"We have a calculus exam this afternoon," Zhou Li said. "Have you reviewed?"
"Not yet."
"Then what are you going to do?"
"I don't know." Brother Nan also looked troubled. "I'll go back after dinner and look at some problems. I'll keep reviewing until the exam this afternoon."
"You really should review thoroughly."
After all, calculus wasn't like English. There were only a few multiple-choice questions, so Brother Nan's luck wasn't much to rely on.
Zhou Li hesitated for a moment. "Chang Xiaoxiang got some leaked questions from teachers in other departments. I'll send them to you. Take a good look. Failing the exam would mean a lot of effort for the makeup test next semester."
"No need," Brother Nan waved her hand. "Your dorm has Chang Xiaoxiang; our dorm has Mianmian and Qian Qian."
"Okay, just make sure you take a good look."
"I got it, I got it…"
Soon after, Brother Nan began to grumble about Zhou Li's nagging.
They strolled leisurely to the commercial street; it was already half past nine. Zhou Li and Brother Nan walked while contemplating what to eat when suddenly, he spotted a familiar yet unexpected figure in front of a stir-fry restaurant.
"Look," he nudged Brother Nan.
"What?"
Brother Nan turned her head to see Baozi sitting alone at a small table, with two dishes and a soup on it.
"Your Little Cousin is eating so well this early in the morning?" she laughed.
"Yeah."
"Let's go! Let's go and take a look!"
"Uh-huh."
Zhou Li and Brother Nan walked towards Baozi, who was focused on her meal and seemed completely unaware of their presence. As they got closer, they could clearly see the dishes on her table: scrambled eggs with tomato, sliced meat with oyster mushrooms, and a cucumber and preserved egg soup. The restaurant had also served her tea—the cheapest kind of Dian Hong, which had a hint of coarse tea to it.
Truly leisurely and extravagant.
Zhou Li pursed his lips.
Most students weren't wealthy and primarily ate at the cafeteria. They only occasionally dined out on the commercial street, usually needing to invite a group of friends to ensure a variety of dishes while splitting the cost. Otherwise, they might just have braised pork rice or grilled meat rice. Ordering a meal alone on the commercial street was already considered a luxury, let alone two dishes and a soup—the mark of a true local tycoon.
Is this the same Little Cousin who was broke last month?
By now, Brother Nan had crept up behind Little Cousin, giving her quite a start. Then, she grinned and said, "Why did you order so many dishes all for yourself here?"
Regaining her composure, Baozi quickly returned to her indifferent demeanor and explained unhurriedly, "In psychology, this is called revenge spending."
"Did your mom give you money?" Zhou Li asked as well.
"I recently made some money." Baozi glanced lightly at Brother Nan. "Are you two here to eat as well?"
"Yes," Zhou Li replied. "You're eating so well and so much this morning; what will you do for lunch?"
"Not eating lunch."
"Both meals together?"
"Yes."
"Why don't we join you? I'll order two more dishes," Brother Nan suddenly suggested. "Anyway, you won't be able to finish it all. With that stomach of yours, you can only eat half of one dish."
"Um…"
Baozi looked at Zhou Li, then at Brother Nan, her face a mixture of reluctance to agree and embarrassment to refuse.
"Is it inconvenient?"
"Please, have a seat."
So Brother Nan pulled Zhou Li to sit down. She asked the owner for a menu, ordered a 'Sweet and Spicy Chicken' and a 'Dry-Braised Whole Fish,' then started chatting with Baozi about the afternoon exam while they ate.
Baozi was good at math, every sentence bearing the composure characteristic of a top student, making Brother Nan seem like a complete dunce in comparison.
Zhou Li thought the Sweet and Spicy Chicken was delicious.
「An hour later.」
The three of them walked back.
Brother Nan had already made arrangements. "I asked Mianmian to save a seat. Zhou Li, you sit next to me. I'll start reviewing as soon as I get back. If there's anything I can't do, I'll need your help."
Zhou Li repeatedly assured her it was no problem at all.
Then the two resumed their long-planned discussion about buying a car.
Baozi kept a distance of about two meters from them, earphones on, eyes straight ahead, expressionless.
「The afternoon exam began at two.」
Zhou Li only reached the classroom at ten to two and sat in the spot Mianmian had saved for him. About five minutes later, Brother Nan arrived.
She appeared drowsy and listless, her cowlick wilting, prompting Zhou Li to ask, "Did you just wake up?"
"AHH..."
"Weren't you going to review?"
"Right, wasn't I going to review?" Brother Nan mumbled to herself while blinking.
"…So, did you review?"
"Yes, I did."
Speaking slowly, still seemingly half-asleep, she recounted, "I skimmed through a few problems, then that Huai Xu insisted on playing games with me, and as we played, I got so sleepy…"
Zhou Li was speechless.
Brother Nan continued to mutter to herself, "I'm doomed..."
"You still have me."
"What if the exam supervisor is really strict? And I mean, I'm… I've never cheated on an exam in my life. Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if I got caught by the teacher?"
"Did you bring a cheat sheet?"
"I did..." Brother Nan said hesitantly. "I'm just afraid I'll be too embarrassed to take it out."
"Serves you right."
Zhou Li stopped talking to her.
「The exam began.」
Brother Nan received the test paper, looked it over for a long time, and then silently lifted her head, staring blankly at the proctor.
This wasn't a matter of difficulty anymore... Some questions she couldn't even make sense of!
She let out a long sigh and flipped to the other side of the paper.
"Huh?"
Brother Nan blinked.
The proctor standing at the podium stared straight at her. "Don't look around! Focus on your own work, and don't make any noise!"
This teacher seemed much stricter than the one in the morning.
Zhou Li worked on his exam, occasionally sneaking glances at Brother Nan. He was genuinely surprised to see her burying her head in her work. By the time he finished the multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions, Brother Nan had already filled the entire back page with answers to the long-answer questions.
In fact, it was he who was stumped by two major questions that he had reviewed but suddenly couldn't recall.
The two exchanged glances, both eyeing the proctor.
Just then, Baozi stood up, handed in her paper, and left. Brother Nan couldn't help but widen her eyes. "Handing it in so early, how abnormal!"
Zhou Li gave her a blank look.
When the two of them also handed in their papers, it coincided with the peak submission time. Everyone was leaving the room, discussing how tough the paper was, grumbling about the teacher who hadn't missed a single question to test them on, or debating which questions were taken directly from the textbook. Many claimed they were certain to fail, but at least eighty percent of them would later be proven wrong.
"Such a show-off!"
Brother Nan muttered quietly, then asked Zhou Li, "We're not going to fail, are we? Are you confident?"
"Most likely not, but our usual grades seem pretty low."
"Oh, right!"
"It's all your fault for making me skip class."
"Hehe..."
"But if we fail, we fail together."
Zhou Li smiled slightly, glancing at Brother Nan out of the corner of his eye. He saw her grinning foolishly, bouncing around, her cowlick waving. He fought the urge to reach out and touch it, saying, "No exams tomorrow, and it doesn't look like the remaining tests are in large classrooms."
"After this, our two classes will take exams separately."
"So what will you do?"
"No problem, I still have Little Cousin."
"...That's my Little Cousin."
"Oh? Is it?"
"...Take her if you want."
There was no exam on the fifth, only physics on the sixth, and no exam again on the seventh. Life during these days was monotonous. At mealtimes, Zhou Li and Brother Nan would eat together, sometimes inviting his roommates or her roommates. Apart from exams, they mostly found ways to kill time in their dormitories; they wouldn't review their subjects until the last minute. Brother Nan, for example, organized many League of Legends matches between their two classes. Generally, Brother Nan's class lost more often. Zhou Li guessed it might be because she played in every match.
As for the exams, everyone had their own tricks.
They encountered strict proctors, as well as those who didn't seem to care at all—some even ignored blatant cheating. Strangely enough, the same proctor might behave entirely differently during different subject exams.
Usually, proctoring for major-specific courses was very strict.
In the meantime, Brother Nan went with Zhou Li to look at cars.
Brother Nan's criteria for choosing cars were still baffling. She seemed to fancy a domestically-produced car because, while looking at it, her foot slipped. As she was falling, she grabbed onto this particular car to steady herself, and so she decided it was fated to be hers.
It was a nearly new car, from 2018, with only a few thousand kilometers on it. It wasn't expensive and met her requirements:
A nice exterior and a large screen inside the car.
Yes, just these two.
When she got back, she immediately started bargaining with the car dealer.
「On the 9th.」
It was the last day of the exams.
Today's subject was Introduction to Science and Engineering. The teacher was still strict and, in a crazy move, had shuffled everyone's original seats, arranging them by student ID number instead. This caught many slackers, who had been relying on clinging to top students or grouping together for support, completely off guard.
Zhou Li was mediocre at this subject, just so-so. However, he had some exam experience and managed to stay calm throughout the exam.
The mentality during the exam was indeed important.
Retaking an exam next semester simply didn't pay off.
When faced with questions they simply couldn't answer, some agitated students chose to scribble random answers and leave—not a wise move. Others became frantic. Zhou Li, however, opted to stay cool. As expected, once most students had handed in their papers, the proctor gradually relaxed. Zhou Li then managed to get a note from a classmate. He was even audacious enough to copy a multiple-choice question and two fill-in-the-blank answers from Class Leader Zhong Xin's paper while handing his own in when the teacher wasn't looking.
After submitting his paper and leaving, he found Brother Nan still waiting for him downstairs. She was squatting and poking at the dirt with a small stick.
Under the tree, there was now a hole as big as a washbasin.
Brother Nan threw the stick away and dusted off her hands. "Why are you so late today? Was the teacher in your class as weird as well?"
"Yes."
"No wonder."
"How come you finished so early?"
"Our class is really united."
"I see."
Brother Nan's class indeed seemed much more united than Zhou Li's class. Not only were the students closer and more cohesive, but the class committee members were equally so. Thus, even though her class had more absentees than Zhou Li's class, their rate of absenteeism was much lower... Perhaps during the exams, this unity played a positive role as well?