Li Qingrong

At midday, during the first break, class monitor Li Qingrong suddenly came over to Zhang Ningzhi and Jiang Nian.

"Come pick out your lockers."

"Sure." For once, Jiang Nian behaved normally. He pushed his chair back, stood up, and patted Zhang Ningzhi on the shoulder in the seat ahead of him. "Hey, the class monitor wants us to pick our lockers."

Zhang Ningzhi ducked her head slightly and gave a bewildered "Oh."

The Senior Year Building had a peculiar feature: built-in book lockers. Basically, they were a row of sheet-metal cabinets cemented into the peeling wall near the classroom door.

The dingy gray lockers opened onto rectangular compartments, each big enough to hold about half a desk's worth of stuff.

"You moved up here before National Day, but the students who used to be in this classroom hadn't taken their things downstairs yet," Li Qingrong explained, standing off to the side with her usual cool demeanor.

"They only finished clearing everything out yesterday. There are three spots altogether. You two can pick first."

There were three lockers, and he and Zhang Ningzhi got first pick. The implication was obvious: Li Qingrong hadn't told Yu Tongjie. She planned to notify him only after the two of them had chosen.

Nobody brought up what had happened that day anymore, but that didn't mean it had left no mark.

Yu Tongjie's only real advantage was having a well-connected dad who worked at the county Party committee office. That put him in one of the three elite circles of connections in Zhen'nan County, but it had nothing to do with Jiang Nian.

Unless their grades were so bad they were an outright embarrassment, children from those three circles were sent to top high schools as long as they showed any talent at all. Their families wouldn't just leave them to fend for themselves.

Connections in a county town were tangled and intertwined. What local didn't have a rich or influential relative somewhere? If someone needed taking on, you still took them on.

Besides, if you couldn't compete on fathers, couldn't you compete on fathers-in-law? Fortunes changed. Never underestimate a poor young man-marry a Nalan Yanran and you could crush the entire Jialie clan.

Huh, that brought the subject right back around. With bad grades, you couldn't even land a rich woman to live off.

Jiang Nian glanced over the three lockers. One was at the very top, one at the very bottom, and only one was in the middle, so he made the choice for Zhang Ningzhi.

"Take the middle one. I'll use the top one."

Zhang Ningzhi gave a little "Huh?" before asking, "Won't it be awkward for you to get your things?"

Jiang Nian thought for a moment, then said with a perfectly serious face, "It will. How about we squeeze into one locker together?"

Zhang Ningzhi's face instantly flushed red. She lowered her head without a word, obediently went back to her seat to fetch her books, and put them in the locker. She also fished a small padlock out of her desk compartment.

Li Qingrong watched the whole exchange from the side before calmly turning away to notify Yu Tongjie.

Whether he wanted the bottom locker wasn't something Li Qingrong needed to worry about. Someone who spread rumors about his classmates should count himself lucky to get a locker at all. What more did he want?

Jiang Nian propped his head on his hand and looked toward the first row of desks. Yu Tongjie seemed to know Li Qingrong. He said something to her in a low voice, his face turning red again and again.

Jiang Nian couldn't help grinning. Bastard, he cursed silently.

The afternoon's three classes were math, physics, and chemistry. Just hearing that schedule was enough to suffocate anyone.

After the lunch break, the whole class was listless. Hell lay ahead.

Jiang Nian's math grades were average, just as unremarkable as his combined science grades. But the sciences emphasized building a network of knowledge-in plain terms, understanding and memorization.

He had already finished the memorization part. All that remained was gradually linking it into a coherent framework. Analyzing exam questions had also indirectly improved his science grades.

But math was truly hopeless. Even after memorizing the formulas, whatever he couldn't solve remained unsolvable.

People could do anything when pushed far enough-except math. You could struggle through an exam for ages, conclude that Xiaoming was negative 3.6 years old, and want to stand up and slap yourself.

His deskmate Li Hua looked like a complete dumbass when he was sleepy, but he scored 145 in math. Ma Guojun was sleazy as hell, but he scored over 120. Yao Beibei talked dirty all day long and scored over 130.

Zhang Ningzhi scored over 120 too. Jiang Nian had the worst math grades in their little group.

Being bad at math meant he was destined to slack off in college too.

While zoning out during math class, Jiang Nian glanced out the window. On that sweltering high school afternoon, the sunlight was too dazzling to look into, and a red flag fluttered in the distance.

This was the most authentic Chinese dreamcore a county high school could offer: striving day after day, with no end in sight.

Jiang Nian suddenly thought of the system and wondered what his future would actually look like.

So much had already changed. If he got into a decent university, would his future still end in divorce?

Or should he simply never marry? Maybe go straight for Xu Qianqian instead?

Did the ending depend on whom he pursued? Surely he'd still argue with Xu Qianqian, with her "I'm counting to three" attitude. He'd probably end up even worse off.

His sweet Ningzhi was a good choice too. Pretty, kindhearted, and good at school.

The root of the problem probably lay in him. At thirty-eight, Jiang Nian's task was to turn his life around. At eighteen, his task was to change himself from the inside out and rewrite his future.

He was a practical person who valued only what he could get his hands on right now. To him, the system was a cheat that stayed switched on-a free Deep Blue.

What he had now was fifty-seven thousand in his bank account. A family that wasn't particularly well-off, a childhood sweetheart, a group of normal friends, mountains of books, and oceans of practice questions. That was all.

After an autumn and a summer, his youth would gradually drift into the distance.

He still had to keep his feet on the ground.

Near the end of math class, the teacher walked over to Li Hua. Their exchange was practically telepathic, consisting of just a few interjections.

Li Hua: "Huh?"

Math teacher: "Hmm?"

Li Hua: "Uh..."

Then Jiang Nian watched the math teacher point at a particular step in the solution.

"This."

"Oh, got it."

No, dude, what the fuck did you get? Jiang Nian had watched the entire exchange. He looked at the question, then at the steps for part three of the long-answer problem, and remained utterly lost.

Where the hell have you taken me? Are we still in China? Since when did Chinese become such a niche language?

The math teacher looked at the baffled Jiang Nian. "Did you understand?"

Jiang Nian nodded with feigned gravity. "Not a single thing."

The whole class burst into laughter.

The bell rang just then, leaving the math teacher no time to say much more. He tossed out a "Ask your deskmate," then hurried off with his lesson plans.

Everyone was so sleepy. As soon as the math teacher left, heads dropped onto desks all over the classroom.

Jiang Nian and Li Hua slumped onto their desks in unison. Zhang Ningzhi, sitting ahead of them, wasn't much better off. She put down her pen, rubbed her eyes, quietly rested her head on her desk, and fell asleep in seconds.

Nobody made a peep. Physics was next.

During the second break, Jiang Nian learned that Zhang Ningzhi had managed to overturn Newton's third law of motion while solving a problem. Seeing her embarrassed face, he laughed without a shred of sympathy.

"Impressive. Very impressive."

Chemistry was the little humanities subject among the sciences, with vast

quantities of equations and all sorts of tiny facts. At first glance, it seemed genuinely interesting. Then reaction mechanisms came along and put you in your place.

During the short study period at the end of the afternoon, Jiang Nian noticed that his deskmate Li Hua kept one eye narrowed. He couldn't help asking,

"Taking aim?"

Li Hua shook his head. "No. This is the Demon Eye. If I open it, all living things will suffer."

Ma Guojun happened to pass by on his way to hand in his homework and immediately lost it. In the classroom bathed in sunset light, the big fat guy grinned with extreme sleaziness and slapped Li Hua on the shoulder.

"You dumbass. That's a stye."