My Mom Only Cares About Monthly Exams!

Three days later, as the bell marking the end of the final biology exam rang, the entire senior class at Jiangcheng No. 7 High School breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hey, Yizhou, how'd you do this time?"

The moment he stepped out of the exam room, several boys he usually hung out with gathered around Jiang Yizhou.

Jiang Yizhou calmly packed up his pencil case as he spoke.

"Not bad. Biology was no problem. The only thing was the last big physics problem yesterday—the electromagnetic induction model was a little difficult. Luckily, I'd seen it before."

Over the past few days, Jiang Yizhou had felt that sense of being the "core of the class" return.

Without Li Dong beside him stirring up anxiety, even breathing felt much smoother for Jiang Yizhou.

That bastard had better stay gone forever.

Li Dong had not attended a single monthly exam over the past three days, and the students in Class Two had been gossiping about it in private.

"Hey, do you think Li Dong dropped out? I heard his family was already pretty poor...?"

"No way. I heard Old Yang mention the other day that he went to participate in some physics competition called the Huaxuan Cup?"

"A competition? Wasn't the preliminary round only one day? It's been three days already, and there's still no sign of him."

Listening to the discussions around him, Jiang Yizhou was filled with contempt. Going to a competition did not mean he could win first place. He was just there to make up the numbers.

What Jiang Yizhou did not know was that Li Dong, one of those supposed numbers, was currently sitting in the office of Zheng Hua, the director of academic affairs.

The office was quiet, with only the faint sound of Li Dong's pen moving across the test paper.

Not far from Li Dong—

Zheng Hua, Old Yang, and the physics teacher Jiang Yang were gathered around several already-graded exam papers, staring wide-eyed at one another. The atmosphere was strange to the extreme.

Three days earlier, right after the Huaxuan Cup preliminary round ended, the teachers had, out of curiosity, found the original questions and taken the test themselves.

The preliminary paper was worth fifty points. It was entirely multiple-choice questions, except for the final calculation problem, which was worth ten points.

As the head of the physics department, Zheng Hua had also been busy with administrative work, so his memory of certain obscure physics concepts had grown fuzzy. He got three multiple-choice questions wrong and scored forty-seven points.

Meanwhile, physics teacher Jiang Yang wanted nothing more than to crawl into a crack in the ground.

The paper on which he had scored only thirty-five points was pressed beneath the bottom of a teacup. He did not even dare glance at it.

"This question... isn't this question a little too obscure?" Jiang Yang said, his face red.

"Who would've thought they'd test thermodynamics combined with statistical distributions? This is completely beyond the syllabus!"

"Beyond the syllabus?"

Old Yang, who had not spoken until then, pushed up his glasses and leisurely picked up his own test paper.

The "50 points" on the paper made Jiang Yang's eyes ache.

"Old Yang, you..."

"You teach math! How did you get a perfect score?"

Old Yang calmly took a sip of tea.

"Physics and mathematics are closely related. For that final mechanics problem, I thought the physical model was pretty complicated, so I directly constructed a functional and used the calculus of variations to find the extremum. The process was a little cumbersome, but all roads lead to the same destination."

Jiang Yang: "..."

Zheng Hua: "..."

Using functional analysis on a high school physics competition problem? So what if he was an elite graduate of Kyoto Normal University!

In the end, everyone's eyes turned in unison toward Li Dong, who was still working on his monthly exam paper, then toward the Huaxuan Cup scratch paper that belonged to him on the desk.

"Li Dong," Jiang Yang asked in a somewhat dry voice.

"For the final problem, the analysis of radial motion in a rotating non-inertial frame—what was your approach? I noticed you barely wrote down any equations."

Li Dong, who was doing an English reading comprehension section, looked up and smiled a little sheepishly.

"Well... it actually wasn't that hard."

Li Dong put down his pen and pointed to a diagram on the scratch paper.

"Teacher Yang used the mathematical calculus of variations. That's an advanced university-level tool, and I'm still not very familiar with it."

"But I thought that since it was in a rotating reference frame, I could use conservation of angular momentum to construct an effective potential, V_{eff}(r), and simplify the complex two-dimensional dynamics into one-dimensional radial motion."

"Under the constraint of this potential well, the particle's velocity is zero at the radial turning point."

"I didn't solve that cumbersome differential equation at all. I directly found the polar radius from the intercept of the energy conservation curve, then used the geometric constraints to obtain the maximum deviation angle."

To be honest, Jiang Yang did not quite understand, but he still nodded and put on an expression that said it was exactly what he had been thinking.

A trace of approval flashed through Old Yang's eyes.

"Effective potential? You've already finished studying university physics, kid?"

"No, no, I'm still far from that," Li Dong said modestly.

Jiang Yang stood to the side, completely dazed.

Who am I? Where am I?

Why did I only score thirty-five points while my student is discussing effective potential with a teacher? And a math teacher at that?

"Um..." Jiang Yang looked at Zheng Hua in despair. "Group Leader Zheng, I don't think I can teach him anymore."

But Zheng Hua had no time to care about Jiang Yang's fragile ego.

He was staring fixedly at the computer screen.

Just then, the results page on the Huaxuan Cup's official website had refreshed.

[First Place: Li Dong (Jiangcheng No. 7 Middle School) -- 50 points (perfect score)]

[Second Place: Zhao Ziwei (Jiangcheng No. 6 Middle School) -- 48 points]

[Third Place: Lin Xiao (Jiangcheng Tianli Academy) -- 47 points]

"Perfect score... first place..."

Zheng Hua refreshed the page again.

That was right. He really was in first place.

If someone had told him before this that someone from No. 7 High School could make it into the Huaxuan Cup's next round, he definitely would not have believed it.

Because...

He glanced at Jiang Yang...

Jiang Yang: ??

But now, Li Dong's name was hanging at the very top of the rankings.

Zheng Hua let out a long breath.

"This is my student! His success cannot be separated from..."

Then he saw Li Dong still calmly filling in his answer sheet.

"Li Dong! You got first place—a perfect score!"

"This one's D... Huh? Oh, got it."

Li Dong continued working on the test.

Zheng Hua was a little speechless.

Why aren't you excited? This is first place in the entire city!

"There will be plenty of chances to take monthly exams in the future. Right now, you should be fully preparing for the next round!"

He had already begun planning an intensive training program in his head. "Teacher Jiang... forget it, Teacher Jiang still has lessons to prepare."

Jiang Yang: ??

"Old Yang! Old Yang! It's a little intense for me to train him by myself these next few days. Starting today, the two of us will take turns giving him extra coaching. We have to keep this momentum going!"

Old Yang gave Zheng Hua a strange look. Intense? Wasn't he afraid he would not be able to teach him?

But Zheng Hua was a leader, after all. Old Yang had enough social awareness to understand that, so he merely nodded in agreement.

However, Li Dong seriously shook his head.

"That won't work, Teacher Zheng."

"I have to finish these monthly exams, and I have to do well on them."

"Why?!" Zheng Hua did not understand.

Li Dong sighed.

"Because my mom wants to see my grades."

"If I tell her I won first place in a physics competition, she'll definitely ask, 'Can this thing add points to the college entrance exam?' If I say no, she'll definitely think I'm neglecting my proper studies."

"In her eyes, only the school report card has real, tangible scores."

Zheng Hua: "..."

Old Yang: "..."