After dinner, Mother Chen hummed as she cleared the dishes, while Father Chen sat down with Chen Mo in the living room and asked him in detail about the admission standards and past admission results of top universities. Chen Mo answered each question using what he had heard from Instructor Xu and Zhao Peng. Chen Qing stuck by her brother's side like a little shadow, occasionally chiming in with innocent questions. Their home was filled with a warm, hopeful energy they hadn't felt in a long time.
Early the next morning, as soon as Chen Mo stepped through the gates of No.7 Middle School, he saw students crowding three deep around the bulletin board, their discussions buzzing with excitement—the overall results of the citywide second mock exam had been officially posted.
Chen Mo squeezed through the crowd and quickly found the senior-year rankings. Before long, he spotted his name:
Name: Chen Mo
Cultural Class Total: 528/600 (School Rank: 1)
Martial Arts Class Total: 486/500 (School Rank: 2)
Combined Total: 1014/1100 (School Rank: 1)
First in Cultural Class across the school! First in the combined rankings!
Even though Chen Mo had been prepared for this, a ripple of emotion still passed through him when he saw the results. He glanced to his side and saw Li Haoran staring fixedly at the glaring "2" beside Chen Mo's name on the Cultural Class list. His face flushed and paled by turns, his lips pressed so tightly they had gone white, and his knuckles were pale from clenching his fists. After Chen Mo had surpassed him in the last monthly exam, Li Haoran could still comfort himself by saying it was a fluke or that he'd performed poorly. But now, in a citywide mock exam, Chen Mo had taken the top spot and left