BTO CH23

Before Meng Guowei entered the classroom, Chinese Class Rep Shen Wenhao led the class in reciting ancient poetry: “Classmates, please turn your textbooks to page thirty-five. Let us read this poem with profound emotion.”

Shen Wenhao was truly a remarkable character. Rumor had it he wrote novels in his spare time, and in his very first week on the job, he had set up a reading corner in the back of the classroom.

Meng Guowei walked in two minutes late. Upon entering, he picked up right where he had left off that morning, whipping the students into shape: “Never mind the monthly exams—soon you’ll realize the college entrance exam isn’t as far away as you think! It’ll be right in front of your eyes, and by the time you finally decide to study hard, it’ll be too late—”

Down below, Shen Wenhao felt a surge of poetic inspiration and chimed in: “Human life between heaven and earth is like a white steed flashing past a crevice; it is but a fleeting moment.”

Hou Jun clapped vigorously: “Not bad, Wenhao! That was a brilliant line!”

Shen Wenhao: “…I didn’t write that.”

“Enough messing around, you two,” Meng Guowei handed a stack of graded pop-quiz worksheets to Shen Wenhao. “Pass these out. We’ll start this period by reviewing yesterday’s quiz.”

The distributed worksheets were the ones completed in class the day before.

After finishing the quiz last period, Xu Sheng and Shao Zhan had simply swapped papers before handing them in.

Xu Sheng wasn’t worried that anything could go wrong with this paper. Bored out of his mind, he casually flipped through the extracurricular reading section at the back of the Chinese textbook, picking out narrative essays to read like short stories. He failed to notice that when Meng Guowei finished handing out the papers, he had held two back.

Until the next moment, when Meng Guowei announced: “Shao Zhan, Xu Sheng, stand up.”

Xu Sheng hadn’t been in the classroom for long. Busy swapping dorms during the lunch break, he hadn’t managed to catch a nap, leaving him a bit groggy. Instinctively, he shot a glance at Shao Zhan and asked in a low voice before standing up sluggishly, “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know,” Shao Zhan replied. “What did you do this time?”

Xu Sheng combed through his memory. He was certain that worksheet had been foolproof: “I didn’t do anything. Did I write the wrong name?”

Minor details like writing a name rarely left a deep impression. He was so thoroughly immersed in the mindset of being Shao Zhan that he might have accidentally scribbled Shao Zhan’s name in the name slot out of habit.

Xu Sheng added: “But that shouldn’t be possible.”

Fortunately, Xu Sheng hadn’t made that rookie mistake. Holding both their papers, Meng Guowei walked to the back row. First, he patted Xu Sheng’s shoulder with the warmth of a spring breeze: “Shao Zhan, you did exceptionally well on this in-class quiz. Especially the final question—you were the only one in the entire class to get it right. I wanted to specifically commend you.”

So he was here to praise an outstanding student.

Both Xu Sheng and Shao Zhan breathed a collective sigh of relief.

Yet in the very next second, Meng Guowei turned to Shao Zhan, his tone shifting abruptly. Utterly exasperated by a student failing to meet his expectations, he said: “Xu Sheng, look at yourself. You sit next to Shao Zhan all day, and he hasn’t rubbed off on you in the slightest!”

Shao Zhan: “…”

Furious, Meng Guowei slapped the worksheet down: “Look at the answer you wrote! This was the simplest question—practically handing out free points! The entire class got it right, and you were the only one who messed it up!”

The free-point question wasn’t even what angered Meng Guowei the most: “You even know who Hamlet is! Let me ask you: what on earth were you thinking?!”

What Hamlet?Shakespeare wasn’t mentioned a single time from the beginning to the end of this worksheet. Where did Hamlet come from?

Shao Zhan hadn’t paid attention to what Xu Sheng had scribbled while slumped over his desk, spinning his pen and squinting his eyes through the last Chinese period.

Only when the worksheet was slapped squarely onto his desk did Shao Zhan lower his eyes and skim it quickly. What he saw was an answer sheet featuring highly innovative problem-solving logic, taking an unorthodox path for virtually every single question.

Question: Interpret the meaning of the underlined sentence in the text.Answer: There are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people.

Meng Guowei’s focus drifted for two seconds as he muttered, “…Though your handwriting is a bit neater than before.” Snapping back to his stern demeanor, he continued, “That’s not important. Come, let’s talk about your thought process. I ask you for the meaning of the underlined sentence, and what do you write? We really need to have a talk. I genuinely don’t understand what goes on in your head.”

“—Other people take exams to score points. Are you trying to anger the grader to death?!”

Staring at the word “Hamlet,” Shao Zhan plunged into an instantaneous silence: “…”

Forced to take the blame, Shao Zhan’s brainwaves synchronized perfectly with Meng Guowei’s in that moment, as the exact same question surfaced in his mind: What on earth was Xu Sheng thinking?

Xu Sheng didn’t dare look at the expression currently plastered on Shao Zhan’s face. Having received Meng Guowei’s praise, he had already sat back down.

This was the first time he had ever been the recipient of such fervent commendation from Meng Guowei, and it felt incredibly weird.

Though his back did feel a bit cold.

“What did he write?” Burning with curiosity, Hou Jun craned his neck across two rows to peek in their direction. “Did anyone see? Share it with the class.”

Driven by curiosity, Xu Sheng’s front desk mate sneakily stole a glance. Consequently, that legendary, god-tier answer was passed all the way from Group 1 to Group 4.

Hou Jun marveled: “A true prodigy.”

“Hamlet,” Tan Kai offered his sincere admiration. “I yield. I genuinely yield.”

It was clear Meng Guowei wouldn’t resume class until he heard “Xu Sheng” explain himself. He was absolutely resolute and uncommonly persistent: “Speak. Let’s hear what you have to say.”

Shao Zhan’s hair was still slightly ruffled from having his hood up earlier. Reaching out to a spot where Meng Guowei couldn’t see, he pinched the back of Xu Sheng’s neck to vent his frustration, as if silently saying: You’re dead meat after class.

Xu Sheng instantly felt even colder.

Withdrawing his hand, Shao Zhan channeled Xu Sheng’s answer. Adopting Xu Sheng’s baseline Chinese proficiency to perform a secondary reading comprehension of Hamlet, he stated: “I believe this sentence… can be interpreted differently by every single person.”

Meng Guowei: “And that’s why you answered like this?! On an exam, there is only one standard answer!”

Shao Zhan found himself grasping Xu Sheng’s thought process with increasing accuracy. In that moment, it was as if Xu Sheng’s voice was in his head, answering for him: “The standard answer is dead, but people are alive.”

“…”

When had the class ever witnessed an answer so obscenely badass? It shattered their understanding built over years of schooling.

Hou Jun: “Fucking epic!” Tan Kai: “Absolutely fucking epic!”

The outcome of this answer was that “Xu Sheng’s” image not only stood tall in his classmates’ minds, but he himself stood tall for the entire period. Leaving a parting remark of “Stand and listen for the rest of this class,” Meng Guowei finally began reviewing the quiz: “Let’s look at question one…”

Once Meng Guowei turned his back, Shao Zhan’s face was cold enough to freeze water: “What were you thinking with that question?”

Face buried in his desk, Xu Sheng laughed into his arms. Not daring to laugh too loudly, he stifled it for a moment before replying, “Actually, your analysis was pretty much spot-on. But the most important reason… was simply that I didn’t know the answer.”

If I can’t read it, naturally I can’t comprehend it.

Shao Zhan’s understanding of the creature known as a slacker deepened another level.

Next period was English. The English teacher also stopped by Class 7 holding her thermos before the bell rang, announcing from the doorway: “The monthly exams are coming up! While we continue learning new material, don’t forget to review what we’ve already covered.”

Under the repeated emphasis of every subject teacher, the looming presence of the monthly exams was steadily amplified. Exams were the ultimate tool for evaluating learning outcomes; not just Meng Guowei, but all the teachers placed immense importance on this test.

The first time Xu Sheng heard Meng Guowei mention it, it hadn’t felt real; he had treated it as just another tactic to keep them from slacking off. It wasn’t until the subject teachers actually started reviewing old material—“Let’s prep for the monthly exams. I’ll summarize the key concepts for you”—that the reality of the monthly exams smashed into his and Shao Zhan’s field of vision with unstoppable force.

“I heard our monthly exams this time are super strict,” Hou Jun sighed while doing homework before class. “I overheard it in Old Meng’s office. Four invigilators per testing room! How insane is that?”

“I heard that too. They say the difficulty is way higher than previous exams, packed with comprehensive problems. This isn’t a monthly exam; it’s basically tracking like a midterm!”

The pen slipped from Xu Sheng’s fingers.

Shao Zhan misfired a skill in his game and was instantly slashed to death by an opponent’s combo.

Neither of them had genuinely considered having to take the monthly exams in this state. Every night before bed, they thought: Five days, ten days, fifteen days… fifteen days at most. We should swap back eventually.

Over the weekend, the first thing Xu Sheng did upon opening his eyes every morning was jump out of bed to check the mirror.

Who would have thought that with the monthly exams practically on their doorstep, they still hadn’t swapped back?!

Who could have possibly predicted this?

Xu Sheng stared blankly, picturing a testing room with four invigilators. Linjiang Sixth High sorted testing rooms by academic rank. He would be sitting in Testing Room 1, Row 1, Seat 1.

He would have to write Shao Zhan’s name in the candidate slot… and answer the paper in the identity of the Exam God. Just picturing it, Xu Sheng broke out in a cold sweat.

The mere thought of that scenario was enough to drive Xu Sheng insane.

Shao Zhan wasn’t faring any better. With Xu Sheng’s Hamlet-style approach to answering questions, forcing him to take the exam as Xu Sheng in the dead-last testing room sounded worse than solving extra Olympiad math problems.

Xu Sheng suddenly found it hard to breathe. He reached up and unbuttoned his uniform collar, fully exposing his sharp collarbones.

“I heard you were always ranked first before,” Xu Sheng asked.

“I heard you were always ranked dead last before,” Shao Zhan replied.

“…………”

Following those two sentences came an endless silence.

Xu Sheng realized he had wanted to drop out of school far too early.