When Su Yunluo first started high school, there was someone she really disliked.
A boy.
But honestly, “dislike” wasn’t enough to describe it. There was also admiration mixed in, jealousy too, and a faint trace of something like—hate.
Because that boy was the reason her high school life started off like a joke.
His name was Xie Chen.
Their first meeting began with a competition, triggered by exam results.
In the summer of 2005, the entrance exam results were released.
Su Yunluo scored the best result of her entire academic life—22nd in the city.
Throughout middle school, she had never even entered the top three of her class. But that moment was like a tree that had stayed silent for years suddenly blooming. It shocked everyone so much that the way they looked at her completely changed.
During the summer break, Su Yunluo kept replaying that moment of glory, trying to figure out what she had done right so she could repeat it. But no matter how she looked at it, the “experience” boiled down to this:
First, she attended City Experimental Middle School, already one of the best junior high schools in the city.
Second, she wasn’t weak in any subject. She wasn’t outstanding in math, physics, or chemistry, and she wasn’t especially strong in politics or history either, but every subject was steady, with no obvious weaknesses.
Third, she was in excellent condition during the exam. On those two exam days, she performed unusually well.
After thinking it through, there really wasn’t anything special to learn from it.
On the other hand, the previous top student in her class, a girl named Shi Ranran, saw the rankings and realized Su Yunluo had beaten her by more than twenty points. She immediately sneered and said:
“If the exam is too easy, it’s not good at all. It doesn’t show who the real top students are. Instead, it just lets some average people get lucky and move ahead!”
It was the first day the results came out, and many students were crowded at the homeroom teacher’s house checking their scores. As soon as Shi Ranran said that, the room went completely silent.
Su Yunluo had been staring blankly at her own score. When she finally reacted, she realized everyone’s eyes were fixed on her.
Her elementary school desk mate, Yuan Weining, immediately stepped forward and asked Shi Ranran:
“What do you mean by that?”
Shi Ranran raised her eyebrows. “Exactly what I said.”
Yuan Weining shot back, “You’re just jealous! You can’t accept losing, right?”
Su Yunluo pulled Yuan Weining back and looked at Shi Ranran, who stood there arrogantly surrounded by her group of so-called friends.
Many people said Su Yunluo had a pair of eyes that didn’t look aggressive at all.
Her eyes were very light in color, and when she looked at people, she always seemed a little distant, almost dreamy. But that day, many people saw something different.
Those dreamy eyes curved slightly, and a cold hint of sarcasm appeared as she looked at Shi Ranran and said calmly:
“Did your brain grow backwards? When the exam is hard, you do well, but when it’s easy, you suddenly get overtaken?”
Shi Ranran’s face immediately darkened.
She was used to being first in class. She was also pretty, tall, came from a good family, and always acted like the queen of the class. She liked forming small cliques and pulling people into her circle.
And Su Yunluo had never been someone she could control or include.
Because many people said Su Yunluo was more beautiful than her.
Shi Ranran had also secretly sized her up before—the girl many boys in their class called the “class beauty,” Su Yunluo. She wasn’t as tall, but her skin was much fairer and her features more refined. She had heard her family background wasn’t bad either. The only thing that reassured her was that Su Yunluo seemed quiet, not very social, and her grades were just average. Even at her best, she only made it into the top ten.
Putting it all together, Shi Ranran naturally felt she had the upper hand and always placed Su Yunluo below her without hesitation.
But no one expected that during the high school entrance exam, Su Yunluo’s results would suddenly skyrocket, and even her personality seemed to change—she had become someone who could actually talk back.
And just like that, the two of them became enemies.
Su Yunluo, for her part, looked down on Shi Ranran’s “just luck” explanation. Compared to luck, she preferred another idea—that maybe deep down, she really was a top student, just that her talent had been buried for too long and finally woke up during the exam.
So what if she was a top student anyway? People like Shi Ranran couldn’t accept losing and blamed the paper for being too easy. If that kind of twisted logic counted as a “top student mindset,” then why couldn’t she be one too?
In September 2005, Su Yunluo walked into Liang City No. 1 High School carrying that old grudge—and a slightly new confidence that she might actually be a top student.
During the early days of military training, life was surprisingly smooth. Her entrance exam score still stood out even in this school full of high achievers. She ranked first in her class, was appointed chemistry class representative by the homeroom teacher, and for the first time, she didn’t need to try—many girls came to befriend her on their own.
Unfortunately, that peaceful time didn’t last long. Right after military training ended, the title “top student” dragged her into a competition that first shook two classes, then spread across the entire school.
That year, Liang City No. 1 High School hired several young teachers. The homeroom teachers of Class 6, where Su Yunluo studied, and Class 5 next door were both fresh graduates from a top university.
They were once classmates, now colleagues, and because their classes were next to each other, they naturally became close. During morning and evening self-study sessions, students often saw them chatting by the corridor railing.
But being young also meant being competitive. It was said that the school mixed the top 37 scorers and assigned classes randomly. The homeroom teachers drew lots.
Teacher Song from Class 6 got Su Yunluo, ranked 16th in the grade.
Teacher Sun from Class 5 got a boy ranked 32nd—Xie Chen.
Teacher Song was pleased for a while, believing this meant Class 6 would outperform Class 5. Teacher Sun, however, insisted that Xie Chen was a hidden talent and said the boy looked like someone who could get into Tsinghua or Peking University.
After classes officially began, one evening during self-study, the two teachers brought the topic up again in the corridor.
Teacher Song said unhappily, “If that’s how you see it, are you saying the top student in our class doesn’t have that potential?”
Teacher Sun just smiled. After being pressed, he glanced back at the classrooms and stepped aside slightly.
“We’ve all been through this,” he said. “I’m not looking down on girls. But honestly, your class’s top student—if she chooses liberal arts, fine. But if she goes into science, do you really think she can stay ahead of Xie Chen? In middle school, girls can still lead through hard work, but in high school, effort alone isn’t enough. Boys naturally have an advantage in logical thinking.”
“I don’t like hearing that,” Teacher Song replied. “Even though I’m a man, I don’t agree with looking down on girls like that.”
“That’s not looking down on them. It’s just the truth.”
“The truth is there are plenty of girls who are great at science.”
“But they’re still the minority.”
Teacher Sun chuckled. “High school is usually where the gap between boys and girls shows up. Maybe in the first monthly exam, Xie Chen will already surpass her. Want to bet?”
Su Yunluo’s seat was in the second row by the window near the front of Class 6. Even though the teachers kept their voices low, every word still drifted clearly into her ears.
A few girls nearby also heard it and started whispering:
“Did you hear that? How can a teacher say something like that?”
“Exactly. That kind of thinking is so outdated.”
Yuan Weining, who had entered high school and once again ended up sitting with Su Yunluo, immediately defended her friend.
“I heard their class’s top student was only a bit behind Yunluo when they entered school. Where is Teacher Sun getting his confidence from? Yunluo, don’t let him look down on you!”
Of course Su Yunluo didn’t want to be looked down on.
But at that moment, her thoughts had already drifted away.
To something completely unrelated to grades.