Teacher Dai made a note about Xia Xiaolan’s situation.

Xia Xiaolan’s family was well-off, and she had never hidden this fact. Later, she deliberately kept a low profile to blend in with her peers, but she had never applied for a scholarship.

Out of responsibility, Teacher Dai asked once more, “Do you want to apply for financial aid this semester?”

Xia Xiaolan shook her head.

Teacher Dai marked an X in his notebook.

Su Jing, who had been waiting eagerly on the side, jumped in, “Teacher Dai, you must have our grades there, can you give us a hint?”

“The grade reports will be distributed during tomorrow’s class meeting. You’ll see them then. You’re more interested in the scholarships, aren’t you… Su Jing, besides focusing on classes, you should actively participate in school activities and various competitions. These can earn you extra points for scholarships.”

Teacher Dai’s words were clearly meant for Xia Xiaolan – he even made sure Room 307’s residents understood the subtext by looking directly at Xia Xiaolan while speaking.

Thus, everyone realized that Xia Xiaolan was getting a scholarship – could it be a special award?

As soon as Teacher Dai left, Su Jing flopped onto her bed, wailing:

“Heaven is unfair! Why do the rich get richer and the poor get poorer!”

Yang Yonghong coldly exposed her dramatics, “Because the rich work harder than you. Xiaolan won the special prize in the National English Competition, of course, she’ll get extra points for scholarship evaluation.”

“I was just joking…”

“These kinds of jokes shouldn’t be made carelessly.”

Yang Yonghong took the opportunity to announce to the dormitory that this semester’s goal was for everyone to receive scholarships. Since they all got into Huaqing, their intellectual abilities couldn’t be that different. They could blame the first semester’s results on adjustment issues, but failing to get scholarships in the second semester would purely be due to lack of effort.

“I’ve thought of an idea, let me share it with everyone. Anyone who doesn’t get a scholarship this semester has to take on all the dormitory cleaning duties!”

Currently, cleaning duties were rotated, and Room 307 didn’t have any particularly difficult members who refused to take their turns.

Taking turns was fine, but being responsible for an entire semester’s cleaning made Xia Xiaolan shudder – the boss was harsh!

Yet this severe proposal from Yang Yonghong gained everyone’s support.

“Agreed!”

“I support the boss too…”

Xia Xiaolan weakly raised her hand, and Yang Yonghong’s gaze swept over, “Number Six, do you object?”

“No, no, I just wanted to ask if we could add fetching hot water to the duties.”

How could someone so beautiful be so devious?

Regardless of winter or summer, the girls always needed hot water. The boiler room was next to the cafeteria, and carrying two thermoses upstairs at once meant four trips for the eight people in the room. This was more troublesome than cleaning the dormitory.

Failing to get a scholarship meant making four trips to the boiler room every day.

“Is the library closed now? I want to go study.”

Lu Yan, the youngest, made a joke, and everyone called Xia Xiaolan cruel. Despite the complaints, no one opposed the suggestion.

If you don’t push yourself hard, how can you study with all your might?

Getting into Huaqing University didn’t guarantee future success. After all, there were still many people with more advantages than them. While Yang Yonghong was striving for a monthly salary of 200 yuan, she naturally needed to work even harder.

The girls in Room 307 each had their dreams and things they cared about, but none would refuse the chance to become more excellent. Yang Yonghong and Xia Xiaolan’s proposals were combined and written as rules, posted next to the cleaning duty roster.

In such a prominent place, seeing it every time they entered or left the room served as a constant reminder.

The next day at the class meeting, Xia Xiaolan learned her final grades from last semester – she ranked second in the grade, with Ning Xue undisputedly in first place. While Xia Xiaolan excelled in English and Advanced Mathematics, Ning Xue wasn’t far behind.

What was truly terrifying about Ning Xue was her mastery of professional courses – she was in a league of her own, completely outperforming all other Architecture freshmen from the class of ’84.

It wasn’t just Xia Xiaolan who wanted to cry – the male students felt the same way.

Wasn’t Architecture supposed to be more suitable for men?

That must have been a lie, as they weren’t performing much better than their female classmates.

“I see everyone’s very concerned about scholarship evaluations, so let me address this. For scholarship assessment, final exam results are very important, as are conduct scores and competition awards – these all count for extra points.”

After Teacher Dai finished speaking, everyone turned to look at Xia Xiaolan.

Among the freshmen who had participated in national competitions and won awards, Xia Xiaolan seemed to be the only one.

Teacher Dai paused, then continued, “There’s another way to earn points – publishing articles in provincial-level architectural journals. Currently, only student Ning Xue has achieved this.”

Ning Xue published a paper?!

This was a real bombshell – this wasn’t like submitting poetry to a newspaper. Without professional knowledge, first-year students couldn’t even understand professional journals, let alone write for them. Freshman year was for building foundations, and students typically started reading professional journals in their sophomore year… when did she write a paper? Not every university student could publish papers, though there were super-geniuses at Huaqing who could publish in top international journals like “Nature”.

At Huaqing University, there were few slackers, study experts were everywhere, and there were super-geniuses who transcended even the experts.

Just when Xia Xiaolan had evolved into a study expert, she discovered a super-genius above her – the feeling was intense. Even super-geniuses needed time to evolve; just considering paper publication, normal students wouldn’t think about it until their junior or senior year.

Ning Xue had once said Xia Xiaolan wasted too much time on unimportant things. When Xia Xiaolan looked up at Ning Xue, the latter also looked up and smiled at her.

This contemptuous look from the super-genius left Chairman Xia quite hurt.

However, it was impossible for Xia Xiaolan to immediately produce a paper – she couldn’t do it, and her professional knowledge wasn’t sufficient yet.

Although in practical terms, she was ahead of many classmates, those were all unofficial methods. The houses built in the countryside had simple structures, even barely educated masons knew how to lay foundations and build walls. The “rural villa” that Xia Xiaolan and Gong Yang designed relied on knowledge from her previous life.

The professional knowledge used wasn’t enough to write a paper.

Thinking about Du Zhaohui’s comment about there being no female architects, and her statement during the English competition oral exam about wanting to become a female architect, Xia Xiaolan felt she needed to work harder in her profession. While Ning Xue had a family background and Ning Yanfan was supported, it still required her hard work to transform these innate resources into personal capability.

After the class meeting ended, the scholarship list hadn’t been announced. As Xia Xiaolan was leaving the classroom, Ning Xue called out to her:

“Xia Xiaolan, are you free this weekend?”

What instructions did the super-genius have?

Regarding the weekend, she had already promised to invite her roommates from 307 to visit her home. Before Xia Xiaolan could shake her head, Su Jing was already secretly pinching her waist from behind:

“No problem, she’s completely free this weekend!”