BTO CH33

Four test papers lay on the desk. The English score was the lowest, a mere 36 points.

Meng Guowei felt his world shaking violently. With a score like this, the only person in the entire grade who could possibly rival it was Xu Sheng; there was absolutely no one else.

This was practically meeting one’s match in Xu Sheng.

He had painstakingly arranged for them to be desk mates, hoping Xu Sheng would lean closer to Shao Zhan’s influence. But he never, in his wildest dreams, imagined that the one being influenced would turn out to be Shao Zhan!

What on earth was going on?!

“Your English teacher originally wanted to ask you personally,” Meng Guowei reviewed the English composition once more and realized he hadn’t taken enough tranquilizers earlier. Catching his breath, he said, “but something urgent came up and she had to go to the administration building… Shao Zhan, your homework has always been… completely normal, and your grades have been consistently stable. So, can you explain this?”

Shao Zhan: “I…”

No, he couldn’t.

Shao Zhan was speechless.

They were both experiencing an apocalypse, but Shao Zhan’s world was shattering no less than Meng Guowei’s.

Faced with that line of cursive English—so wild it was nearly illegible—Shao Zhan sank into a deep silence. Normally, no matter how difficult a problem was, he’d have an approach just by glancing at it, but right now, his mind was completely blank.

More than blank.

Shao Zhan could actually feel a nerve in his brain uncontrollably exploding.

Calling this sentence English was a compliment; it completely defied common grammar. You could flip through an entire vocabulary booklet and not find a single word matching hua or shua. It was basically a newly invented language.

Only by forcefully suppressing his emotions did Shao Zhan resist grabbing Xu Sheng—who was pretending to ask a math question across the desk—slamming him onto the table, and demanding to know what the hell he had written.

“So the formula is derived like this,” Zhou Yuan, separated from Meng Guowei by just a desk, finished the final step of his calculation. Pausing the tip of his red pen, he handed it to Xu Sheng. “Did you understand? Come on, try deriving it yourself.”

Xu Sheng’s entire attention was focused on Shao Zhan’s side. He hadn’t heard a word Teacher Zhou said. Making a fist, he brought it to his mouth and let out a light “cough” to attract Shao Zhan’s attention, then whispered a hint: “Hey, just… use a bit of imagination.”

Afraid others might hear, Xu Sheng mumbled the words and kept his voice very low.

Shao Zhan: “…”

Xu Sheng couldn’t say too much and couldn’t make the hint too obvious. Worried Shao Zhan hadn’t heard, he vaguely squeezed out three words, emphasizing again: “Imagination.” The translation wasn’t hard to understand, but he admitted it did require a tiny bit of imagination.

Shao Zhan thought to himself that he didn’t give a damn about imagination.

Right now, he only wanted to commit murder.

Xu Sheng shivered under Shao Zhan’s freezing glare. Before coming to the office, he was afraid Shao Zhan would die in there. Now he felt that whether Shao Zhan died or not was uncertain, but as long as Shao Zhan survived and stepped out of this office, the one dying later would probably be him.

Because if he were Shao Zhan, he too would murder the examinee named Xu Sheng.

Actually, Xu Sheng felt genuinely wronged. He had taken this exam extremely seriously! Otherwise, he wouldn’t have translated such a brilliant sentence!

He had never been this serious during his own exams.

In fact, the scores for the other three subjects had indeed improved. Thanks to the knowledge Shao Zhan had crammed into him, plus his rare serious attitude, the average score for those three subjects was estimated to be around 60 to 70 points. But English wasn’t like other subjects; a poor vocabulary wasn’t a problem that could be fixed in a day or two. Throughout the entire reading comprehension section, he couldn’t even grasp the main topic, let alone choose from the ABCD options. Aside from guessing blindly, there was no other way.

Meanwhile, Zhou Yuan tapped his red pen on the desk again: “Xu Sheng, what are you muttering about?”

Xu Sheng snapped back to reality: “Ah, I was saying… so that’s how this formula is derived.”

Zhou Yuan handed him the pen: “If you understand, then derive it once. Why did you suddenly think of coming to the office to ask questions today? Except for being punished to stand outside or coming here to get a lecture after bombing an exam, I’ve never seen you step foot in the office. Did the sun rise from the west today?”

One lie requires countless other lies to cover it up.

Xu Sheng: “I recently discovered the joy of learning. Actually, studying isn’t boring at all, especially under the guidance of student Shao Zhan; I’ve been deeply inspired.”

Zhou Yuan was also puzzled by Shao Zhan’s monthly exam scores. He had no idea who was inspiring whom with these grades.

Meng Guowei was still quietly waiting for Shao Zhan’s answer.

Following Xu Sheng’s hint about “imagination,” Shao Zhan tried to discard his years of education and all his knowledge of English. Ultimately, he gave up. The main reason was that even if he translated it, he couldn’t answer Meng Guowei; Meng Guowei would think he’d gone mad: “This sentence… should be a slip of the pen.”

Meng Guowei: “A slip of the pen?”

Shao Zhan gave an “Mhm.”

This slip of the pen was a bit astonishing.

But compared to Shao Zhan scoring so few points and the slip being this bizarre, a slip of the pen was clearly more convincing. Meng Guowei asked again: “Then why… why were you practicing wild cursive?”

Shao Zhan: “Changing my style.”

Meng Guowei choked: “Your handwriting is already very good, there’s no need to practice… Sometimes seeking a breakthrough is a good thing, but wild cursive might not suit you. You really don’t need to continue practicing it.”

Aside from that English sentence, Meng Guowei still had a bellyful of questions.

“Shao Zhan, how could this Chinese composition wander so far off-topic? It doesn’t seem like a mistake you would make.”
“For the last few major math questions, you only wrote ‘Solution:’ and a colon, and then nothing else. What were you thinking?”
“‘Lightning flashes and thunder roars, the sudden rain just stops’… Did you adapt this poem? Were you unsatisfied with what Liu Yong wrote?” “…”

Question after question smashed mercilessly into Shao Zhan, hitting him so hard he wanted to leave immediately. It would have been better if Xu Sheng had just handed in a blank paper instead of answering like this!

But human survival instinct and crisis management abilities are unimaginable things. Coupled with everything he had experienced over the past month, Shao Zhan’s blank mind gradually returned to normal. As Meng Guowei continued to pour out questions endlessly, Shao Zhan interrupted: “Teacher.”

Meng Guowei stopped and looked at him.

Shao Zhan: “Actually, it’s like this. On the days of the exam, I wasn’t feeling well.”

In just a few seconds, many thoughts flashed rapidly through Shao Zhan’s mind, quickly stringing together a very complete and logical chain for this excuse: “It started with a cough. Those symptoms disappeared quickly, and after the school doctor diagnosed me at the time, I thought it was nothing serious. But unexpectedly, when I woke up the next day, I still had a headache. You can also ask the invigilator, near the end of the exam… I had already lost consciousness.”

Meng Guowei: “Ah?”

Not only was Meng Guowei stunned by Shao Zhan’s explanation, but Xu Sheng was also stunned.

When he reacted, only one exclamation remained.

Fucking brilliant!

He managed to link faking an illness with fainting in the exam room, spinning the entire incident with a clear beginning and end, completely justified, with clear cause and effect.

Being first in the grade wasn’t for nothing; his mind was meticulous!

Meng Guowei had indeed heard that Shao Zhan fell asleep while the last exam papers were being collected, and the invigilator couldn’t wake him up no matter how hard he tried. But at the time, they just thought Shao Zhan had simply “fallen asleep,” finding it a bit strange that Shao Zhan would sleep in the exam room, but not thinking much more of it.

Meng Guowei suddenly understood! So that’s how it was! Immediately, he felt the sky was no longer falling and the earth was no longer splitting.

“I knew it,” Meng Guowei neatened the stack of test papers and put them away, saying, “You definitely wouldn’t score like this. Are you feeling better now? Why would you suddenly get a headache?”

Shao Zhan: “I’m fine, maybe I caught a cold.”

Meng Guowei held onto Shao Zhan and talked for a while longer, repeatedly urging him to go to the clinic for a checkup: “Your health is your own. Next time you take an exam, if you don’t feel well, raise your hand and report it. You don’t have to force yourself; you were hurting so much you answered randomly… No wonder your handwriting was so messy. Alright, you head back to class first.”

The two of them breathed a sigh of relief in unison.

Xu Sheng also wanted to return to class, but Zhou Yuan shouted and stopped him: “Were you even listening just now?! Were you listening?! What formula did I derive for you, and what did you derive? Drawing a triangle on the paper, are you trying to derive the Pythagorean theorem for me?!”

“…”

By the time Xu Sheng, holding the textbook, finally solved that formula and returned to class, he found that most people had already left. Only then did he remember the next class was Physical Education.

It seemed today’s PE class hadn’t been hijacked by other teachers.

Just as Xu Sheng passed the back window and prepared to enter through the back door, he saw someone leaning against it.

The teenager leaned against the doorframe, tall and long-legged, exuding coldness. The light from outside shone over, illuminating the corridor, but stopped abruptly right in front of him. This time, his uniform collar wasn’t buttoned to the top—probably because the atmosphere in the office just now was too suffocating, he had raised a hand and unbuttoned two buttons. Hearing footsteps, the teenager casually lifted his eyes, clearly waiting for someone: “Come here.”

Even though Xu Sheng had been Shao Zhan for a while, seeing him from an outsider’s perspective gave a completely different feeling.

Xu Sheng thought he might lose his life here today: “Next class is PE, you’re not going down?”

Xu Sheng didn’t get too close. He leaned against the back window, keeping an arm’s length distance from Shao Zhan, giving himself some space, and tried to gauge the possibility of reaching through the back window to toss his textbook onto his desk.

As if seeing right through him, Shao Zhan said: “Are you going to walk over yourself, or are you waiting for me to make a move?”

Xu Sheng said: “Let’s talk this out nicely, don’t always resort to getting physical…”

Yet in the next second, Shao Zhan really did get physical.

The intensity Shao Zhan had unintentionally revealed before in the last testing room, and on many other occasions, was real. When he made a move, he gave no time to react; his strikes were incredibly fast, his force precise, pinning someone perfectly every time, acting more ruthlessly like a boss than those school tyrants who went out to fight every day.

“Fuck!”

Xu Sheng cursed in a low voice, his back pressed against the door panel. The pinning force wasn’t heavy; Shao Zhan had clearly held back.

Shao Zhan’s hair had grown a bit. When he lowered his head, the fine strands half-covered his eyes, making that “keep away from strangers” vibe even more pronounced. His jawline was smooth, as if carved by a knife, and further down was the teenager’s prominent Adam’s apple. Xu Sheng watched that Adam’s apple bob a few times.

Shao Zhan: “What did that English sentence mean.”

Xu Sheng couldn’t be bothered to resist. Since there was a door panel, he just leaned against it: “As the ancients said, ‘Reading ten thousand books, writing as if guided by the gods’… isn’t that how it’s translated?”

Xu Sheng added: “To elevate the tone of your English composition, I went out of my fucking way to find a famous quote. The translation is so exquisite. I never even displayed such superb English proficiency during my own exams. I can’t believe you and Old Meng didn’t even notice.”

“…” So you actually feel wronged.

Xu Sheng: “Think about it, think about it carefully. Doesn’t the sound of flipping books go huahua, and writing go shuashua?”

Shao Zhan: “You better just shut up.”