Time only seemed to fly unusually fast when exams were approaching.
As the days passed, few people on campus still had time to catch male foxes and shave them, or chase crows out of the trees. Analysis of the Christmas Ball and the "winter hunt incident" gradually gave way to discussions of key exam topics and difficult material. Apart from noticing that there were far fewer crows in the trees, most students had all but stopped following news of the wizards wearing crow masks.
The two-day weekend after Christmas passed in a flash. With the arrival of the eighteenth week of classes, Zheng Qing had only a handful of days left in the first semester of his second year at First University.
The professors no longer lectured, led reviews of their notes, or assigned homework. Classes became unstructured yet oppressive, the shadow of finals descending from every direction, leaving everyone anxious and suffocated. Everyone had been granted the greatest possible freedom, yet everyone had lost the freedom they had once longed for. "Each of you bears primary responsibility for your own grades"—that was what most professors kept saying.
Of course, the professors were not entirely idle. All they had to do was sit behind the lectern, and a steady stream of students would come forward with questions, as though an entire semester's accumulated difficulties had erupted in this single short week.
Zheng Qing, however, had no need to approach the lectern.
He had a deskmate who rivaled the Grand Encyclopedia. Whether it was spell studies, potions studies, alchemy, divination, or magic script, whatever the subject and whatever point he was uncertain about, he could always get an accurate answer by asking Dr. Xiao.
For the first time in ages, Zheng Qing felt like a "student" again. He did not have