Sang Xiaotian’s face turned bright red with embarrassment. Scrambling to his feet on all fours, he hurriedly sat back down.
Jiang Wan looked Sang Xiaotian up and down, but couldn’t immediately figure out where he might have hidden his cheating materials.
A pencil case and a bottle of mineral water. Nothing seemed different from what the other examinees had brought.
However, when he placed the mineral water bottle on the corner of his desk, he nervously rotated it several times, as though performing some compulsive ritual to reassure himself.
Curious, Jiang Wan leaned forward over her desk and took a closer look.
Only then did she notice that the plastic label wrapped around the bottle was densely covered in tiny writing.
The characters were so small they were almost impossible to make out. Unless someone examined the bottle carefully, they would simply assume the writing was part of its original packaging.
Jiang Wan: “…”
If you have enough time to write cheat notes in letters this tiny, wouldn’t it be better to memorise a couple more passages from your textbooks?
She genuinely couldn’t understand this obsessive determination to take shortcuts, especially when it required so much effort.
Sang Xiaotian had been among the last few students to enter the examination room.
Within minutes, the examination began.
The first subject was mathematics.
Without any hurry, Jiang Wan flipped straight to the final page of the examination paper.
Often, the difficulty of the questions on the last page was enough to indicate how difficult the entire paper would be.
She solved the final two extended-response questions first, then raised her eyes to glance at Sang Xiaotian in the seat ahead.
Like the other examinees, Sang Xiaotian had his head lowered and was constantly scribbling calculations on the provided scrap paper.
His brows were tightly furrowed, and his expression was grave.
A few seconds later, his hand slowly moved toward the mineral water bottle on his desk.
Jiang Wan blinked.
With a deliberate application of force, she snapped the lead inside her answer-sheet pencil and raised her hand.
The invigilator immediately stood up and approached Jiang Wan.
Sang Xiaotian withdrew his hand as though he’d been electrocuted.
Jiang Wan said innocently, “My pencil lead broke, and I didn’t bring any spare leads.”
The invigilator suspected nothing.
She turned to look for another student nearby who might be able to help.
Before she could even open her mouth, however, two students had already enthusiastically pulled replacement 2B pencil leads from their pencil cases.
Invigilator: “…”
She casually accepted one container and handed it to Jiang Wan, then gestured for the other student, who looked visibly disappointed, to return to their examination.
Suppressing a smile, Jiang Wan replaced the broken lead and thanked her helpful classmate.
The invigilator didn’t leave immediately.
Instead, she lowered her head and glanced over Jiang Wan’s clean, concise solutions… Which also happened to use methods completely beyond the prescribed curriculum.
She sighed and pointed at one particular line.
Jiang Wan: “…”
Pouting slightly, Jiang Wan quickly wrote out another solution beside it.
This method was considerably more complicated, but at least it used knowledge taught at the junior high school level.
Throughout this process, she didn’t even need to look up to hear Sang Xiaotian anxiously clicking the button on top of his mechanical pencil.
Click, click, click.
When the invigilator finally moved away, she frowned and lightly tapped Sang Xiaotian’s desk.
It was only a simple tap.
Yet Sang Xiaotian was so startled that he fell straight off his chair.
Invigilator: “…”
She gave him a couple of suspicious looks before speaking quietly.
“Keep the noise down. Stop playing with your pencil. You’ll disturb the other students.”
Although the incident was amusing, answering the examination questions was far more important to most students.
After a brief glance, everyone returned their attention to their papers.
Sang Xiaotian climbed back into his chair, his face burning red, and silently nodded twice.
But when he settled back into his seat, he discovered that the mineral water bottle previously sitting on his desk had disappeared.
Panic immediately seized him.
He hurriedly searched the floor.
—The round bottle had fallen during his earlier commotion and rolled all the way to Jiang Wan’s feet, where it gently bumped against her shoe.
Wearing canvas sneakers, Jiang Wan lifted the tip of her foot and made as though she were about to bend down and retrieve the bottle.
How could Sang Xiaotian possibly allow her to touch such undeniable evidence of his cheating?
As though his backside were on fire, he sprang from his seat and lunged toward her feet, managing to grab the bottle first.
Jiang Wan raised her head just in time to avoid being struck.
However, Sang Xiaotian had practically squeezed his entire body into the space beneath her desk.
The desk rattled with a tremendous crash.
Jiang Wan’s examination paper and pencil case fell to the floor along with it.
The invigilator, who had only walked a few steps away, frowned and turned back toward Sang Xiaotian and Jiang Wan.
Suppressing the pain in his head, Sang Xiaotian stammered, “T-Teacher, my water bottle fell. I was just picking it up.”
He struggled back to his feet and casually picked up Jiang Wan’s examination paper.
His gaze lingered greedily over it for several seconds, rapidly scanning the answers.
He didn’t return it immediately.
And precisely because he was distracted by this action, Sang Xiaotian failed to notice that his backup phone had slipped partway out of his sleeve during the fall.
Thus, at the exact moment he placed Jiang Wan’s examination paper back on her desk, his phone slipped free.
Smack!
It hit the floor.
Jiang Wan suddenly felt as though she’d returned to that morning at the beginning of the school term.
Back to the moment when Lin Chengyan’s hair had slowly drifted down from his head.
As the phone fell, Jiang Wan couldn’t help directing her gaze toward Sang Xiaotian’s hair.
The sound of a phone striking the floor was simply too loud in the otherwise silent examination room.
Seven or eight nearby students had personally witnessed the moment it fell.
With so many witnesses, Sang Xiaotian couldn’t possibly explain his way out of it.
His entire body went rigid.
Frowning, the invigilator walked between the desks, picked up the phone, and turned toward Sang Xiaotian.
—If students could search the internet for cheating methods, did they really think teachers couldn’t do the same?
After a brief inspection, the invigilator confiscated Sang Xiaotian’s mineral water bottle as well.
She picked up his answer sheet and examination paper to inspect them.
She discovered that both were almost completely blank.
He had answered only two multiple-choice questions.
And both answers were wrong.
Invigilator: “…”
No wonder he needed to cheat. Those first few questions were practically free marks!
She glanced at Sang Xiaotian, who was nervously tugging at the hem of his clothes so hard he was nearly tearing it apart.
Rather than immediately disqualifying him from the examination, she simply pointed toward his seat and instructed him to continue answering the questions.
Anyone else in his position would have behaved themselves and concentrated on the examination from that point onward.
But Sang Xiaotian, having already discovered the possibility of taking shortcuts, couldn’t bring himself to do that.
He quickly flipped to the final page of the examination paper and wrote down the fragments of answers he remembered seeing on Jiang Wan’s paper.
These were the final extended-response questions, which carried a considerable number of marks.
Many students couldn’t solve them at all.
But Jiang Wan’s answers were definitely correct!
Looking at the few lines of numbers and letters whose meanings he didn’t understand in the slightest, Sang Xiaotian nervously and excitedly licked his lips.
…
With the entertainment over, Jiang Wan handed in her examination paper early.
All the first-year classrooms were occupied, so she couldn’t return to Class Six for self-study.
After gathering her personal belongings, she simply left the teaching building.
Every student from Class Six was taking the examination in Class Eleven.
Class Eleven was the class with the second-highest number in the entire year.
Leaving the examination early, Jiang Wan passed the doors of five classrooms in succession.
Countless envious gazes followed her.
It was only half past ten.
Going straight to the cafeteria for lunch seemed a little too early.
The entire plaza was deserted.
As Jiang Wan stepped out of the teaching building, she even experienced a tiny, inexplicable thrill, almost as though she were skipping class.
Childishly, she spent a while following the lines between the paving stones, walking along a crooked path.
Eventually, she stopped beside the artificial lake.
Quanzhou’s artificial lake stretched across the entire campus.
From almost any corner of the school, at least a small section of it was visible.
It was an indispensable part of the campus landscaping.
Unfortunately, so many graduating students—and a considerable number of students who weren’t graduating—jumped into the lake for fun every year that the school had been forced to establish dozens of lifebuoy stations along its banks.
Jiang Wan lazily sat down beside the lake.
She happened to be beneath the shade of a tree, where a pleasantly cool breeze was blowing.
Unfortunately, she’d only enjoyed a few minutes of peace before she heard another System voice.
First, someone asked with great confidence:
[Once the examination results come out, I’ll finally be able to show off properly, right?]
The System replied: [That depends on how impressed the surrounding NPCs are by your displays of superiority.]
Jiang Wan, whose eyes were closed, sighed inwardly.
Here we go again.
This one was even worse than the previous transmigrator.
At least Chu Yishan had called them “paper people.”
This fellow had gone straight to calling them “NPCs.”
Jiang Wan counted silently in her head and assigned the newcomer a number.
Number Four.
What kind of System would Number Four have?
A Show-Off System?
Speaking of which, did all these Systems buy their voice packages wholesale?
They sounded rather cheap.
[I already showed off by handing in my examination paper early. Won’t it be an even bigger achievement when the results are announced?] the boy said dismissively. [I used every last one of my remaining points to exchange for all the papers in this diagnostic exam in advance. I’ve already worked through every single one! There’s no way I won’t come first this time!]
Jiang Wan remained motionless, her eyes still closed.
Decision made.
Number Four shall henceforth be known as the Cheating System.
Perhaps it would find some common ground with Sang Xiaotian.
[The female protagonist, Jiang Wan, has been detected beside the artificial lake ahead,] the Cheating System announced.
[Oh?] The boy immediately sounded interested. [Excellent. Watch me impress her. If I manage to impress an important character like her, I’ll definitely earn even more reward points, right?]
A question mark slowly appeared in Jiang Wan’s mind.
—You think you can outdo me at showing off?
The boy’s footsteps grew closer.
Finally, he called out with extraordinary confidence.
“Jiang Wan!”
Jiang Wan lazily opened her eyes and looked at him without speaking.
The boy sat down on the grass beside her, adopting an exaggerated Thinker-like pose.
Then, in a dramatic voice, he began reciting:
“This scenery reminds me of a poem.”
Jiang Wan: “…”
…THAT’S the kind of showing off you mean???
I admit defeat.jpg
Jiang Wan struggled to stop her toes from curling in secondhand embarrassment and lowered her head to check her phone.
There were still no messages in her roommates’ group chat.
Presumably, none of them had handed in their examination papers yet.
She seriously considered whether she should head to the cafeteria and reserve some seats.
According to tradition, the cafeteria usually served pineapple rice on examination days, even though it wasn’t normally on the menu.
She could go anywhere, really.
As long as it was far away from this idiotic transmigrator.
“How lovely the lakeside pavilion in the spring breeze; willow branches and trailing vines bind the sorrow of parting,” the boy recited solemnly.
Jiang Wan remained silent.
Her toes slowly curled tighter from sheer embarrassment.
Doesn’t this person realise how painfully awkward this situation is?
We’re not performing on a stage! Who walks up to someone and starts dramatically reciting ancient poetry as a conversation starter?
The boy kept sneaking glances at Jiang Wan from the corners of his eyes.
After several seconds, he couldn’t resist asking his System:
[Why isn’t she reacting? Has she been stunned by my literary knowledge and appreciation of poetry?]
The System replied: [No reaction detected.]
[How troublesome.]
The boy cleared his throat and opened his mouth to continue reciting.
“Since the orioles have dwelled here so long…”
Seeing that he apparently had no intention of stopping, Jiang Wan interrupted him, her scalp tingling with embarrassment.
“Mm. Li Bai’s poetry really is quite good.”
The boy was satisfied.
He nodded modestly.
“I just happened to read this particular poem yesterday.”
The moment he finished speaking, the System mercilessly announced:
[Show-off attempt failed. Two reward points deducted.]
[WHY?!]
Because that poem was written by Rong Yu, not Li Bai, Jiang Wan thought coldly.
Still, this System was surprisingly fair.
Despite normally encouraging its Host to gain advantages through shortcuts, it had delivered such an impartial penalty when his attempt to show off was exposed.
Among the four Systems she’d encountered so far, this one could practically be considered a breath of fresh air.
The boy gave two awkward chuckles and changed the subject.
“I’m Zhou Wenxing from Class Nine. Jiang Wan, I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Hello.”
Jiang Wan responded casually, then stood up and brushed the grass from her skirt.
Her attitude made it perfectly clear that she had no interest in talking to him.
Yet Zhou Wenxing stubbornly continued.
“You handed in your paper early too, right? I also thought this diagnostic exam was a little too easy. Only the final question was remotely interesting, don’t you think?”
“Really?” Jiang Wan said lightly. “I thought the entire paper was pretty easy.”
The showing-off competition had finally entered her territory.
Zhou Wenxing was instantly rendered speechless.
“…”
Jiang Wan waited several seconds.
When she didn’t hear Zhou Wenxing’s System make another announcement, she felt a little disappointed.
So he doesn’t lose reward points when someone else shows off in front of him.
“Being careless like that will eventually cost you,” Zhou Wenxing said, changing tactics and attempting to lecture her. “Carelessness leads to silly mistakes in examinations. You won’t always be ranked first in the year.”
She must be desperate to learn something from me.jpg
“Really?” Jiang Wan replied indifferently. “I’m actually a little curious about when I’ll finally stop coming first.”
Zhou Wenxing’s confidence immediately returned.
With animated excitement, he declared, “Maybe this time, it’ll finally be my turn to rank first!”
Jiang Wan glanced at him.
“Good luck.”
—Coming first because you used a System to obtain the examination papers in advance?
That’s nothing more than deceiving yourself.
“How about a bet?” Zhou Wenxing suggested. “If I come first this time, you have to go out with me alone this weekend.”
Although Quanzhou operated as a boarding school during the week, students were allowed to leave campus or return home on weekends.
Plenty of boarding students also went out for recreation after informing their teachers.
Whether Jiang Wan went home on weekends generally depended on her mood.
She had also gone out with friends on weekends before.
But those outings had either involved groups of people or only other girls.
If she left school alone with Zhou Wenxing, it wasn’t difficult to imagine what kind of gossip would spread.
“Do you like me?” Jiang Wan asked.
Zhou Wenxing’s face instantly turned crimson.
“Wh-Who, who, who, who li—”
“Good. It’s better if you don’t.”
Jiang Wan raised a hand to stop him.
“I’m not making that bet with you.”
“You’re just afraid to bet,” Zhou Wenxing challenged indignantly.
“Afraid to compete academically with someone who doesn’t even know who wrote Farewell to the Lakeside Pavilion When Moving House?”
Jiang Wan chuckled softly and brushed the hair that had fallen across her chest back over her shoulder.
“I simply don’t want you to humiliate yourself.”
Zhou Wenxing refused to give up.
He looked around before pointing toward the clear waters of the artificial lake.
“If you win, I’ll jump into that lake!”
Jiang Wan responded with a cold, indifferent “Oh.”
Then she glanced toward the lifebuoy station a few steps away.
Zhou Wenxing gritted his teeth.
“I CAN SWIM!!”
“I’ll make sure to bring some sodium and throw it into the water to celebrate,” Jiang Wan said with a smile. “I’m looking forward to it, Zhou Wenxing.”
With that, she stood up, brushed off her skirt, and walked away, leaving Zhou Wenxing staring at her retreating back.
[System,] Zhou Wenxing asked in utter bewilderment, [why do I feel like I just became the NPC someone else was repeatedly farming for show-off points?]
The System replied: [She’s the female protagonist. That’s only natural.]
Zhou Wenxing: [CAN’T YOU AT LEAST COMFORT ME A LITTLE?!]
Jiang Wan, who hadn’t yet walked very far, couldn’t help looking back at him.
What a good System.
It was so much better than Sang Xiaotian’s System, which spent every day brainwashing him into believing he was the centre of the universe.
…
The invigilator finally collected all the mathematics examination papers.
Students gradually made their way toward the classroom entrance to retrieve their schoolbags, discussing the examination questions among themselves.
For once, Sang Xiaotian wasn’t lingering at the very back of the crowd.
Instead, he tried his best to push forward.
He wanted to retrieve the phone that hadn’t been confiscated as quickly as possible.
Before his memory faded, he needed to search online and figure out what the answers he’d copied from Jiang Wan’s examination paper actually meant.
His academic performance might have been poor, but he wasn’t genuinely stupid.
When the teachers marked his examination paper and saw those answers, they would certainly wonder how he had obtained such knowledge.
If he could find some relevant information online first, he could claim that he’d happened to encounter the material while reading.
Then the teachers wouldn’t be able to accuse him of cheating.
Sang Xiaotian thought he’d planned everything perfectly.
Unfortunately, just as he picked up his schoolbag, the invigilator called out to him.
“Sang Xiaotian, come to the office for a moment.”
Sang Xiaotian froze.
He slowly turned around.
He felt as though every classmate’s gaze was burning into him, like poisoned arrows filled with contempt and disdain.
The examination had only just ended, so large numbers of students were gathered in the corridors, heading toward the cafeteria.
Sang Xiaotian followed the invigilator in the opposite direction to everyone else.
His head hung so low that it was almost buried in his chest.
He was terrified that someone might recognise him and remember his name.
Quite a few teachers who had just finished collecting examination papers were already sitting in the office.
They had been chatting among themselves, but as soon as they saw the invigilator enter, they stood up enthusiastically.
“Come on, come on! Hurry up and let us see Jiang Wan’s examination paper—huh? Isn’t that a student from Class Six? What’s happened?”
The smile immediately disappeared from the Class Six homeroom teacher’s face.
She stood up.
“Teacher Chen?”
Teacher Chen, who had been invigilating the examination, turned toward Sang Xiaotian and sighed softly.
“Let’s sit down and talk.”
As though trying to protect Sang Xiaotian’s dignity, the other teachers quickly made excuses about being hungry and left the office.
In the end, only three people remained.
Sang Xiaotian gripped the shoulder straps of his schoolbag tightly.
His brain had practically frozen.
He couldn’t even come up with a remotely convincing excuse.
Teacher Chen took out Sang Xiaotian’s and Jiang Wan’s examination papers and handed them to Class Six’s homeroom teacher, Teacher Yu.
“Take a look.”
Teacher Yu quickly reviewed Sang Xiaotian’s answers.
When she reached the working for the second-to-last extended-response question, she stopped and frowned.
Then she compared his solution with Jiang Wan’s.
Meanwhile, Teacher Chen placed Sang Xiaotian’s mineral water bottle, covered in tiny cheat notes, and his backup phone on the desk.
After a brief silence, Teacher Yu asked Sang Xiaotian in a calm voice:
“Where did you encounter this formula?”
“In the textbook!” Sang Xiaotian blurted out. “I-I studied the first-year high school material in advance during the summer holidays!”
Teacher Yu and Teacher Chen exchanged glances.
The latter spoke.
“Under normal circumstances, this formula isn’t used until university, at the earliest.”
It was precisely because the formula was beyond the prescribed curriculum that Teacher Chen had reminded Jiang Wan to change her solution.
“Th-Then it must have been in an extracurricular book,” Sang Xiaotian stammered. “I read a lot of books over the summer. I probably saw it in one of those.”
“Then explain what each component of this formula represents,” Teacher Yu said patiently. “Take the density formula, ρ = M/V, for example. You should know that ρ represents density, M represents mass, and V represents volume. What about this formula?”
How could Sang Xiaotian possibly answer?
Sweat poured down his face.
His mind went completely blank.
“If I gave you another question involving exactly the same mathematical concept right now, would you still be able to solve it?” Teacher Yu asked again.
Sang Xiaotian didn’t dare nod.
Nor did he dare shake his head.
Teacher Yu waited for a long time, but Sang Xiaotian never answered.
Finally, she shook her head and sighed in disappointment.
“I’m going to have to call your parents.”
The System coldly announced to Sang Xiaotian:
[Diagnostic Exam Mission Failed. Intelligence reduced by 2 points. Host’s current Intelligence: 76.]
The instant the punishment took effect, a buzzing sensation filled Sang Xiaotian’s head.
He couldn’t explain exactly what had changed inside him.
It was simply that the entire world suddenly seemed a little more difficult to understand than before.
At that moment, the System issued another notification.
[When Intelligence falls below 70, it is classified as “significantly below average” within the current world’s standards.]
Sang Xiaotian felt as though he ought to understand what it meant.
Yet somehow, he couldn’t.
[Explain it more simply.]
The System replied:
[Oh. You’ll become intellectually disabled.]
Sang Xiaotian: […]