The city-wide joint examination kicked off amidst a continuous autumn rain.
Hu Qian, clad in her school uniform, walked into the examination hall for Class 4 of Senior High Year 3. Today was a school-wide joint exam, and all schools were required to shuffle their seating arrangements. However, School Twelve did not follow the completely random seating plan adopted by other schools.
Instead, students from the parallel classes were seated interspersed with students from the front experimental classes. The stated reason was to prevent cheating, but Hu Qian inwardly rejoiced – wasn't this a godsend?
Beside Hu Qian's seat was reportedly the tenth-ranked student in the grade, a rather thin, bespectacled boy with black-rimmed glasses. A sticker with his name, Zhang Heng, was affixed to the top right corner of his desk.
As the Chinese exam papers were distributed, Hu Qian, who was good at Chinese, patiently completed the entire paper and submitted it.
The second exam was mathematics, Hu Qian's weak point. Her math had always been poor, and she had only managed to keep up through expensive private tutoring classes outside of school. Her best performance had been when a classmate had shared answers, resulting in a score of 120.
However, the average score for the entire grade that time had been over ninety.
The rustling of papers being flipped echoed in the examination hall, the sound of struggling students trying to find questions they could answer.
The sound unsettled Hu Qian, making her feel flustered. She found that she couldn't get the application problems under her pen to add up correctly.
At this moment, someone outside the classroom called the invigilator out, seemingly regarding an issue with the exam papers. The student in front of Hu Qian, who had been engrossed in calculations moments before, immediately lifted his head and began looking around.
Hu Qian also slightly raised her head, her gaze shifting towards the paper on her left.
In just a short minute, Hu Qian filled in the multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions, and even managed to answer one application problem.
Based on her usual experience, if she could tackle the first part of two more major questions, she would likely score over 120 points.
After the exam, the candidates left the hall and returned to their respective classrooms. Hu Qian also left with her pencil case. Zhang Heng, the tenth-ranked student, remained seated in his spot, as this was his classroom.
A hand suddenly landed on his shoulder. The owner of the hand, now doubled over with laughter, exclaimed, "Holy crap, Zhang Heng, you won't believe it! The girl sitting next to you just copied your math paper!"
Zhang Heng pushed his glasses up his nose.
"What's the problem with her copying my paper?"
The newcomer sighed dramatically.
"Everyone in our class knows your math scores... Copying yours is practically worse than guessing randomly!"
Zhang Heng was displeased.
"I'm still in the experimental class. Even if my grades aren't great, it's still better than her doing it herself, right?"
"Better than herself," Hu Qian, sensing a bad omen, thought to herself.
After every exam, the top students in the class would tacitly compare answers. For basic questions like multiple-choice, there would be at most one or two discrepancies; generally, their answers were the same.
But today, Hu Qian, sitting in the corner of the classroom, discovered that her answers to the multiple-choice questions were not aligned with theirs at all!
Perhaps... they were discussing the Chinese exam's multiple-choice questions? Hu Qian tried to cling to this thought, unwilling to admit that she had cheated for a failing grade, a score even worse than what she could achieve on her own.
"The difficulty of this math exam seems manageable?"
"I thought so too. I should be around 130 points, I estimate."
Her last shred of hope shattered. Hu Qian, calculating based on the answers they discussed, realized she had only scored in the forties on this math paper!
—
"Liu Chen, what were your multiple-choice answers?"
As soon as Liu Chen returned to the classroom, her classmates swarmed her, eager to compare answers with Liu Chen, who was considered the top in math. Liu Chen handed a slip of paper to the nearest hand and returned to her seat while everyone else was busy comparing answers.
Mi Zhuzhu, the first to approach, widened her eyes, a huge grin spreading across her face. She rushed to Liu Chen's side and gave her a bear hug.
"Chenchen! Can you believe it! After comparing your answers with theirs, I can score at least 120 points! Oh my god! This is the highest math score I've gotten since I started high school!"
Liu Chen was muffled and couldn't speak. She frantically waved her hands by her side, finally prompting the effusive Mi Zhuzhu to release her.
Having freed Liu Chen, Mi Zhuzhu turned to the two people who had just entered the classroom, her smile so wide it was almost uncontainable. "Lai Jielun, Ren Mo, did you compare answers? What are your scores?"
Ren Mo sat down and took a big gulp of water before saying, "Didn't estimate, but I feel like I could do most of the questions. Whether I got them right or not, though, I don't know."
Lai Jielun, however, was more forthright. He brushed his bangs aside and grinned mischievously, "I wouldn't dare say 150, but 140 is a sure thing!"
This time, it was Mi Zhuzhu's turn to be incredulous. This Lai Jielun, who sang songs while doing his homework, claiming it was for vocal warm-ups, dared to boast about scoring 140 in math?
Ren Mo screwed the cap back onto his mineral water bottle and nodded in affirmation, "That bastard Lai Jielun's grades have always been excellent. Before my sister transferred in, he was basically the class valedictorian in every exam."
Mi Zhuzhu fell silent...
She had thought that her Liu Chen was leading three underachievers. Now, it seemed they had become a pair of 2-on-2 mutual aid partners...
Two days passed in a blur of examinations. By the time the last comprehensive science paper was finished, the students in the examination hall had quietly put on their sweaters.
"Wow, it's National Day! Chenchen, where are you planning to go?" After estimating her scores, Mi Zhuzhu, who believed she had achieved her highest score in three years of high school, was feeling incredibly elated. If National Day weren't just three days long, Liu Chen suspected Mi Zhuzhu would have wanted to go abroad, perhaps even conquer Asia.
Liu Chen took out her phone and glanced at it. The frozen food wholesale market was also closed for National Day, for seven days. She had originally planned to take her mother for a trip to Beijing, but Comrade Liu Fang and her aunt had instead gone to Sanya with their godmother...
She had just received a text message saying they had already boarded the plane. Slipping her phone back into her pocket, Liu Chen thought for a moment, finding nowhere she particularly wanted to go.
"Probably spend three days doing practice papers at home?"
"Ah? Three days off after such a long time, and then it will be a while before the next holiday?"
Ren Mo, who had lagged behind, pulled out four tickets from his pocket.
"Ms. Ren shoved these into my backpack last night, telling us four to rest up. This is probably hush money for them leaving us behind to have fun?"
Upon hearing "going out to play," Lai Jielun's enthusiasm was piqued. He stretched his neck to look at the tickets in Ren Mo's hand.
"Forest Hot Spring Resort? What's that?"
Liu Chen's footsteps also halted. Forest Hot Spring Resort?
In her past life, she had accompanied out-of-town distributors there. It cost over three thousand yuan a night. After dropping off the distributors, she had only taken a look from the outside before driving away.
In this life, it wouldn't be bad to go and relax there?