Chapter 54 - Okay, I Guess
Ning Li did not say a word.
The invigilator then came over with the exam paper.
The young man raised his brows in delight. “I take that as a yes!”
…
The first exam paper was Literature.
The classroom was quiet except for the noises of pens scratching against paper.
Ning Li wrote her name and her candidate number. She swiftly calmed herself down before answering. There were a lot of things in the world that she could not control.
She could not choose where she was born or force Su Yuan to like her for whatever she did.
Fortunately, there was still something that she could control: the exam. With every question she answered and every word she wrote, her effort would be reflected in her score.
It was fair, thus it comforted her.
She soon went into her little trance and started answering the paper.
…
Duan Xu leaned his body as he looked at the exam paper. He spun his pen and would write a few words from time to time.
The long comprehension essay gave him a headache at first glance, but Literature was one of the few subjects that he understood. Therefore, he had to bite the bullet and answer the questions no matter what.
The last question quoted an ancient text, and he stared at it with furrowed brows for quite some time.
‘What does this even mean…?’
Screech!
The noise of a chair being pulled pierced his ears.
Ning Li, who was beside him, got up and walked to the rostrum with her paper.
Duan Xu widened his eyes in shock. He instinctively looked at the clock above the writing board. It had only been an hour since the exam started, but she was already done answering?
The others in the same classroom looked at her in shock.
Even the invigilator was shocked. “Are you sure you want to submit your paper now?”
Ning Li nodded.
The invigilator took her paper and went through it. Aside from her beautiful and neat writing, every question was answered. He looked at Ning Li and said, “Okay. Pack your things. You can leave now.”
Ning Li then walked out of the classroom.
Duan Xu gasped in shock as he watched her walk out.
‘So, is this how smart the geniuses are in the first class? No, I must stick closely to her for the next few papers!’
…
The Mathematics paper was next, and it was held in the afternoon.
Ning Li finished the paper faster than before. When she handed the paper in and walked out, it had only been 50 minutes since the exam began.
The third paper was General Science. She took the most time to answer this paper: 1 hour and 20 minutes.
The others in the classroom were shocked at first but soon got used to her amazing speed.
As for the last paper, English, Ning Li was the first to hand in the paper within an hour. Everyone else had gotten numb to her inhumane intelligence.
For the English paper, Duan Xu used the shortest time to answer all the questions. Most of the questions were multiple-choice questions, so all he needed to do was fill in the answer, even if he did not know it.
He went out shortly after Ning Li handed in the paper.
“Hey, genius! Wait, thank you!” Duan Xu strode to Ning Li to catch up to her right after he came out.
He was 190 cm tall, so his strides were longer than the average folk. Thus, he was able to move quickly.
Ning Li barely responded to his gratitude.
“You don’t need to.”
She had been answering her own papers throughout all the exams and had not uttered a single word with Duan Xu.
However, Duan Xu’s eagle eyes plus his rich experience, allowed him to ‘see’ the right answer, and copying was not that difficult.
Duan Xu did not mind the cold shoulder. He smiled brightly. “Why? This test is important to my life and my net worth. My dear genius, you do know that saving one man’s life is more meritorious than building a seven-story pagoda, right? My dear genius, why don’t I buy you lunch? Or—”
Ning Li glanced at him. “I just need you to shut up.”
Duan Xu cleared his throat and zipped his mouth with his fingers.
Immediately, she walked the other way.
“Duan Xu!”
A boy came down from the stairs and tossed Duan Xu a basketball.
“Wanna have a game?”
Duan Xu was delighted. “Sure!”
“Hey! I have never seen you so happy before after a test! I thought your father said if you can’t score at least 300 points, you won’t get any more daily allowance.” The guy sized Duan Xu up curiously. “Aren’t you afraid of starving to death?”
Duan Xu had gotten the last place throughout the entire third year and got a serious scolding when he went home. He would not have been this nervous during the tests otherwise.
Duan Xu smiled. “What do you know? It’s in the bag this time!”
He lifted his chin. “Look at that. A genius from the first class!”
The guy looked at where Duan Xu was pointing. He then asked in an unsure tone, “Is that…Ning Li? I thought she’s bad at studying.”
Duan Xu was shocked. “What?”
The guy sized Duan Xu up with a complicated look.
“Don’t you know about her? She was famous for being bad at studies back at Lincheng, and she always got into fi—I mean, she always skipped classes and even exams sometimes. She might not even pass the test, let alone be a genius.”
Duan Xu’s eyes twitched helplessly. “I thought she was in the first class?”
“What do you put in that head of yours? She’s the stepdaughter of the Ye family. How do you think she got in?”
“B-but I saw her finish writing her answers very quickly! You have no idea how fast she was! She was the first to leave the venue for every single paper—”
“You used to be first as well. How can you forget that?”
Duan Xu was speechless as complicated emotions ran through him. He had been beside Ning Li throughout all the papers, and he knew that she did not hand in a blank paper.
Most importantly, she looked like she really knew what she was writing.
Could she have simply written down all those answers?
The guy tapped Duan Xu’s shoulders out of pity. “May God help you, young man.”
…
The monthly test was soon over.
Usually, the third-year teachers would have to come back on weekends to mark all the papers so that the results could be announced on Monday.
On Monday, in the twelfth third-year class, Duan Xu sat in his seat with a bitter look. If he had known that Ning Li was unreliable, he would have tried to answer the paper by himself.
He could have relied on his luck to circle the correct answers rather than copying someone who was bad at her studies.
“The results for Mathematics are here!” A guy holding a stack of papers came into the class and the students gathered around him.
Duan Xu was uninterested. He could already see himself begging for bones on the street. Annoyed, he walked to the back door to grab his basketball, intending to leave.
“Hey! Duan Xu, your paper—holy sh*t!”
The guy actually wanted to mock Duan Xu with his paper, but when he saw the scores, his eyes widened in shock.
“Duan Xu, how did you do it?”
Not wanting to see the single-digit score beside his name, Duan Xu said in an annoyed tone, “With my own strength, of course. Is there a problem?”
The students got close to the guy with the papers and they looked strange when they saw Duan Xu’s score.
“All the multiple questions are…correct! What kind of sorcery is this?!”
Thud!
Duan Xu’s basketball fell to the floor.
…
In the first class of the third year, Lin Zhouyang came in, looking all mysterious.
“Sigh. I heard from the teachers that someone in our class failed the monthly test.”
It was rare for someone to have failed the test in the first class.
“Failed? Who could it be?” someone asked curiously.
Cheng Xiangxiang looked at Ning Li and scoffed. “Who else could it be?”
Having transferred to Second High recently, there was a high chance that Ning Li was the one who had failed the test.
She must have been able to answer the Physics question the other day because she had solved it before. Nevertheless, the monthly test would bring out the true standard of a student.
He Xiaochen nervously looked at Ning Li. “Ning Li, how did you fare in the test?”
She was worried that Ning Li might have failed.
Ning Li paused for a moment and said, “Okay, I guess.”