The Overheard Evaluation

The principal's trust was inspiring. As soon as he returned to the classroom, Chen Zhao immediately began reading his textbooks.

He had already memorized them once yesterday, but he still felt a bit uneasy, so he decided to memorize them again!

Since he had already gone through the material, the time required for a second pass was significantly reduced. Thus, in just a single morning, he managed to review every textbook from cover to cover once more.

Without a hint of false modesty, Chen Zhao felt that every textbook from his high school years had been stored in his brain, word for word. As long as he closed his eyes, he could even read the pages in his mind!

However, simply knowing the textbooks by heart and being able to recite them fluently was far from enough.

Anyone who has been to school knows that there is a rather twisted rule regarding the difficulty of problems:

Textbook example difficulty: 1+1=2

Daily homework difficulty: 1024×2046=2095104

Exam paper difficulty: 128888×65¼+2.66³÷㏑88+0.15%=???

Therefore, the next step was to engage in a "sea of questions" strategy, grinding through problems like a madman, working through several meters' worth of exercise books, identifying every problem he couldn't solve, and tackling them one by one!

When school let out at noon, Chen Zhao didn't go home. He bought a hand-grab pancake, two grilled sausages, and a skewer of teppanyaki squid on the side of the road, devoured them ravenously, and then headed straight for the Xinhua Bookstore at the school gate.

The Xinhua Bookstore was a magical place that never interfered with customers reading books without restraint. Every time Chen Zhao went, there were always a bunch of people inside reading, leaning against the shelves or sitting on the floor, focused as if they were statues.

These people were basically "freeloaders" who only read and never bought. Chen Zhao always felt that with so many people freeloading and no one buying books, the store would probably go out of business in a few days. Yet, after all these years, the Xinhua Bookstore remained standing, and even had enough spare cash to renovate twice, adding seats for the freeloaders...

Today, Chen Zhao was also here to enjoy some freeloading!

He entered the store and took the elevator straight to the third floor. The third floor was the supplementary materials section, where one could find everything from kindergarten literacy books to university professional exam texts. High school exercise books and supplementary materials, in particular, occupied a large portion of the space. Chen Zhao was here specifically to freeload on the senior year exercise books.

Just as he arrived on the third floor, Chen Zhao unexpectedly spotted three familiar figures.

Ma Jianjun! Zhao Xiaobai! Zhang Fan!

The top three in the school!

The three top students seemed to have just arrived as well, weaving between the shelves, likely looking for some exercise books themselves. Top students always liked to hang out with other top students; the top three in the school seemed to have a very close relationship.

However, Chen Zhao wasn't close with them, so he didn't go over to say hello and instead looked for supplementary books on his own.

Chen Zhao wanted to check out Five Years of Gaokao, Three Years of Simulation, a very famous collection of exercises. The top students in his class all had a set, so he figured the quality of the problems should be decent.

But after wandering around for a long time, he couldn't find Five Years of Gaokao, Three Years of Simulation, but instead found... Six Years of Gaokao, Three Years of Simulation. The cover was exactly the same as he remembered, only the name had changed.

It must have been another result of the World Reset by the system. Ever since the world was reset, many things had changed. It wasn't strange for a supplementary book to change its name.

Chen Zhao picked through the shelves, pulled down a math copy of the "Five-Three"—ah, no, the "Six-Three"—and sat in a corner to start reading.

Opening it up, it was filled with nothing but problems. Each one was marked with the year and location of the Gaokao it came from, indicating that they were basically original exam questions. The editors had categorized these real Gaokao questions and mock exam questions, organizing them by chapter. They were highly authentic, making them perfect for review.

He looked at the first problem.

A single glance, and the answer was already in his mind.

The second problem.

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Still... a single glance and the answer was there!

The third problem... still a single glance and the answer was there!

The feeling of having a high IQ was truly fantastic. The difficulty of all the problems had been drastically reduced; there was no need to use scratch paper for calculations at all!

Chen Zhao went through the problems one by one. Basically, 99% of them were ridiculously simple, and he could calculate the answers mentally as soon as he finished reading the questions. Consequently, Chen Zhao made rapid progress, flipping pages every few dozen seconds.

After reading for a few minutes, he suddenly heard voices in the distance.

The voices were familiar—it was those three top students!

They weren't speaking loudly, but Chen Zhao had been sharp-eared since he was a kid, and he could just barely make out what they were saying.

Ma Jianjun: "I'll be done with my CET-4 English vocabulary in about two days. I bought a book of CET-6 vocabulary to take a quick look at."

Zhang Fan: "I just bought a book of Physics Olympiad problems. I have to go participate in the physics competition in a while, so I need to cram a bit."

Zhao Xiaobai: "I bought a collection of perfect-score essays to take home and memorize."

As expected of top students, they were all here to buy new materials to study. Chen Zhao felt a secret sense of admiration.

But as he continued to listen, the topic suddenly shifted to him.

"What's the deal with that Chen Zhao who met the principal with us this morning? I asked around, and this Chen Zhao hasn't done well on a single exam since he entered high school. He's been at the bottom of the grade throughout his senior year!" Zhang Fan's voice carried a hint of disdain. "In the office this morning, he said he was third from the bottom. I didn't even believe him; I thought he was joking. After all, what right does the third-to-last student have to go to the principal's office? Turns out, it was actually true!"

Chen Zhao shrugged, thinking to himself, What does it matter to you whether I do well on my exams or not?

If you put that energy into your studies, you wouldn't be stuck as the eternal third place!

Next came Zhao Xiaobai's voice, soft and gentle: "I went and asked the teacher. The teacher said that Chen Zhao solved two super-difficult problems right in front of the grade director, and they were random problems the director came up with on the spot. He said he had been hiding his strength all along and intentionally scoring at the bottom. So, he might be a character like the sweeping monk from the Shaolin Temple—looking plain and unremarkable, but actually an expert in hiding."

Chen Zhao nodded secretly to himself, his favorability toward Zhao Xiaobai rising rapidly.

What a beautiful girl, beautiful both inside and out!

"Bullshit!" Ma Jianjun's voice was dismissive. "I've done the 'intentionally scoring low' thing too, just to get the scholarship for the most improved student. But I only scored fifty points lower. Chen Zhao has been missing hundreds of points! And he's been doing it for three years straight! Is there any need to hide to that extent? I bet he just got lucky, a blind cat finding a dead mouse, which is how he solved the problems the director gave him. It's not like he's some hidden expert at all."

Zhao Xiaobai: "Is that necessarily true?"

Zhang Fan: "There's nothing 'necessarily' about it. Brother Ma is right; that kid definitely just got lucky."

Chen Zhao frowned as he listened, feeling a bit annoyed.

Is it really okay to gossip about people behind their backs?

Did I provoke you or offend you?

Whether I'm hiding my strength or just lucky, what the hell does it have to do with you guys!

Chen Zhao was sitting in a corner, obscured by heavy bookshelves. The three top students didn't see him; they kept chatting as they turned the corner, got into the elevator, and left.

For a split second, Chen Zhao really wanted to rush out and argue with Ma Jianjun and Zhang Fan. But he stayed seated; for one, arguing like this was meaningless, and for another, there were two guys on the other side—if things got heated, he wouldn't be able to win a fight anyway...

When facing doubt, the best method is to prove it with facts!

The weekly exam was in two days, and that would be the perfect time to prove it! As long as his grades surged past Ma Jianjun and Zhang Fan, it would explain everything!

Chen Zhao felt his entire body filled with motivation. He lowered his head and began to seriously study the problems in the 6-3 workbook. Before the weekly exam, he had to go through the 6-3 problems for every subject to have a chance at surpassing Ma Jianjun and Zhang Fan!