[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981":3,"chapter-that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-chapter-52":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","That Year, the Flowers Bloomed in 1981",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2294470,4489,"Chapter 52: Chapter Fifty-Two: I Wanted to Take It Easy, But You Guys Just Won","that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-chapter-52",52,"\u003Cp>Li Ye’s final exams went smoothly enough,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>because after the first exam, he went to find Teacher Luo and accused Director Yao of trying to poach students.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The director of instruction at County No. 2 High, Tang Feiyu, rode his bicycle over in a flash,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>then pulled Director Yao aside, chuckling and joking about something—anyway, he disrupted the proctor’s duties and spared Li Ye the sight of him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the exams ended, the school prepared to close for the holiday, waiting only for the results to be posted before everyone went home with their report cards.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Students who did well would be praised by their mothers and enjoy a joyful New Year.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But for those who did poorly? Who knew what kind of punishment—mental and physical—they’d face.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During the two days waiting for results, Li Ye saw several students crying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because after exams, everyone always compared answers—and the more they compared, the more they got wrong, until they finally broke down.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Eighteen- and nineteen-year-old boys cried like children, both pitiful and absurd to watch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In this era, students’ minds were simple; in their lives, there were no King of Glory or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds to vent emotions,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>no distracting action teachers—only studying and passing exams, and when that obsession was shaken, the emotional turmoil ran deep.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Back then, sudden emotional shifts often led to mental trauma and serious illness—far from rare.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But within the eight-member group, the atmosphere was surprisingly good.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I got all three of those questions right—don’t believe me? Look at my final answers.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I got two right, but that one... how did I mess that up?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Calculating it up, I got about 55 points correct, but didn't write them on the exam paper.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I got about 60... add in the estimated score from the paper, and it’s 360... that can’t be right!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The questions were a bit easy this time—probably meant to boost our confidence by lowering the difficulty...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Dayong, Hu Man, and others were also comparing answers; though they didn’t match Li Ye’s near-perfect scores, they all felt pretty good—even disbelieving.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After all, 360 points on the college entrance exam would already guarantee admission to a junior college, and with bold choices, even a regular college.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But after carefully observing Xia Yue and Jin Shengli for two straight days, Li Ye had a different take.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“These exam questions weren’t easy—those few have been frowning for two days straight.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The afternoon after the exam ended, Director Tang of County No. 2 High’s instruction office, homeroom teacher Luo, and several subject teachers walked into the remedial class one.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Yue hurriedly told the students in the front row to move to the back and share benches with others so the teachers could sit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Director Tang stepped onto the podium and whispered to Xia Yue: “Go get Zhuang Hongxing from Class Three.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Yue rushed off and soon returned with a student with premature gray hair, seating him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Cough, everyone’s here! I’ll announce a few things.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Director Tang’s voice rang out: “The purpose of this county-wide mock exam is to assess your hidden potential, so the questions were deliberately harder—don’t lose confidence just because your scores are low.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Below the podium, Xia Yue, Jin Shengli, and others immediately looked relieved.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Hu Man, Han Xia, Fu Yingjie, and others exchanged glances, their eyes anxious.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Especially Jiang Xiao Yan—her face turned deathly pale, sweat breaking out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【The questions were harder? How could they be harder? Not... too hard at all!】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“This exam was designed to gauge your hidden potential so we can better guide your college application choices in a few months,”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Director Tang continued on the podium: “You should know that every university has limited enrollment slots each year—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>for example, last year, Peking University admitted only thirty-some students from our province, and Peking Foreign Languages College only forty-some.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“If everyone rushes to apply to the same school, you’ll end up clashing—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>so we’ll hold more mock exams to fully map your true scores and coordinate with sister schools to make the best application choices.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Ye understood: Director Tang wanted students with similar scores across the county to spread out their applications, increasing their chances of admission.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whether this method worked, Li Ye didn’t know—but the college application system in the early eighties was truly bizarre.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Unlike today, where you apply after seeing your scores—or even after the exam—you applied before taking the college entrance exam at all.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That meant candidates submitted their applications before even sitting for the exam, leaving them no chance to estimate their scores.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This made admission wildly uncertain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some students performed exceptionally well and got in with scores dozens of points above the cutoff.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Others performed poorly and failed miserably, watching classmates they’d always outperformed get accepted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, some overestimated their abilities and applied too ambitiously, or were too timid and wasted their scores.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In short: guess blindly, and pray for luck.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example, in the early eighties, new students at Qinghua and Peking University had score differences exceeding a hundred points—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>meaning a 550 and a 450 could both get in. Was that fair? This was a national exam!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The only basis for applications was your ranking in school performance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this time, compiling a city-wide ranking was impossible,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>so County No. 1 and No. 2 Highs had teamed up to create a county-wide ranking to give everyone a clearer sense of where they stood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Cough, quiet down—I’ll now announce the top twenty students in our school’s exam.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Twentieth place: Yang Shugao, 271 points.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Nineteenth place...”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Eleventh place: Li Dayong, 294 points.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>「..........」\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Ninth place: Qi Meijuan, 301 points.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Yue had turned around three times already, staring at Li Dayong.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In her mind, Li Dayong was a student ranked outside the top thirty in remedial class one—sure, he might ace a few subjects, but his total score shouldn’t have cracked the top twenty.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though Director Tang didn’t say it outright, the top twenty were clearly the ones needing to “coordinate applications with sister schools”—the students most likely to get in.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Those outside the top twenty had slim chances.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Li Dayong scored 294—so how much did Hu Man get? What about Wen Leyu?】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Yue grew anxious and glanced secretly at Jin Shengli, who was watching her with equal tension.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How many of that isolated eight-member group had a shot at college?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hu Man was a strong student—Xia Yue knew that. Wen Leyu didn’t need mentioning—just her English alone could lift her score by thirty or forty points.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Right now, it looked like Li Ye’s group would have at least three in the top twenty, with two in the top ten.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This... was unacceptable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Fourth place: Xia Yue, 316 points.】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Director Tang called Xia Yue’s name, her heart sank, then filled with bitter resentment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She had always believed she was the top student at County No. 2 High.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jin Shengli might have seemed slightly ahead, but he was already on his third year of remedial study,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lu Jingyao had written to Xia Yue saying students like Jin Shengli had exhausted their potential—further progress was nearly impossible.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only someone like her—experienced in the exam, solidly grounded, with huge untapped potential—was most likely to get into college.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【How am I fourth? Am I three ranks behind Jin Shengli? And... I lost to Hu Man and Wen Leyu?】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Xia Yue hunched over, head down, staring fixedly at her hands, her nose tingling, something threatening to spill out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Losing to Jin Shengli, she could accept—but losing to Hu Man? Unthinkable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>They’d recently screamed at each other, even insulting each other’s parents—now losing to her? Absolute humiliation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But just as this thought formed in Xia Yue’s mind, she heard Jin Shengli’s name.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Third place: Jin Shengli, 318 points.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The entire class erupted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everyone turned to stare at Hu Man.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Last time, Hu Man had been top of remedial class two, transferred to class one because of it—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>now, the two class champions had finally clashed head-on?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Director Tang didn’t stop the chaos below, but continued announcing the last two names.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Second place: Zhuang Hongxing, 321 points.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“First place: Jiang Xiao Yan, 345 points.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The class fell silent—then exploded.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Who? Jiang Xiao Yan?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Jiang Xiao Yan is first? How is that possible?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“345 points? That’s enough for a junior college!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Pfft, last year, Zicheng Normal’s junior college cutoff was 335.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So she can get into university?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Not necessarily—she used to be worse than us, probably just got lucky this time.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yeah, definitely just lucky.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The class buzzed with chatter, but no one noticed Li Ye’s killing glare.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Dayong, unnerved by Li Ye’s cold stare, squirmed on his bench like a bear,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>then leaned over with a forced grin: “Bro, I didn’t make the top ten.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Ye’s expression didn’t change—but Li Dayong read his eyes clearly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>【Didn’t I tell you over and over to hold back? Didn’t I tell you to take it easy?】\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Li Dayong’s broad, round face twisted into a knot, half crying, half laughing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Brother, I was almost swept into Qingshuihe, but who knew they... were no good at all!”\u003C\u002Fp>",1518,"2026-06-20T05:04:59.129Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","847fb428645e221750cfefe36462f82ad0050dfa92b5257d649447e01f76ddd9","that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-chapter-53","that-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-chapter-51",884,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthat-year-the-flowers-bloomed-in-1981-cover.jpg"]