Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

After the preparation announcement went off, the bell to mark the start of the examination went off.

The two invigilators were having a leisurely time, one of them stationed at the front, the other at the back.

There was a male and female invigilator. The male invigilator stood at the last row, looking down at the entire venue.

The other students had already started filling in the bubbles on the mark sheet for their student numbers. But the girl in the last seat of the last row was just staring at her hands. She was evidently an odd one out.

But this was the last venue, after all, a collection of weird people. It wasn’t the first time for this invigilator, so he didn’t give much care.

Strange, that girl used her right hand to fill in her student number but used her left hand to write her name.

Was she left-handed?

The male invigilator curiously took a step closer to her. She was writing rather slowly with her left hand, and her handwriting seemed quite clear and childish, unlike the rest whose writing was more cursive.

Qin Ran began scanning the paper.

As usual, the Language paper was filled with questions on reading passages.

It started with multiple-choice questions that were already hard enough. And the passages were full of long sentences that were hard to understand.

Some students were already complaining about the paper, even in the exam venue.

“Damn it, does the paper have to be so hard?” A boy mumbled.

Qiao Sheng’s deskmate was sitting quite close to Qin Ran. Qin Ran usually lost her temper quite easily, so he was a little worried about her state.

But when he turned around, he saw that Qin Ran was busy flipping her script…

She seemed alright.

After reading the passage, it was time to work on the questions.

The invigilator in the last row had been observing Qin Ran closely. He found that although she was writing rather slowly, she’d practically not stopped at it.

Qin Ran flipped the page and he saw that her answers were mostly on point.

When she was done with the questions in front, she flipped to see the composition question at the back.

At this point, some people were getting upset and frustrated again. Some students even took the opportunity to exchange multiple-choice answers while the teachers weren’t paying attention.

But they were all students of the last venue, how much better could one be than the next?

Qin Ran was slowly writing her composition. She really was pretty slow writing with her left hand.

The male invigilator who’d been eyeing her from the start was worried that she wouldn’t be able to complete in time because of how slowly she was writing. But seeing that she was consistently writing, he felt more at ease.

When Qin Ran was done with the whole paper, there were still about 20 minutes left.

Qin Ran yawned and put her script aside, then got a pencil from under the table.

She so casually placed the script there, but everyone in the classroom knew her.

The class belle of the Ninth Class. Even if she placed the script right in front of them, they wouldn’t do anything with it. The most they’d think of was probably checking how many blanks she left.

**

The reaction in the classroom wasn’t especially huge after the Language paper ended.

When it came to the Mathematics examination in the afternoon, the Year Three students were significantly more upset.

“The last two long questions… I didn’t do one of them.” A group of students discussed the Mathematics script that night during the self-revision time. One of the boys was very upset. “And then I checked the setter of the paper. It was Hou Delong.”

Hou Delong was a maniac from their province who specialized in analyzing competition questions.

He often set questions for the final year examinations too.

They had done Hou Delong’s papers before, but they did not expect to be given such a tough paper during a mid-term examination.

“Young Master Xu, did you finish the Mathematics paper?” Qiao Sheng did not write much on his paper and was rather upset about it initially. But upon hearing the discussions that erupted after that, he was less worried.

Xu Yaoguang was one of the best in Mathematics in the whole school. When he entered school, he should have been streamed to the First Class. But when he heard that Gao Yang was teaching the Ninth Class, he chose to go over.

Gao Yang had led a Mathematics competition class before.

“I did not do the last question.” Xu Yaoguang’s response was succinct as usual.

He was on his cell phone, sending the afternoon Mathematics paper to Qin Yu.

There were two more papers the following day. Some classmates began checking their answers with Xu Yaoguang and ended up in anguish.

Qiao Sheng asked why they were so adamant about finding out the answer from Xu Yaoguang.

Wasn’t that asking for pain?

Meanwhile, some others were already beginning to study for their Science and English papers.

Only Qin Ran remained that calm in class. Xia Fei sat at the desk in front of her and was about to memorize some Chemistry materials for her.

Qin Ran took out a Biology worksheet to work on and then turned to her slowly. “Ah, don’t you need to go back and study?”

Qin Ran seemed to be in a rather good state. Xia Fei went “oh” before asking her how she was doing.

Qin Ran usually did not fill in anything in the examination papers. Otherwise, she’d be looking at Lin Siran’s answer, in which she would then pick the least correct answer.

Lin Siran was worried that she didn’t even skim through the whole lengthy Language paper.

Before the examination, they’d told Qin Ran that if she did not know the answer, she could just restate the question.

If it was a multiple-choice question, she could just shade the “c” bubble for all of it. Based on their experience, “c” was the most probable answer.

This time, they checked their answers with Xu Yaoguang and found that the probability of getting the answer right by picking all “c”s was rather high.

Qin Ran began doing her practice papers. The Chemistry worksheet was new; Cheng Juan had just bought it in the morning. She simply went “mm” and worked on her papers.

**

The following day. Science in the morning, English in the afternoon.

The Science paper comprised of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics content.

Before the paper, Qiao Sheng had been memorizing all sorts of formulas in front of Qin Ran and repeatedly reminding her to pick “c” for all the questions.

This time, Qin Ran wasn’t so lucky. One of the invigilators was Li Airong.

Qin Ran and Qiao Sheng did not look at her.

Li Airong purposely stopped in front of them and looked at them with a weird smile. “You’re so inattentive and lazy usually, what’s the point of working hard at the last minute?”

Li Airong eyed them for the whole duration of the paper.

The two of them kept their head down as they worked on the questions, without even looking up.

The first six multiple-choice questions were Physics questions.

It was all about electricity, magnetism, and kinematics. Qin Ran looked at them the first time and started scribbling on her rough paper. She was about to put her answers down, but paused and looked at the questions again.

Then, she started writing.

There wasn’t as much to write as for the Language paper, so Qin Ran handed in her script with half the time to go.

Qin Ran submitted the paper even earlier in the afternoon. After 30 minutes of Listening Comprehension, she spent another 30 minutes working on the questions at the back.

**

Because of the examinations over the weekend, Qin Ran did not manage to visit Chen Shulan on Saturday.

When the last paper was over, Qin Ran went to visit her.

Cheng Juan and Lu Zhaoying waited for her at the school gate.

“How were the examinations?” Lu Zhaoying asked.

Qin Ran thought for a while before saying, “Alright.”

Lu Zhaoying observed her expression and then nodded.

A student who had an afternoon paper had gone to the school doctor’s office because of diarrhea. He told Lu Zhaoying about just how difficult the paper was.

The two of them were worried that she’d be too stressed out over the examinations, but seeing that she was acting normally, they didn’t say more.

**

Heng Chuan First Middle School was very efficient.

They had to calculate the average scores for the different subjects and check their standing in the city. So the teachers started marking the papers right after they’d had their meal.

They were chatting while checking the answers against the answer key. “The papers are too difficult this time, the students could barely deal with it. Even I didn’t expect them to get Hou Delong to set the questions.”

The teachers already knew that the Mathematics paper was hard, but seeing the number of blanks left in the last few questions worried them.

This was a standardized examination across the city. They were competing with their rival, Yun Cheng First Middle School.

Not only were they going to release the average results for each class to the whole city, but the schools were also going to be streamed accordingly based on the results into First Tier, Second Tier, and Third Tier schools.

This time, the Mathematics scores were so low that they were practically on the Third Tier.

Teacher Hou Delong wanted to pick out the best students from this examination.

The good thing was that he hadn’t removed all the either-or questions. If he hadn’t even given them a choice, they’d have been done for.

From multiple-choice questions to long word problems, each student on average only did a few.

Most people filled something out in the first few questions.

But towards the back of the papers, most of them were left blank.

It wasn’t completely blank, most students wrote something, but evidently not enough to get them points.

Some teachers began thinking of giving one mark to any student who attempted it.

They were all starting to suspect that something went wrong with their teaching.

Wasn’t there a saying that went: if there aren’t examinations, won’t you assume you teach very well?

Then, one of the teachers began flipping a script.

He looked at the first page for very long and couldn’t bear to put it down.

This person seemed to have gotten everything on the first page correct