Crossing Gaokao Year Three

Before him was a familiar yet strange sight; in his ears, the clamor of youth.

Chen Mo, a standard middle-aged man in his thirties who had spent over a decade grinding in the workplace, just barely reaching middle management, and currently being besieged by mortgage payments, car loans, his child's formula expenses, and a receding hairline, was currently frozen on a hard wooden classroom chair as if his soul had left his body.

His gaze was locked firmly onto the top right corner of the blackboard ahead.

There, written in red chalk, were a few shocking, large characters, accompanied by an incredibly eye-catching number—

[Gaokao Countdown: 252 days]

Next to the number, a small, somewhat tragic-looking exclamation mark had been sketched in white chalk.

"Two hundred and fifty-two... days?"

Chen Mo repeated the number silently in his heart, feeling a chill travel from his tailbone all the way up his spine to the crown of his head—more bracing than downing three cups of iced Americano in one go.

He instinctively pinched his own thigh.

"Hiss—!"

It hurt! It really hurt! This wasn't a dream!

The surrounding scene was so incredibly real: the slightly dilapidated classroom, the motivational slogan on the wall reading "There is no royal road to learning; diligence is the path, and hard work is the boat," and the desks piled high with books like small mountains, almost blocking all view of the front. The air was filled with a scent unique to campuses—a mixture of chalk dust, adolescent hormones, and some kind of cheap snack.

Boys and girls wearing blue-and-white school uniforms, with a style so dated it felt retro, were gathered in twos and threes, chattering away. Some were discussing last night's TV drama, others were sharing the latest news about their idols, and a few who looked like top students were arguing until their faces were red over a math problem.

A surge of vibrant, lively, anxious, and hopeful youthful energy rushed toward him like a tidal wave, nearly knocking the soul of this "old fogey" Chen Mo flat on the beach.

He had transmigrated.

Just like that, without warning, without any rhyme or reason, he had transmigrated.

He hadn't encountered the "model worker of the transmigration world"—the dump truck—nor had he experienced any major life setback, drunken fall, or any other standard procedure. He had simply been slacking off at his desk, taken a nap, and when he opened his eyes, the world had changed.

His career was just starting to pick up, with a promotion opportunity for the next quarter dangling right in front of him; his wife, who nagged occasionally but was generally harmonious; and that "money-burning beast" who had just started kindergarten and could melt his heart or drive him to tears in a single day... had all these become things of his "past life"?

The key was, the timing of this transmigration was just too wicked!

The first semester of the third year of senior high! With only a mere two hundred and fifty-two days left until the Gaokao, the exam that determined the fate of countless people!

As a standard office drone who had been out of school for over a decade, the parts of his brain containing high school knowledge had long been squeezed out by KPIs, PPTs, weekly reports, monthly reports, and various social gossip.

Math? He could still figure out the parity of functions by counting on his fingers, but what was calculus? Was it edible?

Chinese? He might be able to stutter out the first two lines of the Tengwang Pavilion Preface, but what came after "The sunset and the lone duck fly together"?

English? He remembered "Abandon" quite well, after all, every time he resolved to learn English, he started with it, and then... he truly abandoned it.

Science/Liberal Arts subjects? Sorry, the memory banks had been formatted, leaving only some vague nouns and the portraits of scientists...

Back when he took the Gaokao, he had relied on his young, sharp brain to survive the single-plank bridge, scoring over five hundred points and getting into a decent, if not top-tier, second-tier university. But that was "glory" from over a decade ago! If he went back to take the Gaokao now, his score would likely be cut in half, and he'd probably have to pay them to let him take it.

What was even worse was that after he tried to integrate the memories of the original owner of this body, he found the situation even more desperate.

The original owner, "Chen Mo," was just like his name—a silent background board in the class. His grades were consistently at the bottom, the kind of student teachers viewed as having "plenty of room for improvement" (which meant there was no hope). He relied on guessing for exams, used a six-sided eraser to pick multiple-choice answers, and left long-form questions blank—a true paragon of "Buddhist-style test-taking."

Birds of a feather flock together. This saying was perfectly reflected in the classroom seating chart.

"Hey! Brother Mo! You've been spacing out for ages, what's up? Did some female ghost snatch your soul away? If there's something bothering you, spit it out and let your brother have a laugh!"

A cheeky voice came from beside him, accompanied by the "rustling" sound of a snack bag being torn open.

Chen Mo turned his head stiffly, and what met his eyes was a familiar yet strange face—his seatmate and best friend, Zhang Shun.

This brother sported a head of hair that looked like it had just been bombed, his face was dotted with the constellations of youth—red pimples—and he was as thin as a hemp stalk with a healthy (or perhaps just unmaintained) wheat-colored complexion. Right now, he was shaking his leg while peering at Chen Mo with small eyes that sparkled with "wisdom" (or rather, gossip), his face full of anticipation, as if to say, "Tell me, I've got my stool and sunflower seeds ready."

Sure enough, anyone who could hang out with the underachiever Chen Mo was naturally one of the "great gods" who occupied the back of the classroom. In the skill of "consistently failing," Zhang Shun was on par with the original owner.

But strangely, these guys seemed to have no self-awareness of being underachievers. Take Zhang Shun, for example: despite having a face that screamed "destined to be single," he always felt he was devastatingly handsome, living in a state of inexplicable confidence and repressed vanity. Unfortunately, this confidence would instantly collapse the moment he encountered a slightly pretty girl, leaving him flustered, red-faced, and speaking quieter than a mosquito—perfectly inheriting and carrying forward the "fine tradition" of the original Chen Mo.

Chen Mo took a deep breath, struggling to suppress the ten thousand horses galloping through his heart. Mimicking the original owner's slightly decadent tone, he feigned profundity and brushed him off: "It's nothing, just pondering some life philosophy questions regarding the origin of the universe and the meaning of life. You wouldn't understand even if I told you."

"Tch!" Zhang Shun curled his lip in disdain and handed over half a bag of potato chips. "Stop acting so high and mighty! Here, take some, you look like your soul is drifting away—replenish your energy."

Chen Mo didn't stand on ceremony, taking them and crunching on a few to calm his nerves. He asked as if casually: "Shunzi, has anything big happened at school lately? Why does the atmosphere feel a bit different?"

He had to figure out the current situation and straighten out the timeline.

"Big things?" Zhang Shun scratched his bird's nest of hair, trying hard to think. "What else could there be? Isn't it just the old homeroom teacher chanting on the podium every day? Things like 'The Gaokao determines your fate,' 'One point can wipe out a whole playground,' 'If you don't work hard now, no one will hire you to move bricks in the future'... My ears are almost calloused. Anyway, for us two, heh, we're half-cooked!"

He made an exaggerated gesture, as if the ultimate dream of a salted fish was to be fried until golden brown on both sides.

"Half-cooked?" Chen Mo chewed on the word, looking at the bright red "252" in the top right corner of the blackboard, his heart feeling icy cold.

Half-cooked? This was clearly the rhythm of being completely cooked, just waiting for the fire of the Gaokao to confirm it!

He could already see the tragic scene 252 days later: failing the exam, being ruthlessly abandoned by this inexplicable world, and eventually ending up homeless...

No! Absolutely not!

How could a middle-aged soul who had been beaten down by society just sit and wait for death? Even if the road ahead was a mountain of blades and a sea of fire, a desert of knowledge he had long forgotten, he had to... at least find a way to survive!

At the very least, he had to figure out if it was still possible to save his grades by starting to review now.

Chen Mo's gaze involuntarily drifted toward that mountain of textbooks and workbooks, his eyes filled with the determination of a warrior cutting off his own wrist, and a hint of... the cunning calculation of an old man.