The exam ended, and the bell rang throughout the campus.

Following the proctoring guidelines, Lin Wanxing went to each student’s desk to collect the test papers.

When she reached Wen Chengye’s seat, she picked up the boy’s test paper and specifically looked at his answer sheet.

Wen Chengye’s handwriting was quite good, his answers were neat and clean, and there were almost no corrections.

Lin Wanxing’s gaze swept over the few lines of his answers. Although she hadn’t seen the standard answers, based on the few questions she had casually seen during her rounds, Lin Wanxing believed Wen Chengye’s answering standard was very high.

Asking such a good student to play soccer? No wonder his mother disapproved.

The students temporarily left the examination room. Lin Wanxing was responsible for binding the test papers, delivering them to the academic affairs office, and finally heading to the cafeteria.

The high school campus after an exam was livelier than usual.

All along the way, Lin Wanxing heard students comparing answers with each other.

They either loudly debated the answers to multiple-choice questions or lamented how they just couldn’t remember the last line of a classical poem recitation. Happy “aows” and regretful “wuwus” filled the air continuously.

After a night of autumn rain, the campus was permeated with the rich fragrance of osmanthus, the ground covered with orange-red osmanthus petals resembling grains of rice.

Lin Wanxing stepped on wet leaves, walking toward the aroma of rice at the cafeteria entrance. However, when she looked up, she froze.

She saw a banner.

The banner was bright red, tied between two camphor trees, perfectly positioned in front of the bulletin board at the entrance of Hongjing Eighth Middle School’s cafeteria, making it particularly eye-catching.

Looking at the characters on the banner, Lin Wanxing stood at the cafeteria entrance for at least half a minute.

“Warm Celebration of Hongjing Eighth Middle School Campus Soccer Team’s Victory over Yuzhou Silver Elephants!!!”

The banner hung casually with three exclamation points for emphasis, obviously not the work of the school’s sports department.

The only possibility was that the students had secretly made a banner to celebrate their first group stage victory.

From this, Lin Wanxing finally understood where their excitement about returning to school for exams came from.

What they had been looking forward to wasn’t returning to school, but returning to school to hang a banner celebrating themselves!

Lin Wanxing stood in front of the bulletin board with the huge banner fluttering wildly, a camphor tree branch resting on top of it, making her a bit dizzy.

“Teacher, you’re here!”

Cheerful voices of the boys came from behind.

Lin Wanxing turned around to see Yu Ming and Zheng Feiyang emerge from a corner, waving excitedly at her.

The other members of the soccer team also appeared from various corners outside the cafeteria, gathering around the banner, looking spirited.

Lin Wanxing looked up carefully at the characters on the banner again and said helplessly, “How did you come up with this idea?”

“We wanted to give you a surprise!”

“Impressive, isn’t this spot perfect?”

“It’s big, right? We specially ordered the largest one!” Lin Lu shouted.

Hearing this, Lin Wanxing narrowed her eyes to observe the surroundings.

The cafeteria entrance during mealtime was crowded with people, the busiest place in all of Hongjing Eighth Middle School beside the flag-raising ceremony.

However, most students here were hurrying along. Everyone was rushing to eat, and few people would stop to look at the bulletin board.

Most just glanced at the banner, not even noticing what was written on it. Even fewer cared about the soccer team’s affairs.

But the boys didn’t mind any of this.

They just wanted to show off ostentatiously that they had defeated the Yuzhou Silver Elephants!

“Is it too flamboyant, Teacher?” Seeing that she remained silent for so long, Fu Xinshu felt a bit embarrassed. “They insisted that since we won, why be afraid of people knowing, and wanted to promote ourselves.”

“Cool!” Lin Wanxing turned her head and exclaimed admiringly.

Fu Xinshu was stunned for a moment, not understanding her reaction.

But the other boys were very happy and immediately jumped at the opportunity.

“Right!”

“Why were you worried that a woman would criticize us? She’s not the modest type!”

“How am I not modest?” Lin Wanxing protested.

The boys, however, had a “no explanation needed” expression.

Lin Wanxing said, “I was just thinking of telling you that next time, you should remind me. When we win a match, hanging our banner is a bit immodest—we should let the school hang it.”

“We haven’t won a championship yet. Would the school celebrate for us?” Qin Ao asked.

“Does the school only celebrate championships?” Lin Wanxing asked in return.

“I’m not a teacher, how would I know!” Qin Ao said.

“Well, then let’s take it step by step. Shall we first change ‘Yuzhou Silver Elephants’ on the banner to ‘Shanghai Haibo’?” Lin Wanxing said with a smile.

“Of course!”

“Of course!”

“Absolutely!”

The boys’ shouting drew even more attention than the banner.

Lin Wanxing stayed with them for a while, and during that time, a freshman who followed the Chinese Super League came over to ask, “Did you beat the Yuzhou Silver Elephants?”

The students proudly answered, “Of course!”

The freshman was very shocked by the seniors’ achievement.

He not only listened to the soccer team seniors brag for half the day but also exchanged contact information with them.

Lin Wanxing promised the freshman that if there was an opportunity to watch a match in person, she would invite him along.

Lin Wanxing accompanied the students at the cafeteria entrance for almost half of the lunch break, euphemistically calling it a “soccer promotion activity,” but in reality, she was worried that school administrators would come to take down the banner.

Fortunately, the banner looked quite official at a glance and was legitimate, so they didn’t encounter any such issues for the time being.

By the time the students were too hungry to resist going into the cafeteria, the peak flow of people had passed, and there was little food left.

Lin Wanxing generously took out her meal card, letting the students use it.

The boys were shocked again. Yu Ming jumped backward dramatically, saying, “Who are you? You can’t be Lin Wanxing. Lin Wanxing couldn’t possibly be this generous.”

After proctoring for half a day and then accompanying the boys for quite some time, Lin Wanxing was dizzy with hunger.

She irritably said, “Didn’t you hint that I never treated you after winning the match?”

“Treating us to the school cafeteria?” Qin Ao looked disdainful.

“OK, so stingy, you are Lin Wanxing!” Zheng Feiyang commented.

Chen Jianghe was straightforward, directly snatching the meal card from her hand and walking toward the cafeteria’s serving window first.

Seeing this, the remaining students immediately followed, crowding around her meal card as they jostled to get food.

The group of eleven occupied a long table by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the school cafeteria.

The dishes filled the table, with a bowl of seaweed and egg drop soup for each person.

The afternoon sunlight streamed into the cafeteria as the students raised chicken legs to celebrate the rare occasion of mooching a meal from her.

Of course, student Qi Liang would not join such a “stupid” activity.

The air was filled with the characteristic smell of cafeteria food. This was, in Lin Wanxing’s memory, the first time she had lunch with students in the school cafeteria.

The students seemed “carefree.” Lin Wanxing looked at their smiling faces, hesitating to speak.

But in the end, like all parents who tried to hold back but couldn’t, she asked the students how they did on the morning’s Chinese exam.

“Don’t worry, Teacher, I finished everything,” Yu Ming said.

“Me too,” Chen Jianghe answered.

Lin Wanxing took a sip of soup and nodded.

“Stop pretending. What did you write for the line before ‘Changhe luori yuan’?” Qin Ao challenged.

“‘Damo guyan zhi,’ of course,” Chen Jianghe said.

“That’s right,” Yu Ming nodded.

“Boss, don’t tell me you didn’t know?” Lin Lu asked back.

Qin Ao’s eyes widened, feeling indignant as if “everyone agreed to be poor students together, but you secretly studied,” saying, “How do you all know?”

“I didn’t know either, I just wrote it down.”

“Maybe it’s famous, so writing it down is normal?” Lin Lu also said.

“Don’t say that, you’re hurting your boss’s self-esteem,” Qi Liang said slowly as he methodically chewed his vegetables.

“Damn!” Qin Ao angrily bit into a chicken leg. Wanting to save face, he thought for a while and then asked, “Then what about those two lines from Li Bai’s ‘Shu Dao Nan’ that describe how difficult it was to travel between Qin and Shu in ancient times? What did you write?”

“I wrote ‘I don’t know,'” Lin Lu said rightfully. “Teacher Lin told us to complete everything.”

“So you just wrote ‘I don’t know’?” Qin Ao’s eyes widened.

“Yeah.”

“Then I’ll write that next time too.” Qin Ao finally felt better.

Lin Wanxing, believed that the students’ current exam task was to patiently read through the questions and then answer with their understanding.

Don’t treat the exam as an exam, don’t worry about the score or if there’s enough time. Instead, treat it as a normal reading and writing assignment.

The students chatted intermittently about today’s exam paper. They were confident about very few questions, but they had seriously completed every question, including the essay.

Lin Wanxing could confirm this from the students’ conversations.

“Teacher Lin, did you proctor Wen Chengye today?” As Lin Wanxing was eating, she suddenly heard Lin Lu ask her.

Lin Wanxing was taken aback and then answered, “Yes, why?”

“Nothing, I just passed by your examination room and saw that he was there too.” Lin Lu chewed a couple of bites of lettuce and asked, “Does he do well on exams?”

The image of Wen Chengye answering questions emerged, and just as Lin Wanxing was about to respond, Qin Ao smacked Lin Lu’s head, interrupting him with displeasure, “We’re eating. Why talk about such an unlucky person?”

“Is Wen Chengye’s academic performance good?” Lin Wanxing thought for a moment and asked instead.

Just as she finished asking, someone stopped next to them.

“Excuse me, is anyone sitting here?” A clear male voice came from above. Lin Wanxing looked up, surprised to see Jin Ziyang holding a tray.

“Teacher Jin?”

Lin Wanxing looked at the seat across from her. There was indeed an empty spot, but the table was piled with two trays just emptied by the boys, so she could also say “Not empty”…

While she was hesitating,

Qin Ao bit his chopsticks and said irritably, “There are so many seats nearby, why do you have to squeeze in with us?”

“Who are you?” Yu Ming also chimed in.

“I’m your senior year physics teacher, surname Jin,” Jin Ziyang said politely. “I’m looking for your Teacher Lin to chat briefly about work.”

Upon hearing he was a teacher, the boys immediately became meek. And when Jin Ziyang mentioned work, the boys had nothing more to say.

Fu Xinshu moved the two trays aside, and Jin Ziyang smoothly sat down in the empty seat across from Lin Wanxing.

Lin Wanxing asked, “Does Teacher Jin have something to discuss?”

“Nothing much. I just finished organizing the exam papers in the academic affairs office,” Jin Ziyang said while eating. “I wanted to ask Teacher Lin how her first proctoring experience was?”

“It was fine,” Lin Wanxing looked at Jin Ziyang, puzzled.

“You didn’t encounter any problems?”

“No.”

After asking these two questions, Jin Ziyang made a sound of acknowledgment and continued eating. It was as if he sat across from her simply because he knew her.

During this brief moment of silence, all the soccer team students at the table made faces at her.

Lin Wanxing spread her hands like a small bear, indicating she knew nothing.

“Is Teacher Lin in the sports department?” Suddenly, Jin Ziyang looked up again.

“Ah? Yes,” Lin Wanxing immediately put her hands down, pretended to take a couple of bites of food, and then casually said, “I’m in charge of the equipment in the sports warehouse. You can find me if you want to borrow any equipment.”

After she said this, the boys at the table all gave her contemptuous looks.

Jin Ziyang’s gaze shifted slightly to the students occupying the entire long table.

Lin Wanxing understood what he wanted to ask and directly answered, “They are our school’s soccer team, also under my supervision.”

“Oh, that’s why,” Jin Ziyang nodded. He thought for a moment, then looked through the floor-to-ceiling window toward the bulletin board outside the cafeteria. “The banner outside?”

“It’s to celebrate our team’s recent good performance, winning against a very strong team,” Lin Wanxing said.

“That’s impressive,” Jin Ziyang probably didn’t even know what “Yuzhou Silver Elephants” was, casually offering a perfunctory remark before continuing to eat.

He ate quickly, said “I’m leaving first. I have proctoring duties this afternoon. Thank you for your hard work, Teacher Lin,” and left hastily with his tray.

“What’s with that guy?” Watching Jin Ziyang’s slender figure walk away, Chen Jianghe was the first to ask.

“I don’t know either?” Lin Wanxing was also puzzled. “Surely he can’t be coveting my beauty?”

“That male teacher probably isn’t blind, right?” Qi Liang even paused, making it seem like he had given this statement serious thought.

“Chat if you can, and if you can’t, hurry up and get lost after you finish eating!” Lin Wanxing slapped the table, warning them.

Qin Ao hadn’t spoken throughout, but upon hearing this, he suddenly stood up.

The boy’s expression was serious, and Lin Wanxing didn’t understand why.

Qin Ao said, “You can’t betray our coach!”

Lin Wanxing: “???”