looked away, then changed the subject, "Come on, let's go—hurry back and review."

"Tingting, you should head home early too, rest well and relax—don't slack off for tomorrow and the day after."

"Oh, and Shao Heqi, you do your best too."

…

Yuhang City in June was already very hot.

After parting ways with the other three at the intersection, Li Luo walked home with Ying Chanxi.

Ying Chanxi wiped her forehead—no one could tell if she was wiping sweat or secretly drying the tear tracks left behind.

Though she wore only a simple short-sleeved school uniform, Ying Chanxi now radiated a youthful, tender beauty.

Sunlight glinted on her hair tips; a few strands near her ears were slightly disheveled, one falling to trace a graceful curve along her delicate chin.

The two walked straight ahead in silence; Li Luo said nothing, his mind still replaying the events between his post-exam death and his rebirth.

For some reason, though these memories were nearly twenty years distant, Li Luo now recalled them with startling clarity.

He remembered.

In 2014, his parents still ran their small breakfast stall, working from dawn till dusk just to afford his education.

His own middle school entrance exam score was terrible—three points below the lowest cutoff for a regular high school in Yinjiang District, Yuhang City.

If not for his parents leveraging family connections to pay thirty thousand yuan in school selection fees, plus an extra three thousand yuan per year in tuition over regular students, he would have had to attend a vocational high school.

Even then, he never improved in high school; his grades stayed stagnant, but he mastered smoking, drinking, and everything else.

After three years of high school, his college entrance exam results were a disaster.

His parents forced him into a junior college, where he half-heartedly learned cooking, interned at a restaurant for half a month, then quit in despair.

He became a jobless drifter.

Every unemployed young person dreams of being a writer.

So he went to write Online Novels, tinkering for a year or two, and under the guidance of a kind-hearted author, actually gained some traction—earning four to five thousand yuan per month in royalties.

But he only wrote that one book; after continuous failures, he switched to making Short Dramas, struggling in the short-video arena.

He even collaborated with a musician for a while, writing short-video scripts and picking up guitar along the way, learning to play a few little tunes.

Unfortunately, the short-video field soon turned into a blood-red sea; jobless again, Li Luo delivered takeout for a while, then returned to his cooking skills, selling stir-fried rice noodles on the street for several months.

He worked during the day looking for jobs, sold stir-fried noodles at night—barely managing to support himself.

But it was then that his mother fell seriously ill and needed a large sum for treatment.

His father sold the storefront of their breakfast stall and mortgaged their home.

With no money of his own, Li Luo had to beg humbly to borrow from people he once knew.

At the same time, he took a job as a Taobao lingerie store customer service rep, pretending to be a female clerk to chat with customers about styles, sizes, venting about ex-boyfriends, comforting them that their small size was cute too—earning whatever he could.

It was then that Ying Chanxi secretly transferred him ten thousand yuan, and slipped his father another hundred thousand yuan to cover the remaining medical bills.

And then…

And then, everything started over again!

Li Luo turned to look at the childhood friend beside him, took a deep breath, feeling the air swell in his chest, then slowly exhaled.

"Now you're nervous?" Ying Chanxi, seeing his heavy breathing, finally found an excuse to break the silence, unable to help saying, "Before, when I offered to tutor you, you kept avoiding me."

Hearing Ying Chanxi's soft, slightly sweet tone, laced with reproach and helplessness, Li Luo felt a pang of shame.

"I know I was wrong—this is exactly why I'm trying to make up for it now."

"It's the last day!" Ying Chanxi, seeing his attitude had improved, couldn't help raising her voice—but the next second, she immediately checked her emotions, took a deep breath, and said calmly, "Anyway, let's hurry home."

"When we get back, take out your mock exams—first, second, and third."

"I'll go over the mistakes with you first."

The middle school entrance exam in Yuhang City in June had five subjects.

Besides the standard Chinese, math, and English, each worth 120 points, physics and chemistry were combined into a single subject called "Science," worth 180 points.

The remaining subject was history and politics, worth only 50 points, also counted as a separate subject.

Adding the already-completed physical education exam worth 30 points, the total score for the middle school entrance exam in Yinjiang District, Yuhang City, was 620 points.

Last year, the admission cutoff for Yuhang Fuzhong No. 1, the best high school in Yinjiang District, was 507 points.

The lowest cutoff for any regular high school was 421 points.

That means, for Li Luo to enter a regular high school after the middle school exam, out of a total of 620 points, he only has about 200 points to spare.

Ying Chanxi remembered clearly: in the first three mock exams, Li Luo scored 417, 401, and 425 points respectively.

Among them, the third mock exam was relatively easy, barely allowing him to cross the regular high school cutoff line.

So even on the final day, Ying Chanxi hoped Li Luo would review properly.

If he could just memorize a few more formulas and vocabulary words, he might pick up a few extra points and break through the cutoff.

But for Li Luo at this moment, the matter still left him uneasy.

After gradually calming down from the shock of his rebirth, Li Luo began reevaluating his current exam level.

The feeling was somewhat alarming…

But at least in his past life he had attended high school; even if he'd learned poorly, he should still retain some high school knowledge framework—could he not just dominate this level and at least pass the cutoff?

Li Luo muttered to himself, feeling it was still a stretch.

Then he followed Ying Chanxi into Jincheng Community.

Ying Chanxi pulled out her keys, unlocked the building's entrance door, and climbed the stairs to the fourth floor.

She then skillfully lifted a potted plant from the corner of apartment 401, reached beneath the small rug underneath, pulled out a spare key, and opened Li Luo's front door.

Hmm.

Apartment 402 across the hall was Ying Chanxi's home.

401 was Li Luo's home.

But Ying Chanxi clearly knew Li Luo's home inside out; after stepping in effortlessly, she slipped on the pink slippers Li Luo's mother had bought especially for her, and padded into Li Luo's bedroom with a slap-slap sound.

"Hurry up," Ying Chanxi's head peeked out from the doorway of his bedroom, her long hair cascading down like smooth silk, swaying left and right, "hurry, don't just stand there."

Seeing this long-absent scene, Li Luo felt a pang of nostalgia.

Only after Ying Chanxi called him back to reality did he hurriedly enter the house, slip on his slippers, and follow her into his bedroom.

Li Luo's bedroom was simple: a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, two stools—that was all.

Later, during his two years at junior college, his family spent money to renovate the place, making his bedroom much brighter and cleaner.

Now, returning to this slightly shabby and dim little bedroom, Li Luo felt a quiet pang.

But Ying Chanxi gave him no time to dwell; she urged him to pull out the three mock exam papers from his backpack, pull out the Chinese and math ones, and slap them on the desk.

Yet after sitting down, Ying Chanxi noticed the still-obvious palm print on Li Luo's left cheek and suddenly felt a bit awkward: "Does your face still hurt? Should I apply ice?"

"It's fine," Li Luo touched his left cheek; the earlier burning pain had largely faded, "you hit me hard before, and now you're embarrassed?"

"Even though you apologized, you still threw me on the ground—that was disgusting," Ying Chanxi huffed lightly, then added, "I'm just worried your parents will notice and ask questions."

"Just tell them the truth."

"No way," Ying Chanxi shook her head vigorously, "I never hit anyone."

"How can you say that? Didn't you used to pull my ears?"

"If your parents don't know, then it didn't happen."

"Fine, fine—no wonder you're the perfect student, Ying Chanxi."

"Hmph." Only when bickering with Li Luo did Ying Chanxi show this side; yet she quickly returned to normal, tapping the desk lightly with her small hands, "Alright, let's start going over the problems."

…

There are many differences between a weak student and a top student.

But in Ying Chanxi's view, the most important difference lies in how weak students' knowledge of a subject is fragmented—lacking any coherent knowledge framework.

Take math, for example.

It includes modules like real numbers, algebra, geometry, equations, and functions—all interconnected.

Over a semester of dozens of math classes, a weak student might only pay attention to a few geometry problems, learn to solve congruent triangles, but freeze completely at a function problem, feeling as if he's staring at alien script.

He has no complete knowledge framework for math at all.

Now it was the very last day before the middle school exam.

Trying to build Li Luo a complete junior high math knowledge framework in such a short time was like asking a fool to dream.

So Ying Chanxi's strategy was simple.

She skipped explaining the multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, and the final problem of the long-answer section entirely.

After all, by exam day, Li Luo would almost certainly fail those hardest questions anyway.

But for the easiest questions—even if Li Luo had gotten some right—Ying Chanxi would break them down, chew them up, and feed them to him.

In short: forget the hard questions' points; grab every single easy-point possible.

The same logic applied to other subjects.

"Tomorrow's exams are only Chinese, math, and politics-history, and politics-history is open-book, so today I'll focus on Chinese and math."

As she spoke, Ying Chanxi's expression grew especially serious.

But the more she reviewed, the stranger Li Luo's expression became.

It wasn't that, nearly twenty years later, he'd forgotten all these concepts back to his teachers.

It was… he seemed to remember every single one of these things clearly?!

"What's the line before 'My life, tossed and beaten by rain and waves'?"

"My country shattered, wind-scattered fluff."

"My chest swells with layered clouds?"

"Eyes strain to follow returning birds."

"What are the two lines before 'This has always been hard since ancient times'?"

"People have sorrow, joy, separation, reunion; the moon has dimness, brightness, fullness, and emptiness."

"Suddenly encountering a peach blossom grove, stretching hundreds of steps along the bank?"

"There were no other trees in the middle; fragrant grass was fresh and beautiful, and fallen petals scattered profusely. The fisherman found this very strange. He continued forward, wishing to reach the end of the grove..."

"... He left his boat and entered through the opening. At first it was extremely narrow, barely wide enough for a person... There were fine fields, beautiful ponds, mulberry trees, and bamboo groves..."

"... It never came to fruition; soon he fell ill and died. Afterward, no one ever inquired about the path again."

Li Luo was lost in his clear memories, as if a solid-state hard drive had been installed in his mind, and unconsciously recited "The Peach Blossom Spring" in full.

But when he came back to his senses, he realized one thing—

? CO

Even in middle school, he had never fully memorized "The Peach Blossom Spring"!

At most, he had read it through a few times completely, and memorized only the lines frequently tested in exams.

What he had just done was not so much "reciting" as directly "reading" through "The Peach Blossom Spring"!

"When did you secretly memorize it?" Ying Chanxi stared at him in astonishment. "You drag Zhao Rongjun out to play ball every day—could it be he's secretly helping you review your lessons?"

"... " Li Luo, faced with this question, found it hard to explain and fell silent.

"... Fine, you're clever—caught me out."

【Flop Diary】: You can now cast monthly votes during the new book period—it's a crucial metric for the new book rankings. Please support us!