Since it was Friday, No. 1 Middle School let out after the third period.
But Nan Xingwan’s No. 7 Middle School still had to wait until after the fourth period before school was over.
As agreed in advance with Nan Xingwan, Zhang Chen came to No. 7 Middle School.
In his memory, this was his first time coming to No. 7 Middle School. Ever since he and Nan Xingwan graduated from middle school, it had always been Nan Xingwan who came to No. 1 Middle School to look for him, and he had never once gone to No. 7 Middle School to look for Nan Xingwan.
Zhang Chen looked at the grand school gate, so completely different from No. 1 Middle School’s, and fell into thought for a moment…
Compared with No. 1 Middle School, it was like comparing a high-speed rail station to a bus station: one was so huge you could spot it from hundreds of meters away, while the other was so inconspicuous that you might not even notice it when passing right by.
No. 1 Middle School was located on a small plot of land surrounded by residential buildings. Aside from its somewhat distinctive school gate, the teaching building looked no different from the surrounding apartment blocks. From a few hundred meters away, anyone who didn’t know better would think it was just a residential building!
But No. 7 Middle School was completely different. Just the two stone lions at the school gate and the huge parking lot were enough to draw attention from hundreds of meters away.
And most importantly, inside the campus surrounded by iron fencing, you could see the wide grounds at a glance, including a football field covered in green grass…
Anyone who had gone to high school should understand how valuable that was!
Plenty of colleges didn’t even have football fields!
Even Zhang Chen, who had attended so many high schools and even been to a provincial key school, had never seen one as grand as No. 7 Middle School before!
“Nan Xingwan actually studies at a school like this…” Zhang Chen muttered enviously…
Seeing students in school uniforms already coming out of the teaching building, Zhang Chen immediately found a spot where he could see the school gate and leaned by the roadside to wait for Nan Xingwan.
He waited for about 20 minutes.
Then Zhang Chen heard the official bell of No. 7 Middle School ring, followed by a large wave of students pouring out…
…
“Xingxing, aren’t you staying behind to study a little longer today?” Liang Jingna walked out of the school gate together with Nan Xingwan.
Liang Jingna and Nan Xingwan were looking at a test paper while talking as they walked.
Behind them were two boys who were still reading books even while walking.
Zhang Chen spotted them at a glance and muttered to himself, They even grind while walking… no wonder they’re from the Seven Sects…
Then he walked over to them.
On ordinary weekends, Nan Xingwan would choose to stay in the classroom and do a little more homework first. That way, she would have less homework to do after going home, and she could spend more time doing other things.
Hearing Liang Jingna ask that, she explained, “Yeah, I have to go back to my mom’s place this week.”
“Oh, I see. So, do you have a way to solve this problem?” Liang Jingna nodded and then asked.
“No…” Nan Xingwan shook her head. The paper she was holding was a mock test for a math competition.
“Even you don’t have a solution? This math competition is really deadly…” Liang Jingna sighed. “Why did they have to sign me up for this too? Someone like me who only scores 120 would just be cannon fodder…”
“You can’t say that. After all, it’s the final fill-in-the-blank question,” Nan Xingwan comforted Liang Jingna.
Her own math scores were not much better. She could only steadily score above 130, and if she was lucky, she might get full marks.
“I think the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality might be worth trying.”
Lu Yicheng, who was walking behind the two of them, spoke up. His total score couldn’t compare to Nan Xingwan’s, but in math alone, he was the best among the four of them, usually scoring 135 to 140, and if the questions were easy, he could even score 150.
“Hmm… that does seem possible…” Nan Xingwan nodded in a deep voice, frowning as she thought…
“Zhang Chen?”
At that moment, the boy beside Lu Yicheng, Wei Kongming, suddenly looked at Zhang Chen, who was walking toward them, and said in surprise.
Hearing that, Nan Xingwan immediately raised her head. Seeing Zhang Chen already walking toward her, the tightly furrowed crease between her brows instantly relaxed.
“You’re here so fast?”
“Yeah, I’ve already been waiting for you for 20 minutes.” Zhang Chen came to stand in front of her and said with a raised eyebrow.
“Oh… sorry. I kept you waiting.” As soon as Nan Xingwan heard that, she playfully bowed to Zhang Chen.
Zhang Chen’s mouth twitched…
Beside them, Lu Yicheng sized up Zhang Chen in front of him, then turned to Wei Kongming and whispered, “You know him?”
“Middle school classmate,” Wei Kongming whispered back. “I heard he’s become a delinquent at No. 1 Middle School now. Nan Xingwan has gone to No. 1 Middle School more than once just to clean up messes for him.”
“Oh…” Lu Yicheng suddenly understood.
Seeing that Zhang Chen was still wearing No. 1 Middle School’s school uniform, and then looking at his own No. 7 Middle School uniform, he immediately straightened his chest.
After speaking a couple of words with Zhang Chen, Nan Xingwan introduced Liang Jingna beside her, as well as Wei Kongming and Lu Yicheng behind them.
“Wei Kongming probably doesn’t need me to introduce him, right?” Nan Xingwan said with a smile, looking at Zhang Chen.
“Kongming, yeah, I know him.” Zhang Chen nodded at Wei Kongming as a greeting.
Wei Kongming nodded back as well. The two of them hadn’t been very close in middle school; at most, they were just classmates.
“And this is Lu Yicheng, our class’s study monitor.”
Zhang Chen said, “Hello.”
“Hello. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Lu Yicheng suddenly stepped forward and extended his hand.
“Huh?” Zhang Chen was flattered and shook Lu Yicheng’s hand.
“Nan Xingwan used to take leave to go to No. 1 Middle School all the time, so basically everyone in our class knows about you.” The corners of Lu Yicheng’s mouth lifted slightly.
“Oh… really…” Zhang Chen felt that there was something not entirely friendly in those words.
“I’ve never been to No. 1 Middle School before. I wonder how it compares with our school?” Lu Yicheng continued.
“It’s definitely not as good as your No. 7 Middle School.” Zhang Chen answered honestly, looking as if he couldn’t understand the hidden meaning in Lu Yicheng’s words at all.
“You’re being modest. Being first in all of No. 1 Middle School is still very impressive. You could get into the top hundred of our school.”
Lu Yicheng let go of his hand.
Zhang Chen narrowed his eyes slightly, looking at the provocation from the boy in front of him.
“Hey, what did you score on the last monthly exam?” Lu Yicheng asked again.
“Hmm… just a little over 200.” Zhang Chen still answered honestly, wanting to see what this boy was really trying to say.
“Ah… I see. If I remember correctly, Nan Xingwan, you scored 643, right?” Lu Yicheng looked at Nan Xingwan.
Nan Xingwan frowned. Hearing Lu Yicheng’s somewhat sarcastic tone, she didn’t feel comfortable and didn’t answer him.
Instead, she looked at Zhang Chen and said, “It’s okay. If you study seriously later, you’ll always catch up.”
“It’s a threefold gap. You really need to work harder,” Lu Yicheng said with a smile.
“Hmm… that’s true. What about you? What did you score?” Zhang Chen smiled and admitted his shortcomings, then asked Lu Yicheng in return.
“Me? I scored 621, which is also about three times yours…”
“Oh… impressive, impressive.”
“Not at all. At No. 7 Middle School, 600 is still a fairly average grade.” Lu Yicheng smiled.
Beside them, Wei Kongming and Liang Jingna, who both scored around 600, tilted their heads: ???
Who are you calling average?
After hearing what the boy in front of him said, Zhang Chen let out a light laugh and then glanced at Nan Xingwan.
So this was score discrimination after all. He thought the gap between him and Nan Xingwan was too big, and that he wasn’t worthy of hanging around with them.
Fair enough. He used to look down on people who scored 600 too…
After all, even if he skipped a 150-point Chinese exam, his grades would still be around 580 or 590.
So… wasn’t 600 basically the kind of score you’d get by just skipping one subject?
“Hmm… tsk, yeah, it’s pretty average…” Zhang Chen nodded, agreeing with Lu Yicheng’s statement.
The smile on Lu Yicheng’s face instantly froze.
“Out of 750 full marks, you lose 150 points. That works out to an average of 25 points off per subject. For biology and chemistry, you only need to score 75.”
Zhang Chen spoke while shaking his head.
Lu Yicheng lost interest after hearing that.
A guy who only scored a little over 200 was talking big about how a 600 score was average.
He only called it average to be modest, and Zhang Chen really dared to mock him with that?
In an instant, he didn’t want to talk to Zhang Chen anymore. It was beneath him.
He turned to Wei Kongming and Liang Jingna, and shifted the topic back to the math competition problem:
“Wasn’t the problem just now solvable with Cauchy-Schwarz? What do you think?”
“We need to calculate it.”
“Try it…” Liang Jingna said to Nan Xingwan, then leaned over to her and spread out the test paper.
Because this was a problem Liang Jingna wanted Nan Xingwan to help with, Nan Xingwan had no choice but to signal Zhang Chen with her eyes to wait a moment.
She and the others first solved the problem that was almost finished.
Seeing that, Zhang Chen nodded to show that she could take her time.
So the four top students from No. 7 Middle School began brainstorming on the spot.
Zhang Chen, standing off to the side, looked exactly like an outsider, unable to get involved in the world of top students.
Among them, Lu Yicheng was like a peacock spreading its tail, speaking louder and louder to show how different the level of their conversation was…
Before long, they still hadn’t solved it. Zhang Chen got bored waiting, so he leaned in to see what kind of problem was so difficult.
Nan Xingwan was holding the test paper, and he snatched it from her in one motion. “Let me see.”
“You want to try?” Nan Xingwan chuckled and teased him, not stopping him from taking the paper.
Zhang Chen didn’t feel annoyed by her teasing. Instead, he grinned shamelessly. “Watch me solve it instantly.”
“Pfft…”
“What’s your math score? Can you even understand it?” Lu Yicheng mocked him directly.
Zhang Chen treated it like a dog barking and calmly scanned the questions on the paper.
“Question 9?”
“Yeah.” Nan Xingwan nodded.
Zhang Chen thought for a moment, then answered, “1 or 3.”
“Huh? Why?” Nan Xingwan widened her eyes. She seemed to have heard this answer before in class.
Hearing that answer, Liang Jingna immediately widened her eyes and leaned over. “Hey, yes, the answer is 1 or 3. How did you know?”
“Huh? The answer is 1 or 3?” Lu Yicheng raised an eyebrow.
“I heard Shen Tianyi work it out in class. He even went to ask Teacher Yan about it,” Liang Jingna explained.
Zhang Chen frowned and fell into thought. Back in his original world, he didn’t just take the college entrance exam; he had also participated in all kinds of competitions and contests, and had won plenty of awards…
For a math competition problem at this level, he had already formed muscle memory. At a glance, he could tell the answer.
“Hmm… I guessed.” Zhang Chen looked at the other questions again, then handed the test paper back to Nan Xingwan. “As long as there is an answer, that’s enough. It’s just a fill-in-the-blank question.”
Nan Xingwan said, “No. You at least have to understand how to do it.”
Then, realizing that Zhang Chen had just answered the competition question correctly, she took a lollipop out of her bag. “You’re amazing. This is your reward.”
Zhang Chen: “…”
What was this? Was she treating him like an idiot?
Strawberry-flavored. Pretty sweet…
Then Nan Xingwan continued thinking.
Lu Yicheng looked at this scene and immediately felt sour. “Pretty lucky. You guessed it right on the first try. Then maybe if you join the math competition and guess a few more correctly, you could even score a decent grade.”
“Yeah, my luck has always been pretty good.” Zhang Chen heard the sour tone and pointed at the test paper Nan Xingwan was holding. “a, c, b, c, d, a.”
“I think the answers on this test paper are like this. Two of them are wrong.”
Liang Jingna heard that and leaned over to look at her own test paper as well. “Really?”
“I’m guessing. Just take it as nonsense,” Zhang Chen said with a laugh.
Nan Xingwan nudged Zhang Chen. “Stop messing around. We need to finish so we can go.”
“Oh…”
“Why are you still here?” At that moment, Shen Tianyi, carrying a school bag, came out through the school gate and just happened to see the group still lingering there.
“Perfect timing. Hurry and tell us how to do Question 9!” Liang Jingna saw the math top student from her class and immediately clung to him for help!
“Huh?” Shen Tianyi took the test paper, adjusted his glasses, and said, “1 or 3, yeah…”
Under Shen Tianyi’s explanation, the group finally understood the whole sequence of the problem’s logic, twisted and turning, ridiculously complicated…
Zhang Chen, standing aside, had his whole face scrunched up from listening…
But in order to finish sooner, he didn’t plan to interrupt them.
After a long while, Nan Xingwan said goodbye to the three of them and turned to leave with Zhang Chen.
Shen Tianyi asked curiously, “Who is this guy? He seems to have a really good relationship with the class monitor?”
“Zhang Chen, the one the class monitor always goes to No. 1 Middle School for…” Wei Kongming explained.
“Oh~” Shen Tianyi suddenly understood. “Whose test paper is this?”
“Mine.” Liang Jingna was just about to take it back when Shen Tianyi withdrew his hand again and looked at the test paper a couple more times…
“a, c, d, c, a, a.”
“a, c, b, c, d, a.”
“Two of them are wrong.”
“Huh?” Liang Jingna widened her eyes. “I got two wrong?”
“Yes. Mine had already been graded by Teacher Yan, and the answers are a, c, b, c, d, a. Questions 3 and 5 were wrong.” Shen Tianyi pointed them out and handed the test paper back to Liang Jingna.
“Just now… it seems like that Zhang Chen also said I got two wrong?”
Liang Jingna froze slightly.