The Value of a Set of Test Papers

When Li Ye and Wen Leyu began "giving each other problems and explaining them," many students in Class One treated it as a joke.

"Li Ye has the nerve to explain math problems to Wen Leyu? How many points did he even score?"

Though no one mocked Li Ye as openly as that shit-stirrer He Weiguo, quite a few people were secretly laughing at him.

But after the two of them kept making up problems and explaining them for five or six days straight, someone finally realized something was off.

These days were nothing like the later era of "doing test papers until you threw up." There were no supplementary study materials for sale on the market. Teachers had to rack their brains for several days just to piece together a test paper different from the previous ones, with a little novelty to it.

Students nowadays had a very narrow range of access to knowledge. If they wanted to do problems, they could only keep reviewing questions teachers had tested them on before, along with some of the problems teachers explained during class.

Whenever a student managed to get hold of a set of test questions from another school, everyone would excitedly copy them down and then discuss and study them with great enthusiasm.

The Retake Class students had an intense hunger for test questions. They had already learned everything they were supposed to learn, and there were only so many ways left to improve their grades. Every new set of test questions was precious to them.

They simply could not imagine what it meant to "do problems until you threw up." If they could have imagined it, even imagining it would have felt like happiness.

So when the Class One students noticed that Li Ye and Wen Leyu had been endlessly discussing problems for five or six days, they too began to stir with anticipation. What kind of difficult questions could keep these two poor students from solving them for five or six days? Why not let me try?

"Bro, what problems are you doing? Let me take a look?"

Li Dayong had craned his neck and watched his older brother for two days. In the end, he could not resist "disturbing Li Ye's good thing."

Li Ye casually tossed Li Dayong a math exercise notebook. "Here. If there's anything you don't understand, ask me. I'll explain it to you."

"Got it, bro!"

Li Dayong did not pay much attention to Li Ye saying he would "explain" things to him. He knew his own brother's level all too well.

But after taking the notebook, he soon began to feel dazed.

Densely packed practice problems filled more than a dozen pages. Only a small number were question types Li Dayong had seen before; all the rest were new.

"Damn, where did my brother get these problems?"

Li Dayong was like a cat that had fallen into a rat's nest, excitedly taking a bite here and swiping a paw there, wishing he could swallow every target in one gulp.

But before long, his brows had furrowed tightly.

The earlier problems were fine, but many of the later ones stumped Li Dayong even though they had been worked out and had answers. For the moment, he still could not understand them.

He tried covering up the solution process and looking only at the original questions. To his shock, his eyes went blank and he could not make head or tail of them.

"Hiss."

Li Dayong sucked in a cold breath and looked incredulously at Li Ye and Wen Leyu not far away, wondering which of the two was the top student.

From what he had observed over the past few days, Li Ye seemed to spend more time explaining problems to Wen Leyu. Wen Leyu would occasionally lower her voice and teach Li Ye as well.

But his own brother...

"Dayong, Dayong, let me copy them too!"

Li Dayong's deskmate, Fu Yingjie, leaned over and pleaded with him ingratiatingly. He had been watching for ages. The test questions in the notebook were like ginseng fruits on the ginseng tree, making him drool with craving.

Li Dayong did not agree right away. He asked Li Ye first, and only after receiving the reply, "Do as you see fit," did he hand it to Fu Yingjie.

Once he agreed, it was like opening the floodgates. Several nearby classmates gathered around and began copying the questions under the dim yellow light.

A thought suddenly struck Li Dayong. "How about you copy only the questions, not the answers? Let's see how many you can solve?"

"Sure, let's try, let's try."

Everyone accepted Li Dayong's suggestion and excitedly lowered their heads to copy.

The more they copied, the more astonished they became. The more they copied, the more excited they grew. By the time they had copied every problem, they were nearly dancing with joy.

It was like a martial arts fanatic who considered himself a prodigy obtaining a martial arts manual. Though he had not understood it yet, he could already foresee his strength improving.

But barely half an hour later, these "martial arts prodigies" were awakened by dipper after dipper of cold water.

"Are they really this hard?"

"How many can you solve?"

"Eight. No, six, probably. What about you?"

"I'm not saying. Too embarrassing."

Li Dayong cast a sidelong glance and put on airs. "A few days ago, who was laughing at my brother? Now you know the depth of the waters, huh?"

"Hehehe, yes, yes, yes. Brother Yong, Grandpa Yong, let us copy the answers, okay?"

"You can copy the answers, but don't blindly follow certain people and make a fuss from now on. And don't let those people who love taking advantage while pretending to be virtuous copy the problems."

"Mm-hm, mm-hm, mm-hm."

Li Dayong's sarcastic tone drew resentment from several people at the front of the classroom.

They were all part of the small circle around Xia Yue. The core members were former class monitor Xia Yue and Class One's Committee Member Jin Shengli.

Before, they had relied on their good grades and their claim of "understanding literature" to repeatedly exclude Li Dayong, Li Ye's staunch ally. Now that Xia Yue had lost her position as class monitor because of Li Ye, the two sides had become bitter enemies.

That was why most of the voices mocking Li Ye a few days earlier had come from Xia Yue's little group. Li Dayong had been holding in his frustration, so now that he had the chance, how could he not throw out a few barbs?

Committee Member Jin Shengli had already risen, intending to come copy the questions, but after hearing Li Dayong's words, he sat back down in shame.

He had been one of the people laughing at Li Ye a few days ago.

Xia Yue had a bad temper too. After hearing Li Dayong's words, she said angrily, "Hmph, they're just a few lousy problems. What's so special about them? A poor student is still a poor student. Give some people a mountain of problems, and they still won't get in."

Li Dayong immediately retorted, "Everyone here has taken the entrance exam. It's not like anyone actually got in."

Xia Yue sprang to her feet, ready to engage Li Dayong in a war of words.

Compared with her academic performance, her skill with her mouth was even better.

Tap, tap, tap~

Li Ye knocked on the desk with one hand, while the fountain pen in his other hand never stopped moving.

Li Dayong immediately stopped arguing. Dragging his chair over to Li Ye's side, he grinned obsequiously and said, "Bro, got time? Explain these problems to me?"

Looking at the burly, bear-like Li Dayong, Li Ye could not help but shudder in disgust.

The impact of Li Ye's questions spread far faster than he had expected.

The next afternoon, homeroom teacher Teacher Luo came looking for him.

"Li Ye, where did those test questions of yours come from?"

Li Ye looked at Teacher Luo, unable to understand why he was in such a hurry.

In truth, Li Ye had underestimated the value of the questions he had made up. Teacher Luo taught physics. That morning, someone had brought several questions to ask him about, immediately catching his attention.

He had never seen this kind of question before, and solving them was "very interesting."

A different profession was like a different mountain. Only someone like Teacher Luo, who racked his brains over creating questions every day, could deeply understand the value of these problems.

As the homeroom teacher of Retake Class One, he would not let go of any factor that might improve the class's grades. Asking a student for some questions was nothing to be embarrassed about.

Li Ye thought for a moment. "Some of them were found for me by my family. Teacher Ke made up several other sets for me."

"Teacher Ke? Fine, I'll go find her."

Teacher Luo immediately believed Li Ye's words. After all, even if someone beat him to death, he would never imagine that questions made by Li Ye could amaze a teacher like him, or even nearly stump him.

But as Teacher Luo turned to leave, he casually took Li Ye's exercise notebook with him.

What Li Ye did not know was that when Teacher Ke received Li Ye's exercise notebook, she too nearly wore a completely bewildered expression.