After a few days of attending school, Cheng Zi’an had progressed to the point where he could write large characters without turning them into blobs of ink. As for the structure and elegance of the characters, those were entirely unrelated.
Fortunately, the students in the Mengtong Class were still young and lacked wrist strength, so everyone’s handwriting was more or less the same.
Except for Fang Yin.
Fang Yin’s seat was right in front of the lectern. He sat upright and straight, his small frame held high, appearing completely at ease.
The classroom wasn’t very large, and from the back, Cheng Zi’an could see the loose threads under his arms.
However, Cheng Zi’an didn’t have time for deeper reflections.
For a struggling student facing an exam, sorrow always loomed large.
Soft groans rose and fell throughout the classroom. Xin Jinian was particularly dramatic, collapsing onto his desk, his chubby face spreading out like a slab of tender pork fat.
Mr. Zhou was both annoyed and amused. He raised his teaching ruler and rapped it against the lectern, calling out loudly, “Silence, silence! After the exam, you’ll have the Dragon Boat Festival and wheat harvest holiday. Don’t just think about playing. When you return after the break, there will be another exam.”
Mixed good and bad news. Cheng Zi’an summed it up: the bad news outweighed the good.
The good news was the Dragon Boat Festival and wheat harvest holiday. Most of the classmates didn’t have to work in the fields, and with the Dragon Boat Festival celebrations, they could focus on eating, drinking, and having fun.
The bad news was the exam. It wouldn’t just test the Hundred Family Surnames; other subjects would be included as well, and there would be two exams. This meant the holiday wouldn’t be as carefree as they’d hoped.
Sorrow was useless. Mr. Zhou had already posted the exam paper at the front. The characters on the exam were large, and students who couldn’t see clearly could come forward to copy them before answering the questions on blank paper.
Cheng Zi’an had good eyesight. Even though the exam paper was posted high up and the shorter students crowded around to copy it, it didn’t stop him from reading the questions.
After glancing through a few simple questions, Cheng Zi’an felt a grin spreading across his face.
Life was unpredictable. No one knew what twists and turns lay ahead until the very last moment.
Forget about reciting the Hundred Family Surnames from memory—Cheng Zi’an couldn’t even read through it fluently.
The Hundred Family Surnames contained many obscure surnames and complex traditional characters, most of which Cheng Zi’an didn’t recognize.
For this exam, Mr. Zhou must have taken the level of the Mengtong Class into consideration. They hadn’t even finished learning the Thousand Character Classic, so testing them on overly obscure characters and surnames would have been pointless.
The exam was simple, consisting of fill-in-the-blanks and dictation.
The fill-in-the-blank section was straightforward: “Feng, Cheng, Chu, Wei, Jiang, Shen, Han, Yang”—the opening lines of the Hundred Family Surnames, practically free points.
“Bao, Zhu, Zuo, You, Xun, Yang, Yu, Hui”—fill in “Zuo, You” and “Xun, Yang,” two sets of surnames.
Thanks to Mr. Zhou’s impromptu recitation check in the previous class, Cheng Zi’an had just read those surnames. They were still fresh in his mind, not yet forgotten.
As for the dictation section, Cheng Zi’an’s eyes twitched slightly, a hidden sense of accomplishment stirring within.
The page he always pressed down while dozing off in class, the one he read over and over again, never turning past it—this exam happened to cover exactly that page.
The Mengtong students wrote slowly, so the dictation only went from “Le, Yu, Shi, Fu” to “Yao, Shao, Zhan, Wang.”
For characters with many strokes like “Fu,” Cheng Zi’an wasn’t entirely confident, but he could sketch them roughly enough to resemble the original.
Mr. Zhou should understand that he was still a Mengtong and judge it as correct.
Right?
Cheng Zi’an spread out his paper and began grinding ink.
At the neighboring desk, Zhang Qi was also making a grand production, setting up his supplies.
Struggling students often had the most stationery, and Xin Jinian was a prime example. He didn’t use the Fuxue’s brushes, ink, paper, or inkstones. Instead, he brought high-quality Golden Xuan Paper, Pine Soot Ink, a Chengni Inkstone, and various Xuan brushes from home.
After rustling about and settling in, Xin Jinian began scratching his head and ears, his eyes darting in all directions, his thick neck as agile as a dancing snake.
Unfortunately, those around him were all fellow underachievers at roughly his level.
Cheng Zi’an, Zhang Qi, and he typically occupied the bottom three spots in the class, with occasional shifts in ranking, making it hard to determine who was truly the worst.
Xin Jinian wasn’t foolish enough to try peeking at their exam papers, much to Cheng Zi’an’s disappointment.
Looking down on others like a dog.
He, Cheng Zi’an, was no longer the ignorant fool he once was.
Mr. Zhou paced back and forth in the classroom, hands clasped behind his back, his expression stern.
Xin Jinian hurriedly sat up straight. When Mr. Zhou approached him, he still reached out and tapped his desk, whispering, “Focus on your answers. No peeking.”
After warning Xin Jinian and tapping Zhang Qi, who was still chewing on his pen, Mr. Zhou noticed Cheng Zi’an hunched over, diligently answering questions. He thought to himself that the boy must have been mischievously playing outside earlier, as the bun on top of his head was tilted to one side.
Cheng Zhen was handsome, and his wife, Cui Suniang, was also beautiful. Cheng Zi’an inherited all the best traits of his parents—except for his brain—and even surpassed them, with rosy lips and fair skin, as pretty as a little girl.
Mr. Zhou greatly admired Cheng Zhen’s talent and character, and he shook his head inwardly with a sigh.
What a pity. What use is being good-looking? It’s merely a superficial charm.
Hmm?
Upon closer inspection, the answers on the white paper didn’t seem as far off as expected.
Mr. Zhou felt quite pleased, but his satisfaction was short-lived, as a wave of frustration welled up in his chest again.
Cheng Zi’an was drawing each stroke with great care, but the character “湛” was still missing parts.
Oh well. If he added one more stroke, it might just turn into a messy blob of ink.
Mr. Zhou’s feelings were complicated as he walked away, hands behind his back. Cheng Zi’an had long been aware of his presence and steadied himself, focusing all his energy on drawing the characters.
Whether he did well or not was secondary; his attitude had to be proper.
This was one of the few lessons his biological father—a second-generation mining tycoon—had taught him. He had applied it whenever he asked for money, and it had never failed him. He remembered it to this day.
After finishing, Cheng Zi’an even pretended to check his answers seriously. The exam lasted the time it took for two incense sticks to burn and soon ended.
Zhang Qi and Xin Jinian both looked dejected, bracing themselves for the impending storm.
None of the other students in the class compared answers either, as they could easily check their mistakes by flipping through their books.
The classroom, usually buzzing with noise after class, was unusually tense.
Cheng Zi’an felt uncharacteristically relaxed, his steps even bouncing as he walked. Unbothered by the heat, he wandered outside the classroom for a while before leisurely returning to continue the exam.
Next came the exams on the Three Character Classic and Xunmeng Poems, following the same format as the Hundred Family Surnames, focusing on dictation and fill-in-the-blanks.
Cheng Zi’an had previously known two lines from the Three Character Classic: “At the beginning of life, human nature is good.” After starting school, he had learned four more lines, along with two others he occasionally remembered, which was enough for dictation and fill-in-the-blanks.
The Xunmeng Poems textbook selected catchy, easy-to-read poems for child pupils, such as Li Qiao’s five-character quatrains.
Cheng Zi’an had memorized two of Li Qiao’s shortest poems: “Wind” and “Mid-Autumn Moon, the Second of Two.”
In this exam, these two poems appeared as dictation questions, and Cheng Zi’an grinned so widely his face almost hurt.
For the fill-in-the-blank question on the miscellaneous song “Peach Blossom Ballad,” Cheng Zi’an didn’t know the first line and simply gave up, answering the last line: “Thus, I wish to open the path to serve the sage ruler”.
Similarly, the character “蹊” had too many strokes, so he scribbled it hastily, unsure if any parts were missing.
As for arithmetic, when the exam paper was handed out, Cheng Zi’an nearly raised his arms in triumph.
Especially when looking at Zhang Qi and Xin Jinian scratching their heads in confusion, by comparison, he felt so elated he could almost ascend to the heavens.
Who could understand the feeling of an academic underachiever seeing exam questions and complaining they were too simple?
Even though the questions were in convoluted classical Chinese, Cheng Zi’an understood them at a glance—they were addition and subtraction problems within twenty. If he couldn’t solve these, he’d deserve divine punishment.
Answers didn’t require showing formulas or steps; just writing the result was enough.
Moreover, his answers miraculously didn’t have any missing strokes.
The traditional Chinese characters Cheng Zi’an was most familiar with were undoubtedly numbers. Financial accounting used traditional characters, and as the heir, he was forced to review statements. After seeing them enough times, he just picked them up.
Was this too much of a bullying move against these little brats?
But the feeling of having a cheat code was just too satisfying.
Once the exam ended, the teacher collected the answer sheets and left. The classroom immediately buzzed with noise, as if thousands of cicadas were swirling inside.
“How do you answer the last question?”
“Fang Yin, what’s your answer?”
A group of diligent and ambitious classmates surrounded Fang Yin, eagerly seeking to compare answers with him.
Cheng Zi’an chuckled inwardly.
Wait until the exam results are announced—they’ll blind these little brats’ eyes!
Zhang Qi sniffled, packing up his brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone while whining to Cheng Zi’an, “If I don’t do well this time, I’ll get another beating from my father when I go back.”
After a while, Zhang Qi didn’t hear Cheng Zi’an chime in agreement and turned to look at him curiously.
Cheng Zhen was strict, and Cheng Zi’an used to be his fellow sufferer, often punished for poor grades.
“Aren’t you afraid your father will beat you?” Zhang Qi asked resentfully, determined to drag another unlucky soul down with him.
Cheng Zi’an couldn’t be bothered to wash his inkstone, just wiped it haphazardly with a cloth, getting ink all over his hand.
He didn’t mind, answering without a blush or a racing heart, “My father is very kind; he won’t hit me.”
Since the results weren’t out yet, he couldn’t celebrate prematurely. Cheng Zi’an disliked the idea of hiding his achievements, but he had to hold back, which was quite frustrating.
Zhang Qi curled his lip in disbelief, giggling, “You’re lying. Your father won’t let you off.”
With that, he tossed his book box aside, suddenly perking up and saying enthusiastically, “Anyway, the exam’s over. If I get beaten, so be it. Come on, let’s go play for a while before heading home.”
Cheng Zi’an glanced out the window—the sun was already setting in the west. As he hesitated, he saw Xin Jinian, who had been sitting there with his chubby arms crossed, suddenly stand up, knocking his stool over with a loud clatter.
The classroom was noisy, so only a few people heard the stool fall and turned to look.
Xin Jinian charged toward Fang Yin like an angry little calf. Everyone sensed trouble brewing and instinctively stepped aside.
“Move, move!” Xin Jinian reached Fang Yin, shouting as he shoved aside the classmates surrounding him and grabbed Fang Yin’s pitiful cloth shirt.
With a rip, the shirt finally gave way under Xin Jinian’s brute force—the sleeve tore away from the front, and even the inner garment ripped, exposing Fang Yin’s scrawny, rib-like body.
Snickers erupted from the crowd, some pointing at Fang Yin and whispering behind their hands, “So shabby!”
Others stood up for Fang Yin: “Poor people can study too.”
“A village school should be enough, but he came to the city to study. With classmates dressed in rags, it’s embarrassing to even talk about—Hui Qi!”
Xin Jinian sneered as he examined Fang Yin’s torn shirt, this time a bit smarter, berating him fiercely: “The classroom is a sacred place for studying. How dare you, Fang Yin, lead such a commotion? What kind of behavior is this?”
Fang Yin wanted to cover his tattered clothes that exposed his body, while also trying to break free from Xin Jinian. Flustered and panicked, his face turned pale as he weakly argued, “Nonsense, I didn’t, I didn’t.”
Cheng Zi’an sighed.
Here we go again, here we go again.
Bullying truly knows no bounds, huh.