“Hello, student Tang Huan. My surname is Xu. You can just call me Teacher Xu.” Principal Xu smiled as he stood up. In truth, he had already met Tang Huan twice before.
Once at Meng Zeyu’s wedding banquet, and once at his funeral. There had been too many people back then, so Tang Huan probably did not remember him.
“Hello, Teacher Xu.” Tang Huan gave a slight bow and expressed her gratitude sincerely. “Thank you for being willing to give me a chance.”
Principal Xu waved his hand and picked up the test papers on the desk. He sympathized with Tang Huan, but rules were rules.
“There’s nothing to thank me for. You’ll have to pass all of these test papers before we can let you repeat the year at this school. Are you prepared?”
Tang Huan nodded. “I’m ready.”
Principal Xu placed the papers on the opposite side of his desk, where another chair was positioned.
“You can sit here and answer the questions. Just treat me like the exam proctor.”
“Okay.”
Tang Huan lowered her head and reached into her backpack to take out a fountain pen. Holding it tightly, she walked over and sat across from the desk.
Behind her, Meng Zeyan quietly surveyed the office before silently walking to a sofa at the side and sitting down. He could not leave just yet, in case Tang Huan failed the exams.
The top paper was the Chinese exam. None of the material went beyond the textbook, and Tang Huan seemed to know all of it. Holding her fountain pen, she barely hesitated as she answered one question after another.
The office was silent except for the soft scratching sound of her writing.
Once she started answering questions, her concentration slowly immersed itself into the test. Gradually, she forgot about her surroundings and no longer cared about being nervous.
In less than an hour, Tang Huan finished the Chinese exam. After reviewing it once more, she set it aside and began the second paper.
Principal Xu sat directly across from her. The moment she put the paper down, he reached over to take it and began grading it.
Tang Huan’s handwriting was neat and elegant, and the paper itself was clean and tidy. Her first impression was already very good.
The second paper was mathematics. Tang Huan took out an exercise notebook from her backpack because some problems required calculations.
After mathematics came English, then history, geography, politics, and biology.
One paper after another was completed, and more than half the afternoon had already passed.
Principal Xu could grade every subject except English. Back in his era, English had not yet been an examination subject.
“You two wait here for a moment. I’ll call someone over.” Principal Xu stood up and walked out of the office.
Tang Huan stared blankly at the proctor leaving just like that and blinked in confusion. Although she had finished everything, the test papers were still right in front of her. Was Teacher Xu not afraid she would cheat?
When Principal Xu returned with someone else, Meng Zeyan teased lightly, “Uncle Xu, you’re pretty trusting. Aren’t you afraid I’ll help her cheat?”
“There are many things I’d worry about, but English isn’t one of them~ You definitely wouldn’t know how!” Principal Xu walked over with an English teacher while joking at Meng Zeyan’s expense.
Meng Zeyan only smiled without speaking.
Who said he did not know English?
Principal Xu had already finished grading all the other papers. Only the English exam remained.
Walking over to the desk, he handed the English paper to the English teacher. “Grade this here and see how many points she gets.”
The English teacher was a bespectacled man. Without wasting words, he pulled a fountain pen from his shirt pocket and began marking the paper.
Tang Huan stood quietly nearby, secretly picking at the edge of the desk with both hands while waiting for the results.
Even after all the other papers had been graded, Principal Xu had not announced the scores. Tang Huan felt she had done fairly well, but she was still afraid of the possibility that she had not.
The English teacher graded quickly. The students had only recently taken this exam, and he had already memorized the answer key thoroughly.
After writing down the score, he handed the paper to the principal. Slowly, he tucked his pen back into his shirt pocket and remained standing beside the desk.
“Ninety-seven points?” Principal Xu looked surprised at the score written on the English paper. At present, even the best English student in their school only scored in the eighties.
English had only recently become a compulsory subject, and many students still struggled to adapt.
The English teacher nodded. “That’s right. This student has a strong foundation. The three points deducted were only because she misspelled a few words.”
Setting down the English paper, Principal Xu flipped through the graded exams one by one.
Chinese: 112.
Mathematics: 120.
Biology: 44.
History: 89.
Geography: 82.
Politics: 93.
English: 97.
Full marks in mathematics, and extremely high scores in both Chinese and English. The scores in the other subjects were not low either.
“How did you fail to get into university back then?” Principal Xu genuinely could not understand. With these scores, getting into university would have been more than easy enough.
Tang Huan obviously could not say that the original owner had been a poor student, so after considering her words carefully, she explained, “At the time, my grades were too poor. Later, I studied at home by myself every day.”
Originally, Principal Xu only sympathized with Tang Huan a little. But now, along with sympathy, he also felt moved.
This child was truly a good child!
Three years after graduating high school, she had studied every single day and finally achieved scores like these. It had not been easy at all.
“Principal, let this student join our class. Since I’m already here, I can bring her over myself.” The English teacher had been waiting for half the day and finally managed to speak about the main topic.
Principal Xu had not expected Teacher Zhang to be so direct. He had originally intended to discuss placing Tang Huan into Class One with the homeroom teacher there. With grades like hers, sending her to Class Two would be a pity.
Could Teacher Zhang fail to notice the principal’s reluctance?
Of course he could.
He simply pretended not to see it.
“Principal, haven’t you seen how overcrowded Class One already is? Every time there’s a good student, you shove them into Class One. There’s barely any space left in there! Our Class Two has plenty of room. Let this student join our class instead!”
Only then did Principal Xu deeply regret his decision.
He should not have tried to save himself a few extra steps by bringing along Teacher Zhang, whom he had happened to run into.
How had he forgotten that Teacher Zhang was the homeroom teacher of Class Two?!
“Student Tang Huan, would you like to join Class One or Class Two?” Principal Xu tossed the difficult decision to Tang Huan. He truly could not outright say he did not want her entering Class Two.
Tang Huan had been standing quietly nearby listening. From their conversation, she could tell that Class One had better academic performance, but there were also more students.
When Principal Xu suddenly asked her opinion, Tang Huan instinctively chose the class with fewer people.
“Class Two.”
Teacher Zhang had thought this promising student was slipping away again. Who would have expected such a sudden reversal?
She had chosen Class Two!
“Student Tang Huan, you’ve got good judgment!” Teacher Zhang could not stop himself from praising her.
Teacher Zhang was delighted, while Principal Xu felt helpless. Still, Tang Huan’s foundation was already excellent, so even Class Two would be fine.
Teacher Zhang had always been dissatisfied that Principal Xu kept sending all the good students to Class One. At long last, he finally had a chance to hold his head high.
“Student Tang Huan, pack your things. Teacher will take you to the Class Two classroom.”
Tang Huan nodded and lowered her head to place her exercise notebook and fountain pen back into her backpack before turning to follow Teacher Zhang outside.
The moment she turned around and saw Meng Zeyan sitting on the sofa, her steps halted.
She had completely forgotten about him.
Meng Zeyan leaned lazily against the sofa backrest with one leg crossed over the other. His entire demeanor was relaxed and unhurried, carrying a lazy composure entirely his own.
“You go to class,” he said lazily to Tang Huan. “I’ll wait here until school ends.”
Tang Huan wanted to tell him to go home first, but after thinking about it, there was not much time left before dismissal anyway. She softly answered, “Okay,” and followed Teacher Zhang out of the office.
This high school had been jointly built over a decade ago by several nearby factories. Most of the students studying here were children of factory workers.
The school itself was not very large.
The sports field was simply the large open area after entering the campus.
There were eight classrooms in a row, though only five were actually in use. There were two classes for second-year students and three classes for first-year students.
One of the classrooms had been converted into the teachers’ office.
The cafeteria was located behind the classrooms. Lunch was provided every noon, though meal tickets were required to get food.
Since most of the students were children of factory workers who lived nearby, the school did not currently provide dormitories.
Along the way, Teacher Zhang introduced the school’s situation to her in detail while Tang Huan quietly listened beside him.
Very soon, the two arrived outside the Class Two classroom.
Teacher Zhang skillfully leaned against the outside window and peeked inside, immediately catching every student in the classroom who was fooling around.
Tang Huan curved her lips slightly in amusement.
So this move really had been passed down from teacher to teacher through generations.