With more than twenty minutes to go before the exam started, Zhang Wanru, her second sister Lin Rou, and her third sister Lin Xia saw Lin Zhe and Lin Xi into the exam room. Lin Zhe stood at the school gate with a breakfast and a drink in his hand, looking around.
"Xiao Zhe, hurry up and go in. He probably knows he can't cheat and is too scared to take the exam."
"Sister, I want to wait a little longer. I haven't seen my brother for so many days. I don't know how he's doing. If he can't even eat breakfast properly, how can he take the exam?"
Lin Zhe was just afraid that once he entered the examination room, with the invigilator watching, he wouldn't be able to hand the spiked drink to Lin An.
Zhang Wanru looked at Lin Zhe with relief. Of her two sons, at least one was sensible and considerate. Moreover, as his biological mother, she still cared about Lin An and wanted to take this opportunity to see him.
Five minutes later, Lin An, holding a vegetable bun sold by the old lady next door, walked towards the school while eating it.
"Brother." Lin Zhe spotted him at a glance, and Xiao Pao blocked Lin An's path in two steps.
"Brother, this is for you." Lin Zhe handed over breakfast and water, a naive smile on his face.
"No need, you can keep it for yourself. Don't call me brother, I'm not." Lin An just wanted to get away from this green tea guy.
Zhang Wanru had only seen him after so many days and wanted to say something nice to him, but seeing his terrible attitude towards his younger brother, she became inexplicably angry: "Lin An, how can you talk to your younger brother like that? Do you know how long Xiao Zhe waited for you because he was worried you hadn't eaten breakfast? Apologize to your younger brother right now."
After being scolded by him yesterday, Lin Rou was seething with anger: "Mom, I told you, he's an ingrate."
Lin An felt that the Lin family was like a persistent ghost, and he didn't want to waste his energy on them: "If you want to act, go to the theater. This is a school. Don't delay my exam."
Lin Rou put on a mocking expression: "Lin An, you don't know yet, do you? In order to select people to participate in the competition, this exam has been made more difficult. There are even additional questions set by famous professors from Peking University. No matter how clever your cheating methods are, it won't work."
Zhang Wanru frowned and pulled Lin An aside: "Lin An, why don't you give up the exam? If you fall from first place, the Lin family will lose face because of you."
"Are you done talking? If you don't move aside, I'm calling security." Lin An was really anxious, and his voice was quite loud.
Seeing the strange looks from the other test-takers and parents around her, Zhang Wanru let go of Lin An's arm: "If you insist on taking the exam, then take it, just don't cheat again."
Lin An walked into the examination room without looking back, with Lin Zhe following behind: "Brother, here's your breakfast."
With just over ten minutes left before the exam, all the candidates had taken their seats. As soon as Lin An entered, he attracted everyone's attention, some with disdain and others with mockery.
The nearby test-takers were already whispering among themselves: "That's Lin An, the one who cheated."
"He looks quite respectable, but he's really shameless."
Lin An didn't rush to sit down. Instead, he walked towards the proctor and said, "Teacher, I'm worried there might be something wrong with the seat. Could you come with me to check it?"
Lin Zhe, who was carrying breakfast into the examination room, felt a pang of anxiety when he heard Lin An's words: "Could he have found out? How could that be? There was clearly no one at school yesterday."
The proctor had never encountered a candidate with such a request before, but the request wasn't unreasonable: "Okay, you're number one, Lin An, right?"
Lin An nodded, and the two walked to the first row, to the desk by the window with the exam number 001 on it. The proctor carefully checked the desk.
The desktop was fine, nothing was stuck on it, and the desk drawer was empty. When he reached under the desk, the proctor's expression changed drastically. Something was stuck underneath. He crouched down and found a high school knowledge summary book that had been taped to the bottom of the desk.
The proctor pulled the book down: "Who put this up?"
Compared to the teacher's shock, Lin An was much calmer: "Teacher, if someone reports me for cheating during the exam, wouldn't I have no way to defend myself?"
"Don't worry, Lin. There are surveillance cameras everywhere in the school. We will definitely find out the truth."
The candidates, witnessing what was happening, began to whisper among themselves: "Is someone trying to frame him?"
"Maybe he staged it all himself."
"I've been in the fandom for so many years, I've seen all kinds of whitewashing methods."
The noise from the exam room attracted the attention of the proctors. After getting a general idea of the situation, they learned that this was the first exam room, which housed the best students in the senior year. This exam was also related to the competition slots. Even if they didn't win a prize in the competition, they would still be guaranteed admission to Tsinghua or Peking University. Just participating in this competition would be an honor, and it would be very persuasive for the independent admissions process that various prestigious universities would soon begin. The proctors were well aware of the importance of this exam for the top students.
Without hesitation, we changed to a backup examination room. Fortunately, there were many empty classrooms in the first and second years of high school when school started late: "Students, considering the fairness of this exam, after discussion, we have decided to change the examination room. Now, everyone, please take your things and go downstairs to classroom 105 as soon as possible."
Amid a chorus of complaints, the test-takers quickly packed up their stationery.
To prevent cheating, the proctors arranged the seats for the candidates according to the order in which they entered the new examination room.
Lin Zhe was seated in the first row next to the podium, while Lin An sat in the middle.
Everyone acted quickly, starting the exam only five minutes later than other exam rooms. The invigilator reassured everyone: "Don't worry, we will collect the papers five minutes later to ensure you have enough time to answer the questions."
The two exams in the morning were Chinese and English, which are Lin Zhe's strong points, but he still fidgeted with his leg.
Lin An opened the exam paper and found that, as Lin Rou had said, the difficulty of this exam had increased. However, for Lin An, who had a photographic memory and no weaknesses, it was nothing to worry about.
The science exam was scheduled for the afternoon, and Lin Zhe was sweating profusely with anxiety. In fact, he had a low IQ, and even though his family spent a lot of money tutoring him, he could never grasp the key points, especially in math and physics, which he just couldn't learn no matter what.
Shen Di, who was in the same exam room as him, had always maintained a ranking in the top ten of the grade. Unlike Lin Zhe, Shen Di was good at science but poor at humanities. Lin Zhe always bought science answers from him, and Shen Di would slip him slips of paper with the answers written on it when he went to the toilet.
This time, because the seating arrangement was messed up, Shen Di wouldn't pass by him when he went to the toilet, and Lin Zhe was still under the teacher's nose, so he didn't have a chance to peek at anyone's answers.
Lin Zhe's face was ashen. He had no idea how to answer many of the questions and could only guess by luck. His palms were so sweaty that he could barely hold his pen. Seeing his flustered state, the proctor sitting on the podium looked at his paper with curiosity and couldn't help but shake his head with disgust, thinking to himself how could a student of this level be in this exam room.
Another proctor walked around on the floor, observing the candidates' condition. Lin An was the first to stop writing. The proctor walked over and whispered, "Check your answers carefully after you finish."
He glanced at Lin An's test paper and couldn't help but admire him. Not bad, he hardly saw any wrong answers. No wonder he was the top student in the grade.
The last math class was scheduled for the evening.
After finishing his science exam, Lin Zhe was completely disoriented, and his mother and daughter had to coax him to eat a few bites of food.
"Xiao Zhe, don't feel pressured. You'll definitely do well on the exam. Mom believes in you." Zhang Wanru carefully escorted him back into the exam room.
Lin An ate a simple meal at the school cafeteria and returned to the examination hall. Along the way, people kept pointing and whispering about him, but having been reborn, he was mentally strong and didn't care about his classmates' opinions.
Less than half an hour after the math test papers were handed out, sighs could be heard from time to time in the exam room. This test was really too difficult; even the first multiple-choice question was not an easy point.
After an hour of the exam, many students were still working on the multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions, while Lin An had already finished answering the questions on the second page of the test. Mathematics was his forte, and this test was easier than the practice questions he usually did.
He took out the third test paper, which had four additional questions. Lin An glanced at the questions and realized that they would be much easier to solve using university-level calculus. Although he had studied university-level advanced mathematics on his own, this was a high school exam, and he wasn't sure if he could use that knowledge. So he opted for the more conservative high school approach, which was a bit more complicated but not impossible to complete.
Lin An finished all the questions in twenty minutes. He relaxed and put down his pen, observing the other candidates. Everyone was writing furiously. Lin Zhe was stunned at the table and chair, still stuck on the multiple-choice questions, at least four of which left him guessing.
"Dear candidates, please note the time. There are fifteen minutes left until the end of the exam."
Lin Zhe's mental defenses crumbled, and he began to sob. The proctor on the podium looked flustered: "Student, what's wrong?"
Lin Zhe couldn't hold back any longer and burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably: "Teacher, this question is too difficult, I don't know how to do it."
The proctor came in and said, "Student, please control your emotions and do not disturb the other candidates."
"If you can't do it, hand in your paper and don't affect others."
Lin Zhe suppressed his sobs and silently shed tears.
Lin An cursed himself as an idiot in his heart.
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