Chapter 11

Chapter 12: A dinner with heads held high (part two)

Xiao Fei changed tack and said with a worried expression, "Well, Third Middle School really isn't very suitable for your development. What do you think? Interested in trying for First High School?"

Only then did Xiao Yunyun speak. "Come join us. First High School has quite a few classes, and they're all very good!" She was not shy by nature and spoke easily, though, coming out of her scrutiny of Su Can, she still sounded slightly bashful.

Su Can nodded. "I'll do my best, but my grades aren't as good as yours. I don't know whether I can get in."

His eldest uncle took another gloomy sip of liquor beside him without saying a word. Zeng Na was very surprised; perhaps she had never imagined that the usually competitive Su Can would suddenly change like this today.

Xiao Yunyun paused, apparently not expecting Su Can to admit so frankly that his grades fell short of hers. She hurriedly said, "That's all right. Just do your best."

Instead, Su Can's frank, sincere answer, without the slightest affectation, contrasted with Xiao Fei's biting sarcasm and left Xiao Fei unable to keep it up. He could hardly keep using Su Can as an opening to needle Zeng Qu anming.

On top of that, the moment his younger uncle, Zeng Zhaoding, noticed the atmosphere was off, he stood with his glass and said a great many flattering things to Xiao Fei, soothing him somewhat.

With a cold snort, Xiao Fei stared at Zeng Qu anming and thought, Even this younger brother of yours knows how to behave better than you!

Taking his daughter by the hand, Xiao Fei glanced at Su Can as he left and said ominously, "You'd better study hard for that exam! Don't go failing to get into even Third Middle School!"

The family had not particularly enjoyed the meal. Su Can had his high school entrance exams, Zeng Yuan's finals were coming up, and Zeng Na would begin her final year of high school when school resumed. She had been hovering around twentieth in her class and was worrying about how to break through that barrier, get into the top few, and enter a school with good prospects. Everyone had a great deal on their minds, and with Xiao Fei disrupting things as well, they soon broke up and went home.

Once they got home, his mother, Zeng Ke, began talking. "Your eldest uncle said that if you get into No. 3 High School, he'll buy you a bicycle. Work hard, son! Think how grand you'll look riding the new bike he bought you when school starts!"

Su Can nodded with a smile, then returned to his room under his mother's gratified gaze and spread out the set of internal biology practice questions. Beside him lay English, Chinese, and mathematics, all three of which he had largely mastered through his review last night and this morning. In fact, although six textbooks for one middle school subject looked rather impressive, they were nothing compared with the brick-thick, large-format books on finance and investment in later years.

Besides, Su Can already had the foundation of the entire body of knowledge, so reviewing it again was all the easier. His greatest problem lay in memorization. Memorizing Chinese texts might pose some difficulty, but he was very confident about composition marks and reading comprehension. Writing middle school essays with a mindset more than a decade ahead of the present, Su Can reckoned he might even shake up the exam markers' views.

Biology had been one of Su Can's strong subjects since childhood. He remembered spending a long time memorizing the structure of a microscope in middle school, yet now he understood it almost at a glance. It felt like opening a computer case and identifying each component: the motherboard, CPU, memory slots... Almost nothing in three years of biology stumped him. Soon, he had filled the internal biology practice paper with dense writing and completed every answer. The entire process took no more than two hours.

Even the very best students could hardly have matched Su Can's speed and overall command within the same amount of time. At that moment, Dong Qingyun felt rather overwhelmed by the internal practice papers for each subject, while Tang Wu sat in the afternoon sunlight, absorbed in painstaking calculations. Buried in piles of books, she still frowned over how little two days of review before the entrance exams really was. After reviewing the main subjects today, the single remaining day would be far too tight.

After thoroughly reviewing Chinese, mathematics, English, and biology, Su Can opened his door and came out. He looked around his family's living room from eleven years ago. Much of the furniture was old-fashioned stuff they had not yet thrown away. VCD players were still a rarity then, generally costing one or two thousand yuan apiece, and there was a video-disc rental shop just outside the work-unit compound. In those days, adults' leisure largely consisted of renting popular television dramas after work and curling up at home to watch them.

His mother, Zeng Ke, had the day off and was in the kitchen preparing dinner that afternoon. Su Can poured himself a glass of water, sat before the old twenty-one-inch Changhong color television with its curved screen, switched it on, and leisurely watched the news and television programs from eleven years ago.

Seeing Su Can watching television on the sofa, Zeng Ke paused at first. Although he was only sixteen, something about his expression as he watched felt different from usual. He stared at the television, yet his gaze was thoughtful. It left Zeng Ke unable to bring herself to scold him. Normally, watching television before exams or after school each day was something Su Can would certainly be reprimanded for. Yet now, Zeng Ke suddenly felt as though her son had grown up a great deal in an instant...

His father returned that afternoon and felt much happier on hearing about Su Can's progress with his revision. Dinner was a cheerful family affair. His mother's smiling eyes and brows gave her a particular charm, while his father still looked strikingly spirited. He warmly praised Su Can's efforts as the exams approached, though he also voiced his concern that this had better not be a passing whim.

Looking at his parents, eleven years younger, Su Can was filled with mixed emotions. In the future, they had gradually aged as they worried over him. Now that he had returned as a darling favored by heaven, he naturally could no longer let them worry about him and age faster. He would make sure they retained the vitality they had at this moment.

By the time dinner was over, the sky was darkening. Su Can considered the remaining subjects he needed to review. Chinese, mathematics, English, and biology were now ready for the exams, leaving physics, chemistry, history, geography, and politics as the final hurdles to clear.

Su Can knew his own limitations. His greatest weakness was memorization, which was rather stating the obvious. Who could travel eleven years into the past and still clearly remember the year and place where Nurhaci had held his dynasty-founding ceremony? History and politics would therefore most likely be his weak points. Starting to review them now would be cramming at the last minute, and Su Can had no intention of devoting his energy to them. For those subjects, he planned only to do a rough review and some memorization when the time came.

Tomorrow's focus would still be physics and chemistry. As long as he secured those major subjects, he was confident he could get into First High School.

Night had only just settled outside when a knock came at the door. His father opened it, and his mother called into his room, "Su Can, Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui are here for you!" Then her voice drifted in from outside. "What? Your entrance exams are the day after tomorrow, and you're still going out to play together?"

Xue Yiyang scratched the back of his head. "We just came to ask him out for a bit. You need a balance between work and rest, after all..."

Stepping out of his room, Su Can still felt a little dazed. Liu Rui was another of the three inseparable friends who had grown up together. They had done no shortage of things like shooting at a neighbor's pigeons, smashing other people's windows, and pulling the valve cores out of bicycle tires. The three childhood friends had gone their separate ways in college and only occasionally managed to get together afterward. Seeing Liu Rui before him, Su Can recalled those days of laughing and fooling around together, and felt an especially warm familiarity.

For once, his father even clapped his hands in agreement. "All right! Balance work and rest. Su Can, you're growing up now, and you know what you need to do. Go have some fun for a while. Come home early!"

Su Can had turned Xue Yiyang down yesterday because, before his original entrance exams, he, Xue Yiyang, and Liu Rui had played until they lost all track of time, and all three had subsequently made a complete mess of their exams. To keep that tragedy from repeating itself, he had refused yesterday's invitation to go out and play console games.

Now, however, Su Can was full of confidence about the exams. Besides, he really had devoted himself entirely to reviewing over the past two days and did need a break, a chance to relive old times with his childhood friends. He had not enjoyed that feeling since traveling back and being reborn.

Once they left the apartment building in the compound, Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui immediately became indignant. "Su Can, we really took a beating this time. Those people who showed up today were so damn cocky, shooting their mouths off. Liu Rui and I both got thrashed! We have to win back our pride!"

It turned out that Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui had gone that afternoon to their usual console gaming parlor. Computer games had yet to become truly popular then, so the most popular games in those parlors were the "Pro Evolution Soccer: Winning Eleven" series produced by the KO team. Their popularity at the time rivaled that of Red Alert when computer games later took off, as well as the famous StarCraft, which remained a sensation for ten years.

Back then, there was no talk of LAN matches. Players tested their skills against one another within the circle at that gaming parlor. Su Can, Xue Yiyang, and Liu Rui were naturally among the most skilled people in their circle. Even some middle-aged employees from nearby who came to test their soccer skills after work had nothing but praise for the three boys.

Naturally, they ran rampant without restraint. Yet that afternoon, Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui had encountered experts: a group of young men and women who had never appeared in their circle before. Bringing their own controllers, they had arrived at the gaming parlor looking rather like a team, something quite novel at the time.

Ordinarily, everyone stayed good-natured while testing their soccer skills. Who would have thought the other side would announce that if anyone beat them, they would cover the fees for the entire gaming parlor?

Wasn't that openly looking down on their gaming circle? Plenty of people had refused to take it lying down and challenged them, only to lose one after another. Eventually, Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui could no longer hold back and finally stepped in. Many people favored their chances and hoped they could take that group down a peg. Although people in the circle were usually reluctant to acknowledge the trio's superiority, faced with such formidable outsiders, many had to admit that their skills were the best there. They pinned all their hopes of reclaiming their pride on the two.

Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui did play evenly against two members of the group, restoring some face to their circle. But then the other side picked another player, who promptly defeated Liu Rui and traded wins with Xue Yiyang. Xue Yiyang found it quite a struggle to keep up.

Finally, the strongest young man among them apparently found his hands itching to play after seeing Xue Yiyang's skills and took a turn himself. This time, Xue Yiyang lost utterly. The two spent the afternoon in a daze, but just before they went home for dinner, they remained unwilling to accept defeat and arranged a rematch. The others readily agreed, their tone showing how little they thought of the pair.

The three of them had always been a group. After dinner, Xue Yiyang had met up with Liu Rui and come to find him. Now, under the banner of defending their collective honor, Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui were dragging Su Can off to answer the challenge!