After the Chinese exam, no one had the immediate feeling of being doomed for this test. Generally, these students didn’t have such self-awareness until after the math exam.

Because Xu Zhilin had become the substitute math teacher for Class 3, Jiang Ling was particularly serious about math this time, not even taking her afternoon nap, but unfortunately, it wasn’t much use.

The math questions in this monthly exam were especially difficult, completely beyond Jiang Ling’s abilities.

Shi Niannian also found the questions quite difficult, but she was good at challenging problems that could widen the score gap.

She asked for another calculation sheet. When the supervising teacher came down to give it to her, she caught a glimpse of Jiang Wang in her peripheral vision. He wasn’t writing much, just sitting with his chin propped up, his gaze lowered, watching for about ten seconds before picking up his pen to write down a number.

Shi Niannian had originally thought he wouldn’t even show up for the exam.

She had no time to think more about it and buried herself in calculations again after receiving the sheet.

The last sub-question was very difficult. Shi Niannian’s initial approach was wrong. She flipped the calculation sheet over, erased the auxiliary lines she had drawn, and started over from the beginning.

Just as she wrote down the first step, she suddenly paused, feeling a sharp pain in her lower abdomen.

Her heart skipped a beat. She pressed her hand against her stomach, unable to think through whether the new solution method was viable, and quickly wrote it down.

Fortunately, she still managed to calculate the answer in the end.

Chen Shushu had asked her for the answers to the last two multiple-choice questions, and Shi Niannian used hand gestures to tell her.

She turned around and rummaged through her backpack, but couldn’t find what she was looking for, so she had to hand in her paper early.

There were still more than 20 minutes left before the exam ended.

When she stood up with her test paper, everyone’s eyes swept over to her. Usually, only those at the bottom of the class or a few boys with good grades would hand in papers early. No one expected someone like Shi Niannian to submit early.

Especially on such a difficult test.

Hushed discussions started below.

Cheng Qi, who had been sleeping with his head down, sat up and whistled, chuckling: “Impressive.”

She went to the bathroom and saw a patch of bright red staining her underwear. She pressed her lips together.

It had come a week early, and she hadn’t brought any sanitary pads. But the exam was still going on, and she couldn’t borrow from classmates.

She could only go buy some herself.

The school store had them. She was too shy to have ever bought them before, but at this time, the whole school was taking exams, so there should be no one around.

She needed to hurry.

She took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly.

After wrapping some toilet paper and placing it in her underwear, she went out.

The entire campus was quiet.

There was no one at the school store. She took a pack of sanitary pads from the shelf and paid.

The store auntie looked up at her: “You’re having monthly exams today, right?”

She nodded: “Yes.”

“Your period suddenly came during the exam? That’s a bit troublesome. Did the exam go well?”

Shi Niannian forced a smile, her voice soft and gentle: “It was fine.”

“That’s good. This is just one of those troublesome things for girls.” The store auntie spoke with a slight Jiangnan dialect.

Shi Niannian paid with her card, picked up the sanitary pads, and was about to leave when she saw Jiang Wang walking in.

She froze, wanting to stuff the sanitary pads into her pocket.

She was a beat too slow. Jiang Wang’s gaze fell on her hand, and he raised his eyebrow slightly.

Shi Niannian blushed, lowered her head, and stuffed the small pack of sanitary pads into her pocket, creating a bulge.

She felt embarrassed and somehow humiliated. Without greeting him, she tried to walk past him, but was suddenly pulled back by her collar.

Afraid that the sanitary pads might fall out of her pocket, she covered them with her hand as he pulled her back to the school store entrance.

“Little Teacher Shi, how can you see someone and not even say hello?” he joked.

He had added “little” before “Teacher Shi,” and with his voice, it sounded intimate and ambiguous.

After steadying herself, Shi Niannian raised her hand to remove his hand from her collar.

“What are you… doing?”

Jiang Wang released his hand and said to the auntie: “A bottle of water, please.”

The school store auntie looked at the two of them with a worldly-wise expression, tilting the front legs of her chair as she reached back to get a bottle of water: “Handsome boy, be gentle with your girlfriend. Girls have a tough time during those days.”

Jiang Wang took a moment to react, then smiled: “Yes.”

He took the water and put his arm around Shi Niannian’s shoulders as they walked out. The girl’s face was already bright red, and she struggled, not wanting to be held by him.

“Jiang Wang,” she pulled at his hand, “let, let me go.”

“—Shh.” Jiang Wang turned his head and joked hoarsely, “When you came out just now, Cheng Qi and his group also came out. I was worried about you, that’s why I handed in my paper early and followed you.”

Shi Niannian was startled again.

“You handed in… early… did you finish?”

She didn’t want Jiang Wang to fail to achieve a satisfactory score because of her.

Moreover, Cheng Qi bullying her wasn’t something new. She might be naturally slow to react and not afraid of being beaten, but Jiang Wang had already saved her several times, and she would feel like she was causing trouble for others.

Jiang Wang hadn’t expected her first reaction to be this. He laughed and said leisurely, “No, I probably didn’t do well.”

Shi Niannian looked at him for a while before stuttering an “Ah”: “I’m sorry…”

The two talked as they walked, arriving at the bathroom entrance at the base of the teaching building. Jiang Wang released her shoulder: “Go ahead.”

Shi Niannian came to her senses, and her slender, fair neck was tinged with a light pink.

She lingered in the bathroom for a while, cleaning herself up thoroughly, making sure nothing had soaked through to her school pants before going out.

Surprisingly, Jiang Wang was still waiting outside.

He leaned against a pillar, his slightly longer bangs drooping down, his cold white skin looking somewhat unhealthy in the sunlight.

Shi Niannian tugged at the hem of her school uniform awkwardly.

The way the store auntie had spoken earlier, Jiang Wang naturally knew the reason why she had handed in her paper early.

He looked up and casually glanced at her, then took the cigarette from between his fingers, bit it between his teeth, and pulled out a piece of paper to hand to her.

Shi Niannian had just washed her hands, and they were still wet.

She took it, tilted her head up, and smiled gently at him: “Thank you.”

Jiang Wang’s breath caught. When the girl smiled, her eyes brightened, as if filled with stars, soft and gentle.

He frowned slightly, the glaring sunlight making him squint uncomfortably.

His gaze lingered briefly on the girl’s pink lips, and he turned his head and coughed lightly.

Very annoying.

When they returned to the classroom, the bell had just rung, signaling the end of the exam.

A group of people had dejected faces, looking like disaster had struck.

As soon as Shi Niannian entered, she was surrounded by people. She had good grades, and after every exam, people would crowd around her to compare answers.

“Niannian, where did you go just now?” Jiang Ling asked.

There were too many people around, so she paused before answering: “My stomach… wasn’t feeling well.”

The study committee member Huang Yao leaned on her desk: “What did you write for the last fill-in-the-blank question in math, Shi Niannian?”

“Let me… see.”

She took the answer sheet from her drawer: “I wrote… 0.”

Xu Fei, sitting with gauze wrapped around his leg, heard this and became extremely excited: “Holy shit!! I guessed 0!! With my skill, it would be hard not to get a perfect score.”

Jiang Ling rolled her eyes: “Xu Fei, your face has left home.”

Huang Yao frowned, passing over her calculation sheet with the steps she had written: “Isn’t it 2? Look, I don’t think my calculation is wrong.”

“Okay,” Shi Niannian responded, bending down to get her water cup from under the desk. “Wait, wait a moment, let me take… a sip of water.”

On the first day of her period, her stomach was uncomfortable.

There was no water left in her cup. Just as she was about to get up to refill it, Jiang Wang came in from outside the classroom, walked straight over, and placed a warm milk tea on her desk.

Full sugar, heated red sugar milk tea.

He said calmly, “The water dispenser in the classroom is out of water, so I bought you a cup.”

Shi Niannian was stunned, Jiang Ling was stunned, and everyone around her seat was stunned.

Their gazes mechanically moved from the milk tea on Shi Niannian’s desk to Jiang Wang’s face.

He had just been running, his body radiating heat, with sweat sliding down his cheek.

Shi Niannian thanked him softly.

Jiang Wang quickly left the classroom again.

“What’s going on with Jiang Wang?” Chen Shushu took a deep breath. “Shi Niannian, tell us! What secret is there between you two?”

“Nothing, really nothing…” Shi Niannian waved her hands.

“Then why is he so nice to you?”

“He…” Shi Niannian hesitated, then said seriously and slowly, “He is my… brother’s friend.”

Everyone suddenly understood.

Suspicious, inquiring glances swept over Shi Niannian, but ultimately, they believed her.

Huang Yao interjected: “Shi Niannian, quickly check if my calculation method is correct.”

She put the milk tea aside: “Okay.”

Because of what had just happened, the others no longer had the heart to care about the math exam. It was just a matter of dying comfortably or dying miserably.

“I’ve found that Jiang Wang isn’t as terrifying as the rumors said,” one of the girls said. “Otherwise, the English teacher would have ‘died’ hundreds of times by now.”

“I think so too. He even ran the 4×100 for Xu Fei. Speaking of which, ah, he was so handsome!”

“But the incidents he caused before are also true; otherwise, how could he have been in jail?”

“Why did he stab someone back then?”

“I don’t know. No one has ever mentioned it. The news was all suppressed by his father.”

…

The surroundings were noisy, and Shi Niannian was calculating in her mind with a pen in hand.

“How is it?” Huang Yao asked.

“It seems…” she frowned slightly, “your method… is also valid.”

Huang Yao said excitedly: “So the answer is 2?”

She shook her head lightly and wrote down her method. “Look… two solution methods, with different answers.”

“That’s not right. My method shouldn’t be wrong.” Huang Yao frowned, but she couldn’t find fault with Shi Niannian’s method after carefully examining it.

Shi Niannian looked at the problem again and had a sudden realization, tugging at Huang Yao’s sleeve and saying, “This one has two answers.”

“0 or 2?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Shi Niannian wrote it down for her to see.

Huang Yao understood and sighed in relief: “That’s good, I can still get half the points. The gap between our scores won’t be too wide.”

Shi Niannian smiled and lowered her head to take a sip of milk tea.

Jiang Wang’s test paper was on the desk. The wind blew it to the floor, and Shi Niannian bent down to pick it up.

His answer sheet was clean, unlike some boys who wrote their calculations for multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions directly in the blank spaces. There weren’t even any marks or scribbles.

Shi Niannian picked up the test paper and placed it back on his desk, her gaze lingering for a moment.

For the question that she and Huang Yao had discussed at length, he had scrawled the answer: 0 or 2.

The next day, they had comprehensive science and English exams. The monthly exam schedule was tight, with all exams completed in two days and results released the day after.

This was the first exam since the class divisions, and the teachers were all very interested in the results.

The first period was math class, and math papers were graded the fastest.

Xu Zhilin entered the classroom with a smile.

“The results are all out, but they’re still being entered into the computer. At noon, the class representative should come to my office to pick up the papers.” Xu Zhilin stood on the podium. “This math test was quite difficult, wasn’t it?”

He smiled, his almond-shaped eyes curving.

There was immediately a chorus of wails from below.

“Math has slapped me twice again to wake me up!”

“This test wasn’t made for humans, teacher!!”

“But for such an inhuman test, the highest score in the grade is still from our class, 148 points, with just two points deducted.”

With this statement, there was a “wow” in the classroom, and all eyes turned to Shi Niannian.

Class 3’s academic performance wasn’t considered good in the grade, always in the middle to lower ranks. Only Shi Niannian, whose total score almost always exceeded that of the rocket class, was quite extraordinary.

Xu Zhilin added: “There’s a tie between two people.”

Everyone was stunned. Someone patted Huang Yao’s shoulder, asking if it was her. Huang Yao shook her head and blushed, saying “no.”

She had already gone to the teacher to get the answer key and had checked it. She had lost more than just two points.

“Who else got 148, teacher?” Xu Fei asked.

Xu Zhilin kept the suspense: “You’ll know when the test papers are handed out at noon.”

Shi Niannian’s heart skipped a beat. Remembering Jiang Wang’s answer to the last fill-in-the-blank question, for some reason, she felt that the 148 points was Jiang Wang.

But such a score didn’t match his usual joking demeanor at all, especially for someone who hardly attended classes…

Her brother was similar to Jiang Wang, and Xu Ningqing’s grades had always been in the middle range, though his math seemed to be not bad.

Perhaps boys had better scientific thinking.

Shi Niannian turned her head to look at him.

Jiang Wang noticed and turned to look back, calmly raising his brow.

“Was that 148… yours?” she asked in a low voice.

Shi Niannian only asked because she had previously thought Jiang Wang hadn’t done well due to handing in his paper early because of her, and she felt guilty. She wanted to confirm that he hadn’t done poorly.

Jiang Wang didn’t have much reaction to her question, just laughed lightly, his voice teasing with a drawn-out ending: “Why, trying to deny it? I didn’t do well because of you.”

His voice was highly adaptable.

Usually, when his face was cold, his voice was hard and cold, making people afraid to provoke him just by hearing it.

But as long as he spoke with a hint of laughter, it was exceptionally captivating, carrying a hint of roguishness and charm.

Shi Niannian lowered her head and softly said “sorry” again.

Jiang Wang could hardly count how many times she had said sorry and thank you during this period. He made a “tsk” sound and took out his phone, pushing it onto Shi Niannian’s desk.

First High wasn’t strict about phone management, but she had never played with her phone during class, and Jiang Wang had placed it so openly on her desk.

She was startled, quickly looking up at Xu Zhilin, and only relaxed slightly when she saw him drawing on the blackboard.

Jiang Wang saw all her reactions and couldn’t help but curl his lips.

“What are you afraid of?” he asked carelessly.

Shi Niannian said seriously and solemnly: “This is… class time.”

“…” Jiang Wang made an “oh” sound with a smile, then asked seriously: “So?”

“…”

Shi Niannian now believed he wasn’t the one who scored 148 points. She looked at Jiang Wang, frowning as she asked: “Why don’t you act like a… student at all?”

Jiang Wang found her way of speaking amusing, so proper and serious.

He leaned a bit closer, deliberately scaring her, playfully saying: “I’m the school bully. Have you ever seen a school bully who acts like a student?”

Shi Niannian wasn’t intimidated by his school bully title at all. She lowered her head and scratched her bangs, muttering: “I want to… listen to the lecture.”

“Hey, I wanted you to see this.”

Jiang Wang pulled his chair a bit closer, dragging it across the floor, making a sharp, grating sound.

Xu Zhilin paused with the chalk in his hand and turned to look.

He saw Jiang Wang leaning closer to Shi Niannian. The girl had her head down, her bangs partially hiding her eyes, seeming uncomfortable with such proximity, and even moved away slightly.

Jiang Wang looked exactly like a criminal peddling drugs.

Xu Zhilin coughed.

Shi Niannian went “pah” and flipped her test paper over to hide the phone.

All these little movements were seen. Xu Zhilin didn’t make things difficult for her, but said: “Jiang Wang, come up and solve this problem.”

Jiang Wang bit his lower lip, ran his tongue along his teeth, and asked lazily: “Which problem?”

Xu Zhilin almost laughed out of frustration: “Fill-in-the-blank question number six.”

He stood up with the test paper and walked to the podium, took a piece of white chalk, and without much thought, began writing directly, surprising everyone.

His handwriting was quite beautiful.

Jiang Ling had her foot on the chair bar, leaning in her seat to talk to Shi Niannian: “Jiang Wang seems to be hiding his abilities. Niannian, have you asked him how he did?”

Shi Niannian shook her head: “No.”

Jiang Ling: “I don’t think my previous rumors ever mentioned Jiang Wang’s grades. He…”

Before she could finish, Xu Zhilin looked over.

“Jiang Ling,” Xu Zhilin called her out, “pay attention to the lecture. There’s still a lot of room for improvement in your math scores.”

Jiang Ling was stunned, turned back with a red face.

Her chin knocked against the desk, and she felt embarrassed.

Shi Niannian finally looked at Jiang Wang’s phone on her desk.

It was on a WeChat page, with the contact saved as Xu Ningqing.

“Coming to the hotpot restaurant across from your school for lunch at noon.

Bring your little tablemate. This girl is too serious about class, she didn’t even react when I sent her messages.”

Shi Niannian didn’t notice that Xu Ningqing didn’t call her by name, nor “my sister,” but rather the somewhat ambiguous “your little tablemate.”

Jiang Wang briefly wrote down a few steps, derived the answer, finally dotted a period, then turned and tossed the chalk into the chalk box.

Everyone was a bit stunned.

Brother, aren’t you just a pure school bully?

Your grades are not bad?!

Then why did you stab someone back then!?

By the end of the third morning class, everyone’s impression of Jiang Wang had evolved from a pure school bully to a school bully with decent math skills, then further to an infuriatingly academic achiever who was also a school bully.

Cai Yucai walked into the classroom with the grade sheets, beaming with joy.

“Everyone, quiet down! Quiet down!” Cai Yucai knocked on the podium desk. “I’m going to analyze the monthly exam results! Everyone, back to your seats!”

Below, it was unusually quiet as everyone listened attentively.

“Our class did quite well this time! Especially those in the high score range!” Cai Yucai smiled so widely his mouth nearly reached his temples. He straightened a stack of grade sheets on the podium and announced, “First in the grade!”

As he spoke, he swept his gaze over the students below, pausing for three seconds, “Shi Niannian!”

Jiang Ling led a round of applause.

Cheng Qi’s group wasn’t present, so no one disrupted the proceedings. Everyone cheered and applauded. For their ordinary class to defeat the rocket class was an extremely satisfying event!

“Shi Niannian!” Cai Yucai repeated with a smile, “708 points!”

The applause grew louder.

A high score starting with 7!

“Next!” Cai Yucai was getting even more enthusiastic about building suspense, “Second place! Can everyone guess who it is?”

“Second in the grade or second in the class?” someone asked.

Cai Yucai answered: “Of course, second in the grade!”

“Holy shit, both first and second are from our class?”

“That balding head from the rocket class must be furious! To be outdone by our ordinary class!”

“But who is in second place? Huang Yao?”

“She’s usually just second in our class and has never been in the top ten in the grade. I don’t think it’s her.”

“…Damn, if you keep talking like this, I’m starting to get a bit scared.”

“…I think I’m getting a bit scared too.”

The surrounding conversations rustled, and then everyone froze for a few seconds, slowly, one by one, turning their heads to look at Jiang Wang in the back corner.

The young man was indifferently leaning back in his chair, his long, slender hands resting on the desk, his index finger tapping on the table, absentmindedly lost in thought.

Noticing everyone’s gaze, he slowly looked up and scratched his eyebrow.

Very calm.

The slight fear in everyone’s hearts somewhat eased.

But the next second, they heard Cai Yucai loudly proclaim: “That’s right! It’s our classmate Jiang Wang! Second place in the grade!”

“706 points!”

The classroom fell completely silent.

Cai Yucai was extremely satisfied: “I’ve seen our classmate Jiang Wang’s test papers! It’s a bit of a pity—on the last small question of the math test, he was just one step away. Was it because you ran out of time? You were about to get the answer, but ended up losing two points.”

The classroom remained quiet.

Jiang Wang had even handed in his math test early.

At the time, they thought the school bully had finally had enough and decided to go out and be free.

But the result?

Both tablemates handed in their papers early, resulting in two 148s!

Cai Yucai continued: “Otherwise, our class would have had a perfect math score and would have tied with Shi Niannian for first in the grade!”

“Come on! Let’s give them both a round of applause!” Cai Yucai said, leading the applause.

Everyone hesitated for a second, then applauded even more enthusiastically, as if they wanted to lift the roof off.

Only then did Jiang Wang make an impatient “tsk” sound.

Though his voice was very soft and quickly drowned out by the loud applause, it had the powerful effect of immediately stopping everyone’s clapping.

Silence fell again, very decisively.

After everyone had been afraid of him for stabbing someone, now they genuinely felt he was an enigma.

Shi Niannian didn’t know why, but she suddenly wanted to laugh, just because seeing everyone so afraid of him was too adorable.

Her sense of humor was quite strange. Sometimes, when a funny point was made in class, others would be doubled over with laughter while she couldn’t even understand what was funny.

Just like now, when everyone was silent, she suddenly wanted to laugh.

With the homeroom teacher standing at the podium, she didn’t dare laugh out loud.

She could only press her lips together and laugh with her head down, her shoulders shaking imperceptibly.

The girl’s face turned a bit red from suppressing her laughter. The humor spilled from her eyes, clear and bright.

The corners of her eyes drooped gently, somewhat resembling puppy eyes.

Jiang Wang glanced at her, and the irritation that had risen from all those stares and hushed discussions suddenly dissipated by half.

The four morning classes ended.

Jiang Ling turned around from her seat: “Niannian, going to lunch?”

She shook her head: “My brother… is coming, I’m going to eat outside today.”

“Is that your very handsome brother?” Jiang Ling asked.

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll go to the cafeteria myself. By the way, be careful, don’t get bullied by Cheng Qi and the others again.”

Shi Niannian smiled and made another “mm” sound.

The two walked out of the classroom through the back door.

Jiang Wang was standing at the doorway, leaning against the wall, holding a school uniform jacket in his hand.

He looked up at her: “Let’s go.”