Compared to the art students' relaxed schedules, ordinary high school students still had to return to their classrooms for evening self-study after the morale-boosting assembly.
While walking up the stairs, Chen Zhu accidentally caught a glimpse of his junior high school classmate Wang Changhua. Remembering the confident look the other boy had worn while checking his answers, Chen Zhu could not help stopping him to ask, "Changhua, how did you do on the physics section of the first mock exam?"
Wang Changhua turned his head, and upon discovering it was his old classmate Chen Zhu, he immediately said with casual swagger, "It was all right, just a bit careless. If I'd been a little more careful and picked up another thirty or forty points, my physics score could've hit 130."
Chen Zhu nodded. This was a very clever response; next time someone asked him how much he made, he would say that if a month had 100 days, he could also earn ten thousand a month.
"What about math?"
Chen Zhu asked as they walked.
"Let's not even talk about math. The grading teachers aren't very fair!"
Wang Changhua seemed somewhat angry. "The correct answer to the second-to-last major problem was 0.5. Some people wrote one-half and it was counted right, so why was it wrong just because I wrote sin30?"
Chen Zhu almost failed to hold back his laughter. Sin30 = 0.5 was correct, but did he really write that expecting the teacher to calculate it for him?
"Wang Changhua, are you bragging again?"
Some classmates who knew Wang Changhua's personality well laughed as they exposed the truth. "You left the last few math problems blank anyway, what are you still putting on airs for?"
After taking Wang Changhua down a peg, the unfamiliar classmate also nodded amicably at Chen Zhu.
Through this small detail, Chen Zhu suddenly sensed that his "Jianghu status" at school was rising.
It was just like how everyone knew the world's highest peak was Mount Everest, and they probably also knew the second highest was K2, and they might even be familiar with the third through tenth.
Yet out of the eleventh through twentieth highest peaks, just how many people actually knew them?
Before this, Chen Zhu had hovered around twentieth in his grade. This standing was certainly decent, but compared to "stepping onto a stage to share study experiences and becoming widely known to all teachers and students in the school," calling himself a mere background character was no exaggeration at all.
Wang Changhua possessed a very strong psychological constitution. His bluff had been called, yet his face did not flush and his heart did not race. Instead, he patted Chen Zhu on the shoulder and warmly invited him:
"Chen Zhu, I suddenly remembered I have some stuff to take care of, so I'm heading back to the classroom now. I'll treat you to some arcade games in a couple of days, make sure you show up."
With that, he quickly fled the scene.
This felt rather like the polite cliché of "let's grab a meal sometime," and Chen Zhu did not pay it much mind. This kid seemed to have been a bit of a class clown and unreliable ever since junior high school.
However, the proposal to "play arcade games" suddenly stirred some interest in Chen Zhu.
Ever since graduating with his master's degree back then, he had not touched a gaming console even once. Even when passing by video game arcades, he would subconsciously feel that his age or status made him unsuited to enter such places anymore.
Now that he had returned to the age of 17, Chen Zhu felt a craving to test his hand at gaming, and he also intended to stroll around 2007 Yuecheng.
Upon returning to the classroom, Chen Zhu mentioned this matter to Huang Bohan, who immediately raised both hands in agreement. "I've been wanting to relax for a while anyway. Let's go play next Sunday when we get time off."
"All right!"
Chen Zhu nodded. "You'll have to wait for me, though. My parents are taking me out to eat that afternoon, and we can find a place to meet up afterward."
"No problem! Where should we go, then?"
Huang Bohan habitually gnawed on his fingernails. "Shangxiajiu? Capital Road? Or Tianhe City?"
"We'll see when we get there. Just picking any commercial street at random will definitely have an arcade."
Chen Zhu had not decided yet.
Over the course of the following week, the entire senior grade fell into a cycle of "students taking practice tests, teachers grading practice tests, and classes going over practice tests."
By this point, the teachers no longer had many new knowledge points to cover, and students could only rely on churning through test papers to consolidate their instincts and keep their minds active.
Yet wasn't that towering pile of test papers, those countless used-up pen refills, and the classroom air thick with the scent of refreshing wind oil part of the memories of senior year?
For Chen Zhu, there was little room left for improvement in his math, physics, chemistry, and Chinese. Ever since the last first mock exam, his English teacher had also frequently pulled him aside for individual tutoring.
Even so, because his foundation was far too weak, the results would not show any dramatic improvement.
Such days were both monotonous and fulfilling. Fortunately, Li Jianming came to the classroom doorway to put on a show every day, giving Chen Zhu a chance to relax his mind.
And so Sunday arrived. After school let out at noon, Chen Zhu took a bus straight to the restaurant where they were eating. He opened the private dining room door to find five people already seated inside.
On the left were his own parents, and on the right was another family of three-the very same deputy police substation director who had been locking horns with Old Chen that night.
The deputy director was named Zhao Donghua and was in his early forties. However, due to frequently staying up late for night shifts, he looked even older than Old Chen, and his wife was a female store owner who ran a clothing stall.
Both husband and wife had short, plump statures, which was why their daughter, Zhao Yuanyuan, shared this body type.
Zhao Yuanyuan was in her third year of high school at Provincial Experimental High School. Her dad had always felt that his own girl had better grades, so he had never expected her to lose to Chen Zhu in the recent provincial joint examinations.
Seeing Chen Zhu step through the door, Zhao Donghua immediately announced in a booming voice, "Chen Zhu, I heard you scored 654 on the first mock exam, beating Yuanyuan by over a dozen points! Your dad has been bragging away endlessly right in front of me!"
Zhao Yuanyuan had originally been concentrating on devouring a cream cake, but the moment she raised her head, she caught sight of Chen Zhu's current crisp and sunny appearance.
Zhao Yuanyuan froze for a moment, then suddenly said happily, "Big Brother Chen Zhu~, you look so much more handsome than before!"
Chen Zhu's mouth twitched. Judging purely by her figure, Zhao Yuanyuan was a plump little girl, but listening to her voice, she instead had a sugary, sweet-sister tone. He wondered if this counted as a contrasting charm.
"Uncle Zhao, Aunt Lu."
Just like before, Chen Zhu first politely greeted Zhao Donghua and his wife, then politely nodded toward Zhao Yuanyuan before quietly taking a seat beside his mother, Mao Xiaoqin.
Mao Xiaoqin looked at her only son, her face overflowing with maternal warmth and satisfaction. "How was it? Was traffic heavy coming over at noon?"
"Not bad."
Chen Zhu took a small sip of the hot tea his mother handed him and said in a low voice, "Mom, I'll just eat a couple of bites and then head out. I've arranged to meet up with Huang Bohan to play arcade games and relax."
Mao Xiaoqin was very familiar with Huang Bohan and knew he was also an honest kid, so she did not worry that playing video games would affect their grades. Instead, she proactively asked, "Do you boys have money on you? Do you want me to give you some?"
"We actually are a bit short. Mom, give me another hundred yuan."
"All right! But don't you boys go eating those heavy, oily, and salty deep-fried foods for dinner."
This kind of family gathering between friends was very casual. Zhao Donghua and Chen Peisong ate while chatting about matters related to work.
Mao Xiaoqin was also chatting with Zhao Yuanyuan's mother, Lu Chunlan. The topics of conversation between the two middle-aged women were entirely about their children, and with it being the crucial third year of high school, the conversation flowed endlessly.
Chen Zhu ate his meal in silence. The impression he had given people before was that of an introverted and taciturn person, and now he was quite happy to continue playing the role of a background character.
Zhao Yuanyuan had plenty to say. One moment she was talking about how XXX in school was dating, and the next she was talking about how XXX in her class was being ostracized. Occasionally, when picking up food with her chopsticks, she would also steal glances at Chen Zhu.
Witnessing such a harmonious scene, Zhao Donghua could not help sighing with emotion:
"Old Chen, we've known each other for many years, and the two youngsters met back in junior high, didn't they? I have to say, it really is quite interesting. Your Chen Zhu is steady, and my girl is cheerful; it really feels a bit like childhood sweethearts, hahaha..."
"Damn, Big Brother, cut it out!"
Chen Zhu thought to himself that other people's childhood sweethearts after rebirth were all fair-skinned, beautiful, and long-legged, so why on earth did his turn out to be a loli-voiced, contrasting-charm chubby younger sister? He wasn't looking to fall in love with her vocal cords.
Chen Zhu was just about to say something when he realized Mao Xiaoqin was even more anxious than he was. She immediately interrupted, "Old Zhao! What nonsense are you spouting? Chen Zhu and Yuanyuan still have the Gaokao ahead of them!"
Chen Zhu let out a soft breath. You could always count on your birth mother; she probably didn't want to face a chubby girl like Yuanyuan as a daughter-in-law either.
Still, Chen Zhu felt it was no longer appropriate to stay here, otherwise the jokes would only get more out of hand. He hurriedly ate a few bites and stood up to excuse himself, while Mao Xiaoqin helped explain the reason.
Unexpectedly, Zhao Yuanyuan stood up right along with them. "Big Brother Chen Zhu, can I go with you guys to play arcade games too?"
Just as Chen Zhu wanted to find an excuse to refuse, her mother Lu Chunlan smiled and said, "Go on, go on. We adults have things to talk about, and you kids wouldn't be interested in listening anyway."
Chen Zhu: ...
After stepping out of the restaurant's private room, Chen Zhu went downstairs and found a public phone to call Huang Bohan. He had made up his mind that he did not want to babysit a chubby younger sister all by himself.
"Let me finish this set of physics problems first."
Huang Bohan procrastinated on the other end.
"Suit yourself."
Chen Zhu sneered. "Though the 170 pure high school girl by my side might not necessarily be willing to wait."
"Huh?"
The other end of the line went quiet for a second, and then Huang Bohan found an excuse for himself: "I can just do the last two problems during evening self-study anyway, it's not like it has to be done this exact second."
Barely twenty minutes later, Huang Bohan appeared before Chen Zhu out of breath. This scoundrel had even changed into a brand-new school uniform.
He walked right past Zhao Yuanyuan, covered his mouth, and approached Chen Zhu with a feigned air of seriousness. "How come I don't see the 170 pure high school girl?"
"That's her right there."
Chen Zhu motioned toward Zhao Yuanyuan with his chin.
"This is the 170 pure high school girl?"
Huang Bohan instantly felt a sense of betrayal, his expression transforming into the meme of the subway old man looking at his phone.
"That's her."
Chen Zhu crossed his arms behind his back and said leisurely, "I never said 170 was her height."
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