My Online Friend Can't Be This Cute

"I'm not sleeping anymore. It's time to study properly, and you should too." Mo Xiangwen glanced at him. "There's still a month left. If you work hard, maybe you can scrape into a vocational college."

Working hard to scrape into a vocational college sounded pretty ridiculous.

But that was indeed the reality for poor students in the regular classes of the worst high school in the city.

Sleeping during the day, climbing over the wall at night to play games.

Equally ridiculous was the fact that he had climbed out with them a few times.

If the foundation he had built at that key middle school hadn't been solid enough, he would probably have been at the same level as them, working hard just to scrape into a vocational college.

"Tch, it's already come to this, so what are you pretending for?" Liao Feiyang said boredly. "Is cramming at the last minute going to help now?"

As soon as he finished speaking, several boys immediately gathered around.

"What? Old Mo, you're going to study?"

"Didn't you say before that you'd secure a college spot and aim for a bachelor's degree? Getting into some third-tier college would be good enough, right?"

"There are only thirty-something days left before the National College Entrance Examination. Isn't it a little late to start studying properly now?"

Mo Xiangwen silently looked at the group. He knew that most of them meant no harm.

They simply didn't think highly of him, nor did they think highly of themselves. They were merely stating a fact.

That was what the study atmosphere at prestigious schools was like. When everyone around you worked hard, you naturally refused to fall behind.

If everyone around you was like this—already poor at studying, with their confidence worn down until it had nearly vanished—then naturally your mood and state would be affected as well.

One takes on the color of one's company. Nothing more than that.

As long as you were a student willing to study, standing among these people made you seem glaringly out of place.

"Enough, enough. You guys won't study, and now you won't let someone else study either? What kind of logic is that?" Cai Yibin pushed the onlookers apart.

They had been classmates, after all, and the happy days they had spent chatting about games together had been real.

After thinking for a moment, Mo Xiangwen decided to say, "It's never too late. That goes for you guys too."

He wasn't good at lecturing people, nor did he intend to. He was only reminding them out of consideration for their past friendship.

Just as expected, he received a few snickers. But at least everyone finally lost interest in him and scattered.

"Old Mo, have you really changed?" Cai Yibin looked at him curiously.

"Just like you." Mo Xiangwen shot him a glance and handed him his meal card. "Since you're going to the convenience store, pick up some sausages and snacks for me."

"Sure, Old Mo. Work hard." Cai Yibin patted his shoulder, took the meal card, and strode away.

Finally, it was quiet. That was what he thought.

He wondered if he could test that strange sensation from earlier. He didn't know whether it had been an illusion.

He casually opened a textbook. Huh, Spring in the Pleasure Garden.

He already had a deep impression of that poem. After skimming it a few times, he had completely memorized it again.

That didn't count. He flipped to another page at random. Book of Songs.

Well, damn. It turned out he had never fully memorized this passage from the Book of Songs, either.

"'The man was honest and simple, carrying cloth to trade for silk...'" He read along with the original several times, and suddenly felt the confidence of someone who knew it by heart.

Mo Xiangwen hesitantly closed the book and slowly began reciting from memory.

The entire recitation flowed in one breath, without the slightest pause.

When he opened the book again to verify it, there was not a single mistake or omission.

That was a little unreasonable. He had studied this text before, and he had indeed recited it.

But his memory of it wasn't actually very deep. It was unlike texts he liked, such as Spring in the Pleasure Garden or Memorial on Sending Out the Army, which became deeply ingrained and rolled naturally off the tongue once memorized.

It had been temporary memory, something used purely to deal with exams.

Right after the test, he might still remember the general idea, but after several years, at most only an impression would remain.

Still, being able to memorize it again after reading along only a few times... compared to traveling back in time, it wasn't completely impossible to accept.

He pondered for a while, then pulled out an English textbook from the shelf that was ninety-nine percent new.

His English was terrible. Extremely terrible. He almost never passed.

He guessed at most of the questions during exams, and left the parts he couldn't guess blank.

If his English hadn't been so awful, someone who had gotten into the best key middle school in the city wouldn't have ended up at the worst regular high school.

Even if childish love of play accounted for ninety-nine percent of the responsibility, was English really so hard to learn that it bore not even the slightest bit of blame?

Leaving those facts aside, the main reason he had taken out English was that he had almost no deep memories of it. Every text could be approached with the innocent freshness of starting from scratch.

Mo Xiangwen flipped to the vocabulary list at the back and began sounding out the letters one by one, trying to memorize them.

After trying repeatedly several times, he roughly understood what was going on. He took out the math textbook from earlier and flipped to the back to test it.

The result really proved that saying: women might lie to you, but math never would. If you didn't understand it, then you truly didn't understand it.

No matter how hard he racked his brains, he couldn't come up with a solution.

Rather than photographic memory, it seemed more like an ability that increased efficiency, one that could activate whenever he concentrated.

Perhaps because his Chinese was already excellent, the efficiency of his Chinese review was especially apparent on that foundation.

English was much worse by comparison. Even with the same characters, it required far more memorization time than Chinese—but at least it was better than before.

Math was hopeless.

Maybe once he had done more problems in the future, the ability could help him quickly connect them to solution methods.

But right now, without enough practice problems to support him, no matter how intently he thought, he still couldn't solve them.

Still, his math wasn't that bad. Catching up on the coursework shouldn't be a problem.

After only testing for a few minutes, he felt obvious hunger. That was probably the price of this ability.

It accelerated energy consumption, allowing him to improve his concentration and efficiency.

For now, he would call it "Overload Mode."

"Here, the snacks you wanted." Cai Yibin tossed the sausages and some snacks onto his desk. "I also bought you a bottle of iced cola. No need to thank me."

"Thanks."

Mo Xiangwen tore open the packaging and wiped out all the snacks in just a few minutes, leaving Cai Yibin staring in shock.

"Didn't you eat breakfast?"

"I did, but it didn't fill me up." Mo Xiangwen looked at the snacks on his desk. "You bought so much. Share some with me?"

"No. This is my snack supply for the next three days."

"I'll go buy some after the next class and pay you back then."

The schedule of senior-year students differed from that of the other grades. Whether in the morning or afternoon, the final class always began twenty minutes early and ended twenty minutes early.

The purpose was to let senior-year students avoid lining up and have more time to study.

The cafeteria even opened a special late-night snack service after evening self-study. That was one of the privileges of senior-year students.

The next class happened to be the last one in the morning. After he got his lunch later, he could go to the convenience store and avoid wasting time being squeezed in a crowd.

"Fine, since you put it that way." Cai Yibin hesitated for a moment, then loosened his guard over the snacks. "Pick whatever you want. After that, there's something I want to ask you."

Mo Xiangwen had been the one to ask in the first place, so naturally he didn't stand on ceremony. He grabbed several of the highest-calorie snack packs and tore them open to devour them.

"Ask."

"What's wrong with you? Have you really changed?"

"What's the point of asking? Didn't you change when senior year first started too?"

"There is a point. Of course there is." Cai Yibin nodded and said very seriously, "If you're not joking, then at least I'll have a comrade-in-arms."

Mo Xiangwen stopped eating. After a moment of silence, he asked, "Do I look like I'm joking?"

"It's precisely because you don't that it feels so absurd." Cai Yibin sighed. "During summer vacation, my dad threw me onto an assembly line at our family's factory for the entire break."

"Maybe you don't know this, but the factory is stuffy and hot. When it gets busy, you don't even have time to catch your breath."

"After just two months, I never wanted to touch that place again."

"Every day when I got off work, it was already the middle of the night. It felt like my arms, legs, and hands didn't belong to me anymore."

"My dad told me that with my level, even if someone taught me bookkeeping, I wouldn't understand it. I was only fit for the assembly line."

"Ever since I came back to school, I've been thinking: screw the factory."

"As long as I don't have to go back into a factory, what's studying compared to that?"

Mo Xiangwen sighed. Sure enough, young people only realized they needed to study after suffering.

"Have you ever seen the sunrise at four in the morning from a construction site?"

"Have you ever seen a construction site beneath the sun in June or July?"

"Don't think so much about it." He patted Cai Yibin on the shoulder. "Let's work hard together."

Do you know what it feels like when your savings are nearly gone, but you're terrified of being laid off? He kept that last sentence buried in his heart.

Two Children Debate Learning

Don't Play Holy Slash: I knew your academic situation was probably not ideal, but I didn't expect it to be this bad.

Don't Play Holy Slash: Is this really the academic level a senior-year student should have?

Don't Play Holy Slash: Even if you listened for ten minutes in class, you shouldn't be this terrible, right? Can you even count as a senior-year exam candidate like this?

Flaked Out: Ahahaha... it really is a little indefensible for a senior-year student to be at this level.

Flaked Out: Logically, you should've finished reviewing by now and entered the final sprint, right? Why do you look like you haven't even finished learning everything?

The petite girl, currently curled up in bed being useless, inexplicably felt as if she had been caught in the crossfire when she saw such aggressive words.

She tucked her little head beneath the air-conditioned blanket, then instinctively curled up, even her delicate toes bending slightly.

Baibai: ...

After typing, she poked her little head out from under the blanket and sneakily looked around, making sure there was no one else in the room.

She wasn't even a senior-year student. They were scolding Xiao Yi, so what did it have to do with her?

The girl patted her flat chest and quietly let out a breath of relief.

Mm, after reading those lines, why did the air conditioner suddenly feel a little cold? Better turn it up.

A Seductress: Kid, your situation isn't looking too good.

It was a rare Sunday. Under repeated urging from the group members, he reported his study progress to the group.

Then he did a simple mock test for Chinese, math, English, and the science composite.

And then things became like this.

The idiotic group members really didn't hold back when they spoke, but he was also fully aware that his grades were utter garbage.

Human-Dragon Unity: Don't give up, doctor. I think I can still be saved. I'm still breathing.

A Seductress: Ahaha, I think there's no saving you. Just bury him.

Flaked Out: You need some drastic medicine for your situation. Speaking of which, Xiao Yi, do you have a study plan?

Human-Dragon Unity: A study plan? What's that?

Flaked Out: In your situation, without a study plan, you won't be able to catch up with the main group.

Don't Play Holy Slash: Did you bring your textbooks home? Let us see your notes.

He had brought them back. A few days ago, they had said they would check his study progress over the weekend, so he had forced himself to carry that pile of books heavy with the weight of knowledge home.

But well, most of those textbooks were still ninety-five percent new.

Notes? What were those?

If they were books from his first or second year, there really were quite a few notes in them.