2333 felt that Wen Qianshu was definitely not as useless as she had written on her application—in the two aspects of “infuriating others” and “being audacious,” she was simply unrivaled.
As the sports meet passed, the midterm exams were quickly approaching.
At this point in the original novel, the male and female protagonists would have already met and talked. But now, even after going to the infirmary together, they still hadn’t made any progress. 2333 was so worried that its reports to the main system were dropping packets【1】, while Wen Qianshu was still calmly correcting her Chinese homework.
Suddenly, the door was pushed open. The head teacher came in, holding a stack of paper, and passed them out row by row. “Pass them to the back.”
Wen Qianshu thought they were test papers, but when they reached her, she saw they were blank sheets of paper. She raised an eyebrow, took two sheets for herself, gave one to Jiang Mingyue, and passed the rest back to Zhang Zisheng.
The head teacher stood at the front with her arms crossed. “Has everyone got one?”
The class was silent.
This period was supposed to be P.E., but because it was raining outside, it had been changed to a study hall. The head teacher had just pushed the door open and suddenly handed out a stack of blank paper, and the students couldn’t figure out what she was up to. They thought she was on some important mission, like giving a dictation quiz for another subject teacher.
The head teacher leaned against the lectern, still with her arms crossed, staring at the students below.
“The first monthly exam is over, and many of you didn’t do well.” The head teacher finally spoke. “But I don’t know how much you’ve reflected on it, because from what I can see, many of you are still fidgeting around as if you have springs under your butts. You’re incredibly restless!”
“I’m handing out this paper now so you can supervise each other. Any rule violations you see—who did it, when they did it—write it all down for me.” None of the students below spoke, but the head teacher slammed her hand on the desk. “Puppy love, bringing phones, talking in class, copying homework, cheating on dictations—you can write it all down. You don’t need to sign your name when you’re done. I’ll come down and collect them one by one.”
2333 was startled and suddenly felt that Wen Qianshu was somewhat useful after all; it was a good thing the male and female protagonists weren’t together yet. But on second thought, it seemed the protagonists got together because of the teacher’s opposition, and 2333 started to worry again.
Meanwhile, Wen Qianshu wrote the word “None,” folded the paper, placed it on the corner of her desk, and went back to struggling with her Chinese corrections. The head teacher collected the papers and quickly left the classroom. The moment she left, the class erupted.
Wen Qianshu heard someone cursing: “‘Old-fashioned’ is toxic!”
“She’s insane!”
Wen Qianshu twirled her pen and continued correcting her reading comprehension. But her Chinese was truly a case of “nine out of ten orifices open”—utterly clueless. When it was time to do today’s homework, she still couldn’t squeeze out a single word. After much effort, she managed to fill three of the four blank lines for the first question, but when she secretly peeked at the answer key, she found she hadn’t hit a single key point.
Wen Qianshu was completely heartbroken by Chinese. In a fit of anger, she threw her Chinese workbook into her drawer and took out her math to work on. But just as she folded the test paper in half, she saw Jiang Mingyue move—she was writing her name on the side of her English paper.
Wen Qianshu asked 2333, “Is it my imagination?”
2333: “What?”
Wen Qianshu: “Ever since the head teacher left, Little Moonlight hasn’t moved her pen?”
2333: “…”
“The whole class is ratting on each other, and you’re worried about this?”
The head teacher’s stunt seemed like a whim and didn’t appear to have much of an effect. The next few days were calm and uneventful, right up until the end of the midterm exams. The midterms were on Saturday and Sunday. Wen Qianshu was dizzy from the exams. After they were over, she hurried to the cafeteria for a meal and then returned to the classroom for evening self-study.
Many students had already arrived in the classroom; some hadn’t even gone to dinner. Jiang Mingyue was already at her seat. Wen Qianshu smiled at her as a greeting, dragged her box over from the back of the classroom, broke the seal on her drawer, and started moving the books from the box into it.
A few boys in the back row were comparing answers, from English to math, followed by a chorus of wails. Zhang Zisheng arrived not long after, and as soon as she got to her seat, she flopped onto her desk and wailed, “I never would have thought, never would have thought! I calculated everything to avoid the ‘answer-comparing’ brigade in the cafeteria, only to fall victim in my own classroom—I got the second-to-last major question on the math exam wrong!”
Shen Ting subconsciously covered her ears. “Don’t say it, please don’t tell me the answers.”
Zhang Zisheng was miserable. She lay on her desk, not wanting to move, and mumbled, “This math test was really hard. When I was passing by, I heard the math class representative say he didn’t do well this time either.”
Shen Ting said sympathetically, “He said that last time too. In fact, he said that about every subject last time.”
The math class representative had placed first in the class on the last monthly exam.
Zhang Zisheng: “Ah! I’m crying!”
Wen Qianshu turned around. “This math test was indeed difficult.”
Zhang Zisheng: “How many questions did you leave blank?”
Wen Qianshu: “None, but I didn’t have time to double-check. I’m afraid my calculations might be a disaster.”
Zhang Zisheng: “None! You finished the last major question? I got stuck on the first part!”
Wen Qianshu: “What are you panicking for? It’s useless even if I finished it. I bombed the Chinese exam again.”
Zhang Zisheng thought about Wen Qianshu’s Chinese scores and figured that when she said “bombed,” she really meant it—after all, even on her best days, Wen Qianshu had never passed the average score on a Chinese quiz.
Zhang Zisheng felt a sudden pang of bitterness for her. “How can your Chinese be this bad? Is there any hope for you?”
Wen Qianshu was also worried. “How should I know?”
It was fine when they didn’t talk about it, but now that it was brought up, Wen Qianshu started to feel uneasy. “That line from the classical poetry question, ‘Her makeup done, she softly asks her husband, are my eyebrows painted fashionably dark or light?’ Does it express the poet’s joy as a newlywed? And the relationship between husband and wife—”
As soon as the words left her mouth, Wen Qianshu knew she was in trouble. Shen Ting was already sighing, while Zhang Zisheng propped herself up to look at her. “Didn’t you see the title was ‘To Minister Zhang on the Eve of the Imperial Examination’? The footnote also said he wrote it for the examiner.”
Wen Qianshu: “That’s what I was confused about. Why would he write that to an examiner?”
Zhang Zisheng: “Because he was using the painted eyebrows as a metaphor to ask the examiner how his essay was! Whether it met the—”
Zhang Zisheng thought for a long time but couldn’t find the right word, and finally forced one out: “Trends?”
Wen Qianshu: “…”
Wen Qianshu: “I’m doomed. I got the main idea wrong. All 11 points for the classical poetry question are gone.”
Zhang Zisheng: “Maybe the Chinese teacher will give you some pity points.”
Wen Qianshu: “Does the Chinese teacher look like she and I are friends?”
Zhang Zisheng: “Nope.”
Shen Ting tried to smooth things over. “Alright, alright, let’s not talk about this anymore. Let’s do our homework. Cheer up, we have our monthly break next week.”
The students of No. 1 High School had all “voluntarily” applied for evening and weekend self-study sessions. They usually only got half a day off per week, but once a month, there was a week where they got a two-day monthly break. This should have been a happy occasion; however, the monthly break after midterms meant only one thing—parent-teacher conferences.
Parent-teacher conferences were really like making hot pot. Parents from all walks of life were thrown into one pot and stirred together, each of them timing their child’s ranking with a stopwatch. Every drop in rank was like being boiled for an extra ten minutes, leaving them in deep water and scorching fire right in the pot. Not to mention, the head teacher was Gu Fangfei, who was truly a devilishly spicy hot pot base.
Zhang Zisheng’s parents were never content to suffer in the hot pot alone; if they were boiled for even three extra minutes, they would summon her home for a duel. So she was worried enough to pull her hair out, but just then, the bell for class rang. She could only sit down dejectedly and aimlessly look for some homework to do.
The atmosphere in the class was not good. Having just finished exams, every subject looked hideous. The homework for the main subjects stabbed them from three sides, while the minor subjects followed behind, rubbing salt in their wounds.
The division of labor was clear, everything was in perfect order, and it was heartbreaking.
The math class representative went to the lectern and sat down to begin his duty shift. The chatter in the classroom gradually died down, leaving only the “shasha” sound of writing.
Wen Qianshu had just opened her chemistry paper when she saw Jiang Mingyue pass her a note, asking, “Can you write down your thought process for the final question?”
Because it was a self-study period and talking was not allowed, Jiang Mingyue leaned closer to her and used a very low, breathy voice. Her warm breath brushed past Wen Qianshu’s ear. Wen Qianshu shivered and immediately smiled. “Of course.”
She took the paper, smiled again, coughed twice to cover up her loss of composure, and even shied away a little.
Jiang Mingyue didn’t understand. Seeing her move away, she leaned even closer. “You’re very good at math.”
Wen Qianshu started writing down her thought process. “Hm?”
“Your Chinese is indeed a bit poor.” Jiang Mingyue was still using that breathy voice, which made Wen Qianshu feel a strange tickle in her heart. “But you’re very good at math and English.”
Jiang Mingyue thought for a moment, as if organizing her words, and said slowly, “Keep trying with your Chinese.”
Wen Qianshu almost snapped her head around to look at Jiang Mingyue. Only then did she realize that Jiang Mingyue was encouraging her. Was it because of what Zhang Zisheng had said about “is there any hope for you”?
For a moment, Wen Qianshu wanted to laugh, thinking Little Moonlight was being a bit too serious. But then she felt a sense of relief, as if losing eleven points on the Chinese exam all at once wasn’t so bad after all. She was just about to speak, having just uttered the word “Thanks,” when a “bang” sounded from the back of the classroom.
It was followed by the head teacher’s voice: “Oh? You think you’re done with the college entrance exams, so you can relax, is that it?”
Wen Qianshu swallowed the second half of her “Thank you” and couldn’t help but look back. She saw a boy standing there, red-faced. The head teacher was holding a phone in her hand, glaring at him. “Having fun? Did you do well on the exam this time?”
The head teacher sneered. The boy kept his head down and said nothing. His deskmate wished he could bury his head in his notebook, but the head teacher grabbed him by the collar, looked inside his desk, and with a swift motion of her hand, pulled out another phone.
2333: “Oh my god.”
This had really stirred up a hornet’s nest.
The head teacher: “Last row, all of you, stand up!”
She bent over, searching through their drawers and schoolbags one by one—comic books, novels, phones, she found them all.
No one dared to move.
The head teacher sneered repeatedly. “All of you who were caught, come out with me!”
The few students looked at each other, followed the head teacher out of the classroom, and closed the back door. Soon, the sound of scolding could be heard from outside, interspersed with a few explanations from the students, but they were immediately drowned out by a louder voice—when the head teacher scolded people, her voice was extremely shrill, like the sound of fingernails scratching on a blackboard, making one’s ears hurt.
Wen Qianshu withdrew her gaze and saw Jiang Mingyue holding her pen again, staring straight at the back door, looking somewhat dazed. She only turned back after a moment.
This time, even 2333 could tell something was wrong. “What’s going on? It couldn’t be that she was the one who snitched, could it?”
Wen Qianshu: “We’ll know if we ask.”
2333: “Huh? Ask?”
Wen Qianshu took the paper, quickly wrote down the thought process and framework, then flipped the paper over and, with a few quick strokes, drew several vertical lines.
2333: “Wait, no—even if you’re going to ask, use your mouth. If you write it on paper, she—”
Wen Qianshu: “Don’t worry, don’t worry.”
2333: “How can I not worry! Why would you ask directly—”
Outside the window, the head teacher’s voice was harsh and severe; inside, the students were as silent as cicadas in winter.
2333 was terrified, afraid that their talking or passing notes would be discovered by the head teacher.
Wen Qianshu nudged Jiang Mingyue with her elbow and pushed the paper over.
2333 took a deep breath, waiting for Wen Qianshu’s awkward question, but who knew that what she said was—
“Hey deskmate, wanna play Gomoku?”
2333: “?”
Author’s Notes:
【1】 Packet loss refers to when, due to signal attenuation or other reasons, the data from one or more data packets fails to reach its destination over the network. —Baidu Baike
【2】 Zhu Qingyu, “To Minister Zhang on the Eve of the Imperial Examination”
In the bridal chamber last night, the red candles burned;
At dawn, I’ll wait to greet my husband’s parents in the hall.
My makeup done, I softly ask my husband:
“Are my eyebrows painted fashionably dark or light?”
【3】 Playing chess right under the teacher’s nose is a dangerous activity. Please do not imitate.
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