A list of some changes made in TL:
Changing School Building Names To Pinyin
明理楼 → Sensibility Block → Mingli Block
笃行楼 → Application Block → Duxing Block
Changing of Other Terms:
Three Good of the City → Tri-Quality Students of the City
Form teacher → homeroom teacher
Adding soon:
A character + location page for reference (because god knows I'm losing
track of my choices lmao)
Edits to the previous parts of the TL to reflect these changes
With that...[hits u with a quadruple update combo] what's up
In The Eyes Of The Other People In The Exam
Venue, His Silhouette Was 'Arrogance' In Full
Capital Letters.
During the monthly break, Fuzhong welcomed its rare peace
and quiet.
Li Yu stood at the first floor of Duxing Block as she waited. Qi
Jiahao came in from outside, a phone in his hand, and said, "Jingjie
will arrive soon."
He Shu of Class B and Ma Shi of Class 9 nodded in
apprehension. "You also have Teacher Yang's number?"
"Mn, for sure. Sometimes she would get me to help her
grade the papers, transcribe the scores and stuff. It's more
convenient to be in contact." Qi Jiahao said proudly.
Jiang Tian and Sheng Wang chose to fly solo, but the few of
them still decided to gather in school first as Qi Jiahao said that he
contacted Yang Jing, who would be doing some pre-competition
coaching.
Soon enough, Yang Jing appeared with a plastic bag in her
hand. She opened up the bag and said, "Passed by the
convenience store and got you guys some drinks. One can for
each person."
A Yang Jing outside of class still had an intimidating aura,
everyone was overwhelmed by her show of favour, and accepted
the rewards in trepidation and reverence. They followed behind
her like ducklings.
"Teacher, why are you at Duxing Block today?" Qi Jiahao was
the only one who was more daring, he even had the guts to start
chatting with her on his own accord.
"Marking scripts, duh." Yang Jing lifted her chin at the
staircase. "The exam for this monthly test is a combined effort
between four schools, we are grading each other's papers. I've
been cooped up here for two days marking Yizhong's scripts."
Student affair's Dean Xu entered the block as they chatted.
Yang Jing shot a brief glance at him, and increased her volume on
purpose: "You guys are really treating this quite seriously, you
know to talk to me before the competition. Unlike some higher
ups, who only know to care about math, physics and chemistry. Is
English not a main subject? Our Olympiads are treated with
barely any care."
Things like taking only one week to prepare for a competition
will never happen for math, physics and chemistry Olympiads.
Class A of Fuzhong typically prepared and entered everyone into
these competitions, and would get into a full swing as they went
along. In comparison, affairs like English, composition, biology
and computing were much more quiet.
The utilitarian higher up was ragged on out of the blue, he
could only sheepishly say: "Ay, it's about the cost-performance
ratio. Students have limited energy after all, we have to consider
the cost-performance ratio. As long as they clinch a provincial
level bronze award and above for math-physics-chemistry, they
could already get an admission ticket for advance admissions.
What about English then?"
Yang Jing hmphed, and refused to back down. "For our
province, the top 40 will do too."
"Please count how many top 40 came out within these few
years."
Within the city, each key school has their own strengths and
weaknesses. Fuzhong's niche was in math and physics. As for
English…...the top few were essentially reserved by Yizhong every
Olympiad, all the other schools basically couldn't squeeze in at all.
(t/n: Yizhong: 一中, First High School)
"You all don't place much importance on it, whose fault is it?"
Yang Jing said.
"Ok ok ok." Big Mouth Xu raised both his hands in surrender,
and then bowed to motion her to proceed. "Go mark your scripts,
comrade Xiao-Yang."
Yang Jing led four students upstairs and entered the grading
office. English teachers from each level were sparsely spreaded
throughout the table, scripts with their names sealed away laid
beside their hands on the table.
Qi Jiahao nosed around, wanting to get a sneak peak at how
grading was going.
"Quit looking." Yang Jing brought them to the corner, far
away from the grading table. "Those aren't your scripts anyway,
no point looking at them."
"Teacher, who's marking our scripts?" Li Yu asked.
"Nan Gao I think." Yang Jing said with much schadenfreude,
"They are strict with their grading and harsh in deducting marks,
you guys are in for a ride."
"..."
Li Yu internally said, might as well don't ask, after asking their
state of mind crumbled.
(t/n: Nan Gao is short for Short for South High Schooll)
The male teacher at the side interrupted, "They're harsh, but
we're harsh too. We're harsh, but Yizhong wouldn't let up either.
One sabotages the other, everyone can cry together."
No matter what kind of mindset this bunch of teachers had,
the four students' faces all turned green either way at this.
"In any case, the score for this English exam isn't getting too
high anywhere. The test is difficult, and the marking is strict." Yang
Jing turned to reply to him. "I was on the phone with that Yang
Ziwen from Nan High yesterday, he said that there are very few
who scored over 100 marks for this English exam, there's only like
2-3 of them who scored 110 and above. Apparently there's one
they could tell has a decent foundation in English, but everything
came crashing down at the MCQs. The name is all sealed up, so
they don't know who it was either."
That male teacher gave a hoarse laugh. "Probably your class'
Sheng Wang, he missed listening compre."
Yang Jing sighed. "I get pissed whenever I think about this.
What was that brat even thinking."
"Right, where's said brat?" She interrogated Qi Jiahao, "Why
isn't he here? He's scared I'll scold him?"
Qi Jiahao was caught by surprise by that question, and nearly
jumped out of his skin. He squeezed out, "We tried to get him to
come yesterday, he said he's not coming."
Yang Jing's eyes bulged. "That kid's getting full of himself or?"
Li Yu gave Qi Jiahao a quick side eye, and hurriedly explained:
"Teacher, we didn't mention that we're looking for you yesterday.
Sheng Wang didn't know, he said he will take the metro there, so
did Jiang Tian."
"Oh, that's fine then," Yang Jing was like Empress Dowager,
"when you see him this afternoon remember to pass the
message, tell him that the grades for the monthly test are out
tomorrow, get him to behave himself, I'll speak with him at any
moment."
(t/n: Original term here was 像个老佛爷, "to be like a queen mother/the emperor's
mother", the wording didn't suggest that it was precisely empress dowager, but 老佛爷 was
a common enough nickname that I opted to use this here. #funfacts)
The people did not dare to disobey her orders, they nodded
obediently.
"Tell him after the competition, I don't want his mood to get
affected before that." Yang Jing said.
It was supposed to be pre-competition coaching, but she
didn't actually go through the questions, rather, she went through
what to look out for.
Yang Jing appeared to be dominant and overbearing, but she
actually took note of each and every students' strengths and
weaknesses. She told Li Yu to keep calm and keep track of the
time, Qi Jiahao to treat this with a normal mindset, not get too
caught up over frivolous matters, and learn to know when to give
up on questions.
Around 12pm, the group of four left Duxing block, and
walked to the nearest train station, Beyond Parasol Trees.
As they walked out of the west gate and through the
residential zone, Li Yu suddenly let out an "eh" and said, "Isn't that
Jiang Tian?"
"Where?"
They followed the direction of her voice, and saw a tall boy
standing next to the metro entrance, wearing a simple white Tshirt,
continuously attracting the eyes of various passerbys.
He tugged at the bag strap with one hand and his head was
lowered as he fiddled around on his phone, paying zero mind to
the attention he was receiving.
"Wasn't he planning to take the metro?" He Shu asked a
dumb question.
"Yeah," Li Yu pointed at the sign at the side, "isn't this the
metro?"
"..."
"Sure, after all that fuss turns out he's boarding from here
too. Why didn't he go with us then."
Ma Shi was also one of the girls who would blush upon
seeing Jiang Tian. She glanced over there as she said, "Since when
did you see him buddying up with anyone?"
Qi Jiahao said, "He's a boy, he wouldn't be like you all, he
doesn't need to find someone to accompany him even just for a
trip to the bathroom."
After he said that he was immediately slapped in the face
——another familiar figure came in from the street corner.
He was also wearing a loose fitting T-shirt with short sleeves,
a gym bag slung across one shoulder. The black bag with a logo
written in alphabets slung from his left shoulder to the right side
of his waist, the image of a fresh and handsome young man.
"Hey, Sheng Wang!" Ma Shi called again, and turned around
to sneakily say to Li Yu, "It's so worth it no matter if we get a prize
or not this time, this is truly a feast for good-looks lovers."
(Original internet slang here: 颜狗, "dogs attracted solely by physical attractiveness",
often use in self mockery, that's the rough meaning.)
As they waited for the red light at this end, they watched
Sheng Wang weave through the crowd to go behind Jiang Tian.
He reached out to snap his fingers at Jiang Tian's left ear, and
then speedily dodged to his right. Unexpectedly, Jiang Tian
refused to play into his hands, and turned to the right
straightaway, directly catching him in the act.
Judging by his mouth movement, Sheng Wang said a "Fuck."
Jiang Tian placed his phone in his pocket. After the two of
them exchanged a few words, they walked towards the entrance
of the metro.
The traffic light for the sidewalk turned green, Qi Jiahao
along with three other people hurriedly chased over.
*
When Sheng Wang was going through the security check, he
heard someone calling his name. He turned around in surprise,
and saw the students sprinting over.
"Eh? You guys are here too?"
"Yeah, we came over from the school, and happened to see
the two of you here too." Qi Jiahao said.
"You guys really did gather in school?" Sheng Wang thought
that he was kinda like a tour guide, it was a little funny.
"Jing-jie summoned us to do pre-competition coaching," Qi
Jiahao said, "she even asked about you, asking if you're hiding
from her."
"Why would I hide from her?" Sheng Wang asked blankly.
Qi Jiahao laughed dryly: "That..."
Sheng Wang then recalled the miserable matter of this
monthly exam. He let out a very soft "Ah", and said: "I nearly
forgot I flunked it."
Jiang Tian's brows briefly furrowed.
He probably really disliked having too many people around,
or maybe he simply did not feel like chatting at all. He dug out his
phone and started scrolling through it again.
Yet, Qi Jiahao opened his mouth again: "Jing-jie said to not
put your mind on the monthly exam, settle the Olympiad first,
she'll probably look for you for a chat tomorrow.
"Huh?" Sheng Wang asked, confusion evident on his face.
Li Yu hurried: "Tell him that after the competition!"
"Oh oh oh, sorry." Qi Jiahao said, "Let's not talk about this
now, competition first."
The conveyor belt at the security check slowly rolled out.
Jiang Tian bent over, grabbed the bag and said to Sheng Wang,
"Let's go."
Upon saying that he went straight ahead without any further
notice, his expression as if he just ate a ton of salt. As long as you
are human, you could tell he wasn't feeling particularly pleased.
Sheng Wang was briefly dazed. When he discovered his bag
was already taken away by him, he didn't bother about other
people and quickly chased after him.
After running a few steps he was shoulder to shoulder with
Jiang Tian. He retrieved his bag from his hands, slung it behind his
shoulder, and grumbled under his breath: "I have a question that
has gone unanswered for a long time."
Jiang Tian's expression hadn't phased out from 'Freezing', he
lifted his eye a little lazily.
"The rep has been studying in Fuzhong for so long, are you
sure he hasn't been beaten up before?" His befuddlement was
incredibly sincere, thus increasing the mockery in his question by
several levels.
Jiang Tian's expression finally started defrosting, he swept a
neutral look behind him as he said, "If he continues being like this,
soon."
Sheng Wang gave two short chuckles, yet he soon turned
stern: "Unacceptable, good students shouldn't talk behind
people's back."
Jiang Tian rolled his eyes at him, and increased his stride.
Sheng Wang refused to lose, and increased his stride too.
The two of them soon arrived with the advantage of their
long legs. Coincidentally, there was a train already waiting for
them with doors wide open. They crossed over with a single step.
There weren't particularly many passengers boarding from
Beyond Parasol Trees in the monthly break, and so Sheng Wang
and Jiang Tian sat on the empty seats.
He winked at Jiang Tian, and waved his phone with a little
craftyness. He then casually opened up the Olympiad group chat
of six made by Li Yu right in front of Jiang Tian, and keyed in a
sentence at a speed that was neither too fast nor too slow.
Canned: Where are you guys, are you on the train yet?
And then tagged Qi Jiahao in all propriety.
"Childish." Jiang Tian mercilessly commented, and the
moment he turned away a corner of his lips briefly jerked.
Qi Jiahao and the rest just came down from the escalators,
as they were prepared to run for it, they heard two beeps from
the train doors, and so the doors closed right in their faces, the
train hurtling past them.
Qi Jiahao: "..."
He was a little unhappy. He replied in the chat, "You two
were too fast, we didn't manage to catch up. We'll wait for the
next one."
Abou 30 minutes later, when they were only one stop away
from Erzhong, the group chat buzzed with a new message.
(t/n: 二中, --> Ezhong, Second High School)
Canned: The signal's pretty bad in the metro, just saw the
message.
Canned: We already left the station, we'll wait at the exam
venue.
These two messages were sent in quick succession, nobody
could cut in at all.
Li Yu and the rest weren't the epitome of happiness either,
they grumbled at Qi Jiahao, "Told you to not say it before the
exam! Look at how awkward it is now."
"..."
Qi Jiahao carved a 'fuck' in his heart.
He thought that Sheng Wang was a people pleaser with
barely any temper, or the type to try to keep things harmonious
on the surface no matter what. Who would have thought that he
has his ways of letting everyone know he wasn't particularly
pleased, and you would not even be able to find a gap to argue
right back.
(t/n: original term for people-pleaser here was, 老好人 closer to "one who never tried to offend
anybody")
The English Olympiad ran a total of 2.5hours, which was
basically just answering questions. Other than the slight increase
in level of difficulty and the number of traps, to Sheng Wang, this
was barely any different from the monthly exam.
His state of mind towards exams was always pretty decent,
he already worked hard before the test, whatever the result was it
was all up to fate.
Whether fate was stressed out at all he wouldn't know,
either way he wasn't stressed.
The more difficult the language was, the more the number
of questions, the more obvious his advantage in speed.
15 minutes before the exam ended, he put down his pen. For
exams like this, he never got tied up about the answers. Past
experience told him that as long as he was feeling conflicted, his
first choice based on instincts has the highest rate of accuracy.
His so called checking of script was just a quick scan, as long
as he didn't make any low-level mistakes or miss out a question, it
would be fine.
And so…...he handed in the script ahead of time under the
stunned gazes from everyone, and waited outside as he fiddled
around on his phone, leaning over the corridor railing.
In the eyes of the other people in the exam venue, his
silhouette was 'Arrogance' in full capital letters.
The invigilator endured for a while before they couldn't hold
it back anymore. They stuck their head out, and softly said,
"Student."
"Hm?" Sheng Wang turned around and politely asked, "Is
there anything, teacher?"
"Don't wait for people here, they will be taking a while more,
you can't loiter here." The invigilator said.
Sheng Wang replied, "Um, I wouldn't be staying here for long
actually."
As he spoke he shot a glance at the teacher's desk, the
invigilator was full of questions, and followed his gaze too...
And saw yet another one who handed in his script ahead of
time.
Fine, whatever.
The invigilator said internally, you can't even stay put for 15
minutes, I'm going to see what kind of results you can get!
Of course, Sheng Wang wouldn't know what this teacher was
internally mocking. He waited for Jiang Tian to come out with his
bag, and the two of them left together.
In the eyes of the other examiness, that was remarkably
"swaggering away"!
The second day, the duo who "swaggered away" were both
dragged by Yang Jing to her office for a face to face chat.
Other people's chats flowed both ways, Madame Yang's chat
was a single sided series of scoldings from her side.
"Got too big for your britches, and now you're acting cool in
the exam venue, huh?" Yang Jing rapped the table. "Didn't I warn
again and again to try not to hand in ahead of time, to try to be
more imperturbable? Didn't I say this before, huh?"
Jiang Tian moved his lips: "Tried."
Yang Jing: "..."
It was the first time Sheng Wang witnessed how he
conversed with teachers…...he was really damn good at it, he took
only a single line to make the teacher explode from anger.
Jiang Tian was an incredibly proud person, the first time
Sheng Wang met him he could already tell. In actuality, most
teachers have great tolerance towards top students like him, they
could smile for the entire day from his grades alone. Still, that did
not get in the way from wanting to smack him in other times.
Sheng Wang hurriedly tried his best to salvage the situation,
he lowered his head as he said: "We are sorry."
Yang Jing: "..."
She's more pissed off than ever now.
By chance, He Jin walked into the office with the monthly
exam's scripts in hand. "Come, come, come, scripts fresh out of
the oven. Claim it now and critique it ASAP."
Yang Jing received the English scripts with a dark look on her
face, as she flipped through it, she said, "Here, I want to see just
exactly what did the two misbehaving people score for the
monthly exam, especially you! Sheng Wang! Let me tell you I
haven't even approached you yet, you ——"
Before she finished speaking, she reached their scripts.
Jiang Tian scored 115, Sheng Wang danced at the edges, 110.
He got 7 questions wrong for listening compre, and had 3 marks
deducted for his essay, one of which was because of his poor
handwriting.
Other than that, Class A had no other script that began with
a 11.
As for the student who crumbled according to Yang Ziwen of
Nan High, how unfortunately, it was the English rep himself.
For some unknown reason, he was totally out of it during the
exam, more than 20 marks were deducted for multiple choice,
and he only scored a 92 in the end.
Yang Jing stared at the scripts with her hands on her hips.
She didn't know if she should laugh or rage first. After she
remained frozen in a female demoness state for a good while, she
didn't keep it up by herself anymore.
She looked at Jiang Tian who was neither servile nor
overbearing, and Sheng Wang who pretended to apologise, and
waved, "Scram, scram, scram! I'll settle this when the results of
the competition comes out! Get out!"
"Aye!" Sheng Wang replied with a barely concealed laugh,
and ran away as he pushed Jiang Tian along.
"Hold on!" Yang Jing called them again.
Sheng Wang was already out of the door, he stuck his head
in again and said, "Your command?"
Yang Jing felt her stomach ache just at the look of him
pretending to be obedient. She stifled herself for a while before
she managed to say with a poker face, "Get Qi Jiahao to come
over for a bit."