Schedule: Monday and Tuesday.
Chapter 94
by shae.The next day, Jiang Zhihuo and Yan Mu arrived at the classroom at their usual time and sat in their seats to eat breakfast.
The two brought Hong Kong-style dumplings. They ordered it in advance at night. The packaging was small and delicate.
Jiang Zhihuo deliberately ordered more potions, inviting the others who arrived early to eat together.
Since the day they got together, Yan Mu would eat breakfast with Jiang Zhihuo every day or come for a few visits, and the boys in Class 1 were already familiar with him. The God of Learning didn’t like to talk, but never brushed people off. One could be excited for a whole day when sitting next to the God of Learning and soaking in his aura.
There was hardly any quiet time when the boys gathered. They all loved to talk, and the conversation could go on endlessly. Yan Mu, on the other hand, rarely joined the conversation as he focused on feeding Jiang Zhihuo.
“Right, Huo-ge.” Sun Liyu picked up a shrimp dumpling and asked, “Did you check the group chat last night?”
Jiang Zhihuo was eating a shumai1[T/N: It was a type of traditional Chinese dumpling with an open top], half bitten and still chewing in his mouth, when the question was asked. Yan Mu picked a meatball and was waiting on the side. To avoid accidentally being poked by the tip, he held the fork sideways when Jiang Zhihuo lowered his head to bite.
“What group chat?”
Jiang Zhihuo indeed did not check the group chat. He barely touched his phone.
Last night, he and Yan Mu had bitten each other a few times on the sofa before taking the shower and continuing in the room.
Since they had to attend school the next day, they couldn’t go all out. However, once the switch was turned on, there was no going back. As a result, they still messed around for a bit.
At a moment like this, Jiang Zhihuo liked to look into Yan Mu’s eyes the most. His pupils were as deep as the night sky. The moment his eyes sank, they were too alluring, and his entire heart couldn’t help but soften.
Jiang Zhihuo couldn’t resist biting Yan Mu on the collarbone.
The sight was blocked by the collar, yet he was well aware that there was a very fresh and obvious red there.
Yan Mu knocked on the table lightly.
With the slight alteration in expression, Yan Mu could already guess what Jiang Zhihuo was thinking after spending time together every day. He was probably recalling the events from last night.
“Cough.” Jiang Zhihuo was knocked back to his senses by the sound. He was actually thinking about things like that in broad daylight in front of everyone, and even got caught by Yan-ge. He avoided Yan Mu’s gaze with reddened ears. “What is the news in the group chat?”
He pulled out his phone to check as he spoke.
“Not news.” Sun Liyu pressed down on Jiang Zhihuo’s hand and smiled. “It’s nothing serious, just that the scores for the test results will be out today, right? Last night, we opened a betting pool, guessing how many points you can get!”
Jiang Zhihuo: “Bet on me?”
“That’s right!” A boy leaned over. “I bet two sets of practice papers that Huo-ge can score 590! Don’t let me down!”
“Are you serious? Only 590? That’s way too low!” Another boy said, “Huo-ge, I believe in you. You will score over 600! I even staked those golden practice problems I just found!”
Sun Liyu: “I believe in you the most. I bet on 610! I staked three sets of top-secret mock test practice papers. I went all in!”
Jiang Zhihuo: “???”
“God Yan, want to join?” Sun Liyu tried to get Yan Mu involved.
He was only asking casually, thinking that Yan Mu would refuse and had no interest. However, Yan Mu took a slow sip of milk tea and said, “Mhm, alright.”
Sun Liyu was more than delighted. He directly opened the betting page, ready to type in the stake at any time. “God Yan, what are you betting on and how many score?”
“I will bet five sets of practice papers.”
“And the score?”
Yan Mu thought for a moment. “700.”
Sun Liyu: “???”
“700??” Sun Liyu’s fingers froze. “That guess is way too much! Even our year group’s eternal number two barely ever cracks 700. Yan-god, don’t go thirty layers deep in love filters and lose your mind for love—if you’re gonna bet, at least be rational!”
“700??” Sun Liyu’s fingers paused mid-air. “That’s wild! Even our grade’s eternal second place hardly scores above 700. God Yan, don’t go crazy with thirty layers of love filters2[T/N: It’s an internet slang for extreme bias/idealization.]. Since you placed the bet, you should at least be sensible!”
“Exactly.” Jiang Zhihuo slammed the table, feeling offended. “Be sensible. The tests were so easy, even 700 is too low! Don’t you guys have any faith in me?!”
“Huo-ge is right…” Sun Liyu responded without thinking, subconsciously followed up the sentence, but he abruptly stopped midway with his eyes widened. “Huo-ge, what did you say??”
During breakfast, not many people took Jiang Zhihuo’s bragging seriously.
Is that a joke?
If he could indeed score 700, he could simply go straight for the provincial top scorer!!
Announcing the scores after exams was usually done by Ding Jianhui. As the homeroom teacher, Old Ding had never been late, not even once. However, contrary to his routine habit, he arrived over ten minutes late today.
Ding Jianhui walked into the classroom, appearing visibly shaken. Even a few days ago, he hadn’t been this shocked upon witnessing how Jiang Zhihuo’s character collapsed and hearing the confession. He leaned against the podium speechlessly for a long time with a heavy, disbelief look, as if watching a car crash unfolding. The score report in his hand was crumpled into a ball.
“Teacher, what’s wrong?” The class monitor, rarely seen Ding Jianhui like this, asked in concern. “Do we perform badly in the tests?”
“No.” Ding Jianhui shook his head. “Everyone did great on the test.”
The top students sighed in relief.
“And…” Ding Jianhui continued, “A few days ago, classmate Zhihuo promised not to hold back this time. Mhm… he certainly did not.”
Ding Jianhui’s words came to a halt as he took several deep breaths.
—He hasn’t yet recovered from that heaven-defying score.
Is that kind of score something an ordinary English teacher like him could witness?!
“The possibility of cheating is unlikely…” In the office, Ding Jianhui accidentally let out a curse after being shocked by the score and only explained later for Jiang Zhihuo’s behalf. “The test questions this time were all created by the teaching and research group themselves. The students won’t be able to find any answer even if they search for them online.”
The teacher responsible for the grades statistics accepted this explanation but asked, “I heard he has a very good relationship with the God of Learning, is there a possibility…”
Ding Jianhui shook his head.
He believed Jiang Zhihuo wouldn’t cheat; it was not worth it.
Besides, No. 1 High School maintained strict control over cheating. A security check must be carried out each time, regardless of whether it was a big exam or a small exam, or whether the exam room was changed. Any communication device was banned at the same level as the college entrance exam. The surveillance cameras held a very high resolution, clear to the degree that every single word on the test paper could be seen.
It was entirely impossible to bring anything in; the possibility was low if one wanted to cheat in person.
However, this score was indeed hard to believe! Ding Jianhui was not even sure when shaking his head; he needed to use every muscle of his neck.
The teacher in charge of totalling the score suggested, “Why don’t we go check the surveillance cameras?”
It didn’t take long to watch the footage since they only had to focus on one person. Ding Jianhui and that teacher finished watching all the footage in about an hour by speeding it up a bit.
In bewilderment, the two sat on the chairs of the surveillance room for quite a while.
Nothing!
There was nothing!
Throughout the whole process, Jiang Zhihuo didn’t make any suspicious moves, never left the classroom, and only solved the problems attentively.
For math, he even managed to have forty minutes left to take a nap on the desk!
The teacher responsible for the scores was in disbelief and slumped against the back of the chair. “No cheating… so Jiang Zhihuo from your class was hit by a car and got his Ren and Du meridians3[T/N: 任督二脉 (rèn dū èrmài): the two main energy channels in Daoist internal energy theory (used in wuxia novels). This is a martial arts idiom implying that someone has awakened hidden potential or gained sudden, incredible abilities, often after a dramatic incident.] opened?”
“……”
“Teacher? Teacher?”
Ding Jianhuo only said half of his sentence, then simply stared straight at Jiang Zhihuo with a shocked expression, not continuing at all. Those who had already placed the bets were getting anxious.
“Teacher, can you finish what you are saying?”
“Mhm…” Ding Jianhui took a sip of the goji berry tea. “The difficulty of this year-level test was medium. Good job, our class has maintained the usual standard, and the highest score this time is…classmate Jiang Zhihuo, with the total score…739…”
“Damn! Huo-ge is so awesome!!!”
“The highest score!!!”
“Sure enough, Huo-ge is awesome when he doesn’t hide his strength!!”
“Ahhh! Huo-ge actually scored 739…what?! 739?!!” The top students didn’t react at first until the person sitting in front of Jiang Zhihuo shouted it out, and everyone froze. The whole room erupted after three seconds of stillness.
“Damn?! How many points?! Did I mishear?! It starts with a 7?!”
“739??? Who are you? Another God Yan?”
“39 what??? What is the second-highest score in our grade?”
“Who? Who scored 739?!”
Every gaze in class landed heavily on Jiang Zhihuo.
Jiang Zhihuo didn’t have much reaction; he had already mentally prepared in advance. Therefore, he calmly accepted all the shock and doubt without questioning. “What’s with that look? Weren’t you all the ones who were telling me not to hold back?”
It was not only Ding Jianhui who was shocked by Jiang Zhihuo’s earth-shattering performance; even the top students from Class 1 were no different.
When every teacher received the score for their subject, they were stunned for at least five seconds.
“Ah?? Who is this?! Jiang Zhihuo? Physics? Full score?! Ah?”
“Wait, am I not fully awake today? Or did you calculate the score incorrectly, Teacher Lin?”
“Jiang Zhihuo?? Did he cheat?? Even if cheating won’t get this result, right?? He got outside help???”
“He didn’t cheat. At least for now, there is no evidence of cheating.” The teacher responsible for totalling the score said, “Old Ding and I watched the surveillance camera and saw nothing suspicious.”
Ding Jianhui tried to suppress his shock. He had already explained Jiang Zhihuo’s circumstances to all the teachers once, and now he had no choice but to say it again as a reminder for them. “Classmate Zhihuo had hidden his strength before due to family reasons. However, I told him no need to hold back this time, but it’s still…frightened me.”
“That’s not right.” There were still teachers who couldn’t believe this. Class 1’s physics teacher, an old man who retired soon, questioned, “No matter how good he was at pretending, he can’t score over 700! He skipped so many classes, didn’t do homework, and without practice, it’s impossible for his score to be over 700, no matter how high his IQ is!”
Hence, the physics teacher slammed the test paper onto the podium during the physics class that day. “I have a little sore throat today, so I will have Jiang Zhihuo, the student with the full score, come up to explain the problem-solving process to everyone.”
Jiang Zhihuo had already anticipated this outcome. Scoring over 700 points couldn’t convince everyone entirely. They would still hold some doubts about whether he was cheating, even after checking the surveillance cameras. The best solution was to directly solve the problems in front of everyone.
“Okay, Teacher!” Jiang Zhihuo walked up to the podium calmly with confidence.
“Everyone, open your test papers. Huo-ge will be teaching you how to guess the answers today.”
Jiang Zhihuo’s way of explaining the problems wasn’t quite the same as the teacher’s. After all, a student can better understand other students’ lines of thinking and where they are stuck. All the top students widened their eyes in disbelief at first, but after listening for a while, they gradually got into the flow.
The physics test questions were relatively difficult. Among them was a particularly challenging problem that few students managed to solve. However, Jiang Zhihuo was able to solve it using three different methods, and along the way, he even expanded his thinking by linking it to the final tough problem from last week’s test, which he then re-solved using a new approach.
The physics teacher, together with teachers from several other subjects, sat dumbfounded in the back row of the classroom.
It wasn’t until the end-of-class bell rang that the whole Class 1 belatedly felt how unreal it was.
—Unbelievable!
They really spent an entire class listening to the school bully Jiang explaining the problems!!
In addition, this school bully, who once scored 15 in physics, unexpectedly got a full score this time!! A full score!!
The final hard question they could only solve after thinking for half an hour and were forced to give up was actually broken down into several simple methods, earning an answer!!
Damn!!!
Not a single person left the classroom during the ten-minute break.
Zong Bei went to the restroom to relieve himself, and when he returned, he saw that Class 1 was completely still, with not even a hint of noise. Unable to suppress his curiosity, he leaned toward the window to take a look, staring dumbfounded at Jiang Zhihuo standing at the podium. The air seemed to freeze.
“Class is over. You all are not going to move a bit?”
The completely silent classroom finally showed a slight reaction after Zong Bei’s question was asked.
Zong Bei asked the classmate sitting by the window. “What exactly happened to Huo-ge? What mistakes did he make this time to do self-criticism up there? What shocking and outrageous words did he say this time?”
The results of the weekly exams and small tests were announced separately by each class. There was no compilation of rankings across the grade level. Zong Bei, who was in Class 2, had no idea about the situation in Class 1.
The classmate sat by the window and turned their head stiffly. “Huo-ge is so powerful.”
“How powerful?”
“He scored 739.”
“739, ah, that’s indeed powerful.” Zong Bei nodded with satisfaction, but midway through, he instantly froze. “What? How many?? Ah??? Who??”
Zong Bei’s degree of shock was higher than that of the people in Class 1.
Anyone who had experience with Jiang Zhihuo’s intellectually disabled style during makeup lessons would never believe Huo-ge had a normal IQ when it came to studying.
It was absolutely impossible—!!
Jiang Zhihuo saw Zong Bei outside the window and was about to call him, yet before he could open his mouth, the physics teacher said, “Zhihuo, come to the office for a bit.”
Jiang Zhihuo had no choice but to leave Zong Bei alone for now.
Zong Bei charged into Class 1’s classroom, going straight for Chang Luo, and asked, “What’s the situation? 739? Huo-ge?!”
Chang Luo had been shocked the entire morning. Though he hadn’t yet accepted the reality, he was still better than Zong Bei. He recounted the whole story in detail.
“Huo-ge said that it was due to some special circumstances that he hid his strength before. He planned to raise the score little by little at first so it wouldn’t be shocking, but the variety show unexpectedly exposed his ability.”
Chang Luo opened a clip from Pick U and placed it in front of Zong Bei.
“The 2019 National Mathematics Competition’s problems were made quite well……”
“Bn is monotonically decreasing to n squared……”
“Consider the intercept form of the equation, substitute in the value of k and take the square root……”
???
Zong Bei felt a wave of dizziness, making his vision blur.
The words Jiang Zhihuo once said to him came rushing back like a storm, roaring in his ears.
“I had to hide my strength for certain reasons. In fact, I am very strong.”
“Don’t worry about me. B University is not hard.”
“I am serious about going for the provincial top scorer.”
“I did especially well on this test, and I was quite worried that it would scare you.”
“Perhaps first in the whole year, I guess?”
Zong Bei: “……”
Chang Luo, seeing the petrified Zong Bei, felt as if he were seeing himself from two days ago; the same astonished, disbelieving, and dazed. He placed his hand on Zong Bei’s shoulder.
“Did you feel it?” Chang Luo asked.
“Feel what?” Zong Bei asked blankly, his mind could no longer keep up.
Chang Luo sighed and said, “The unevenness of the world4[T/N: This is a literary or philosophical term often used to describe how the world is full of inequality, imbalance, or contrasts (e.g., rich vs. poor, brilliant vs. dull, hidden genius vs. obvious mediocrity). It can also imply the complex variety and disorder of reality.], ah. Have you felt it?”
Zong Bei: “……”
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