The monthly exam was scheduled for Thursday and Friday, giving students two days to recover afterward.
The exam venue was in their own classroom. Before handing out the papers, the teacher had them all turn around to face the back. Only the students in the last row needed to move their benches to the front, saving everyone the usual hassle of turning their desks around.
"Wouldn't it be easier to just move everyone forward one seat? Then the last row wouldn't have to switch places either."
"Bro, the teacher's doing this so you can be generous and share your cheat notes with the person in front of you."
The speaker wasn't annoyed at having his scheme exposed by Chu Hang. He grinned and clasped his hands in a salute. "Then I'll be counting on Brother Chu's help later."
"Mutual assistance."
Because the teacher's attitude wasn't too stern, the students weren't tense either. Especially around An Ning's seat—before the exam, "brother" and "big brother" were being tossed around left and right.
"Sister An, if you run into trouble, just say the word. If there's anything your little brother here can do, I'll do my best."
Chu Hang had already greased the wheels with everyone around him. Thinking of something, he turned to look at An Ning.
An Ning was organizing her pencil case. Shi Jiayan loved buying pens and often gifted her the same ones, so without realizing it, An Ning had gone from never needing a pencil case—just a single gel pen stuffed in her drawer—to now having a whole pile of mechanical pencils, brush pens, and gel pens with colorful casings.
Hearing Chu Hang's words, An Ning raised an eyebrow. "Little Brother Chu, you'd better worry about saving your own skin first."
Just yesterday, she'd heard him wail about his dog life being doomed after the teacher announced the monthly exam.
"Ugh…"
Chu Hang was about to pour out his grievances when the proctor barked, "Boy in the second-to-last row, turn your head around. One more word and it's a zero."
Chu Hang shrank his neck and quickly whipped his head back around.
The first subject was Chinese. Seeing that eighty percent of it covered what they'd studied this month, An Ning wrote smoothly.
After finishing the first subject without a hitch, the second subject—math—held little difficulty in An Ning's eyes either.
But something happened during the exam.
While An Ning was focused on answering questions, she heard the teacher cough beside her. She looked up, bewildered, and heard the teacher remind Dong Da to pull his paper onto the desk.
She glanced toward Dong Da. Whether intentional or careless, half of his paper, filled with answers, was hanging off the side of the desk. At An Ning's distance, she could read the contents of his paper clearly.
After being reminded by the teacher, Dong Da pulled his paper up—but before long, he let it hang down again.
Noticing Dong Da's movements from the corner of her eye, An Ning suddenly recalled how Dong Da had loudly boasted before the exam that his math scores were pretty good. Her lips twitched. Wasn't Dong Da setting a trap for her?
Thinking of this, after finishing her paper, An Ning looked over at Dong Da's.
Perhaps afraid she'd copy the real answers, Dong Da had already finished the big questions on the last page. When An Ning looked over, the entire page had only one correct answer to one sub-question.
With Dong Da leaving his paper out like that, quite a few people would sneak glances. The proctor noticed this and walked back to the middle of that group.
Noticing An Ning's gaze, he was about to scold her when An Ning raised her head first, gesturing for the teacher to look at her paper.
The paper An Ning had spread on her desk was the back page.
Like Dong Da's, it was filled with complete answers to the big questions, but the two sets of answers were poles apart.
None of the proctors for each subject were from the students' own class, but all of them were the subject teachers.
The one who wrote the correct answer was obvious at a glance. The proctor's expression turned strange, and he stopped paying attention to Dong Da, instead focusing intently on An Ning's exam paper. After finishing the back page, he even manually flipped it over for her.
After estimating her score, the proctor's gaze was meaningful—he had no idea Class Nine had such an excellent math student.
"Enjoyed copying, didn't you?"
As soon as the math papers were collected, Dong Da immediately stood up and sneered down at An Ning from above.
"Bro, you didn't even pass. Who would copy from you?"
The results from last month's exam were still posted on the blackboard at the back of the classroom. Chu Hang heard Dong Da's words, squinted, and glanced at the list.
"What's it got to do with you? Even if I failed, I'm still better than dead last."
Dong Da genuinely didn't understand. First there was Shi Jiayan, and now a Chu Hang had popped up to speak for An Ning. Wasn't she someone everyone used to shun? How did she suddenly make friends in Class Nine?
"The proctor kept looking at An Ning's paper the whole time. If it were a bad paper, he wouldn't have stared at it that long."
Lu Jingya walked to the back to throw away trash and also said a word for An Ning.
"Dong Da, your paper was lying out in the open like that, and the teacher stood right next to you without even reminding you—clearly it was a disaster."
Lu Jingya was the class discipline monitor, hot-tempered and academically excellent. Seeing even her speak up for An Ning, the others chimed in too.
"Disaster is right."
The student sitting directly in front of An Ning had slightly better grades. Thinking about how he'd doubted himself after seeing Dong Da's answers and had recalculated three times, then compared answers with others—he truly admired Dong Da's confidence.
"You all—"
When Dong Da used to bully An Ning, only Shi Jiayan would speak up. Now seeing everyone around him mocking him, he shoved the table hard.
"When the papers come back, you'll see what that An scores!"
"Isn't this what they call 'turning red with shame and then anger'?"
Seeing Dong Da charge out of the classroom, Chu Hang clicked his tongue twice.
"Right now it's shame turning to anger. When the papers come back, he'll be a cornered dog jumping the wall."
Shi Jiayan added.
Chu Hang applauded approvingly: "So cultured."
"Why are you following us?"
After the math exam, school let out early. Shi Jiayan and An Ning headed to the cafeteria, and when they got downstairs, they found Chu Hang trailing behind them. Shi Jiayan glared at him.
This stinky boy wasn't thinking that just because he said one word for An Ning, he could latch onto her An Ning, was he?
Chu Hang was thinking about the favor he needed to ask An Ning later. He'd meant to act serious, but meeting Shi Jiayan's wary gaze, he couldn't help crossing his arms and wiggling his body: "I just wanna play with the pretty sisters~"
An Ning and Shi Jiayan both shuddered, brushing off the goosebumps his act gave them.
"We don't want to."
"Don't be like that~"
Chu Hang squeezed his voice into a whine, looking as punchable as possible.
Shi Jiayan grabbed An Ning's hand and ran toward the cafeteria, while Chu Hang chased behind them, hopping with his feet turned inward.
This farce didn't end until Shi Jiayan and An Ning had gotten their food and sat down.
Chu Hang sat down across from them. Seeing Shi Jiayan still panting for breath, he sighed: "Classmate Shi, you're so close with An Ning—why don't you learn from her and go running every morning?"
"None of your damn business."
"I'm just concerned about you."
As he said this, Chu Hang placed the chicken leg from his own tray onto her dish.
Shi Jiayan's eyes flew wide open at his action, nearly choking on her breath. It wasn't until she saw him place the other chicken leg into An Ning's bowl that she finally exhaled in relief.
"I deliberately left an empty compartment in my tray to buy these for you two—don't think I'm gross or anything."
An Ning: "Nothing good ever comes from sudden kindness."
Shi Jiayan: "Exactly—where there's a fox, there's mischief."
Chu Hang whimpered, pretending to cry: "I'm just looking out for my classmates! How could you think so poorly of me? But hey, beautiful An, are you interested in signing up for any events at the winter sports meet? Like high jump, or running—those would be a piece of cake for you."
"Winter sports meet?"
An Ning knew Chu Hang had come to her for a reason. She'd figured he'd get around to it on his own, so she hadn't pressed him. She hadn't expected it to be about the sports meet.
She didn't even know Chu Hang was the PE committee member.
"Has anyone signed up for the women's long-distance run?"
Hearing An Ning's question, Chu Hang's eyes lit up. Their class had very few athletic girls—every other event took forever to recruit for, let alone long-distance. Last semester, he'd nearly had to put on a wig and run the women's long-distance himself.
Hearing An Ning offer to solve his biggest headache right off the bat, Chu Hang smiled ingratiatingly: "No, no one's signed up, Sister An! You're the light of Class Nine!"
"The long-distance at the sports meet is 1,500 meters. Ningning, why not sign up for a short sprint instead?"
Shi Jiayan could barely finish the 800-meter fitness test. Hearing An Ning wanted to do long-distance, even knowing An Ning had a daily morning-run habit, she still found it terrifying.
"It's fine. I'm not promising any medals."
An Ning's last sentence was directed at Chu Hang.
"Just filling the spots is enough—medals don't matter. The arts class is full of sports students anyway, so don't feel pressured, Sister An."
"Ningning, I'll train with you." Shi Jiayan paused after speaking, then added, "I'll sign up for shot put."
"Great, great! Shi classmate is awesome too!"
Chu Hang grinned like a kindly old grandpa. Quite a few girls avoided shot put because they'd be stereotyped as bulky, making that event another recruitment nightmare.
"Sister An, you're already beautiful enough—no need to diet. Eat more, eat more!"
Problem solved, Chu Hang lowered his head to eat. His gaze swept across An Ning's tray and he noticed that besides the chicken leg he'd given her, everything else on her plate was vegetables.
And even the vegetables—she'd only gotten two portions. It was just that the cafeteria auntie had given her extra out of favoritism, so at a glance it wasn't obvious.
Compared to her, Shi Jiayan's tray had both braised pork and fish cutlets.
"Mind your own business."
Reminded by Chu Hang, Shi Jiayan suddenly remembered that his interruption had made her forget something important. She split half her meat dishes into An Ning's bowl. "Ningning's not dieting—I am. Ningning's just not picky and helping me share the load."
"Don't give back the chicken leg—that's my humble tribute to you two ladies."
Seeing Shi Jiayan's chopsticks touch the chicken leg, Chu Hang hastily pulled his tray away.
"Who'd give it back to you!"
Shi Jiayan took a vicious bite of the chicken leg. "Ningning, you eat too—he chased us all the way here, this is his compensation!"
After the meal, Chu Hang couldn't very well keep following the two girls. He strolled along slowly with his hands clasped behind his head, when something suddenly hit him: "Holy crap!"
He remembered the rumor that An Ning had cut ties with her parents and had her allowance cut off. So An Ning eating plain vegetables wasn't about staying in shape—it was because she had no money?
That was too tragic.
She didn't even have money for food, yet she was still willing to run long-distance.
If anyone were around to watch him perform right now, he'd immediately start applauding An Ning while shedding tears.
After the two-day exam, An Ning walked Shi Jiayan out of the school gate and, on the way, stopped by the police station to pick up her ID card.
The ID card from the year 2000 was the first-generation ID, with a gray-and-white color scheme and a fifteen-digit ID number.
With her ID in hand, An Ning first went to open a passbook account, depositing the 1,800 yuan she had on her, and keeping 50 yuan in cash.
Chu Hang thought she had no money for food, but that was completely overthinking it.
Having grown up in a welfare home, her frail body made An Ning feel insecure about food. She ate well for breakfast and lunch, and for dinner, Shi Jiayan was genuinely trying to lose weight—she wanted meat but couldn't finish a full portion on her own.
Occasionally, An Ning would buy a small gift to make it up to Shi Jiayan.
Aside from that, she was genuinely frugal. Otherwise, she wouldn't have spent only 160 yuan in over twenty days.
Even with money in hand, she still lived so thriftily because she hadn't yet tested whether her money-making ideas were reliable, and she wanted to keep some funds as a safety net.
In her previous life, she never bought lottery tickets or stocks, so having traveled back to this point in time, she couldn't rely on those paths to get rich overnight.
Apart from the legal knowledge stored in her mind, she had some understanding of the internet.
This era was exactly when internet cafes were booming.
Seizing the opportunity to register domain names could earn her a decent sum.
Moreover, in her own era, she could take on legal translation side jobs from English to Chinese, so in this era, such skills should be even rarer.
Since it concerned whether she could afford meat in the future, after opening her passbook, An Ning took her ID and went straight to an internet cafe about half an hour's walk from the First High School.
Internet cafes in this era didn't even bother with the pretense of checking IDs.
Because of that, the cafe was thick with smoke and chaos, with many kids in their early teens crowding behind customers to watch them play games. An Ning had originally wanted to find a corner spot.
She picked a target and walked over, only to discover that near her chosen seat, a man was watching porn.
And the male lead was ugly as sin.
An Ning: "…"