BTO CH60

Linjiang Sixth High Forum.

Pinned Post: Our School’s Honor Student Shao Zhan, Champion of the 14th Four Schools Joint Competition, Discusses His Outlook on This Year’s Competition.

As soon as the post went up, it sparked a massive response.

2L: Linjiang Sixth High is badass! Study God is badass!

3L: Our school is really hardcore!

4L: Hahahaha I sneaked over to Yinghua yesterday and saw their pinned post, was just about to say our school should make one too, and here it is.

…

18L: Is no one mentioning the content? This interview is fucking explosive. Savor the word ‘talent’—Yinghua will probably die of anger when they see it.

In the post, Shao Zhan still wore that cold face. Actually, the school newspaper reporter’s photography skills were utterly demonic, but it couldn’t mask the high face value of the person in the photo. He looked good from any angle. The teenager’s brows were sharp, his hair had grown a bit longer, and even his unusually lazy sitting posture looked as though he were scorning Yinghua.

19L: That aside, I was totally killed by Study God’s posture…

20L: @DuanYaosheng.

21L: Tagged the wrong person, let me do it: @DuanMustLose.

Xu Sheng’s impersonation using Shao Zhan’s shell had successfully bluffed through the interview, but because the interview content was far too arrogant, it was nothing short of adding fuel to the fire.

When Zhang Feng’s message came through, Xu Sheng was pretending to listen to the lecture.

During this Chinese class, Meng Guowei was leading the students through a text: “Open your books. This paragraph needs to be memorized. Go recite it to your group leaders after class on your own. Let’s look at the first paragraph—”

Xu Sheng listened to the class while passing a note with his… desk mate.

Although Xu Sheng engaged in sleeping and playing games during class, passing notes was a first.

In the past, his desk mates were always somewhat afraid of him. Even when they realized later that this school tyrant didn’t really get physical with people, they still couldn’t cultivate much affection. Although Xu Sheng was very capable of building good relationships, his mood during freshman year truly wasn’t good; he had wanted to go to Liyang Second High, yet ended up here of all places.

He only started loosening up in the second semester of sophomore year, but the group he hung out with, like Zhang Feng, sat far away.

• My grade ranking has never escaped the bottom three, let alone competitions. I don’t even hand in homework. If I tell Old Meng I want to participate in the Four Schools Joint Competition, don’t you think it’s absurd?
• Absurd.
• Let’s use another method.
• Is there any other method?
• …No.

Since it was just passing a note and no one else could see, neither suppressed their handwriting anymore. Xu Sheng wrote freely, while Shao Zhan reverted to his right hand.

The handwriting of the two on the note was wildly different, pushing the contrast between beautiful and ugly to the extreme.

Xu Sheng spaced out for two seconds staring at Shao Zhan’s handwriting, wondering in his heart how anyone could write so beautifully.

After writing “No,” Xu Sheng paused before continuing to write.

• Unless Old Meng goes crazy, there’s no way he’ll agree. Besides, who’s going to tell him?

After writing, Xu Sheng pushed the note over. Holding his phone in one hand, Shao Zhan swiftly scribbled a single character with his pen using his other hand, then pushed it back.

“So the meaning of this paragraph, to summarize, is a deep feeling of yearning for one’s hometown,” Meng Guowei said, holding his book and walking around from the adjacent group. “Let’s look at the second paragraph.”

Meng Guowei had absolutely no idea that two students in his class weren’t listening to the lecture, and were currently plotting how to give him a “surprise” later: “The second paragraph pulls away from memories as the author returns to reality. In just a few short years, things have remained while people have changed…”

Seeing Meng Guowei about to walk around to his and Shao Zhan’s desk, Xu Sheng didn’t dare make any large movements for fear of arousing suspicion. So, without even looking in Shao Zhan’s direction, he reached out his hand based on the impression of where Shao Zhan had pushed it back earlier.

He didn’t grab the paper; instead, he grabbed Shao Zhan’s hand.

“…”

The ceiling fans whirred overhead.

Xu Sheng froze as if bewitched.

Not until Shao Zhan curled his fingers and moved, then flipped his palm upward to pass the note tucked inside his palm to him.

Clutching the note, Xu Sheng no longer had the mind to see what exactly Shao Zhan had written on it. He only knew that the frequency of his heartbeat at this moment overlapped perfectly with countless accidents from before.

After finishing reading the second paragraph, Meng Guowei lifted his head from the book, coincidentally missing Shao Zhan’s movement, completely unaware of anything amiss.

This Chinese class only managed to cover half of the new text.

“That’s all for today’s class,” Meng Guowei organized his lesson plans, leaning over to close the PPT. “Class dismissed, take a break everyone.”

The character Shao Zhan replied with was: “You.”

Xu Sheng was genuinely terrified of the teachers’ office now: “Why should I go?”

“You are Shao Zhan right now,” Shao Zhan said. “He might still believe what you say. If I go say it, am I just waiting to be chased out by him?”

That was true. Anything coming out of Shao Zhan’s mouth, no matter how nonsensical, might actually be believed by teachers.

The love the school’s teachers had for Shao Zhan was far too blind.

As they spoke, Meng Guowei unplugged his USB drive and was about to head out.

The difficulty of this mission was too high. Xu Sheng racked his brains but couldn’t think of how Meng Guowei would ever agree to let Xu Sheng participate in the competition. Wasn’t this utter bullshit? “Then what should I say?”

“Say you want to study,” Shao Zhan pulled him up, his next words settling Xu Sheng’s nerves. “I’ll go with you.”

The matter of signing up for the competition had to be addressed sooner or later.

With Shao Zhan accompanying him, Xu Sheng’s emotions stabilized significantly. He could even calmly think of countermeasures on the way to the office. Before pushing the office door open, he actually came up with one: “What do you think about this excuse: Shao Zhan discovered Xu Sheng’s hidden competition talent?”

Inside the teachers’ office, there was dead silence.

Moreover, it was an extraordinarily abnormal silence, as if separated by a wall, making the inside and outside of the office feel like two completely different worlds.

Meng Guowei stood dumbstruck. Picking up the freshly poured tea next to him, he forgot to drink it: “…”

Not only was Meng Guowei dumbfounded, but Zhou Yuan nearby—who had unexpectedly heard “Shao Zhan” walk in and say, “Teacher Meng, I have some thoughts regarding the Four Schools Joint Competition. I’d like to recommend Student Xu Sheng”—was also dumbfounded.

Zhou Yuan stood on the balcony, maintaining a watering posture, the water pouring endlessly from the watering can like a pantomime: “…”

Xu Sheng had his answer.

This excuse was clearly terrifying.

Meng Guowei had initially been wondering what happened for Xu Sheng and Shao Zhan to come see him together.

Yet upon hearing that sentence, his inner world collapsed even more severely than the moment he learned of Shao Zhan’s monthly exam score.

“What did you say?” Meng Guowei’s hand was scalded by the teacup, forcing him to set it down. “Who do you want to recommend?”

Xu Sheng: “Xu Sheng.”

Meng Guowei: “Why… why do you want to recommend…” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words ‘Xu Sheng’.

His proudest student came to him to recommend Xu Sheng.

Xu Sheng, the student who scored dead last in both the placement test and the monthly exam.

No, not just these two exams. Pushing the timeline further back, throughout the entirety of his freshman year, he had only left the dead-last position once. Aside from needing a pen to write self-reflections, he probably wouldn’t even touch one the rest of the time.

Before coming, Xu Sheng thought he couldn’t do it, but he hadn’t expected that a person’s bottom line could constantly shift downward.

“Teacher,” Xu Sheng didn’t bat an eye. “It’s like this. After being desk mates with Student Xu Sheng for a while, I feel he’s quite different from what I originally imagined. He is brave, kind…”

Shao Zhan coughed beside him: “Off topic.”

“…” Oh.

Xu Sheng retracted his excessive self-praise and pulled his rainbow farts back onto the right track: “He’s actually very smart. I think he has competition talent.”

Shao Zhan spoke up at the right moment: “I have also realized the importance of studying and want to invest my time and energy into learning. I hope Teacher can give me a chance to prove myself by participating in the competition.”

Xu Sheng.

Having competition talent.

This was the most unbelievable sentence Meng Guowei had ever heard in his decades-long teaching career.

Zhou Yuan beside them was also thinking in his heart: I’ve taught Xu Sheng for a whole semester, how come I didn’t see that he was a math prodigy???

But the person saying this was Shao Zhan.

Shao Zhan’s strength and level were recognized by all the teachers. As long as he maintained his usual performance in municipal competitions, getting guaranteed admission to university in the future wouldn’t be an issue at all.

Coming from the mouth of such a student, those words carried an inexplicably bizarre persuasiveness.

Meng Guowei and Zhou Yuan exchanged a glance: “How did you see… that Xu Sheng has talent?”

He had absolutely zero talent to begin with.

How could he possibly see it?

Xu Sheng could only keep spouting nonsense: “Yesterday, when I was doing a competition test paper… there was one problem where Student Xu Sheng provided me with a line of reasoning.”

He glossed over it vaguely, only saying there was a problem, leaving Shao Zhan to pick up the slack: “It was a solid geometry problem. The known distance was between two skew lines rather than the line distance, requiring a transformation.”

Once “Xu Sheng” stated the specific problem and reasoning, the bizarre feeling in Meng Guowei’s heart grew even stronger.

Actually, thinking about it carefully, Shao Zhan’s description wasn’t necessarily illogical. Some students indeed possessed a natural advantage in logical thinking abilities.

It wasn’t as if Linjiang Sixth High hadn’t had degenerate students before whose thinking abilities were actually excellent, who didn’t listen much in class but could draw inferences from a single hint with just a little guidance.

Students who could test into Sixth High didn’t have bad foundations to begin with.

Even Zhang Feng from Class 1 next door could sometimes write out the general logic for reflection problems left by teachers.

Connecting this with Shao Zhan’s words, and thinking back to those blank homework notebooks Xu Sheng had handed in since freshman year, right now they all became actions that spurred the imagination—precisely because they were so blank, so utterly devoid of studying, saying he had potential truly wasn’t impossible.

Taking ten thousand steps back, as long as Xu Sheng had the intention to mend his ways and turn over a new leaf, as a teacher, he couldn’t possibly dampen his spirits.

The Four Schools Joint Competition was an elimination system anyway, not an orthodox professional competition. Non-competition students participating was actually no big deal.

When the time came, Xu Sheng would at most just go on stage for a single round before getting eliminated.

Thinking of this, Meng Guowei made up his mind.

“It’s fine if you want to participate, as long as you can complete the competition homework on time. Of course, not just competition homework—starting today, you must hand in homework for every subject, and you cannot let your mind wander in class. If I catch you even once, forget about the competition. Can you do that?”

Xu Sheng answered promptly: “He can.”

Shao Zhan would be writing it all anyway.

As a reserve for the Four Schools Joint Competition, Xu Sheng attended the competition training camp with Shao Zhan after school that day.

With the competition approaching, the competition students consciously stayed behind after school every day, gathering in Meeting Room 3 to do problems.

Today’s pinned post by the Study God had also pumped these competition students full of adrenaline, making their enthusiasm for doing problems unprecedented—until they saw the Study God and the School Tyrant walk in one after the other.

The stark contrast between the school uniform and the T-shirt was glaring.

“What’s the situation? Can someone explain this?”

“This is Xu Sheng, right? Did he come to fight? Which of you provoked him?”

“…”

Ignoring the whispering voices around them, Xu Sheng and Shao Zhan grabbed two test papers from the podium and headed straight to the back row.

There were fewer people in the back row.

And thanks to “Xu Sheng,” after he sat down, no one dared sit in the back row, including the row right in front of them.

Competition training was truly boring. At first, Xu Sheng could still prop his chin up and use his pen to write a few “Solutions” on the paper, but after ten minutes, he was bored out of his mind.

The original plan was for Xu Sheng to write his own paper, simply copying and tweaking the answers from Shao Zhan’s paper. The accuracy didn’t need to be high; in fact, a high accuracy would look unrealistic.

He sighed, sprawled over his desk, flipped his pen backward, and poked Shao Zhan: “Don’t want to write.”

Shao Zhan, however, seemed very accustomed to it; after all, he had participated in countless competitions, big and small. Scanning his test paper from beginning to end, taking advantage of the students in front not paying attention, he said in a low voice, “Give me your test paper.”