Chapter 65
"Is it really not allowed?"
"no!"
Lin Li was rejected by Tong Yao again, and he collapsed helplessly onto the bed. It seems that Lin Lili has now gone offline.
The summer vacation for second-year high school students is naturally incomplete; it lasts less than a month before school starts again.
Class 1, Grade 12.
The August sun shone obliquely through the glass window onto the mountain of books piled high with textbooks and test papers. The air was thick with heat; August was the hottest time of the month.
Lin Li sat by the window, his head bobbing up and down, his eyes heavy as if filled with lead. He had stayed up all night doing homework until 2 a.m., and now the aftereffects were fully kicking in. He couldn't help but let out a huge yawn, and tears welled up in his eyes.
On the podium, the homeroom teacher, Huo Li, had a shiny bald head that reflected the fluorescent light. He adjusted his glasses, and his sharp gaze swept across the class like a searchlight, finally settling precisely on Lin Li.
"Lin Li!" Huo Li's voice wasn't loud, but it carried an undeniable authority. "Stand up and wake up."
Lin Li jolted awake and stood up abruptly, her movements so exaggerated that she almost knocked over the chair.
A few suppressed laughs came from around him. He awkwardly touched his prickly buzz cut, tried to open his eyes wide, and pretended to listen attentively.
Huo Li didn't look at him again. He placed his hands on the podium, leaned forward slightly, and began the first formal address for the senior students:
"Students, from today onwards, you are senior high school students! I don't need to emphasize what this means."
His gaze swept over the young faces below, some tense, some confused, some determined. "It's time to focus. Put all those miscellaneous thoughts into your studies!"
He paused, then picked up the report card: "I'm sure everyone knows the scores for this final exam. I want to especially commend Tong Yao and Zhou Mingfang, whose total scores both exceeded 700! This is a very stable and excellent result! You are the future leaders of our class, and the hope of our school. The school has high hopes for you, so you must continue to maintain this level and not slack off in the slightest!"
His gaze fell on the two girls in the front row who always sat up straight and had focused eyes, his admiration undisguised.
Then, his gaze shifted to the middle area: "And to those students with scores between 650 and 700, you are equally outstanding and strong contenders for top universities. Avoid arrogance and complacency, continue your efforts, and strive for even higher goals—anything is possible!"
Finally, his gaze returned to Lin Li, who was still standing there. His tone was calmer, but it carried a heavy pressure:
"Lin Li, you got 620 on the final exam, still the worst in the class." Huo Li looked at this student who both gave him a headache and seemed to have some hope.
"This score is still quite a distance from getting into a good 985 university. You're in your final year of high school, time waits for no one, you need to work harder and keep striving!"
All eyes in the class were on Lin Li, some with sympathy, some with curiosity, and some with a hint of schadenfreude. He felt his face burning, but he straightened his back, met Huo Li's gaze, and nodded heavily, his voice not loud but clear:
"I understand, teacher. I will try my best."
Huo Li waved his hand, gesturing for him to sit down, and then began to explain the arrangements and precautions for the new semester.
After Lin Li sat down, she subconsciously glanced at the slender, upright figure in the front row. Tong Yao was writing something down in her notebook, her profile serious and focused, as if everything that had just happened had nothing to do with her.
He knew that the distance between him and her wasn't just a few rows of seats, but a massive chasm of nearly a hundred points. The difference between a top student at Tsinghua or Peking University and someone at the very bottom of the class.
An unprecedented sense of urgency, mixed with the exhaustion of staying up all night, weighed heavily on his heart.
He took a deep breath, shook his head vigorously, trying to dispel his drowsiness, and reached into the desk to pull out the thick book, "Five Years of College Entrance Examination and Three Years of Simulation".
Senior year of high school has truly begun.
Tong Yao, sitting in the front row, moved her pen smoothly across the paper, but her peripheral vision subtly swept towards the direction behind her.
When she heard Teacher Huo call Lin Li's name and his score, her fingers tightened slightly as she gripped her pen. "Silly girl, she's so smart, but she just won't put all her effort into studying..." she sighed softly to herself.
Lin Li protested: Who is like you, whose mind is only focused on studying, and who even eats only to maintain vital signs?
_
Senior year of high school was like a wound-up toy, spinning mechanically and rapidly. Lin Li still sat in that window seat, but she yawned less often, replaced by increasingly thick draft papers and ever-growing piles of empty pen refills.
620 points. This number was like an invisible wall, firmly keeping him outside the circle of so-called "top students," and separating him from the figure in the front row who always stood up straight by a seemingly insurmountable chasm.
Tong Yao and Zhou Mingfang's names had practically become synonymous with "Tsinghua and Peking Universities," frequently mentioned by teachers across all subjects. They discussed challenging problems that Lin Li barely understood, and planned for the independent admissions and summer camps that Lin Li felt were unattainable. Meanwhile, he was still struggling with one physics problem after another that made his scalp tingle, and intricate chemical deductions.
Why do I work so hard?
The thought first clearly surfaced one night. He was facing a math problem he had repeatedly gotten wrong, feeling like his brain was a tangled mess of yarn, so frustrated he wanted to tear the test paper up.
He managed to climb from 500 to 600 points using his cleverness and sheer grit.
For scores above 600, every point improvement is like chiseling through hard rock, requiring exponentially more effort with minimal results.
Looking at his score sheet, which was stuck between 620 and 630, and then at Tong Yao, who Huo Li had described as "consistently scoring above 700," a deep sense of powerlessness gripped him.
"Impossible, I can't catch up with her."
"Ridiculous. Even if we were to be reborn, would our fate still be the same? We're not even from the same world..."
This realization was like a cold needle, puncturing his perhaps somewhat blindly optimistic bubble.
It wasn't that he didn't try; he even felt he had given it his all. But the mountain of "talent" and "foundation" stood there, silent and immense.
After evening self-study, for the first time ever, he didn't immediately pester Tong Yao with questions, but instead walked to the playground alone. The autumn night wind was cool, but it couldn't dispel the confusion in his heart.
"What's wrong?" Tong Yao's voice rang out from behind her; she had followed after all.
Lin Li didn't turn around, gazing at the scattered lights of the teaching buildings in the distance, her voice a little hoarse: "Tong Yao, why do you study so hard? To get into a good university? And then what?"
Tong Yao walked to his side, stood shoulder to shoulder with him, and looked in the same direction, remaining silent for a moment.
“At first, perhaps it was to prove myself, to live up to expectations.” Her voice was calm. “But now… learning is like an exploration for me. Solving a difficult problem, understanding a principle, is like opening a window to an unknown world, allowing me to see different scenery. I want to go to better places and see just how vast that scenery really is.”
She paused, then turned to look at him: "And what about you, Lin Li? What are you studying for? Just to... catch up with me?"
These words were like a key, suddenly unlocking the tightly closed door in Lin Li's heart.
He froze. Was it to catch up with her?
Yes, that's undoubtedly one of the powerful driving forces. But what if... what if we ultimately can't catch up?
If she goes to a top university after the end of high school, while he can only go to an ordinary key university, or even worse, what will happen between them?
Different cities, different circles, different life trajectories... The fear of "growing apart" became clearer than ever before at this moment.
"I..." He opened his mouth, but found he couldn't give a definite answer. Apart from the weak reason of "wanting to go to the same school as you in the same city," he had no idea about his future.
"I feel like... I don't know what I want to do in the future." He finally said it, with a sense of almost relieved exhaustion.
"Besides eating and sleeping, besides... liking you, I can't seem to find a reason to work so hard. I think... I might not get into such a good university, and what will happen to us in the future..."
"Lin Li," Tong Yao interrupted him, her voice exceptionally clear in the night breeze, "There isn't just one path in the future, nor is success solely defined by getting into a top university. The important thing is that you find the path you want to take."
She didn't say, "It's okay, I'll wait for you," nor did she offer him unrealistic comfort. She simply told him to find his own path.
That night, Lin Li couldn't sleep. For the first time, he began to seriously consider the weighty word "future."
Where is my path?
Tong Yao's question was like a seed that took root and sprouted in his heart. He began to consciously observe himself and examine his interests.
He found himself uninterested in the historical events and geographical changes that he had to memorize from textbooks, but he was very interested in the strange and wonderful stories hidden behind history, the local customs and traditions, and even some ancient customs and legends.
He recalled that when he was a child, his grandfather always liked to tell him about the customs passed down from the older generation, such as the orientation of the house and the placement of objects. Although he thought it was superstition, he could always listen to it.
One day, by chance, he found a dusty copy of "A Simple Explanation of the Book of Changes" in a corner of the school library and borrowed it without thinking. At night, he hid under the covers and read it with a flashlight. The yin and yang, the five elements, the eight trigrams and their interpretations seemed like celestial scripture, yet it exuded a unique charm that attracted him to explore the logic and ancient wisdom behind it.
He began to secretly study relevant materials in his spare time, from the "Book of Burial" to the "Shaking Dragon Classic", from the Hetu Luoshu to the basics of Qimen Dunjia.
He discovered that he possessed an unexpected understanding and memory for these seemingly esoteric things. He could often quickly grasp the complexities of hexagrams, constellations, and the five elements' interactions. This was in stark contrast to the difficulty he had struggled with mathematics, physics, and chemistry.
He even tried to use the little knowledge he had learned to analyze the layout of his family's old house, and he was able to explain it quite well. Even his father was amazed and said that it had some of the characteristics of his grandfather back then.
A strange, ignited feeling rose within him. Perhaps he wasn't entirely useless; it was just that his strengths lay outside the mainstream?
This newfound interest temporarily pulled him away from his anxiety about grades, and his eyes regained their sparkle. He couldn't wait to share this "new world" with Tong Yao.
One weekend, during a break from studying at the library, Lin Li whispered mysteriously, "Tong Yao, I think I've found something that interests me!"
"What is it?" Tong Yao looked up from the sea of questions, somewhat curious.
"Feng shui! Metaphysics! It's all about the I Ching!" Lin Li's eyes lit up as he whispered excitedly about his recent research.
"I think there's a lot to learn about this; it's not just simple superstition. It's related to environmental science, psychology, and even mathematics! It's really interesting!"
He thought Tong Yao would listen quietly, even if she didn't understand, or maybe complain about him, just like before.
But Tong Yao's brows furrowed slightly, her eyes revealing undisguised disapproval and worry:
"Lin Li, isn't it inappropriate for you to be studying these things right now? The college entrance exam is just around the corner, and time is so precious. These things... after all, aren't orthodox knowledge, and they won't help you with your college entrance exam at all. On the contrary, they will only distract you."
Her rational mind could not understand why Lin Li would become obsessed with such "illusory" things at such a crucial moment.
The light in Lin Li's eyes dimmed slightly as he tried to explain, "I know, but I just find this interesting, much more interesting than doing physics problems! And I think I might have some talent..."
"Talent?" Tong Yao's tone carried a hint of urgency that she herself didn't realize.
"Lin Li, our most important task right now is the college entrance examination! Only by getting into a good university can we have the right to choose our future. If you put these thoughts into the right thing, your grades will definitely improve."
"The righteous path?" Lin Li's initial excitement was extinguished, replaced by a feeling of being rejected, resentment, and frustration.
Do you think researching this is a heretical or unorthodox approach?
"That's not what I meant." Tong Yao realized she had spoken too harshly and softened her tone.
“I just think you should focus more right now. You’ll have plenty of time to study these things after the college entrance exam.”
But Lin Li wouldn't listen. He felt that Tong Yao didn't understand him at all, just like everyone else, only caring about grades and unable to see his other potential. The conversation ended unhappily.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
