Pair of Aces? Can't Beat That!

The next morning, they had the humanities comprehensive exam.

Chen Guiliang had thought he wouldn't know how to do it, but after getting the paper, he found several questions in a row surprisingly easy.

But as he kept going, he became unsure again.

They were clearly multiple-choice questions, yet several options seemed correct.

He reread the questions over and over until his head went numb.

After muddling through every question, Chen Guiliang felt it had gone okay. Out of a total of 300 points for the humanities comprehensive exam, getting 160 shouldn't be a problem.

If he actually studied this stuff seriously, raising his score would be easy.

Chen Guiliang handed in his paper early and returned to the dorm to keep writing.

At noon, while eating in the cafeteria, the woman serving food acted like she had a grudge against him. She didn't give him so much as a pleasant look and deliberately shook the ladle a few extra times.

With every shake, half the food disappeared.

There was nothing he could do. Back in high school, Chen Guiliang couldn't stand even the slightest injustice and loved picking fights with heaven, earth, and thin air.

Relying on its rule forbidding students from leaving campus to eat, the school cafeteria had become increasingly outrageous during his sophomore year. In summer heat of forty degrees Celsius, they didn't do anything with leftovers, selling them again at the next meal even after they had gone rancid. They weren't even afraid of sending students to the hospital.

Chen Guiliang rallied several students to make trouble and even put up big-character posters outside the principal's office. He had nearly gotten into a fight with the security guard who stopped students from leaving campus.

Then a student climbed over the wall to eat outside and broke a bone in the fall, finally forcing the school to revoke its ban on eating off campus.

As for the woman serving food before him, she was another piece of work.

Breakfast time was already tight, and the students waiting for noodles stood in a long line. When this woman encountered the son of an acquaintance, she not only let him cut to the very front, but slowly ladled beef into his bowl until it was piled full.

Even when the bowl could hold no more, she kept adding beef, eventually piling it into a small mountain. Meanwhile, every other student's beef noodles came with only two miserable little chunks of meat.

The bowl of noodles was too hot and too full to carry away, yet the woman actually abandoned all the waiting students to find a tray for her acquaintance's son.

Chen Guiliang had been starving at the time. He had rarely come for breakfast, and that woman disgusted him so much that he blew up on the spot.

In the end, every student in line refused to eat, and some even smashed the cafeteria's bowls and plates all over the floor.

But nothing happened to that woman. She was an older relative of the cafeteria contractor.

Chen Guiliang, on the other hand, received a major disciplinary demerit for leading the disturbance!

"Not enough."

At that very moment, Chen Guiliang pointed at his stainless-steel tray and stood stubbornly at the serving window without moving.

The woman pretended not to hear him, setting down her ladle and refusing to move.

The students behind him grew more impatient as they waited. Some accused Chen Guiliang of blocking the line, while others urged the woman to hurry up and serve the food.

The woman at the next window tried to persuade them. "Forget it."

It was unclear who she was talking to.

The serving woman finally added another half ladle. After Chen Guiliang left satisfied, she muttered under her breath, "Beggar. One day, you'll starve to death!"

The woman beside her said, "Why are you fighting with him? He's already on probation."

"People like him should be expelled. He doesn't act like a student at all!" The serving woman didn't think she had done anything wrong.

Unaware that he had been cursed, Chen Guiliang sprawled over the dining table and wolfed down his food. This young body of his seemed as though it would never get full.

After lunch, he continued writing.

English began that afternoon, and Chen Guiliang felt pretty good about it. At least he didn't have the helpless feeling he had during the math exam.

"Chen the Hero, let's go to the internet café!"

As they left the exam hall, Xie Yang called out to him.

Chen Guiliang smiled. "I ate a lot today. Shitting out a whole pound would be easy."

Only then did Xie Yang remember his vow that if he went online again, he would eat a pound of shit. He stood there for a long while with a pained expression before saying gloomily, "Forget it, forget it. We'll go after the College Entrance Exam. My Diablo III helmet is going to lose value soon."

Then the guy hurried off to eat before returning to the dorm to read novels.

People always needed some kind of catalyst to grow up.

The Xie Yang in Chen Guiliang's memories had barely managed to get into a second-tier college. No one knew what happened to him, but he suddenly matured during his freshman year.

He stopped playing games and reading novels, studying while working part-time.

From sophomore through senior year, Xie Yang earned all his own living expenses. He even got into a graduate program at a Project 985 university. Later, he took the civil service exam, and through his own efforts and his older brother's help, he had risen to county magistrate by the age of forty.

That evening, Chen Guiliang finished writing all four submissions.

The next day was a day off to make room for the underclassmen's midterms, while the senior teachers busied themselves grading papers.

Chen Guiliang walked twenty minutes to the post office near the school.

He bought four envelopes, stuffed the manuscripts and submission pages inside, and sent registered letters to the editorial office of Sprout Magazine. One envelope could actually have held everything, but he deliberately sent several letters to improve the odds of his initial submissions passing review.

Then he went to the bank to check his account balance. There were only 52.68 yuan left.

At the time, withdrawing money in another city required a handling fee regardless of whether it was an interbank transaction, and the fee percentage was fucking high.

But there were ways around it, such as having both parties use the same account.

In other words, Chen Guiliang's parents could deposit money in another city using the bank card. Chen Guiliang could then use a secondary card or passbook to withdraw it from an affiliated bank in the city where the account was opened, without paying a single cent in fees.

Conversely, if Chen Guiliang deposited money into the account, his parents would have to pay a handling fee to withdraw it elsewhere.

He pressed the ATM's withdrawal button and took out fifty yuan.

This little money wasn't enough to live on. Chen Guiliang pondered how to earn some.

At this time, business opportunities were everywhere in China, but none of them had anything to do with a left-behind child. To make money, one either needed startup capital or connections and backing.

Chen Guiliang had neither!

Submit writing to magazines?

He could try, but making money that way was too slow unless a published work became a huge hit.

With his mind full of random thoughts, Chen Guiliang muddled through his day off and still had evening self-study that night.

He followed his roommates to the classroom, where it was noisy and lively. Yet many students ignored the commotion, silently sitting at their desks reading and doing exercises.

Chen Guiliang was in the humanities experimental class.

It was called an experimental class, but some students had gotten in through connections.

Following his memories, Chen Guiliang walked to the last row. There were only three seats there, the thrones of the "Three Phantom Gods."

Besides Chen Guiliang, the other two of the Three Phantom Gods had both gotten in through connections.

There had originally been the "Four Heavenly Kings," but one had transferred schools during senior year and returned to his so-called place of household registration. Heh, a College Entrance Exam migrant.

"You're here?"

His deskmate, Guan Zhiqiang, shifted his butt slightly, but his eyes remained fixed on the novel he was reading.

Chen Guiliang smiled. "You got here early."

Guan Zhiqiang's grades were at the very bottom of the entire year. His looks were also difficult to describe; at first glance, he looked pretty damn stupid.

This guy always read novels in class, grinning foolishly as he read and sometimes even drooling.

Chen Guiliang had always thought Guan Zhiqiang would at best end up in a vocational college.

Yet he had never expected Guan Zhiqiang to suddenly become an art student and somehow get into an art academy without anyone noticing. After graduation, he stayed on at the school as a counselor and later even became an administrator in the academy.

Having connections at home really was different. From high school to college to graduation, he could keep coasting through life on connections.

With Guan Zhiqiang's painting skills, he could probably draw a turtle that looked like a crab. God knew how he had passed the art exam.

The remaining member of the Three Phantom Gods was that bastard Li Jun.

Li Jun walked into the classroom with both hands in his pockets, a gleaming MP3 player hanging from his chest. He strutted proudly toward his seat.

"Guan Zhiqiang!" Li Jun shouted.

Guan Zhiqiang wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth and slowly turned his head.

Li Jun showed off smugly. "I called you to play Mahjong, but you fucking didn't come. I won more than three hundred today."

"Heh heh." Guan Zhiqiang responded with a foolish grin.

He only looked stupid; he wasn't actually stupid. There was no way he would play Mahjong with Li Jun. He had played a few times before, and Li Jun had always teamed up with others to win his money.

Chen Guiliang couldn't be bothered with either of those idiots. He was flipping through his math textbook.

Some of the material he could understand, while other parts required him to first review what he had learned in his freshman and sophomore years.

After an unknown amount of time, the classroom quickly fell silent.

Their homeroom teacher, Liu Shuying, entered, followed by a tall girl.

Chen Guiliang was familiarizing himself with the textbook when Guan Zhiqiang suddenly jabbed him in the arm and whispered excitedly like a creep, "Look, look, there's a beauty!"

The entire class focused their attention on the girl.

Especially the boys.

Guan Zhiqiang whispered, "She's definitely the school beauty!"

Chen Guiliang gave her a glance and said blandly, "A pair of aces."

"What?" Guan Zhiqiang didn't understand.

Chen Guiliang added, "Can't beat that."

There was no joke about a pair of aces yet, and with Guan Zhiqiang's touching level of intelligence, he probably wouldn't be able to figure it out on his own.

The quiet classroom filled with murmurs again as everyone secretly discussed the beautiful girl.

Clap! Clap!

Liu Shuying clapped twice. "Stop talking. We have a new classmate, so let her introduce herself first."

The girl was probably around 1.7 meters tall. She wore a gray hoodie with blue jeans, looking fresh, casual, and capable.

Her hair was tied in a single ponytail, with no other accessories.

Her eyebrows were slightly thick, and her phoenix eyes were bright and lively. She could easily be described as having bold brows and big eyes, which gave her an added air of heroic spirit.

However, she was flat-chested.

An airport runway.

With a backpack slung over her left shoulder and both hands tucked into her hoodie pockets, she walked onto the platform and said in a Hibiscus City accent, "My name is Bian Guanyue."

That was it?

Liu Shuying froze for a moment, then said, "Very good. Welcome, student Bian Guanyue!"

Thunderous applause erupted in the classroom. Guan Zhiqiang clapped especially loudly, his mouth hanging open so wide he was almost drooling.

Though both were Shu region dialects, the local dialect sounded too harsh.

Bian Guanyue, meanwhile, spoke with a provincial-capital accent, her voice sweet and soft with the lilting tones of plum blossoms. To the boys in class, it sounded like celestial music.

So gentle.

A "damn it" from a girl like that would surely sound more pleasant than a local girl calling someone "big brother."

Xie Yang even felt the stirrings of a change of heart. He repeatedly compared Zhou Jing and Bian Guanyue in his mind, and the more he compared them, the more thoroughly Zhou Jing seemed outclassed.

Sigh, Zhou Jing, don't blame me for being faithless. The new classmate is simply too exceptional.

Xu Haibo was sneaking glances as well, though he kept pretending to read. This guy would unconsciously blush if he spoke to a girl alone for more than a few sentences. How could he dare face a beauty like Bian Guanyue directly?

Li Jun suddenly stood and waved. "Student Bian, there's an empty seat here! There's an empty seat here!"

He was the only one sitting alone, with an empty desk beside him left by the College Entrance Exam migrant.

Bian Guanyue walked over and sat beside Li Jun expressionlessly.

The boys were filled with envy.

That fucking Li Jun was so lucky!

Li Jun grinned as he tried to get familiar with her. "Student Bian, your name sounds really nice. You're like a heroine from a historical drama."

"Thank you," Bian Guanyue replied coldly.

Li Jun continued, "My name is Li Jun. Li as in plum tree, Jun as in gentleman."

Bian Guanyue didn't respond.

Clap! Clap!

Liu Shuying clapped again. "Quiet! The midterm results are out. Some students improved very quickly, while others have no idea what they've been doing..."

Li Jun, who had been extremely excited, instantly shut up when he heard that the exam results were out.