The first mock exam

The next morning, Chen Zhu was jolted awake by the urgent ringing of his alarm. Still half asleep, he checked the time. It was only six thirty.

There was no helping it. Morning study started at seven.

After he started working, Chen Zhu had gotten up at this hour too. Back then, he had even suspected that school had never intended to teach him anything useful-it was just training him to get up early for work.

After washing up, Chen Zhu spotted a five-yuan note on the dining table. His parents had left it for his breakfast.

Five yuan bought quite a generous breakfast in those days, so some of it was probably meant as pocket money. In fact, Chen Zhu did not need to pay for breakfast at all, because Huang Bohan's family ran a small restaurant.

He took the bus to Huang Bohan's place. Everything looked much as he remembered.

Huang Bohan's parents were busy serving other customers, while Huang Bohan ate breakfast at a small table. Beside him sat a portion of steamed buns and rice noodles.

They had been set aside for Chen Zhu.

Chen Zhu greeted Huang Bohan's parents first, then sat down beside him and picked up his chopsticks. "Morning, Big Huang."

"Damn it! Don't use my nickname when there are people around!"

Huang Bohan grumbled in protest, then immediately started chatting happily with Chen Zhu, completely forgetting that he had meant to settle a score with him today.

Looking at his uncomplicated best friend, Chen Zhu suddenly recalled how his life would unfold.

If Huang Bohan's path remained unchanged, he would go straight to work after finishing his undergraduate degree rather than pursue postgraduate studies.

As a graduate of a Project 985 university, he landed a decent first job. By all rights, his life should have gone fairly smoothly.

But when it came to marriage, his lack of dating experience led him to marry a vain woman who had no interest in settling down. That failed marriage hit him hard, leaving him unable to hold down any job for long.

As he grew older, jobs became increasingly difficult to find. Eventually, Chen Zhu had to use his connections to arrange work for him at private companies.

"Eat up. It'll get cold if you leave it."

Seeing Chen Zhu sitting there in a daze, Huang Bohan reminded him.

Chen Zhu picked up a soup dumpling. After a moment's thought, he said, "Big Huang, when you start dating and get married someday, you'd better listen to what we think."

"Why? Who do you think you are?"

Huang Bohan initially retorted in defiance, then gave a goofy grin and said to Chen Zhu, a little hesitantly:

"Honestly, I don't have time to think about any of that right now. I just hope I can make the top fifty in our year on this first mock exam and perform normally on the college entrance exam. Once I get to university, I'll finally be free."

The rosy dream of university life was undoubtedly a beacon for final-year high school students struggling under relentless pressure. But Chen Zhu had already been through university and entered the working world.

University was not actually that wonderful, and the final year of high school was not that unbearable.

After finishing breakfast, the two arrived at school. Most of their classmates were already there.

The classroom rang with voices reading aloud. Some students were memorizing English, others Chinese texts, while still others were working through problems. The atmosphere was thick with studious concentration.

Chen Zhu attended Zhixin Middle School, a long-established high school in the city. There were eleven classes in the final year, with Classes 10 and 11 designated as Yuanpei Experimental Classes.

Chen Zhu and Huang Bohan were both in Yuanpei Experimental Class 11. Under normal circumstances, that essentially meant they already had one foot inside a top-tier university.

As Huang Bohan reached the classroom door, he abruptly stopped chatting animatedly with Chen Zhu. His expression instantly turned serious, and he lowered his head, staring at the floor as he walked inside.

Chen Zhu chuckled. He had been the same way before. Whenever there were plenty of classmates in the room, he would instinctively lower his head and hurry to his seat.

How could he put it? He always felt as though everyone would be watching him.

A textbook case of the socially anxious introvert mindset.

In reality, everyone was busy. Nobody cared.

Chen Zhu followed Huang Bohan inside, only turning his head slightly for a glance as he passed Song Shiwei's seat.

Just as he remembered, their school beauty Song really was gorgeous!

She had the classic oval face of a natural beauty, with skin so delicate it seemed a touch would break it. Her naturally long lashes curved like little fans. Her eyes were clear and bright, without a trace of cloudiness. Beneath her straight, elegant nose were pink lips with a well-defined outline, and her rounded chin was as smooth and pale as jade, its graceful lines flowing down to the collar of her school uniform.

Chen Zhu vaguely recalled that Song Shiwei's family was quite wealthy too. With looks like hers on top of that, no wonder Li Jianming kept pestering her.

Morning study was followed by two math periods taught by their homeroom teacher, Yin Yanqiu.

Yin Yanqiu was in her forties. She often wore a staid gray suit and low-heeled leather shoes. Her expression was stern, her eyes sharp, and her gaze behind her gold-rimmed glasses always carried a hint of scrutiny.

She commanded considerable respect throughout their year. As the homeroom teacher of an experimental class, she could silence a classroom the instant she appeared in the corridor.

Click, click, click.

Yin Yanqiu entered the classroom in her low heels and swept her gaze from side to side, frightening everyone into breathing carefully. Only then did she speak. "Before we begin, I have three things to say. First, the temperature has been fluctuating lately, so make sure you look after your health..."

Homeroom teachers were different from subject teachers. Subject teachers only had to teach; once their lessons were over, they could simply walk away. Homeroom teachers also had to handle aspects of the class's daily life, giving them much more to worry about.

"Now, the second thing."

Yin Yanqiu cleared her throat and continued, "Our exam rally is only a few days away, and we'll be taking a commemorative photo. You boys should get your hair trimmed a little. Don't keep walking around with greasy hair. When you look at the photo ten or twenty years from now, at least leave your classmates with a decent impression."

Everyone laughed at that.

In those days, boys with good grades seemed to pay little attention to their appearance. For one thing, the time they saved could be spent on a few more practice questions. For another, boys who liked dressing up actually got mocked by their classmates.

The term "sissy" was not in use then, but people really would call them "eunuchs."

Still, their homeroom teacher's words struck a chord with Chen Zhu.

His hair was rather thick. Even though he showered every day, it would be a mess again when he woke up the next morning.

If he worked his brain too hard during the day, the oil his scalp produced would leave his hair hanging limp. Sometimes it even tangled.

The old Chen Zhu might not have cared much, but after being reborn, how could he tolerate looking so scruffy? He planned to get it trimmed as soon as he had some free time.

As for the exam rally, the name sounded rather like the Lion-Slaying Assembly in The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber. In reality, it was simply a school-wide mobilization three months before the college entrance exam, reminding all the candidates not to falter at the final hurdle.

At the rally, the school administrators would first deliver some heartfelt words of encouragement. Then student representatives would passionately shout a few slogans, followed by a photo, and that would be it. Most students actually found it quite boring.

"The third thing!"

Yin Yanqiu's tone abruptly grew stern. "Tomorrow is the monthly exam. I've stressed this many times already: this exam isn't organized by our school. It's a province-wide mock exam, much like the college entrance exam itself. I hope you'll all take it seriously..."

There were plenty of exams in the final year of high school, but the three mock exams in the second semester mattered most.

Not only were these three exams similar in difficulty to the college entrance exam, but all 550,000 final-year students across Eastern Guangdong's twenty-two cities would take them together.

People said that to estimate a student's eventual college entrance exam score, you only needed to average their scores from the first, second, and third mock exams. The result would generally be close to their actual score.

When Yin Yanqiu finished speaking, an invisible weight of exam pressure settled over everyone's hearts.

Chen Zhu thought back. If he remembered correctly, he had scored 612 on his first mock exam in his previous life, placing ninth in his class, twentieth in his year, and somewhere in the six hundreds across the province.

His math, physics, and chemistry scores had been good, but Chinese and English had dragged him down badly.

I wonder what I'll score this time.

Chen Zhu now felt quite confident in Chinese. To exaggerate a little, he might even call his ability terrifying. He was rather eager to put it to the test.

(There'll be another chapter at eight tonight. Please support this new book however you can. Thank you, everyone!)

(End of chapter)