Hello, everyone. I'm Chen Zhu from senior class 11

"Who?"

Yu Xian whipped her head around, a lovely stretch of collarbone showing beneath her loose school uniform as she followed her friend's gaze.

The sudden movement startled all the boys nearby who had been sneaking looks at her. They immediately looked away and made a show of listening attentively to the school leaders' speeches.

"That boy you told to stay away from you and spend more time studying so he could get into a second-tier university."

Her friend leaned close to Yu Xian's ear and whispered, "I just saw him again, but apparently he's in class 11."

Yu Xian froze for a moment. Class 11 was the Yuanpei Experimental Class. Never mind second-tier universities-even getting into an ordinary first-tier university would count as underperforming for those students. Almost all of them scored above the cutoff for key Project 211 universities.

"Wu Yu, are you sure?"

Yu Xian fluttered her long eyelashes. There were too many people behind them, and she hadn't gotten a clear look.

"It's definitely him!"

The girl named Wu Yu was utterly certain. "I even apologized to him for you that day, so I remember him pretty clearly. His hair was longer then, though. He's cut it short now."

After a moment's thought, Wu Yu added her own opinion, not minding that she was going on a bit. "Actually, short hair really suits him. He looks much more handsome than he did with long hair."

"That's strange. Isn't Song Shiwei in class 11?"

Yu Xian sounded puzzled. "Why didn't he confess to Song Shiwei?"

"Pfft!"

Wu Yu was not pleased to hear that. Pouting, she said, "Everyone calls Song Shiwei the school beauty, but isn't that just because she gets good grades and her family has a bit of money? I think you're prettier than Song Shiwei. That boy from the experimental class went out of his way to chat you up, and that's the best proof!"

By then, Principal He Yong had finished his impassioned speech.

Next, student representative Deng Qian would lead all the seniors in taking their pledge.

"My dear classmates, my comrades-in-arms, after ten years of study and three years of hard work, in a hundred days our names will appear on the list of successful candidates..."

Deng Qian also held an A4 sheet with her speech on it. Each time she read out a rousing yet awkward slogan, everyone repeated it after her.

Everything was fine at first, but as the pledge continued, the scene gradually grew a little out of control. Some of the more emotional students worked themselves up so much as they shouted that they burst into tears.

Of course, they weren't being melodramatic.

Apart from Chen Zhu, everyone only got to be young once. Their tears held both nostalgia for those three monotonous years and the anxiety they were releasing under the immense pressure of the Gaokao.

Of course, some students looked listless and barely meant a word they said. They knew they had no hope of getting into university, and being in that atmosphere made them deeply uncomfortable.

Most students, however, simply shouted along as usual, neither particularly excited nor disengaged. They treated it like a task and went through the motions.

With the sports field in such a jumble anyway, Yu Xian took the opportunity to look back again. At last, she recalled a little about Chen Zhu.

He really is a boy from class 11.

That was what Yu Xian thought.

"Well?"

Wu Yu leaned over again and said with a sweet laugh, "Aren't you always complaining that the boys who confess to you are all bottom-of-the-class slackers? Well, now a handsome guy from the experimental class has finally confessed to you."

Yu Xian was an arts-track student, but precisely because of that, she had always found students with good grades incredibly impressive.

The mathematical formulas and physics symbols she couldn't understand seemed, in their eyes, to be obedient tools they could use to score high marks at will.

They could casually write out a dozen lines of solutions that left her head spinning.

Her academic grades were so poor that the arts track was her only route into university. Almost all the classmates around her had chosen it for the same reason. They didn't genuinely love the arts.

But in those days, students, parents, and even teachers all held certain prejudices against arts-track and sports-track students. They believed these students couldn't get through the regular Gaokao, so they resorted to unconventional shortcuts instead.

Arts-track and sports-track students were also less strictly supervised, so unsavory stories about them surfaced from time to time. Nine out of ten pieces of school gossip had something to do with them, which made regular students regard them as a menace.

It was as though getting even a little closer to them would make your grades drop.

Even the boys who usually confessed to her were sports-track students who disliked studying, or grinning school delinquents.

The boys who genuinely did well academically all confessed to Song Shiwei.

In other people's eyes, she seemed to be some cheap girl who would agree to date just anyone.

"Yu Xian."

Wu Yu interrupted her thoughts again, teasing, "So, are you happy with that handsome guy from class 11? I could play matchmaker and pass little notes between you two."

"No!"

Yu Xian wrinkled her delicate, rounded nose. "Being in class 11 doesn't necessarily mean his grades are good. The boys I admire are the ones in the top ten of our year, with scores high enough to get into Tsinghua and Peking Universities!"

By then, the Gaokao pledge had ended, and the crowd gradually settled down.

Cao Jingjun, the head of the senior year, walked onto the stage and adjusted his glasses. "Please compose yourselves, everyone. We will now review the results of the First Mock Exam that just concluded."

"This exam was on the difficult side, but that is the standard we should expect from Gaokao questions. The problems it exposed also give everyone a chance to reflect on your approach to revision, its effectiveness, and your methods..."

"Those whose results were less than ideal shouldn't lose heart. You still have three months to make adjustments... Of course, there are also students with great mental resilience. The more important the exam, the calmer they become, and the better they perform."

"For example, Chen Zhu from senior class 11. Now, let's invite Chen Zhu up to talk about how to get into the right mindset for exams and share his experience revising for Chinese..."

Perhaps because Chen Zhu was a newcomer taking the stage for the first time, Cao Jingjun added something specifically to encourage the students to take him seriously:

"Chen Zhu scored 654 on this First Mock Exam, ranking eighth in the year. Based on previous years, that may already meet the application cutoff for Tsinghua and Peking Universities."

A murmur swept through the crowd.

The scattered applause immediately grew a little more enthusiastic.

And so.

And so!

Yu Xian and Wu Yu watched the boy they had been discussing all this time suddenly rise from his seat. Under the eyes of every student, teacher, and school leader, he walked steadily up to the microphone on the stage.

"Hello, everyone. I'm Chen Zhu from senior class 11."

That day, the sunlight wasn't harsh, and the wind wasn't loud. The young man gave a slight bow, as though offering thanks to his own youth.

"Yu Xian, I think your wishes are coming true pretty well right now."

Down below, Wu Yu stared blankly for a long while before saying rather dazedly, "Hurry up and make a wish for me too. Wish that from now on I can get things without working, be rewarded without earning it, enjoy the fruits of other people's labor, and shoot straight to the top."

Yu Xian's bright, alluring eyes had taken on a slightly dreamlike look. Ignoring her best friend's request, she unconsciously bit her delicate, moist red lip with her pearly teeth and sank into thought.

Then she suddenly said, "Why didn't he bring a script for his speech?"

(That's all for this update. Thank you, everyone, for your tips and all your votes.)

(End of chapter)