Time flew by and it was Friday of the week, the day of the unified exam for Guan Baiyu's school.
Guan Baiyu used to be unsupervised, so exams weren't important to him. But things are different now.
Shi Zhen valued Guan Baiyu's exam highly. He spent money to buy wonton wrappers and make wontons a day in advance, and told Qian to get up early and come over to his place for breakfast.
Qian arrived at Shi Zhen's place at six o'clock. Shi Zhen asked him to ride his bicycle to town to buy four sesame seed cakes and fried dough sticks, and also cooked wontons. Each of them had a serving of sesame seed cakes and fried dough sticks plus a small bowl of wontons, which was quite a hearty breakfast.
There was so much food that Guan Baiyu couldn't even finish it all, so he shared half of a sesame seed cake with Shi Xinghuo.
After breakfast, Shi Zhenxian, Qian Qiqi, and Shi Xinghuo went together, one on a bicycle and the other on foot, to deliver the things they needed for setting up their stall to the town. Then they rode their bicycles home to take Guan Baiyu to school.
Worried that Guan Baiyu would be uncomfortable sitting on the back of the bicycle, he even put a wooden board and a cushion on it.
Guan Baiyu sat on the cushion with his schoolbag on his back, watching the scenery around him rush past, and felt a sense of sudden enlightenment.
He doesn't remember if he rode a bicycle when he was a child; he probably didn't.
Seeing the younger children in the village sitting on the front bar of their bicycles, while the older children sat on the back... he couldn't help but feel envious, but he knew from a young age that he was different from others.
Back then, he thought that when he had children in the future, he would treat them very well and take them everywhere on his bicycle.
Before he could even give someone a ride on his bicycle, someone else gave him a ride on their bicycle!
Is this what family is like? How come his brother is so kind?
Shi Zhen didn't have much money, so he didn't buy Guan Baiyu new clothes. But after he and Guan Baiyu "recognized" each other, he gradually bought things like soap for the family. Every morning, he would urge Guan Baiyu and Shi Xinghuo to wash their faces and brush their teeth.
That's not all. A few days ago, after he used medicine to kill all the lice on Guan Baiyu's head, he even took Guan Baiyu to get a haircut.
Guan Baiyu's hair was previously cut haphazardly by himself, and it was extremely ugly. Although the haircut that Shi Zhen took him to get was also ordinary, and even a bit short, it made him look much more energetic.
Not only that, Guan Baiyu has been eating well these days, and his complexion has improved a lot.
Today, Guan Baiyu was wearing old clothes given to him by the villagers. The clothes were not torn and the style was also good, making him look no different from other children who were pampered by their parents. In fact, because of his fair skin, he looked even more gentle and handsome than other children.
When Guan Baiyu got off the back of his bicycle at the school gate, quite a few girls were secretly watching him.
If he were allowed to grow up a bit more and buy some nice clothes... Shi Zhen thought Guan Baiyu had the potential to become the school heartthrob.
Well, not necessarily... Guan Baiyu is only 1.6 meters tall...
"Xiaoyu, keep it up!" Shi Zhen encouraged Guan Baiyu.
"Hmm." Guan Baiyu smiled, his eyes crinkling again.
Their school had already finished the ninth grade curriculum ahead of schedule, and recently the teachers were reviewing the knowledge from the first and second years of junior high. He hadn't forgotten that knowledge, so he didn't listen to the lessons and instead did the practice problems that Shi Zhen had bought for him.
After doing so much practice... he now possesses unparalleled confidence and feels certain that he can do well on the exam.
This exam was a city-wide unified exam and was very important for the ninth graders. Their school even gave the first and second graders a holiday for it.
Because this exam was very important, all the ninth-grade students who didn't usually come to school were called back by the teachers.
As soon as Guan Baiyu entered the classroom, a girl asked him, "Guan Baiyu, who was the person who brought you to school today?"
Guan Baiyu was in a good mood: "It's my brother."
The girl exclaimed with envy, "Your brother is so handsome!"
Most girls in the third year of junior high school have already developed, but boys in the third year of junior high school... even if they are not short, they still look somewhat immature. Those like Guan Baiyu, who haven't started developing yet due to insufficient nutrition, look even younger than girls because they are about the same height.
Therefore, many girls in the class like older boys.
Guan Baiyu often heard them talking about the boys in their class. She had never thought about it before, but now that she heard this person say that her cousin was handsome, she was a little unhappy, but also a little proud.
His cousin is definitely the best.
Guan Baiyu said, "I also think my brother is very handsome."
"You're quite good-looking too, I never noticed before," the girl said. Guan Baiyu had changed a lot recently, which was why she took the initiative to talk to him.
As the two were chatting, Yan Jiangtao arrived and plopped down in the seat next to Guan Baiyu—since they weren't sitting against the wall this week, they didn't need to give up their seats to each other.
Yan Jiangtao looked rather unwell. After being smeared twice, this was his first day at school.
He felt that everyone was looking at him strangely, as if he were something dirty.
These people kept talking...were they talking about the time someone threw excrement at him?
For example, Guan Baiyu was definitely talking about him to that girl!
Yan Jiangtao threw his schoolbag on his desk, vigorously tidied his things, and glared at Guan Baiyu with sharp eyes.
After being splashed with excrement in front of him that day, he was furious and went to his father to ask him to teach the person who splashed him a lesson. But his father's first words were: "If someone else doesn't splash you, then you must have a problem too. You should reflect on yourself first!"
When Yan Jiangtao complained to his family, he heard these words and almost fainted from anger.
Afterwards, his father caught him and scolded him, saying that he didn't know how to cherish the good life he had, that he had the opportunity to study but didn't study hard, and that his poor grades were a disgrace to him...
Later, Guan Baiyu was inevitably mentioned again: "Look at Guan Baiyu. No one at home takes care of him. He often can't even pay his tuition. He has to do his own laundry and cook when he gets home, yet he still gets first place in the grade. How amazing is that! And you? You're waited on hand and foot, and you always get last place in the class."
After disciplining his son, Yan's father went to look at the machines.
The loom is made of many threads, constantly weaving cloth. Someone must watch it all the time – if any thread breaks, the cloth will be flawed, and the machine must be turned off immediately to re-thread that thread before weaving can continue.
Although they hired two people to help, several machines were weaving cloth day and night, and the two people couldn't keep an eye on everything... They themselves had to take turns supervising, and sometimes it was even harder, with only a few hours of sleep a day.
Yan Jiangtao recalled how his parents had been nagging him at home these past few days. Before he came to school today, his father had repeatedly told him that he must do well on the test...
He glared at Guan Baiyu, and when Guan Baiyu ignored him, he became even more furious—this guy definitely looks down on him!
The exams were very important, so they weren't taken in our own classrooms, but in classrooms for the first and second year students. Not only that, the students in each class were divided into two groups and took the exams in two separate classrooms, so that no student had a deskmate and couldn't peek at others.
Moreover, the proctors were not teachers from their own school, but teachers from other schools—teachers from their own school went to other schools to proctor exams.
This was the first time Guan Baiyu had encountered an exam of this caliber, and he felt uneasy.
He took a deep breath and entered the classroom of Class 2, Grade 7. Yan Jiangtao was sitting behind him.
The proctor hadn't arrived yet... Yan Jiangtao kicked Guan Baiyu's chair: "Hey!"
Guan Baiyu didn't move, not even turning his head.
Yan Jiangtao kicked again, this time landing directly on Guan Baiyu's lower back.
Guan Baiyu was annoyed, but the exam was about to begin... He moved his chair forward and still ignored Yan Jiangtao.
Upon seeing this, Yan Jiangtao couldn't help but curse, "Damn it!"
Yan Jiangtao wanted to threaten Guan Baiyu into letting him see the exam paper or pass him a note during the exam. He knew Guan Baiyu was afraid of him and thought this would definitely work.
As a result... Guan Baiyu ignored him.
This little bastard doesn't even take him seriously!
Just as Yan Jiangtao was about to kick Guan Baiyu a few more times, the proctor arrived.
There were two proctors, one male and one female.
The woman was short and plump, with a ponytail, and looked quite young, while the man was tall and thin, probably in his forties or fifties.
After the two entered, the female teacher didn't speak, but the male teacher, pointing with his finger, said a lot: "During your exams, don't look around. If I see anyone cheating, you'll get zero points!"
"I caught someone cheating at your school last time. If you can't do the questions, don't do them! Cheating is out of the question!"
"You people are all unsightly!"
...
Not only that, but when a girl looked up, he immediately said, "Look, someone's trying to peek again."
The girl blushed and looked extremely aggrieved.
Guan Baiyu was also a little unhappy. He could vaguely sense that the proctor looked down on them.
But that's normal. People in their village often talk about how people in town look down on them, and how they used to be told they were dirty because they dressed poorly when they went to town.
As they talked, they would also start cursing the people in town. A while ago, a factory in town went bankrupt, and a lot of people were laid off, which made everyone particularly happy...
Of course, none of that concerns him.
The test papers were handed out, Guan Baiyu wrote his name on them, and began to look at the questions. As soon as the bell rang, he immediately started working on the questions.
This exam was much harder than their school's usual exams, even harder than the exams in the town and city schools; it was called a "competition."
However, the practice problems Shi Zhen bought for him were more difficult than the classroom content, so he wasn't too flustered.
Guan Baiyu did it very seriously.
Yan Jiangtao sat behind Guan Baiyu, but he couldn't even answer many of the most basic questions.
For example, when it comes to writing Chinese characters based on pinyin, he has almost forgotten pinyin. He can't distinguish between "iu" and "ui" at all, and even if he could, he wouldn't know how to write the character.
After hastily completing some questions, Yan Jiangtao couldn't continue. Seeing Guan Baiyu writing furiously, he became even angrier.
An idea struck him. He took out a piece of draft paper from his pocket, which he had originally intended to use to have Guan Baiyu pass him the answers. He wrote some answers on it, crumpled it up, and threw it onto Guan Baiyu's desk when the teacher wasn't looking.
Then, before Guan Baiyu could react, he pointed at Guan Baiyu and shouted to the proctor, "Teacher, he cheated!"
The male proctor's face darkened. He spotted the crumpled paper on Guan Baiyu's desk, strode over, grabbed it, and coldly said to Guan Baiyu, "Take your exam paper and come out with me."
Guan Baiyu was a little afraid of the teacher. After a moment of confusion, he finally picked up the test paper and followed the teacher outside.
Once outside, Guan Baiyu said, "Teacher, I didn't cheat."
"Then what's this?" The teacher unfolded the crumpled paper that he had taken from Guan Baiyu's desk earlier. Seeing the messy answers written inside, he gave Guan Baiyu an even more unfriendly look: "If you can't do well on the test, then don't take it. You don't study properly usually, and you even cheat on the test. You people are hopeless!"
"Yan Jiangtao threw it over. I didn't look at it; I was busy with my problems," Guan Baiyu said.
The teacher, however, refused to listen to Guan Baiyu's explanation.
He was a middle school teacher in town, but he also had some knowledge of schools in the countryside.
The teachers at this school are of very poor quality, the students' grades are even worse, and the school atmosphere is a mess. He felt that the students at this school had no need to take these kinds of competitive exams at all.
Every year, the city awards a dozen or so first prizes, dozens of second prizes, and hundreds of third prizes, but this school has never won even one. What's the point of these students taking the exam?
The fact that this person is cheating and then trying to find excuses is even more ridiculous.
The teacher reached for Guan Baiyu's test paper, intending to mark it with the words: "Cheating on the exam, the score is invalid, zero."
This was the first time Guan Baiyu had encountered something like this. He felt wronged and angry, and refused to hand over his test paper: "I didn't cheat! I usually get first place. I don't cheat at all. This crumpled paper has nothing to do with me."
The teacher was getting impatient and looked at Guan Baiyu with disdain: "So what if you're first in the grade? Even the top student in your school can't get any good grades."
"Then I can't possibly cheat by passing notes to someone." Guan Baiyu didn't want to get a zero.
Only a very small number of students in their school continue their studies after graduating from junior high school, so the school teachers don't talk to them much about high school or even vocational school.
He didn't have many ideas about his future before.
But recently his brother told him a lot about high school, and even about college.
His brother even wanted him to go to university.
As a result, he took this exam, which would determine his admission to university, very seriously. After all, if he didn't get in through the recommendation program, it would be difficult for him to get into the best high school in the city, No. 1 High School. He would be lucky to get into the worst high school in the city, which was in his town.
The proctor already disliked Guan Baiyu, and Guan Baiyu's behavior only made him more impatient, so he reached out to pull Guan Baiyu away.
At this moment, the female proctor came out of the classroom and said softly, "Teacher Chen, a single crumpled piece of paper is not enough to prove that he cheated."
"If it's not cheating, then what is it?" Teacher Chen asked.
Without a second thought, Guan Baiyu said to the female teacher, "Teacher, I really didn't cheat. I always get first place in exams, it's impossible for me to have cheated!"
He could sense that the male teacher was prejudiced against them, and even wanted to find fault with them. If he were weaker, he might have been given a zero by this person!
He had no choice but to ask other teachers for help!
Guan Baiyu had rosy lips and white teeth, and looked very well-behaved. His eyes were even red at the moment... The proctor who came out later felt sorry for him: "Teacher Chen, we need evidence. Let's look at his test paper and compare it with the answers on the crumpled paper. That will tell us whether he cheated or not."
The male teacher snorted coldly: "He just didn't have time to cheat."
"That's not necessarily true..."
"Teacher Wang, do you think I did something wrong? Do you think I should just ignore students cheating?" Teacher Cheng said irritably.
Upon hearing this, the female teacher shut her mouth. She was new to the job, while Teacher Chen was a veteran at the school...
Guan Baiyu's heart sank.
Various forms of injustice have followed him since he can remember.
For example, you might get beaten up and then be falsely accused.
For example, if someone steals your things, no one will stand up for you.
For example, Yan Jiangtao would cause him trouble every day, but he still had to sit next to Yan Jiangtao as his deskmate, and he even had to explain problems to Yan Jiangtao before.
He didn't like these things, but he had long been used to them and wouldn't resist anymore.
After all, he might not necessarily benefit from resisting, and could even encounter a worse situation.
But things are different now.
His brother will help him.
Moreover, his brother took this exam so seriously that he even bought him practice questions... He absolutely cannot get a zero on his first exam.
Guan Baiyu stared at the male teacher and said, "Teacher, you're convicting me without understanding the actual situation. It's clearly someone else who cheated, but you're framing me... If you give me a zero, I won't let it go. I'll just report it to the education bureau!"
At that time, the students in the countryside had no idea what the education bureau was.
However, when Shi Zhen chats with Guan Baiyu, he often talks about things that Guan Baiyu didn't know before, most of which are related to schools and education, including the Education Bureau.
Teacher Chen's face darkened.
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