Monthly Exam

Ou Liyao gave her a mysterious smile, then placed the quiz paper she had taken the day before on her face, covering half of it, but the smile in her eyes was impossible to hide.

Her eyes reflected a small figure. Looking down, she saw a huge "8" next to the name "Ou Liyao" on the test form.

"Yaoyao, you got 8 points this time!"

She nodded vigorously like a little hamster, "Yes, haven't I made a lot more progress than before?"

"Yes, yes."

As soon as Xu Changjia finished speaking, he noticed her repeated movements.

Ou Liyao removed her small test paper, and underneath it was clearly written: Xu Changjia, 8 points.

Huh? She also got 80 points. With Zhang Yuning's help, she actually managed to understand this heavenly physics book and even has the potential to get 80 points. Is she really that amazing?

The two girls were grinning at each other, both happy that they had scored high on their physics test. Zheng Ruoqian, sitting in the back, noticed their interaction and reached out to tap each of them on the head with his small test paper. "Hey, I got 10 points this time, just like Zhang Yuning."

The two girls looked at him at the same time, and then at Zhang Yuning, who was fast asleep on the table during break.

Zheng Ruoqian was one thing, but they really saw him studying hard. While everyone else went to eat, he was still doing practice problems. While they went downstairs to do their morning exercises, he was walking around memorizing formulas with his physics cheat sheet.

But what about Zhang Yuning? I really can't understand how someone who reads comics in class every day and sleeps with his head in his hands after class can have such a brain. When asked, he says he knows everything and there's no problem he can't solve, but no matter when you turn around, you'll never see him studying.

Xu Changjia and Ou Liyao even secretly asked Zheng Ruoqian if Zhang Yuning was studying under his blanket during military training in the middle of the night, but they received a negative answer.

They racked their brains, and in the end, they could only come to the conclusion that "Zhang Yuning is smart and talented." He truly deserves to be their good teacher.

Holding several quiz papers with near-perfect scores, they placed them in front of their teacher, Zhang Yuning. It was such great news, and of course, they had to celebrate with a good meal with the teacher who had produced such excellent results.

They had planned to treat him to another late-night snack, but he refused firmly.

The reason is simple: the monthly exam is next week, and I want to see how much skill you've learned after all the lessons I've taught you. If you don't do well, then he'll stay with the three of them in the study room for another half hour after evening self-study; any later is out of the question, it's all canceled.

If he does well on the exam, he'll not only stay late, but he'll also perform street dance for them.

Ou Liyao was immediately delighted. Apart from seeing the two of them dance together once at the beginning of the semester, she had never seen such a cool dance. She wondered if Wen Xuanyi, the senior, would ever come back to dance for them again. It was just too cool!

She asked directly, "Hey Zhang, when is that Wen Xuanyi senior coming back to No. 1 High School? He dances so well, are you two old acquaintances?"

Zhang Yuning looked her up and down to make sure she was just curious and didn't have any ulterior motives before briefly explaining their relationship.

His parents are both university professors. Once, a case at the university came to Wenxuanyi's father, a senior partner at a law firm. The two sides became friends while chatting and met at a dinner party with their children. Later, Wenxuanyi's family moved to Junzhou, which is only one street away from our house, so the two families naturally had more contact.

Wen Ge has a wide range of interests, and what I learned was all leftovers from him. He's quick-witted and sharp-minded, and my parents were quite happy for me to be friends with him. He was attending high school at Junzhou No. 1 Middle School at the time, so he took me along to learn from his experience. So before the start of the semester, I had already briefly looked at the textbooks for high school. After the semester started, Wen Ge took me to the street dance club to meet the senior students from the second and third years of high school.

He paused here, a rare hint of shyness appearing on his face, "I didn't expect to run into you guys after the start of the semester. You're all quite nice, so I took the opportunity to invite you to come along."

Yes, Xu Changjia thought to himself, I am so lucky to have been reborn and met you all, which made my stagnant life become magnificent, with ups and downs and many colors.

Thanks to Zhang Yuning's persuasion, the group put aside their thoughts of staying up late and refocused on their studies to prepare for the upcoming monthly exam.

The monthly exams at Junzhou No. 1 Middle School are all completed over two days, Saturday and Sunday. Because English is also scheduled during Saturday evening self-study, although there are a total of nine subjects to be tested, students can get half a day off on Sunday to go home, rest, and relax.

It's called a half-day holiday, but it's actually only from noon to 6 pm on Sunday, five hours in total. Then you get an hour for the return trip, and evening self-study starts promptly at 7 pm. Being late is not allowed.

These six hours, in total, were more than enough time for the teachers at No. 1 Middle School to work overtime to grade their monthly exam papers, tally the scores, and distribute them to each class.

Sure enough, just as the bell rang for evening self-study, their homeroom teacher, Mr. Wang, came in carrying a stack of A4 papers covered with writing. All the students craned their necks, eager to know if what he was holding was their report card, the score sheet they had just finished taking the exam.

Hsu Chang-chia was one of them, and her feelings were also very complicated.

She had never been so nervous since her rebirth. Her palms were clenched so tightly they were sweating. Her mind was wandering off somewhere. This feeling of studying and learning with everyone was really nice. It was as if she were just a fifteen or sixteen-year-old girl who had never experienced life and death.

She looked up and glanced at her friends, then spotted Ou Liyao, who was unusually excited.

She told me yesterday that she got into Junzhou No.1 Middle School by sheer luck; her score was just high enough to get in, not even a point more.

However, Ou Liyao really enjoys being with them. She always says that this kind of learning atmosphere is great, and she can understand and do the exercises. This time, she was able to answer 70-80% of the questions in the monthly exam, which seems pretty good.

As she was thinking about all the little things that had happened since her rebirth, and the time she spent studying hard with them, she heard Teacher Wang, who was standing on the three-foot-high platform, finish announcing the average scores of each class in the first-year monthly exam. Now he was talking about each of their individual scores, which was the point they had been eagerly anticipating and waiting for.

"First of all, we would like to announce the top scorer of our Class 365, who is also the top scorer in the entire first year of high school, Zhang Yuning, with a total score of 939. He is very impressive. His scores in Chinese, Mathematics, and English are all above 130, and none of his other subjects are below 90."

Teacher Wang stopped at the right moment, giving them a chance to "whisper" and let them know the value of being number one in the grade.

"Wow, Zhang Yuning is amazing! He got 450 in Chinese, Math, and English, plus 600 in Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Politics, History, and Geography. That's a total score of 1050, and he only lost about ten points in each subject."

"Zhang Yuning is so amazing! Over 900 points! Am I only half as good as him? Please, Teacher Wang, tell me quickly so I can understand why I'm dying."

"I am willing to be a vegetarian for life, please bless me so that I can achieve even a fraction of Zhang's academic success."

Just as Teacher Wang had imagined, the students below, while envying Zhang Yuning's high score, which was close to a perfect score, kept praying that they would get a good score themselves.

...

Xu Changjia knew he was capable, but she hadn't expected him to be this capable. He scored near-perfect marks in every subject, making him a shoo-in for the top scorer in the college entrance exam. How could she possibly help him pave the way to a brilliant future? He was already famous enough on his own.

She and Ou Liyao turned around at the same time to look at the table behind them. He just sat there quietly without any reaction, but when he saw them turn around, he raised his eyebrows slightly, as if to say: How about it? Am I good enough to be your little teacher?

Zheng Ruoqian turned around and met his eyes. He could see a hint of smugness in his eyes. He really admired him and thought he should work harder to learn from him.

He hesitated, as if he wanted to say something more, but then he heard Teacher Wang's voice continue.

"Let's continue. As the only experimental class in the entire first year of high school, we only achieved first place in four out of nine subjects. Zhang Yuning achieved first place in three of those subjects, which means that the remaining five subjects were achieved by the other nine classes."

This year, they enrolled ten classes of students in the first year of high school. Among these ten classes, some students with potential will be selected to be placed in the experimental class. The remaining students will be divided into three advanced classes based on their grades, which means that if you work harder, you can enter the experimental class. There are also three key classes, which focus on cultivating students' strengths in their respective subjects. If they do well, they can move up to the next level. Finally, there are three regular classes, where students are average in every subject, but there is still a chance for them to improve.

Teacher Wang didn't say much. Such bad news only needed to be mentioned briefly. His students weren't the type to be oblivious. Just a slight reminder would motivate them to study harder next time and make up for what they had lost. "He got full marks in math, physics, and chemistry. You can pass on the report cards and look at them at your leisure."

Teacher Wang counted out how many sheets were in each group and distributed them to the students in the first row. Then they passed the report cards back one by one. The table had five columns in order: serial number, name, subject, class ranking, and grade ranking. Zhang Yuning's string of scores was prominently displayed at the top, dazzling their eyes.

He didn't continue lecturing during the following evening self-study session. Instead, he gave them a math test and let them study on their own while he walked around watching them work on the problems.

In reality, few people were seriously doing the questions; they were all busy looking at the circulated report cards.