By the time Jiang Wan was enjoying her pineapple rice, she had already heard about the aftermath of Sang Xiaotian’s incident from her roommates.
“He was taken straight to the office. They’ll definitely have to call his parents,” the Dorm Leader said, gesturing as she spoke. Then she frowned in confusion. “But it’s only a diagnostic exam. If you do badly, you do badly. There’s no need to cheat. How strange.”
“Maybe his family puts too much pressure on him?”
“—But if they call his parents, won’t that just make things worse?”
While they discussed the matter seriously, Jiang Wan was equally serious about picking the cashew nuts out of her pineapple rice, one by one.
“Little Wan was sitting right behind Sang Xiaotian, so you must have seen everything pretty clearly, right?” Bed Three asked curiously. “Did he really cheat?”
“He probably didn’t even get the chance,” Jiang Wan replied while picking out another cashew. “The examination had only just started.”
“That’s true. Doesn’t that make the whole thing even more pointless…?”
The Dorm Leader looked thoughtful. “Come to think of it, it’s been three years, but I don’t think I’ve heard Sang Xiaotian say more than a few sentences. Is he just the type who doesn’t like talking or socialising with people?”
He certainly has plenty to say to his System, Jiang Wan thought.
He even made ridiculous, overdramatic declarations like, “I’m the protagonist of this world now.”
The incident involving a classmate cheating remained a topic of conversation at the lunch table for barely two minutes before her three roommates moved on to something else.
“—Speaking of which, they actually didn’t change the last question! Teacher Yu is so merciful! I hereby declare this an act of divine generosity, practically handing out free marks!”
Having finally removed the last visible cashew nut, Jiang Wan blinked.
Oh, right.
Although more than half the first-year students had rushed to revise the mathematical concepts Jiang Wan had mentioned to Lu Yiming that day, and the teachers had found out about it, the examination question hadn’t been changed.
But surely the reason was…
“The papers had already been printed. Destroying them and printing everything again would have been too troublesome,” Jiang Wan said, lifting her spoon and scooping up a generous mouthful of fragrant pineapple rice.
Bed Four rubbed her hands together and leaned closer to Jiang Wan.
“Little Wan… No, Sister Wan. Do you have any thoughts about this afternoon’s Chinese and English papers?”
“No.”
Jiang Wan rejected her without the slightest mercy.
“Really nothing?” Bed Four persisted, throwing an arm around Jiang Wan’s shoulders. “I’ll bribe you with an all-you-can-eat ice cream!”
Jiang Wan: “…”
I’m asking again. What exactly do you people think I am?
Since she’d already promised her homeroom teacher, there was absolutely no way she would reveal any more examination questions.
Besides, some version of this scene played out in their dormitory before every examination.
Jiang Wan was thoroughly accustomed to it by now.
However, when she returned to the classroom after the lunch break and saw the artwork on the blackboard at the back of the room, she finally lost her composure.
—WHO DREW A LITTLE CARTOON VERSION OF ME ON THE BLACKBOARD?!
Jiang Wan was still standing in the doorway, staring blankly at her chibi illustration, when two classmates who hadn’t noticed her approached the blackboard.
They solemnly pressed their palms together and bowed.
“Little Wan, please bless us.”
Then they produced two dice.
“I’ll roll for the tens digit, and you roll for the ones digit. Ready?”
“One, two, three—”
“I got nine!”
“I rolled one! Great, page ninety-one!”
The two immediately opened their Chinese revision guides to page ninety-one and began cramming with unwavering determination.
Jiang Wan: “…”
How did I manage to spend three entire years of junior high school with this bunch of idiots?
Huh? I still have another three years of high school with them?
Despair.jpg
Her three roommates, who had witnessed the entire process, were deeply inspired.
“Oh! I want to try that too!”
Expressionless, Jiang Wan walked around them and returned to her seat.
Under the eager and not remotely discreet gazes of her classmates, she remained silent for several seconds.
Then she casually opened a book and began reading, using her cold expression to discourage anyone from approaching her.
When the bell signalling the end of the lunch break rang, Jiang Wan closed the Wang Houxiong study guide she’d only managed to read a dozen or so pages of.
She looked up.
And discovered that everyone around her was also holding the exact same Wang Houxiong guide and studying it intently.
Jiang Wan: “…”
In fact, Class Six had always maintained a pretty good academic average.
Even setting aside the existence of a complete anomaly like Jiang Wan, the class had never fallen out of the top three in the year rankings.
There were also top students whose individual results consistently placed them among the top ten.
Their overall academic ability was definitely not weak.
“It’s a tradition,” explained Chen Jingning, the classmate sitting behind her, with complete seriousness. “Jiang Wan, do you watch football? Remember last year’s European Championship? The Italian team once accidentally left a player behind when their team bus departed. After they won that match, they refused to let that player board the bus before any subsequent match. And sure enough, they ended up winning the European Championship!”
Jiang Wan: “…”
Jiang Wan said, “That’s not a tradition. That’s superstition.”
“But isn’t that one of our country’s good habits?” The classmate behind her remained completely unshaken, his expression growing even more resolute. “We only believe in things that bring good luck. It’s the unlucky stuff that’s feudal superstition.”
“…Chen Jingning,” Jiang Wan said, calling him by name. “Don’t you rank in the top ten every single time?”
Chen Jingning blinked.
“Yeah. But there was one time I filled in my answer sheet incorrectly and dropped to fifteenth place! And that was exactly the time I had diarrhoea and didn’t get the chance to bow to you!”
Jiang Wan had absolutely nothing to say to that.
In the end, she accepted the chocolate wafer biscuit Chen Jingning offered with both hands.
Then, somewhat perfunctorily, she patted each of his shoulders.
“Good luck.”
Chen Jingning clenched his fist excitedly.
“Yes!”
But when Jiang Wan unwrapped the wafer biscuit and turned around again, she found herself staring straight into the sparkling eyes of her surrounding classmates.
Every one of them was holding some kind of sweet treat.
Jiang Wan: “…”
“Has everyone got their things ready?” The homeroom teacher entered the classroom just in time to rescue Jiang Wan. “Get ready to change classrooms. You’ve got two examinations back-to-back this afternoon, so hang in there. And don’t forget to bring water.”
At the mention of water, Jiang Wan turned to look at Sang Xiaotian’s seat in the last row.
It was completely empty.
Clearly, Sang Xiaotian wouldn’t be participating in the remaining examinations.
Although, as far as he was concerned, his mission had already failed anyway, hadn’t it?
…
Because the military training had disrupted the schedule, the diagnostic exams required another two days, naturally taking up a Saturday.
Just as with public holidays, Quanzhou thoughtfully compensated the new first-year students by giving them Monday off.
And this particular day off was rather special.
After all, the other five year groups were still attending classes!
Meanwhile, the first-year students were free to move around the campus however they pleased!
Wasn’t that absolutely wonderful?
Jiang Wan had originally planned to spend the entire day in her dormitory reading.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t.
When she received the call asking for help, Jiang Wan put down her phone and carefully checked the number twice.
Two minutes later, she sighed, climbed down from her upper bunk, and began changing her shoes.
The Dorm Leader, who was lying in bed eating snacks while reading a novel, curiously poked her head out.
“Jiang Wan? Going out?”
“Mm.” Jiang Wan finished tying her shoelaces. “Teacher Yu wants me to come over.”
Bed Three also poked her head out from behind her mosquito net.
“It’s so hot outside. Why go out when you could stay in the dormitory enjoying the air conditioning?”
—To mark examination papers, of course.
When Jiang Wan arrived at the teachers’ office, there were barely any people inside.
“Everyone went out for a group dinner yesterday,” her homeroom teacher explained with a tragic expression. “More than half of them got food poisoning. They all ended up on IV drips last night, and they still haven’t recovered.”
“This is the sort of plot you’d only find in a novel,” another teacher complained.
Jiang Wan considered that for a moment.
According to those Systems, perhaps this really was a novel.
The instant she finished that thought, a musical sound rang beside her ears.
It sounded rather like the notification music played when a mission levelled up in an RPG.
Then the gentle voice that had previously announced “1/15” spoke again.
“You have discovered the truth of the world. Intelligence +3.”
Jiang Wan: “…”
YOU REALLY ARE A NOVEL?!
For some reason, she wasn’t particularly surprised.
Maybe it’s because my classmates are all so bizarre that I’ve suspected something was wrong with this world for ages, Jiang Wan thought solemnly.
“Jiang Wan, sit here.” Her homeroom teacher cleared a space for her. “Teacher Wang’s chair is the most comfortable. You can use his.”
The homeroom teacher didn’t explain why.
But Jiang Wan, along with the other students, already knew the reason.
Teacher Wang had haemorrhoids, so he’d brought his own ergonomic chair and soft seat cushion.
Jiang Wan sat down in the chair, which looked rather expensive, and picked up a pen.
“Which subject do you want to mark?” her homeroom teacher asked, sorting through the stacks of unmarked examination papers on the desk.
“Anything’s fine,” Jiang Wan replied indifferently.
“Mathematics and English, then.”
Her homeroom teacher placed several heavy stacks of answer sheets in front of her.
“Just skip the papers from our class and put them aside, to avoid any conflict of interest.”
Jiang Wan looked at the papers in front of her and sighed.
Her homeroom teacher immediately pressed her palms together.
“I’ll buy you milk tea in a little while!”
For the sake of the students’ dietary health, the school didn’t permit food deliveries.
—Of course, plenty of students still secretly ordered takeout and conducted their transactions with delivery riders at a deserted side gate.
At that moment, in Jiang Wan’s eyes, her homeroom teacher’s figure seemed to gradually overlap with Chen Jingning holding out his wafer biscuit.
She twirled her pen and said helplessly, “Then I want a lychee coconut milk tea. Less ice, regular sugar.”
“You’re truly your teacher’s precious little sweetheart!!”
Teacher Yu immediately took out her phone and placed the order.
Just as she was about to leave, she glanced down at Jiang Wan’s shoes.
After a moment of silence, she asked, “Jiang Wan, are you wearing the wrong socks?”
Jiang Wan lowered her head.
Sure enough, the socks on her left and right feet were different colours.
She raised her head and replied calmly, “No. It’s fashionable. Just like how some anime characters have eyes of different colours.”
“…I don’t think that’s quite the same thing.”
Jiang Wan insisted, “It’s the same.”
Teacher Yu: “.”
Jiang Wan ignored her and uncapped her pen.
“Oh, right, Teacher. I want a large milk tea.”
…
When Yue Mingshi arrived at the office, Jiang Wan was resting her chin on one hand while marking examination papers.
She worked extremely quickly, almost as though she knew the answers with a single glance.
Judging by her expression, she even looked a little bored.
Although Teacher Wang had haemorrhoids, he was 183 centimetres tall.
Sitting in his ergonomic chair, Jiang Wan couldn’t touch the floor with her feet.
Her lower legs swung back and forth in the air.
Yue Mingshi listened for a moment and realised she was humming a song.
“…How can you be so stupid you don’t even know the tangent rule…”
Yue Mingshi: “…”
Those aren’t the original lyrics, are they?
“You’re here?” Teacher Yu greeted him. “Sit wherever you like.”
Jiang Wan continued working without stopping, casually glancing up.
Only when she saw Yue Mingshi did she pause in surprise.
“You got dragged here for forced labour too?”
Yue Mingshi nodded.
“I have PE this period.”
Teacher Yu protested, “You’re helping your teachers! How is that forced labour?”
Jiang Wan gave an indifferent “Oh.”
Yue Mingshi scoffed.
“An hour of work is apparently worth one cup of milk tea.”
Despite what he said, he pulled out a chair and sat opposite Jiang Wan without hesitation.
Then he took a stack of stapled examination papers from the pile in front of her.
…
Marking examination papers wasn’t difficult for Jiang Wan at all.
That was especially true for subjects like English and mathematics, which had standard correct answers.
Occasionally, however, she encountered mistakes so ridiculous that she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
For example, a student had written the chemical formula for oxygen instead of its English name, apparently hoping to bluff their way through.
Jiang Wan was currently staring thoughtfully at another student’s ingenious solution to forgetting how to spell “funeral.”
They had written: partyofdeath.
Just then, Teacher Yu returned carrying a bag from the milk tea shop.
“Jiang Wan, here’s your milk tea.”
“Wow, Teacher Yu, you’re so nice! It’s really hot today. Can I have a cup too?” a voice asked.
Jiang Wan turned her head.
She saw Chu Yishan entering the office just behind Teacher Yu.
Teacher Yu replied with perfect fairness.
“No, you can’t. This is the bribe I’m using to get Jiang Wan to help me. If I give you one too, it won’t count as a bribe anymore.”
“But there are so many cups,” Chu Yishan said coquettishly. “Teacher Yu, you can’t favour the students from Class Six all the time.”
Under Chu Yishan’s watchful gaze, Jiang Wan took out her straw, pushed it through the lid, and calmly took a sip.
“You can come help too.”
Chu Yishan immediately agreed.
“Sure! What are you doing?”
Her System chose that moment to announce:
[New Mission: Share a straw with Yue Mingshi.]
Jiang Wan involuntarily glanced at the fruit tea in Yue Mingshi’s hand.
Yue Mingshi looked puzzled.
“What? Do you want some?”
As he spoke, he simply held his cup out to Jiang Wan.
Jiang Wan lowered her head and took a sip of mint oolong tea.
Refreshing.
Refreshing was the only way to describe it, and even that was a rather generous assessment.
Jiang Wan, an enthusiastic lover of sweet things, leaned back in disgust.
“Don’t want it.”
Yue Mingshi withdrew his hand and took a sip himself.
His expression remained perfectly natural.
—After all, the two of them had grown up together.
Never mind sharing a straw; when they were little, they’d even shared a bed.
Only Teacher Yu vaguely felt that something about the scene was a little strange.
She immediately reprimanded herself for having such a dirty-minded adult imagination.
“Isn’t that a new drink?” Chu Yishan stood near the corner between Jiang Wan and Yue Mingshi, smiling as she bent down to examine the label on his cup. “I’m curious about the flavour too. It smells so perfect for summer. Could I have a taste?”
Her question sounded so innocent and curious that it seemed like nothing more than a casual remark.
She even reached directly toward Yue Mingshi’s cup.
But Yue Mingshi coldly moved it aside before she could touch it.
“No.”
Chu Yishan: “…”
She refused to give up.
“Teacher Yu, let me help too.”
Teacher Yu laughed.
“We already have enough people marking papers. It’s practically the weekend for you today, anyway. If you’ve really got that much free time, how about I assign you some extra homework?”
Chu Yishan asked her System in disbelief:
[Students helping teachers mark examination papers? Aren’t school-life novels supposed to be about romance, best friends turning against each other, pregnancies, miscarriages, and fights?]
Jiang Wan: “…”
What kind of school-life novel is that? Some melodramatic coming-of-age tragedy?
“There must be something I can help with,” Chu Yishan insisted, looking around the office. “What if I help organise the examination papers?”
“No, no, there’s no need for that.” Teacher Yu laughed helplessly. “Do you have some ulterior motive you’re not telling us about?”
“Of course not~” Chu Yishan replied sweetly.
Jiang Wan: “.”
She wants to put her mouth on Yue Mingshi’s straw. Calling that an ulterior motive isn’t entirely wrong.
Chu Yishan refused to abandon her mission.
She continued pestering Teacher Yu and wouldn’t leave.
She even enthusiastically brewed Teacher Yu a cup of goji berry tea.
Teacher Yu, who had been looking forward to happily drinking her milk tea: “…”
Can’t smile anymore.jpg
From the moment Chu Yishan entered the office, Jiang Wan had stopped marking papers.
Previously, she’d been working through the examination papers from Class Eight.
Now she spent some time searching for the mathematics papers from Class Five.
—She eventually found them beneath Yue Mingshi’s hand.
When Jiang Wan took the papers from him, Yue Mingshi merely frowned without saying anything.
He even cooperatively lifted his elbow to make it easier for her.
Neither Teacher Yu nor Chu Yishan noticed.
Jiang Wan flipped through the papers for a while before stopping at one that was suspiciously clean.
She spoke up.
“Why is there a blank examination paper here?”
Teacher Yu’s attention immediately shifted away from Chu Yishan.
She approached Jiang Wan.
“Did an unused examination paper get mixed in? Is there a name written on it?”
An ominous feeling suddenly seized Chu Yishan.
She immediately tried to stop them.
“Wait—”
But Jiang Wan had already found the name.
“First Year, Class Five, Chu Yi… Ah.”
She obediently put down the examination paper and sat up straight with an innocent expression.
Her gaze briefly swept across Chu Yishan.
Chu Yishan, who hadn’t taken anything happening at this school seriously and had therefore openly handed in a blank examination paper: “…”
Even though Jiang Wan hadn’t said her full name, nobody present was stupid.
Unable to bear the awkwardness, Teacher Yu hurriedly tried to smooth things over.
“Ahem. Let’s just skip that paper, then. Chu Yishan, was there something else you needed?”
Chu Yishan’s face burned crimson.
She forced out a smile.
“N-No. I’ll go back to the dormitory, then.”
As she turned and hurried out of the office, Jiang Wan heard her System announce:
[Mission Failed. Yue Mingshi’s favorability has decreased. Current favorability: -10.]
Jiang Wan wanted to hear what Yue Mingshi’s current favorability toward her was.
Unfortunately, Chu Yishan’s System didn’t continue.
What a pity.
[I want to abandon the mission!!] Chu Yishan complained to her System. [I’ll go back and accept a different one! I’m never taking another mission in a school-life novel again!]
[If you abandon the mission, the points spent when accepting it will not be refunded. Are you certain you wish to abandon it?]
Chu Yishan: […You’re all such cheapskates! Fine, then. Can I change the nature of the mission instead? Rather than specifically pursuing Yue Mingshi, I’ll just collect favorability from other NPCs. The exchange rate might be lower, but if I collect enough, that should still count as completing the mission, right?]
[Yes. Are you certain you wish to convert your current mission, “Steal the Female Protagonist’s Love Interest,” into “Replace the Female Protagonist as the Universally Adored Girl”?]
Chu Yishan gritted her teeth.
[Confirm.]
After a short while, the System announced:
[Conversion Complete.]
Chu Yishan breathed a sigh of relief.
[Then the mission difficulty should have decreased, right?]
The System replied:
[Current Mission Difficulty: S-Rank.]
Chu Yishan: […Wait. What was the difficulty of the original mission again?]
The System replied:
[S-Rank.]
Chu Yishan: […]
ISN’T THAT EXACTLY THE SAME?!