Flowers bloomed and withered; in the blink of an eye, the year had reached its end.
Amid crowds, subways, and the endless flow of traffic in the city, calendars in towering office buildings had been torn down to their final page between busy workdays.
December in Beijing was also nearing its end.
During this time, some looked forward to the leisurely New Year's Day holiday, while others anticipated dates beneath the snow on Christmas.
And some people
were cramming desperately from morning to night, trying to salvage their grades after exams had suddenly been moved up.
It had snowed yesterday. The place that had once been a sea of flowers had turned into a snowy plain. Sitting on the open-air balcony, which technically counted as outdoors, he somehow did not feel the slightest cold.
"By the way, you look like you've had a hard time. Have your exams been going well?"
Hearing the elder before him bring it up with a gentle smile, Fang Ran looked thoroughly unwilling to revisit the subject and sighed helplessly with a headache.
"I barely managed to get through them. It felt like I was forcibly stuffing several books into my brain."
For the past few days, he had been getting up early and staying up late. He had even cut down some of the time he spent training his abilities at night, desperately grinding through practice questions and memorizing key points.
He had finally finished five subjects successfully, with only the final exam tomorrow afternoon remaining.
"If you hate studying that much, why not just use your ability to look at other people's answers?"
Wrapped in a shawl with a blanket over her knees, Shui Linlang looked every bit like an elder as she smilingly said something no elder should say.
"Wouldn't that be