The placement exam

Jiang Nian's head buzzed all morning.

What the hell?

A girl?

Xu Qianqian's words from that morning still echoed in his ears. "Her legal name is Zhou Haifei, with a different final character. Since the college entrance exam is coming up, she still hasn't gone to change it. Everyone just calls her Haifei."

Holy shit, Zhou Haifei was a girl!

No wonder she'd never confessed her feelings, from high school all the way through college. What the fuck am I supposed to say to that? Jiang Nian thought. That I'm great at chemistry, and this is clearly an aluminum-copper pairing-a lesbian couple!

But when he actually thought it through, it did make sense.

Jiang Nian knew Xu Qianqian. There was definitely nothing unusual about her orientation. Forget being successful-even a CEO wouldn't stand much of a chance. That was simply a fact.

The system's benchmark was his future self in another timeline: a thirty-eight-year-old loser, utterly defeated and only just getting started, competing against someone with an established career.

Besides, the reward for this mission was so low. Just five thousand yuan.

During the long break after second period.

Jiang Nian wandered past Xu Qianqian's classroom. Seeing no teacher inside, he walked straight in. Generally, visiting other classes wasn't allowed, unless you had a thick enough skin.

After all, Xu Qianqian ranked near the top even in the Olympiad Class, and she was pretty, too. No class officer was going to suddenly lose their mind and jump up to declare that unauthorized visitors weren't allowed.

"Hey, Qianqian, your childhood sweetheart's here."

"Get lost!"

The girls who were close to Xu Qianqian teased her, setting off a wave of giggles. It was a common game among high school girls: point at some boy and chant, "Your husband! Your husband!"

But this wasn't some teen romance drama. Nobody went around saying stupid shit like "the school heartthrob," and being labeled someone's "husband" often wasn't much of a compliment.

Xu Qianqian blushed and swatted her deskmate.

"Don't talk nonsense."

Jiang Nian didn't seem bothered at all. He stepped into the aisle and first struck up a conversation with Xu Qianqian's deskmate, making the girl beam after just a few words.

One advantage of hanging around social circles: you learned how to get along with people.

Not that it did him much damn good. Apart from Xu Qianqian's deskmate, nobody cared about this boy from the Parallel Class.

It wasn't necessarily discrimination. The reality was that, at school, grades did the talking-or your family background did. Excel at either one, and you could be very popular.

"What are you doing here?"

"Oh, just asking about a math problem. This one..." Jiang Nian wrote the problem on her scratch paper. He genuinely didn't understand the math, so asking more questions was his only option.

Xu Qianqian tucked her hair behind her ear and leaned over to look.

"Oh, for this, you use..."

Her deskmate, Song Xiyun, watched with sparkling eyes, her gaze darting between the clean-cut, good-looking Jiang Nian and Xu Qianqian. The corners of her mouth kept curling upward despite herself.

At the end, Jiang Nian asked one more question.

"Which one is Zhou Haifei?"

Xu Qianqian's brows creased almost imperceptibly, but she still told him quietly.

"Third group, fifth row, by the wall. The one with glasses... don't stare straight at a girl like that! Jiang Nian, are you a pig?"

Jiang Nian only glanced over. The girl with glasses on the far side of the classroom looked thin. She was bent over her homework, her hair hiding half her face, making it hard to see clearly.

As though she'd sensed something, the girl with glasses also looked up toward them. Her gaze met Jiang Nian's for an instant, revealing an ordinary face, before she lowered her head again as if nothing had happened.

After Jiang Nian left.

Song Xiyun poked her deskmate in the waist. "Hey, Qianqian, did you two really grow up together?"

"More or less."

"I heard that when Li Bai married his childhood sweetheart, he didn't even look back on his way into the bridal chamber. Probably too awkward." Song Xiyun kept chattering, teasing Xu Qianqian until her face turned red.

"What are you talking about?"

"Li Bai." Song Xiyun looked perfectly innocent, though laughter danced in her eyes. "What's wrong? Who did you think I meant? Could it be that you..."

"You're asking for it, Song Xiyun!"

Jiang Nian returned to his classroom. For now, he had no good way to handle the system mission. The girl hadn't even spoken to Xu Qianqian. What was he supposed to do?

The most direct solution was to make Xu Qianqian taken, with that relationship visible to just one person: Zhou Haifei.

But that was something he could only imagine-otherwise known as indulging in fantasies.

He'd wait and see for now.

For three straight days, Jiang Nian was busy catching up on math.

The first monthly exam of their senior year, commonly called the placement exam, was tomorrow. Compared with the system's five thousand yuan, this was clearly more important.

He didn't want to stay in this class anymore. The first placement exam allowed students to switch classes. The top students in the lower-tier classes traded places with the bottom students in the upper-tier classes. That was the unwritten rule.

As for why he wasn't brushing up on physics, put it this way: if the person setting the paper had even a slightly sadistic streak, the class could produce a whole bunch of geniuses scoring in the single digits.

His physics grades weren't bad. He could score around sixty, so there was no need to waste time on it.

"Jiang Nian, since when did you start studying?" Le Zhi sauntered over with a cocky air and sat down in front of him, wearing a sleazy grin. "What set you off?"

Jiang Nian looked up, considering what to say. He couldn't exactly tell him, I want to get away from you assholes.

"Oh, nothing. Just studying for fun."

"Still won't admit it, huh? This is classic post-breakup behavior." Le Zhi was built like a bamboo pole, and his raspy voice sounded like Tianxia Wuzei from Fruity Robo. "Still hung up on that?"

Jiang Nian smiled and asked what he was talking about, while thinking, Fuck every last one of your mothers.

"Everyone was just joking. Find a chance to clear the air, and it'll be fine." Le Zhi crossed his legs and grinned. "Feels weird having one person missing."

"How about this? After the monthly exams finish the day after tomorrow, Zhou Yuting said we should all get barbecue that night. You coming?"

Jiang Nian didn't even look up. "No."

Having gotten nowhere, Le Zhi left.

Jiang Nian sat at his desk, tightening his grip on his pen again and again. Suddenly remembering the past, he felt like a complete idiot. How had he ever hung around with these people?

At the end of the day, these people only gathered to show off. One moment, they'd be judging other people without restraint.

Then, if they were in a bad mood and someone kindly asked what was wrong, they'd immediately turn cold like a bunch of morons.

They even admired that sort of abruptly cold personality. With people fawning over them, they thought they were cool. Full of superiority, they looked down on everyone else.

Ultimately, they were idiots, and hanging around with people like that would turn you into an idiot sooner or later.

Taking a deep breath, Jiang Nian went back to reviewing.

The next day, the placement exam arrived.

The first-years had the weekend off, freeing up their teaching building to serve as the examination venue for the seniors. Since the results would affect class placement, the school took it very seriously. Invigilation was stricter than ever.

Jiang Nian took his stationery bag and found his exam room ahead of time.

The exam schedule followed the college entrance exam exactly. Chinese was first, and the seats were spaced far apart. In front of him sat a quiet girl in a summer school uniform, her arms fair.

When passing back the exam papers, the girl turned around. She had a pretty face and gentle features, and her jeans and white summer uniform made her skin look especially fair.

As she handed him the answer sheet, the brush-tip-like strands of fringe on either side of her face fell forward, as though cutting through the sweltering summer to create a scene of cool serenity.

(End of chapter)