At the beginning of December, the freshman class at First High School went through their second baseline exam.
This time, Zhen Yu’s grades had visibly declined, and by a significant amount!
It wasn’t just her—Han Mingyue’s performance also slipped!
Lu Huai went down even further, joining Bai Xue at the bottom!
Such unusual circumstances immediately led to separate conversations for the three with their respective homeroom teachers.
The drastic difference between Lu Huai’s two sets of exam results pointed to only one explanation—he did it on purpose!
Therefore, the first thing the concerned class 10 teacher did was not to discuss his grades, but to ask what he was thinking!
No matter what the teacher said, Lu Huai stuck to one phrase!
"I won’t leave class 10! I absolutely won’t leave class 10!"
He managed to both infuriate and endear his teacher—despite the fact that moving Lu Huai to class 1 was for his own good, he was willing to bomb his exams just to avoid leaving his class!
They hadn’t been together for long! How could he have grown so attached to the class he was teaching...
One must say, it really was a beautiful misunderstanding.
The situation with Han Mingyue was better since he was a cautious person, therefore his dip in grades wasn’t too severe.
The class 2 teacher, who always prioritized students’ wellbeing, didn’t scold or demoralize him. Instead, he comforted Han Mingyue, advising him not to be discouraged by a single failure.
However, right after finishing the talk with Han Mingyue, the teacher was called away by the English teacher...
"Tell me! Why did you do so poorly in the English exam?" the English teacher asked sternly.
What could Han Mingyue say? He had nothing to say and so remained silent.
Who could blame him when his decline was also intentional?
All other subjects were fine, but his English marks had plummeted off a cliff—no wonder the English teacher was furious!
But he had been experimenting to see how much he could afford to lose! To avoid finishing in the top ten of his grade by the end of the term! To avoid being transferred to class 1! He only had no choice but to experiment with English—the subject he was most comfortable with and could most conveniently ’falsify’!
After all, his grasp of other subjects wasn’t as strong as English, and other subjects didn’t provide as many multiple-choice and true or false questions as English did! So, what else could he pick other than English?!
Anyway, writing down the correct answers, he could gauge his actual score all the same.
The English teacher waited for a long time but saw Han Mingyue wasn’t willing to speak!
Out of frustration, the initially well-intentioned English teacher ended up sending him away!
"Forget it then! Just go, go!"
Compared to the two boys, Zhen Yu was in a more worrisome position.
After all, she had entered First High School with the reputation of being the top scorer in the middle school exams, so Zhang Lei paid her a bit more attention.
Yet, her results from the first and second baseline exams differed by nearly a hundred places! This made Zhang Lei, who judged people harshly, overly concerned—he summoned her to the office and immediately scolded her without preamble. His words all insinuated that she and Han Mingyue must have let early romance interfere with their studies!
Feeling guilty, Zhen Yu kept her head down and remained silent throughout, not responding to anything he said.
Her attitude, in Zhang Lei’s view, was negative resistance—utterly obstinate!
In a fit of anger, he bluntly demanded that Zhen Yu call her parents!
"My parents should come to school?" Zhen Yu repeated, looking up bewildered.
"That’s right! You must know why your grades have slipped so much this time. As your homeroom teacher, I find it necessary to communicate with your parents!"
Zhen Yu lowered her eyes and after a moment, suddenly asked, "Would my brother do?"
"Parent! Do you understand what a parent is?!" Zhang Lei angrily said: "I want to see your parents! It’s best if both come!"
"They can’t come." Zhen Yu stated a fact.
Zhang Lei, almost spitting blood with rage, asked coldly: "Why can’t they both come?!"
Zhen Yu didn’t beat around the bush and directly said: "They’re divorced and both have remarried. My brother and I live together."
"Cough... Can your brother control you?"
"Then have your brother come by as soon as possible!"
During the ten minute break of the next class, Zhen Yan, wearing a senior high school uniform, arrived at Zhang Lei’s office.
Isn’t this still a student from First High School? What the heck can I talk to him about?!
Zhen Yan: "... Hello, Teacher Zhang! I am Zhen Yu’s parent... Ah, no no! Brother! Zhen Yan."
I really didn’t want to come! My sister forced me to come! Since I’m here...
Having accepted this reality, Zhang Lei silently adjusted his mentality, then compressed the long speech he had prepared in his mind and began to talk to Zhen Yan.
"Ahem! The thing is... when you go back, you should properly educate Zhen Yu! This is the time she should be focusing on her studies! Time waits for no one, how can she still be distracted by all those messy thoughts!"
"Okay, okay! I’ll talk to her when I get back! Well, Teacher Zhang, I should leave now, class is about to start!"
Zhang Lei: "... Off you go then!" ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ novel[f]ire.net
Talking this through... I feel like I might be wasting my breath!
At this moment, Zhen Yu was discussing the issue of grades with Han Mingyue.
"This time I left part of the big questions in each subject blank, and ended up at the very bottom of the top hundred."
Han Mingyue: "I corrected half of the wrong answers in English, ranking just over fifty."
Zhen Yu quietly memorized this information in her mind, a smile forming on her face. "Now that we’ve tested and found this score range, that settles it! Just this one time, after we choose our streams in junior year, the science elite class won’t matter to us anymore!"
Upon hearing this, Han Mingyue suddenly stared at Zhen Yu earnestly.
"You’re going to choose arts?"
Zhen Yu was taken aback. "Don’t you like arts?!"
"It’s okay! I can do both arts and sciences," Han Mingyue said indifferently: "Since you want to choose arts, then I’ll choose arts as well!"
"Ah?! This..." This wasn’t quite what she had expected!
Zhen Yu had always thought that Han Mingyue definitely liked arts!
He wrote so well, and in his previous life, he even got into Beijing University. Wasn’t it because he liked it?!
But now she began to doubt her own assumptions!
"... What if I said I prefer sciences?" Zhen Yu asked cautiously.
Upon hearing this, without even thinking, Han Mingyue said: "Then we choose sciences!"
"But, do you have a university you like?" Zhen Yu changed the subject.
Han Mingyue shook his head, "Not at the moment! There are still three years until the college entrance exam. I haven’t thought that far ahead."
So! All the assumptions like ’he chose the arts because he is good at writing, he chose arts because he adores Beijing University,’ all of it was just her own wild imagination?!