The Minor Examination

"How did the weekend fly by already?!"

"I didn't even get to play anything."

"I just bought a new game and barely touched it, and now it's back to class."

A new week began. The small cliques in the classroom had already stabilized, everyone chatting with each other, sharing the joys of the weekend.

In the back left corner, it was as calm as ever.

You En was diligently sleeping, Horikita Suzune was diligently pushing herself, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka was diligently hiding his presence—everyone had their own things to busy themselves with.

Teacher Chabashira walked in holding two exam folders.

"There's an exam this morning."

A stir rippled through the class.

"Huh?"

"How can this be... I don't want to take a test!"

"Little Chabashira, can you give us some time?"

Facing the chaos in the classroom, Chabashira Sae said flatly, "If you learn something, you have to test it promptly. Exams are actually a benefit for you, so don't be ungrateful."

When the test papers reached You En, he only then got up from his desk, thanking Matsushita Chiaki, who had passed the papers from the front.

You En glanced at it—it was a comprehensive test. All the subjects covered that week were roughly divided into two categories and crammed onto one paper.

He finished it in less than half an hour, did a quick check, and went back to sleep.

The main reason was that he couldn't do anything else—it was too boring. Handing in the paper early and leaving wouldn't give him a good place to sleep either, so he might as well sleep in the exam room.

He didn't know how long he'd been asleep when a female voice came through, "Wake up, You En. Time to hand in the paper."

You En looked up—it was Matsushita Fifty-Fifty, no, Matsushita Chiaki.

"Oh, here you go. Sorry for the trouble."

Matsushita Chiaki took it and swept her eyes over You En's paper. She'd expected most of it to be blank, but it was almost completely filled in. She glanced at the first few questions and found they matched her own answers—all correct.

Huh? No way?

As she passed the paper forward, she stole a few more looks and found they were still correct. And one of the questions had a different answer—not one she'd deliberately gotten wrong... The "correct answer" Matsushita had believed was also wrong.

Could he... have gotten a perfect score?

The comprehensive level of this test was very high. It wasn't the kind that threw out tricky questions or weird ones—it accurately reflected each person's grasp of the material over this period.

The exam was taken in the morning, and the results came out at noon—both class rankings and grade rankings.

"First place, You En, comprehensive score 200."

"Second place, Horikita, comprehensive score 185."

"Third place, Koenji Rokusuke, comprehensive score 180."

"Fourth place, Wang Meiyu, comprehensive score 140."

"Fifth place, Hirata Yosuke, comprehensive score 120."

"..."

Chabashira Sae read out the scores, stopping after the tenth. She pulled out a cigarette and put it in her mouth, "The class average is 72. I really don't know how you lot dragged it this low. Even if someone scored a zero, a certain someone could still lift it to 100... Forget it, I can't be bothered with you."

With that, she pushed the door open and left.

After a few seconds, as if making sure Chabashira Sae was far enough away, Kei Karuizawa was the first to complain, "Honestly, she talks so harshly. It's just a regular quiz—was that necessary?"

The girls around her chimed in, "Right? It's just a small test."

Among the boys, the bigger group was the three idiots.

Yamauchi Haruki, once bitten but not shy, turned around and saw Sudo Ken's score. He smirked smugly, "What? You only got 14 points? I got 42—that's higher than your score flipped upside down."

Sudo Ken glared at him, then suddenly stood up, startling Yamauchi.

"What are you gonna do now? Getting bad grades is your own problem—don't be jealous of me."

Sudo Ken, considering they were classmates, held back. But he still slammed his fist on the desk in frustration, "What's the use of studying?! You're all bookworms. I'm going to play basketball."

You En was woken by the noise in the class and sat up.

It seemed he had woken up, as Horikita Suzune's voice came from behind him.

"Did you not sleep well last night?"

You En replied, "I studied until past four, got less than two hours of sleep."

After he said this, Matsushita Chiaki, who had been eavesdropping up front, froze.

Bro, seriously? This intense?

"I'm well-rested! Back to studying!"

You En pulled out a book borrowed from the library and kept reading. Since he had nothing else to do and was in good shape, it would be a waste not to study.

After acquiring many skills, You En realized that different skills had varying entry difficulties. For example, "Knot Tying" became proficient with just a little practice, while many others required hands-on experience to go from beginner to expert.

You En thought the person who invented this panel was a genius.

Even if this school was like this, with no real danger, he still found it fine.

If you could learn something genuine, wasn't that a good school?

Horikita Suzune tapped You En, and he turned to look at her.

"How did you do this? Let me see the test paper."

"Oh."

You En handed the paper over.

"Why is it so crumpled?"

Horikita Suzune tried to smooth out the wrinkled paper.

"Test papers are only valuable when you're taking the exam, right? I was planning to throw it away."

Horikita Suzune was about to say something, but after seeing the scores on both papers, she said helplessly, "Fine, you're qualified to say that."

You En turned away. It had nothing to do with the scores. The exam system was just like this—tests themselves didn't really mean anything. They didn't reflect who a person truly was, at most showing their attitude toward the coursework over that period.

Horikita Suzune looked at his paper, expecting it to be more casual and messy, but it was neat and clean.

She searched for the question she hadn't gotten full marks on and saw three different solutions written in the answer area. She instantly lost her composure.

This was probably because he finished the exam and got bored, so he added a few more lines.

Horikita Suzune recognized the gap. Although their personal panels both listed their exam ability as professional, the level of expertise and experience still varied.

Actually, over this weekend, You En had also helped her review her notes, pointed out some issues, and filled in some gaps.

He even gave her some practice problems, some of which happened to be very similar to the types on the test paper.

Horikita Suzune took a deep breath, suppressed her emotions, and calmed down a little.

If she had done it herself, her total score would probably be around 160 to 180. Unless she performed exceptionally well, she wouldn't have reached this result.

She extended her index finger, poked You En, and when he didn't respond, she drew a small circle on his clothes.

You En felt the tickling sensation on his back. "Oh, you're done with the paper? Throw it away for me."

"Throw it away?"

Horikita Suzune felt it was a pity. Whether it was this paper or the school's education system, both could be called "art." One was the art of process, the other the beauty of result.

"Then I'll keep it for you."

"Fine."

You En looked up and saw a girl standing in front of his desk—it was Wang Meiyu, a classmate he felt quite close to.

Fellow countrymen meeting abroad always carried some emotion, though whether it was stabbing each other in the back or tearing up depended on the person.

"Um..."

Wang Meiyu said very politely, "You En, could I borrow your test paper to look at?"

You En nodded, then realized the paper wasn't with him anymore. He pointed behind him.

"It's with her. Go ask her... Actually, I'll get it for you."

He figured letting Wang Meiyu ask Horikita Suzune for his paper... even if she got it, it would be a kind of torture.

"Suzune, give me the paper."

"Oh."

Her voice seemed emotionless as she handed the paper over.

Wang Meiyu felt very apologetic and quickly bowed to thank her. "I'll return it to you soon."

"Take your time. I don't need it anyway."

After this interruption, You En wasn't in the mood to read professional books for now. He looked around the class, engaging in what he called human observation.

Most of Karuizawa's group spent their time complaining about the teachers, exams, and school environment, but really it was just venting emotions to gain mutual validation from each other.

The Three Idiots Group—well, maybe they shouldn't be called that anymore. Sudo Ken had half-stepped out of that circle, but a new idiot had joined in, so there were still three idiots. No need to change the name.

Ike Kanji sighed. "I really bombed this test."

Yamauchi Haruki spoke up.

"How about we go hang out somewhere?"

Sotoyama Hideo couldn't follow that train of thought.

"What?"

Yamauchi Haruki started, "Think about it... we're in such a bad mood, we can't study well anyway. Might as well relax first and come back to it."

"Besides... we can chat with the girls too. But let me be clear—Kushida's my target! You guys can't steal her."

You En shook his head. He knew this guy's nature hadn't changed at all.

To be fair, the first half of that excuse wasn't bad.

In his past life, his high school class president once bombed a midterm and invited him out to eat, turning grief into appetite.

She'd been in the top ten of the grade for a long time, but that time she slipped to over 30th place, so she was really upset.

After she adjusted, she stayed solidly in the top five. In the end, her college entrance exam wasn't ideal either, but she still got into Jiao Tong University.

Anyway, human emotions—when something happens and there's an excess of feeling, finding an outlet is normal.

But you can't just vent all day. One sign of maturity is being able to control your emotions—not that they don't change, but that you actively regulate them within a range.

You En glanced at Hirata. He was looking at his test paper, probably working through his mistakes, but kept getting interrupted by classmates—Karuizawa Kei being the worst offender. Still, he hadn't realized how serious the problem was.

Based on what Chabashira-sensei had hinted to him before, Personal points were tied to individual performance, and class points were tied to the class as a whole.

You En guessed that personal points were only issued when grades reached the passing line—like a tax threshold, there was a "cutoff" for personal point distribution. That would be the student's individual performance.

But what was the use of class points? At the start of the term, only personal points were given out, and class points hadn't been mentioned at all. Was it still like the original story, determining class rankings?

You En didn't think it was that simple. Personal points were already so important, affecting every aspect of life, directly tied to the individual.

So with a similar evaluation standard, Maybe the class points that wouldn't be issued until next month—

Could their importance really be small?