A Long-Awaited Livestream

At noon the next day, while eating in the cafeteria, Chen Zhao happened to see Zhao Xiaobai eating all alone at a corner table, so he carried his tray over to find her.

"I heard you signed up for the middle school subject competitions, is that right?" Chen Zhao asked, getting straight to the point.

"Yes, I signed up for math." Zhao Xiaobai was very clever and knew Chen Zhao wouldn't ask this for no reason. "Did you sign up too?"

"I signed up for Chinese, math, physics, chemistry, and biology," Chen Zhao said while gnawing on a chicken leg.

"No way!" Zhao Xiaobai was shocked, her eyes widening as she let out a curse. "Are you crazy?"

"What's wrong?" Chen Zhao was startled by her intense reaction. "Is it not allowed?"

"This is a competition! It's not a regular exam!" Zhao Xiaobai explained. "In a regular exam, you might be able to get close to a perfect score, but in this competition, scoring even a 50 is harder than reaching the heavens! Many people can't even score ten points! You signed up for so many at once; how are you going to prepare for them?"

Chen Zhao shrugged. "It's fine, I'm smart. If I sign up for more subjects, at least one or two should pass, right?"

Zhao Xiaobai looked at Chen Zhao as if he were an idiot. "Are you already well-prepared? You just signed up, didn't you? The exam is next week; how do you plan to study?"

Chen Zhao scratched his head. "Buy a couple of exercise books and take a look? Do you have any good ones to recommend?"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Xiaobai was even more bewildered. "You haven't even done any specialized practice problems yet?"

Chen Zhao shook his head, thinking to himself, Are there actually specialized books for this stuff?

Zhao Xiaobai sighed and told him to come find her after he finished eating; she had some specialized workbooks and could lend him a couple to look at.

After finishing his meal, Chen Zhao followed Zhao Xiaobai to her classroom.

Along the way, many people cast surprised gazes their way, and some even secretly took photos of Chen Zhao and Zhao Xiaobai.

For one, Zhao Xiaobai was the school goddess, and the number of boys secretly in love with her was unimaginable; you could throw a stick with your eyes closed and hit a pile of her suitors. For another, Chen Zhao was now a prominent figure as well, and many people knew him. It was no wonder that two school celebrities appearing together would attract so much attention.

However, neither Chen Zhao nor Zhao Xiaobai cared about those stares. Once they reached the classroom, Zhao Xiaobai took out several thick exercise collections and handed them to Chen Zhao.

<Compilation of National Middle School Competition Past Papers>

All five subjects were there, totaling five books.

Chen Zhao was overjoyed. He thanked Zhao Xiaobai and returned to his classroom to look at the problems.

He had originally thought that every subject just recycled the same old problems, and even if the competition increased the difficulty, at most they would just make the data harder or add a few more twists. As long as he was careful and bold, getting a high score shouldn't be a problem.

However, the moment he opened the first page and saw the first problem, Chen Zhao was shaken to his core!

The problem statement alone was eleven lines long!

It came with four diagrams!

A problem with eleven lines of text and four diagrams, and it was the very first question on the entire paper—it was truly terrifying!

He had never seen or heard of such a thing!

Chen Zhao calmed his mind, read the problem carefully, studied the diagrams, and tried to see if he could solve it.

After reading it through the first time, Chen Zhao was dumbfounded. He didn't even have a starting point?

It was completely different from any problems he had done before. All the usual tricks and methods he relied on were useless here. This was an entirely new type of problem, and he had zero experience with it.

Chen Zhao's expression darkened. It seemed things were not as simple as he had imagined.

He took a deep breath, gathered all his focus, and concentrated on the problem!

In the blink of an eye, it was the next evening after school. Zhao Xiaobai was walking out of the school gate with her backpack when she happened to see Chen Zhao waiting under a tree with a book in his hand.

"Here you go, the problems were truly too difficult." Chen Zhao handed the book to Zhao Xiaobai and sighed. "It was ridiculously hard. The competition problems live up to their reputation; compared to them, college entrance exam problems are like one plus one equals two."

Zhao Xiaobai wore an "I knew it" expression as she took the book.

From the moment she lent the past papers to Chen Zhao yesterday, she had a hunch. Chen Zhao must have had no understanding of the difficulty of these competition problems, which was why he had been arrogant enough to sign up for five subjects at once. Once he took the papers home and realized he couldn't solve almost any of them, he would realize this competition wasn't as simple as he imagined. Next, Chen Zhao would either give up entirely or choose one or two subjects he was best at to focus on, and return the rest of the books.

Now, sure enough, Chen Zhao had come to return the books.

"Gave up? Not planning to compete anymore? Or did you decide to just study one subject?" Zhao Xiaobai asked with a smug smile.

"I'm not giving up, why would I give up?" Chen Zhao was stunned. "The exam isn't until next week, there are still several days left, enough for me to finish looking through these exercises. I've already finished the physics one and am returning it to you."

Now it was Zhao Xiaobai's turn to be stunned.

What did you say?

You already finished the physics one?

It had only been a day and a half, and he had finished such a thick and difficult physics workbook?

"How... how did you read it?" Zhao Xiaobai muttered.

"I just read the problems at the front, tried to solve them myself, and then flipped to the back to check the answers," Chen Zhao said. "The problems were indeed difficult. I usually don't need to do much scratch work, but this time I had to use a pen; I went through two notebooks of scratch paper!"

Zhao Xiaobai was left speechless!

He did them all?

Is this... for real?

Are you messing with me?!

"Alright, I won't chat anymore. I have things to do at home, bye." Chen Zhao said, then turned and walked away with his hands in his pockets, leaving Zhao Xiaobai standing in the evening breeze, clutching that physics workbook, completely bewildered.

Returning home, Chen Zhao turned on his computer and started the stream.

Having been too busy to stream for several days in a row, he had constantly left leave notes on his channel, causing him to lose over five hundred followers; he had to stream a few matches to salvage the downward trend. Although his study workload was heavy right now, the mission given to him by the system was even more important; becoming a popular PUBG streamer was Chen Zhao's goal for this stage of his life.

As soon as he went live, Little Bamboo Shoot sent a team invitation, clearly having been waiting for a long time.

"Waaah, why didn't you stream the past two days, big brother? I've been getting bullied so badly, I haven't survived past ten minutes in any match. You have to carry me to a chicken dinner tonight!" Little Bamboo Shoot's mournful voice rang out.

At the same time, both Chen Zhao's stream and Little Bamboo Shoot's stream exploded, with fan comments scrolling by frantically!

Chen Zhao's stream:

"The streamer is a beast! He's got Little Bamboo Shoot wrapped around his finger!"

"Is this what it's like to have a girl beg to be carried? So envious, why is there a lemon in my mouth?"

"Why aren't there girls begging me like this? Is my posture for driving a Ferrari with one hand not cool enough?"

"Little Bamboo Shoot has been completely conquered by Chen Zhao!"

Little Bamboo Shoot's stream:

"It's over, I can hear the sound of hearts breaking; Little Bamboo Shoot is completely tied down by Chen Zhao!"

"Goddess, how could you say something like that!"

"Little Bamboo Shoot, don't you love your fans anymore? Are you turning to love a small-time streamer instead?"

"Little Bamboo Shoot, why are you so infatuated? Just because that man can carry you to the final circle? I can do that too!"