Critical Hit Results

The time to meet Deng Zixin's father, Deng Tiejun, was set for next Saturday evening, which happened to be when Chen Zhao would finish his exams and have some free time.

The next day, Chen Zhao went to school, and the classroom was already noisy and chaotic during the morning reading session.

Listening in, Chen Zhao realized everyone was talking about the exams from the previous weekend:

"Holy crap, that physics problem was hard as hell!"

"Chemistry was insanely difficult too! What kind of garbage questions were those?"

"Biology made me want to puke. It was all about the tiny fine-print details in the textbook. I barely memorized any of it, so I just scribbled down a bunch of nonsense. I'm not confident about a single answer!"

"The Chinese essay prompt was ridiculous. Asking people to study? Who can write well about that? I've only ever been good at telling people to go to internet cafes!"

"The big math problems made me want to vomit. I swear, if I find the person who wrote this test, I won't kill them, but I'll definitely beat them up!"

Chen Zhao shrugged. Judging by his classmates' reactions, it was clear the difficulty of the last exam was on the high side, and many felt the questions were absurd. However, Chen Zhao didn't feel that way; aside from English, he felt he had done reasonably well on everything else.

The total score was 750, and Chen Zhao estimated... he should be able to score around 670 or 680, right?

"How about it? Did you do okay on the exams the last two days?" Xu Lanlan poked Chen Zhao with her elbow. "Can you move up from second to last?"

"Second to last?" Chen Zhao laughed, a very arrogant laugh. "I don't even care about being second to first. I'm going for first place!"

The students in front heard him and turned around to laugh, clearly thinking Chen Zhao was just blowing hot air.

"Stop talking nonsense. How many points can you actually get?" Xu Lanlan asked. "I estimate I'll get close to 380. Can you beat that?"

"I'll probably get around 670 or 680," Chen Zhao answered truthfully.

The students in front laughed even louder.

"Boring." Xu Lanlan ignored Chen Zhao. She had asked him a serious question, and Chen Zhao kept bragging, which made her quite angry.

Although Chen Zhao had stunned everyone in math class before and shown Xu Lanlan his amazing memorization skills, she had always felt that Chen Zhao wouldn't improve that quickly. Exams weren't just about memorizing textbooks or solving a few hard problems; they were about long-term accumulation. Xu Lanlan estimated that Chen Zhao breaking out of the bottom ten was possible, but rising any higher would take much more time.

Chen Zhao felt a bit helpless. It was true; he had been at the bottom of the class every time, so it wasn't realistic for everyone to believe he could take first place. It was only natural that they were making fun of him. But once the report cards came out later, he figured many of them wouldn't be laughing anymore.

Just as he was thinking this, the noise in the classroom suddenly stopped, and the whole class quickly switched to reading their textbooks.

Chen Zhao looked up, and sure enough, the homeroom teacher walked in through the door, stood on the podium, and scanned the class from above. He was imposing without even needing to be angry, possessing a powerful aura.

Chen Zhao also started reading his book in a showy manner. Even though he had done well on the exam, he still had to keep his head down as a student.

The homeroom teacher suddenly spoke:

"Quiet down, everyone. I'm going to read the scores."

The class instantly fell silent, looking up at the teacher.

"Our class's performance this time has been quite volatile. Many students who were consistently improving have suddenly plummeted. And some students whose rankings were stable have suddenly become unstable. I don't know what happened with your studies, but find out for yourselves! The college entrance exam is coming up soon, and if you're still confused and not studying, you might as well get out of here!"

The homeroom teacher's roar echoed through the classroom. Most of the students kept their heads down, pretending to be well-behaved and ready to turn over a new leaf. Everyone knew exactly how they had performed.

"Of course, since there are those who fell, there are also those who climbed up," the homeroom teacher said, shifting his tone.

"For example, our class finally has a grade-level first place!" The homeroom teacher smiled.

The top-tier students in the front row immediately stirred, and many of their expressions changed drastically! A grade-level first place wasn't something you could get easily. It was a supreme honor, representing a ticket to Peking University or Tsinghua University! Since the first exam in their freshman year, this class had never produced anyone who could even break into the top three of the grade! Now, someone had suddenly emerged. Who was so strong?

Liu Chang, the third in the class, looked at Zhang Shucheng, the second in the class.

Zhang Shucheng shook his head: "My math fell apart. It definitely isn't me."

Zhang Shucheng then looked at Chen Miaoran.

Chen Miaoran sat with her mouth open, at a loss, her eyes filled with both shock and extreme anticipation!

She felt she had performed well this time. Although there were a few questions she wasn't entirely sure about, overall, she had done quite well. Could it be... that by some stroke of luck, she had become the grade-level first place? Chen Miaoran's best result before had been tenth in the grade, and she had been so excited she couldn't sleep all night. If she had successfully taken first place this time, she figured it would be another sleepless night!

Chen Miaoran began to quickly recall the exams from the last two days in her mind, and the more she thought about it, the more she felt it was highly likely! Overall, she had done quite well, and besides her, who else in the class could take first place?

It must be me! Chen Miaoran's fingers began to tremble with excitement.

Chen Miaoran looked up at the homeroom teacher, hoping to see a look of approval and pride in his eyes.

However, the homeroom teacher didn't look down at her, but instead... gazed toward the corner in the back row of the classroom?

"This time, the grade-level first place, who is also our class first place, is Chen Zhao!" The homeroom teacher articulated clearly, his voice excited. "He scored a full 703 points!"

"Let's give a round of warm applause to congratulate Chen Zhao! Three years of hard study, accumulating strength, he has finally proven his ability!" After the homeroom teacher finished speaking, he took the lead in clapping!

All the students in the class followed suit, clapping loudly, the applause as enthusiastic as a surging river!

However, while clapping, almost everyone's expression was one of utter confusion!

Chen Zhao??

Class first place??

Grade-level first place!

What was going on?! 703 points? Chen Zhao, the bottom of the class, scored 703?

Chen Miaoran was stunned, Zhang Shucheng was stunned, Liu Chang was stunned, and all the top students in the front row were stunned!

The students in front of Chen Zhao had eyes that were practically popping out of their sockets. A few minutes ago, they were making fun of Chen Zhao, thinking he was bragging, but they never expected he was stating facts!

Xu Lanlan turned her head to stare at Chen Zhao, her eyes looking as if she were gazing at a deity, her mouth open wide enough to fit an orange. She knew what her classmate was like—he never did his homework and slept in class. He had only started studying hard since last week. A few days of hard work leading to an increase of a dozen points was understandable, and a few dozen was acceptable, but what was this massive jump of several hundred points?!

Chen Zhao was so excited his face turned red. He was a bit surprised by this score himself. He had originally thought he would be satisfied with 670 or 680, but he hadn't expected to break 700 and reach 703!

"Let me read Chen Zhao's individual subject scores. Everyone listen up and learn from him," the homeroom teacher said.

"Chinese, full marks, 150!"

A chorus of "Holy crap" erupted from below. This was a critical hit right from the start. Getting full marks in other subjects was one thing, but full marks in Chinese was truly terrifying. It meant Chen Zhao had written a perfect essay!