Not Guessing the Questions, Damage Control

When the final bell rang, the classroom first let out an instinctive sigh of relief.

But that sigh stopped halfway.

Because Gu Heng stood up.

"Categories One and Two, stay behind."

His voice wasn't loud.

But the entire class heard him.

A few people in the front rows looked at each other, their expressions all different.

Some were a little relieved.

Some were dissatisfied.

Others were clearly wondering why they had been kept behind—or why they hadn't.

That felt worse than simply saying, "The good students stay."

Because Gu Heng hadn't stated the criteria.

Only the results.

"Why am I Category Two?"

Someone finally couldn't hold back and asked.

"Because you're not completely hopeless yet."

Gu Heng looked at him. "But you're not good enough to support anyone else, either."

The classroom fell silent for a moment.

That answer was harsh.

But although the expressions of the people below changed, no one actually talked back.

"What about those of us who aren't staying?"

Yamauchi spread his hands. "Just wait to die?"

"No."

Gu Heng glanced at him. "You'll be handled separately starting tomorrow."

"What does 'separately' mean?"

"It means don't waste the time of this group that can still be salvaged today."

Yamauchi's expression stiffened.

"Let's go."

Hirata stood up then, smiling as he tried to smooth things over. "That's enough for today. Gu Heng will definitely explain the arrangements clearly tomorrow."

With those words from him, the tension in the classroom finally stopped rising.

The rest of the students gradually left.

In the end, only a small group remained.

Horikita, several students with decent fundamentals, and several who were clearly salvageable but not disastrously behind.

Sudo had almost reached the door when his steps paused. He looked back.

"What about me?"

"You stay and listen in."

Gu Heng said it.

Sudo's face darkened.

But he still returned to his seat.

The classroom door was half open.

From outside came voices from several people who hadn't gone far. They had deliberately lowered their voices, but they were far from quiet.

"Sounds nice, saving the ones who can still be saved first."

"He's really just taking care of the useful ones first."

"He really thinks he's the leader now."

Sudo's fingers tensed against the edge of the desk.

But he merely turned his face away instead of arguing back on the spot like he used to.

"Let's make this clear first."

Gu Heng stood before the podium. He didn't pick up any chalk, nor did he put on a teacher's tone. "I didn't keep you here today to guess exam questions."

The moment he said that, the eyes of several people below lit up.

Clearly, they had been hoping for exactly that.

After all, Gu Heng had correctly predicted the point deduction being reset, and the Sudo incident had also been resolved.

Many people had begun instinctively wondering whether he knew other things in advance.

Gu Heng swept his gaze over those bright faces without addressing that implication.

"Not to guess exam questions?"

Someone froze. "Then why did you keep us?"

"Damage control."

Gu Heng said it.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that for a placement test like this, the most important thing for Class D right now isn't for a few people to suddenly pull off miracles."

His gaze swept around the room. "It's to stop losing the points we should be getting in such an embarrassing way."

He didn't make it sound any grander than that.

Instead, he placed a stack of papers on the podium.

"First, do a short test."

Gu Heng said, "It's not to see how much you know. It's to see how you'll fail."

That left several people stunned.

Even Sudo couldn't help looking up.

"What do you mean, how we'll fail?"

"It means seeing the ways you lose points."

Gu Heng glanced at him. "Whether you have gaps in the basics, lose your rhythm, or panic the moment you see a hard question."

"I'll hand out the papers."

Horikita reached out and took the stack of materials.

Half an hour later, they had finished.

Gu Heng read through the papers while rapidly making marks in the margins.

Just as expected.

Some people got absurdly basic questions wrong.

Some got nearly everything right in the first half, then left the second half completely blank.

Others weren't incapable—they simply got nervous and muddled up steps they knew how to do.

"Do you see?"

Gu Heng slapped one of the papers onto the desk. "You knew this question. The first two steps were completely correct, but you copied a number wrong in the third. It's not that you can't do it. You're just a mess."

The boy's face immediately reddened.

"And this one."

Gu Heng flipped to another paper. "It was practically free points, but you missed a line while reading the question and threw away four points for nothing. What you should fear most right now isn't hard questions. It's tossing away the points you could have earned yourselves."

As they listened, several people sat up straighter and straighter.

Because every way Gu Heng described their failures was specific enough that they couldn't pretend to be clueless.

"So remember three things."

Gu Heng pressed the papers back down one by one.

"First, lock down the basic points."

"Second, cut your losses on question types you get wrong."

"Third, manage your time."

"The mistake you're most likely to make right now isn't not knowing how."

He looked at those who had stayed behind. "It's making a mess of questions you do know and throwing away points you should have secured."

"That's damage control."

"We're not in any position to think about turning things around by guessing the questions."

"The real priority is plugging up the points that never should have slipped through in the first place."

This time, even those who had initially clung to a little hope gradually fell silent.

"So starting tomorrow," Gu Heng continued, "Category One will be responsible for maintaining high scores and helping one person each. Category Two will drill basic questions and standard question types until they stop losing points. I'll make a separate group for Categories Three and Four tomorrow."

"A separate group?"

Hirata asked.

"Yes."

Gu Heng said, "I'll give the group most likely to slack off a separate shortest route."

"The shortest route?"

"Only secure the most basic, most reliable points—the ones least likely to make their heads overheat."

Gu Heng said, "They aren't qualified to talk about comprehensive improvement right now. All they can talk about is not dying too quickly."

The people below looked at one another, but no one spoke up to argue.

"That's all for today."

Gu Heng gathered the papers. "When you go back, don't dream about suddenly making a comeback. First do each of the most reliable question types I marked just now once. Tomorrow, I'll only look at the results."

"Only the results?"

Someone asked instinctively.

"Yes."

Gu Heng said, "Whether the process moves you or not doesn't matter."

When those words fell, no one in the classroom even showed the urge to roll their eyes anymore.

After nearly everyone had left, Horikita finally spoke in a low voice.

"You really aren't planning to guess the questions?"

"No."

"Not even a little?"

Gu Heng put the last paper into a folder.

"Horikita."

He said, "The most sinister thing about this school isn't that the questions are hard."

"It's that you can never stake an entire class's fate on one or two questions you think will appear."

Horikita looked at him without replying.

Gu Heng continued.

"What I can do isn't guess every question for Class D."

He said, "It's to plug up your stupidest ways of losing points first, so you don't all fall into the same pit together."

"Is that enough for now?"

"That's enough for now."

Gu Heng looked at the emptied classroom. "Once this class learns not to die in a mess, then we can talk about how to win beautifully."

Horikita fell silent for a few seconds.

This time, she didn't repeat that line about him being better suited to managing people.

Because everything that needed to be said had already been said in the previous chapter.

She merely reached out and straightened the stack of papers a little.

"Don't spread Categories Three and Four too thin tomorrow."

She said coldly, "Otherwise, once they start running, they'll be harder to rein in than the first two categories."

Gu Heng glanced at her.

"Got it."

By the doorway, Hirata didn't leave immediately.

"I'll go talk to Yamauchi and Ike first."

He said, "They don't truly fail to understand right now. They feel like they've already been judged in advance."

"If I talk to them using the term 'Category Four,' it'll only blow up."

Gu Heng looked up at him.

That was Hirata's own judgment.

"Fine."

Gu Heng said, "But don't clean everything up too neatly for me."

Hirata gave a bitter smile.

"I know."

"But someone has to get the fire under control enough for us to talk."

Just then, Gu Heng's phone vibrated.

It wasn't Hirata.

It wasn't Kushida.

It was a system notification.

The official arrangements for the grade-wide placement test had been released.

It was even earlier than the teacher had said.

The day after tomorrow.

Gu Heng looked at the notice, his fingertip lightly tapping the edge of the folder.

The school could not even be bothered to give Class D more time to adjust.

Then this damage-control operation would cut straight to the bone.