The college entrance examination site was at Pingchao Middle School. Tan Wenbin went to the school the night before with his classmates and took the bus organized by the school to the examination site, staying overnight in the temporary dormitory of the younger students who were on holiday.
Early in the morning, Tan Wenbin rushed to the school gate where many parents had gathered, each bringing breakfast.
While eating rice cakes and zongzi, Tan Wenbin muttered, "Grandmaster, did you really have Run Sheng ride a tricycle to bring you here so early? It’s quite far."
"No, Principal Wu drove Xiao Yuan to the exam site and I hitched a ride."
"Xiao Yuan, has he eaten? Oh wait, Xiao Yuan doesn’t need to eat this."
"How could that be? I made sure he ate this morning, after all, it is an exam and Principal Wu brought food too."
"Alright, I’m done eating, Grandmaster."
"Go for it, Zhuangzhuang, skip the tough questions, just focus on what you know and do your best..."
Tan Wenbin patiently listened to Mr. Li’s rambling, but instead of brushing him off with a "Got it, stop nagging," he actually elevated him.
"Alright, Mr. Li, I understand."
Tan Wenbin opened his arms for a hug with Mr. Li, then turned to look for his homeroom teacher.
Mr. Li smiled, his favorite was always Little Yuanhou, but since Little Yuanhou was so sensible and well-behaved, in daily life it was Zhuangzhuang who truly matched his temperament.
Seeing Zhuangzhuang walk away, Mr. Li waved at his retreating figure:
"Do well in the exam, kid."
In other classes, the homeroom teachers personally collected and handled the admission tickets, but for Li Zhiyuan, Principal Wu took personal charge, and handed him his stationery bag and admission ticket as he got off the bus.
In the morning, the first subject Li Zhiyuan took was Chinese, and he spent a bit more time than usual, as he needed to make his writing look prettier.
By the time of the math exam in the second half, Li Zhiyuan quickly finished writing the paper and reviewed the math questions with the mindset of posing questions to Tan Wenbin before handing in the paper early.
Then, he blinked his eyes.
Because from Tan Wenbin’s perspective, this set of math questions was extremely difficult.
No, it was excessively difficult for the candidates of this session.
Li Zhiyuan wondered: Who set these questions, did they have a vendetta against the students?
Although everyone faced the same difficult set, those with poor psychological endurance might completely lose their composure after the math test.
After handing in his paper early, Li Zhiyuan got into Principal Wu’s car, and Wu let him eat from a thermal container.
"Grandfather Principal, this math test was quite difficult."
"Ah?" Wu Xinhao was first stunned. If a National Olympiad gold medalist found it difficult, how terrifyingly hard was this session’s math?
"For ordinary students."
"Oh, okay, I understand." Wu Xinhao swallowed a tranquilizer, then quickly realized something, "Xiao Yuan, continue eating. I’m going to ask around."
Li Zhiyuan finished eating and then lay down inside the car to take a nap.
Then, he was awakened by crying noises outside the car.
Turning his head to look, he indeed saw many students crying after finishing the math exam.
Even more terrifying, there were a few students laughing, their laughter similar to Jigong’s—it seemed as if they were disillusioned.
Wu Xinhao returned to the car, wiping his sweat and swearing, "I found out, some damn student leaked an exam paper and got caught, so they had to use a spare paper for this math test.
The difficulty of this spare paper is a bit exaggerated. I’ve already asked teachers to comfort the students."
"Grandfather Principal, who set the spare paper?"
"Not sure yet, but I think whoever it was, will be cursed by the students for decades."
After finishing the afternoon session, Li Zhiyuan was sent back home. The next day before dawn, Wu Xinhao came to pick him up again.
After the afternoon session concluded, per Li Zhiyuan’s request, they waited for Tan Wenbin who was finishing his exam.
"Ah, the beds in the dormitory really aren’t as comfortable as the coffins at home."
Wu Xinhao glanced at the rearview mirror, taking Tan Wenbin’s comment as a witty remark.
Tan Wenbin continued, "Other subjects were okay, but this math was really hard. I couldn’t answer several major questions at all, I could only do as you taught—write down ’solve’ first, then fill in all the related formulas I could think of."
Li Zhiyuan: "You will get marks for that."
"Really?" Tan Wenbin blinked in disbelief, "This is math, not Chinese or politics."
Wu Xinhao perked up his ears; though he was the principal, he did not manage specific instructional work.
Li Zhiyuan: "Since this year’s questions were so tough, since the college entrance exam is about ranking, when marking they will definitely try to separate the scores, trying to give you marks, maybe writing ’solve’ on a major question could score you plenty."
Tan Wenbin: "Then our school might be doomed. From what I know of the students, basically everyone did as you said at the pre-exam meeting, got the paper and wrote ’solve’ on all the answer sections."
Wu Xinhao joyfully honked the horn: "Beep beep beep beep beep!"
After the exams, all that was left was to wait for the results, since the college applications were already filled out before the exams.
Li Zhiyuan officially began preparing for his college life, starting with moving the dozen or so boxes of books from the Grand Master’s House basement to air them out.
He had too many books and documents lately and hadn’t gone to the basement to look for books for a long time.
But since he was going to Jinling, he definitely needed to choose a few sets to take with him.
Run Sheng, Yin Meng, and Tan Wenbin busily moved the boxes upstairs, then took them out set by set, spread them out for Li Zhiyuan to sort through.