Chapter 16

Chapter 17: The first boss

June 17.

Six in the morning.

Even in summer, the sky outside was still only dimly lit. The alarm would not ring for another half hour, at its usual time, but Su Can's eyes were wide open. He could not get back to sleep no matter how he tried.

He had dreamed of that day many years ago: his disastrous failure in the high school entrance exams, and his mother sitting on the sofa in tears because she could not raise the money. That had been the first time Su Can felt the helplessness of fate and his own insignificance-his utterly powerless insignificance-as countless people turned indifferent, disdainful eyes on him. Perhaps this was the tragedy that exam-oriented education produced. Whatever the case, it was a nightmare Su Can did not want to revisit.

Su Can switched on the light in fright. He was afraid this was all a dream, this journey back in time and rebirth of his. Just as someone who suddenly won three hundred million in the lottery might repeatedly lose sleep, worrying endlessly about whether it was all an unreal dream, he too feared that his rebirth was nothing but an illusion, that his fate had never changed at all.

Fortunately, beneath the dark sky outside the window, the simple wall lamp still cast the warm light he remembered. He was still at home. He was still here in his own home. He felt the bones of his body,

his joints, and found himself still as thin and frail as he had been at sixteen. The bell alarm clock beside him also had a little flip calendar, which clearly showed June 17.

It was June 17, in the summer of 1998.

His journey back in time was still real, and so was the fact that today was the day of the high school entrance exams!

Around half past six, the door to his parents' room finally opened. His mother came out and began boiling eggs and heating milk. When she turned around, she saw Su Can through the kitchen window, already dressed and organizing his exam supplies and study materials.

"Son, give it your best! Make sure you have everything you need. Bring your pencil for the machine-readable answer sheet-better take two. Your ruler and compass are on the table. Today's the day to show what you can do!"

After having eggs and milk, Su Can felt full of drive. In the past, he had gone for long stretches without breakfast, eaten at irregular hours, and been under considerable pressure, leaving him listless all day and in poor health. Now that he was sixteen again, although his body was slighter than it would be in the future, he felt an unprecedented energy filling his entire body. He seemed to have boundless drive to do all sorts of things.

"Don't worry, Mom. I'll work through the questions carefully," Su Can reassured his mother, Zeng Ke, before leaving.

In the past, when had Zeng Ke ever not worried about Su Can's exams? Every time, he told her not to worry, but had she ever truly felt at ease?

But things were different now. Over the past two days, Su Can had buried himself in practice papers beneath the tiny lamplight, writing swiftly as he reviewed. That, along with the confidence in his words and eyes now, gave her the impression that he had grown up remarkably fast in a very short time. Her heart actually settled. So what if Su Can doesn't get in? He really understands what's at stake, and he's genuinely worked hard. Even if his score falls short of No. 3 High School's cutoff, I'll borrow the money to pay the extra fees and send him there!

After leaving home, he passed a few other children from the work unit who were in his grade, but he was not as close to any of them as he was to Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui. Most merely exchanged greetings with him before hurrying past. He arrived just in time to meet Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui coming down from the seventh and third floors.

Both were excited to see him. "Hey, those practice papers you gave us were really good! Most of our reference papers only have the final answers. Who knew yours would even include the working and every step? They're really detailed. Man, I never knew No. 3 High School had internal practice materials like these!"

Su Can smiled. He had written out all the working and steps on those papers himself, but the photocopying had naturally turned his pen strokes into printed text. The two had no idea he was the one who had solved those questions, assuming instead that the materials had come from his teacher. Su Can could not be bothered to set them straight.

Only after they boarded the same bus to the school serving as their exam venue that day did he ask about their progress. "So, how did your revision go? Those papers should've given you quite a boost, right?"

"It wasn't that easy!" Xue Yiyang rolled his eyes at him. "Even with the answers, there were still loads of concepts we had to digest, okay? If I'd tried doing those papers without looking at the answers, I could've managed a dozen or so questions at most. I've roughly gone through them now, but there were just too many. I got through forty-odd math questions. As far as the exam goes, I think I've got a little confidence now. But the English was too hard. Thirty-odd questions were my limit. I did get through over fifty questions each for physics and chemistry, though. Those exams aren't until tomorrow anyway, so I can go over some more when I get home today."

Liu Rui turned around from the row in front. "About the same for me. Weren't some of those questions beyond the syllabus? They can't possibly test us on all of them, anyway. I did a fairly systematic review, more or less, so I feel a little more confident."

Su Can thought that made sense. After all, Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui lacked his decades of experience and life history. Junior high material still posed difficulties for them. If he had not written out the solutions and they had tried the questions themselves, a dozen or so might have been their limit. Even with his workings provided, digesting and understanding each question took quite some time. Getting through thirty or forty was already impressive.

As for him, he had indeed ridden the momentum of his rebirth and journey back in time to gain a thorough grasp of all this. He counted himself lucky.

The bus stopped at the next stop, its doors clattering open as more students boarded. Just then, Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui suddenly froze.

Tang Wu stepped into the aisle wearing a small pink backpack, a cute hooded tracksuit top, and jeans that outlined her long, slender legs. Holding the metal pole, she spotted Su Can and paused for a moment, then nodded and smiled naturally. "Hello."

This bus was heading to the exam venue at No. 1 High School, and most of its passengers were students from No. 1 High School and Second Middle School. None of them knew Tang Wu, but her greeting Su Can first had already made him the object of everyone's envy.

"Hi. What a coincidence." Su Can hurriedly waved back.

More and more people boarded. After greeting Su Can, Tang Wu stood where she was, strikingly beautiful, her face turned toward the window. She did not look anywhere else.

A few students from No. 3 High School on the bus could not help privately wondering about it. Around graduation, they had heard that the school beauty, Tang Wu, had become quite close to Su Can, the poor student in her class. They had not expected it to be true. After all, who had ever seen the aloof Tang Wu greet anyone first?

Su Can was a little surprised himself. What he did not realize was that, on the eve of graduation, chatting with Tang Wu after school and walking home beside her had changed her impression of him and made her considerably fonder of him. To her, Su Can represented a kind of nostalgia, a fondness for the classmates she had spent three years with.

When Su Can turned back, however, Liu Rui and Xue Yiyang were staring straight at him, the corners of their mouths twitching involuntarily now and then. This guy had kept surprising them lately. He was exceptionally good at games, and now, among their trio whose luck with girls was abysmal, when had he managed to get to know a beauty like her?

Although Tang Wu might not have been as perfect as the girl named Luo Ran from the arcade two nights earlier, her fresh, pure air, touched by the first ray of morning sunlight streaming through the window, was quite stunning.

Su Can could not be bothered with the two lovestruck fools. He turned his gaze outside, greedily taking in the city as it had been eleven years ago, the familiar streets and the indelible impressions in his memory. Returning at this moment, with the approaching entrance exams beating like a drum, set his blood racing.

Liu Rui got off along the way at the Second Middle School exam venue. There was a bit of a crowd as he alighted. Whether deliberately or not, Tang Wu also glanced in Su Can's direction a few times. She saw him sometimes chatting happily with Xue Yiyang, sometimes looking out the window, the morning light tracing bright arcs in his brown eyes. His gaze was intent yet distant, as though nothing inside the bus could draw his attention more than the scenery outside.

For some reason, Tang Wu actually felt a faint sense of disappointment.