From the moment their graduation photo was taken, time seemed to have been put on fast-forward.
The Gaokao countdown in the upper-right corner of the blackboard quietly slipped from double digits into single digits.
Yunqi No. 1 High School was a standardized examination site designated by the education bureau. Its own students did not have to travel to other schools to sit the exam; instead, quite a few students from other schools would come here for this major test of their lives.
Over the past few days, the classrooms at Yunqi No. 1 High School had begun to be cleared out one after another.
Even all the Senior Year One and Senior Year Two classrooms had to be emptied. It sounded like a hassle, but it also earned them a full five-day holiday.
Still, when you went to school, holidays always had to be paid back. The older students in previous years had contributed five days off for them, and now it was Chen Shi'an and his classmates' turn to contribute a holiday for their juniors.
These days, whenever evening study ended, the corridors and classrooms were full of people shuttling back and forth with great stacks of books, test papers, and storage boxes in their arms.
On June 4, the bright red countdown on the blackboard changed to [2].
The day they would leave school had arrived.
The last lesson that afternoon was English.
But Teacher Ye did not teach during this final lesson. She simply brought a chair down from the podium, sat among them, and slowly told them about her own high school years and the Gaokao she had taken.
During this lesson, everyone, including Chen Shi'an, who usually did his own things in class, put down their books and pens and listened more attentively than ever.