I'm Not Interested in Studying (Seeking Follow-up Reads)

In the corner, Cuicui sat against the wall, remaining silent the entire time.

From her vantage point, she had watched the two uniformed men appear to circle the classroom.

They seemed to leave without doing anything at all.

Yet, they had lingered by Fang Shuwen's side for an extra minute.

Were those two here for Fang Shuwen?

Cuicui shook her head, suppressing this strange thought.

She must be overthinking it.

Rather than believing the two in uniform had come for Fang Shuwen, it was better to wonder how on earth he had managed to rank ninth!

After all, last semester he was a slacker who had failed six out of seven subjects.

No matter how much of a prodigal son he was, he couldn't have changed so drastically in such a short time.

So, Fang Shuwen... he must have cheated, right?

Cuicui stared at the cyan-blue back in front of her, the thought churning over and over in her mind.

Although she and Fang Shuwen were not in the same class, they had lived in the same courtyard for so many years; she knew exactly what kind of person he was.

A good-for-nothing since childhood, arrogant and lazy, too idle to even flip open a textbook, spending every day sucking up to Guo Ziming.

She woke up before dawn to study every day and stayed up late into the night under an oil lamp solving problems until her eyes were nearly ruined, all just to barely make it into the Elite Class.

And Fang Shuwen?

Throughout the entire summer vacation, she had never seen him turn a single page of a book.

He spent his days running a chess stall and his nights collapsing into bed the moment he returned.

How could someone like that possibly make it into the Elite Class?

And rank ninth, no less?

She only thought silently to herself: "Wait until the report card is posted, let's see how you handle the fallout."

She even felt a faint sense of anticipation for that moment.

No, not anticipation—certainty.

She was certain that Fang Shuwen's grades must be problematic, certain that the "trash" of the courtyard could not become a top-ten student in the Elite Class overnight.

This certainty brought a strange sense of calm to her heart.

She was just waiting to see Fang Shuwen make a fool of himself.

Just then, the classroom door was pushed open once again.

"What is all this noise!"

The voice of Dean Zhou Changping exploded in the classroom like a muffled thunderclap.

He wore a semi-new Zhongshan suit, clutching a stack of documents as he stood at the door, his gaze sharp behind his round-rimmed glasses.

The classroom fell silent instantly.

After all, this Dean Zhou was famous for his severity.

Zhou Changping walked into the classroom, slammed the documents onto the podium, and swept his gaze across the students' faces.

"I heard you arguing from the hallway just now. Is this the level of quality expected from Elite Class students?"

No one dared to make a sound.

Sun Mao shrank his neck and quietly retreated to his seat, his face still unable to hide the remnants of his schadenfreude.

Zhou Changping's gaze lingered on him for a moment.

"Sun Mao, looking at how you were jumping around, why don't you tell us what exactly is going on?"

"Dean Zhou, classmate Fang Shuwen cheated on the exam. We don't think someone like him deserves to be in the Elite Class."

Zhou Changping stared at him for two seconds before picking up the stack of documents on the podium and waving them.

"These are the report cards for this assessment, and I have already had the Academic Affairs Office make copies. Everyone's academic scores, physical education scores, total scores, and rankings are all on here."

He paused, his gaze turning stern: "I originally intended to hand them out after the class meeting ended. But since someone is so impatient to question their classmate, we will hand them out now so you can see for yourselves."

He passed the report cards to the students in the front row, signaling for them to be passed back.

The sound of paper rustling filled the room as the report cards were passed from the front to the back.

Once they received them, everyone immediately lowered their heads to find their own names and compare their scores with others.

"I got eighty-seven? That's not right, I estimated ninety..."

"Forty in physical education? How is that possible? I clearly lifted eighty jin!"

The classroom became lively again, but this time, it was no longer about questioning Fang Shuwen; everyone was busy comparing their own results.

Sun Mao grabbed the report card and immediately flipped to the first page, his gaze scanning rapidly from the top down.

"Han Tieshan, composite score ninety-one..."

His eyes continued to move down.

"Zhang Mingcheng, eighty-nine... Li Yueru, eighty-eight... Fang Shuwen, eighty-three?"

His pupils constricted violently.

Eighty-three points.

A composite score of eighty-three, ninth place.

And he, Sun Mao, had seventy-nine point five points, eleventh place.

A difference of three point five points.

Sun Mao's face flushed a liver-like purple, his fingers crumpling the report card into wrinkles.

Three point five points—he was actually behind that piece of trash Fang Shuwen by this much!

"Finished reading?"

Zhou Changping's voice rang out once again.

He picked up the remaining sheets of paper on the podium and gave them a shake.

"The report card only shows the total score, not the breakdown. To ensure some people are convinced, I have also brought student Fang Shuwen's exam papers."

As soon as these words were spoken, the classroom erupted.

"What? Posting the exam papers?"

"The Dean of Students is personally vouching for him?"

Sun Mao's expression turned even uglier.

Daring to post the papers meant that Fang Shuwen had not cheated.

Ignoring the students' chatter, Zhou Changping walked to the bulletin board on the back wall of the classroom and posted Fang Shuwen's exam papers one by one.

National Language, Mathematics, English, Steam Industry, Steam Biology, Antiquity Exploration.

Six exam papers were lined up in a row.

The handwriting was neat, the pages were clean, and the answer to every question was written clearly.

Especially the short essay for National Language; Zhou Changping had specifically circled it in red ink and written two characters in the margin: "Excellent."

"Everyone, come up and take a look."

Zhou Changping stepped back and crossed his arms over his chest.

"Look at the answers here. Which one was copied? Which one was obtained through cheating?"

The students swarmed forward.

"This... this handwriting is too good, isn't it?" someone exclaimed in surprise.

"The essay is written really well, much better than mine."

"For that big question in Steam Industry, only two people in the whole class got it right, and Fang Shuwen was one of them."

"Is this really Fang Shuwen's paper? Didn't he never hand in his homework before..."

The voices of doubt dissipated as quickly as a receding tide, replaced by astonishment and confusion.

Sun Mao squeezed to the very front, staring fixedly at the papers, wishing he could find even a single typo on them.

But he couldn't.

Every character was written upright and properly, and the answer to every question was correct.

His lips were trembling, not out of anger, but out of an indescribable, inexplicable panic.

"Now that you've seen the exam papers, take a look at the physical education scores."

"During the test, student Fang Shuwen lifted a one-hundred-and-fifty-jin stone lock in full view of everyone. This, at least, couldn't have been cheated."

The physical education assessment had taken place on the open-air playground.

Surrounded by classmates, even if many had been drawn to Han Tieshan on the other side at the time.

Still, quite a few people had been present.

It was truly impossible for Fang Shuwen to have cheated.

Therefore, the physical education score had to be real.

"Fang Shuwen, how, how did your grades improve so much after just one summer vacation?"

At this moment, Sun Mao's eyes widened, his face full of shock as he looked at Fang Shuwen in disbelief.

The gap was so wide that he would sooner believe someone claiming to be Qin Shi Huang than believe that Fang Shuwen could pull off such a comeback in a single summer.

Hearing this, Fang Shuwen stood up unhurriedly. Facing the suspicious gazes throughout the class, his gentle voice rang out slowly.

"It's nothing. Ever since I went to the temple fair during the summer break, my brain suddenly just opened up. I hadn't intended to study, but once I looked at those books, the words just branded themselves into my mind."

"Sigh, I have absolutely no interest in studying, who knew it would turn out like this!"