Finished…

Before entering the exam hall, these three words kept flashing through Zhu Yun’s mind.

Finished! Finished! Finished!

People are not machines, after all. Energy has its limits. And the appeal of Marxism simply could not compete with the motion-capture system.

Poor Zhu Yun — her last impression of this subject had frozen at that afternoon’s lesson on “the characteristics of the fundamental contradictions in our society.” Not a single step of progress in the days that followed. And now, here she was, walking into the exam.

Was it an exam hall, or an execution ground?

Zhu Yun sat in the classroom, her inner monologue teetering on the edge of explosion. Her mother had always told her that when it came to academics, one had to stay focused — cramming at the last minute never led anywhere good.

She felt she had never truly understood those words until now. She had always assumed that “nowhere good” simply meant a low score. She had never imagined the particular agony of sitting in an exam hall knowing full well what was coming.

If you already know the answer is going to be garbage, why bother putting pen to paper?

Life is just full of these helpless little moments.

Hoping that Marx might suddenly possess her body seemed a bit unrealistic. Zhu Yun told herself to let go. Things had already come to this — all she could do was face it with a certain breezy indifference.

A moment later, someone sat down beside her. Zhu Yun turned her head.

Li Xun had come completely unburdened — empty-handed, nothing with him at all. After sitting down, he reached into his pocket, produced a black ballpoint pen, and set it on the desk.

By the measure of academic importance, university exams were jokingly divided by students into two categories: “packaged” and “loose.” “Packaged” referred to the important courses — mostly major-specific classes where the professor personally invigilated, having worked out a complex system of assigned seating based on student ID numbers. “Loose,” on the other hand, referred to the less critical courses: no assigned seats, everyone piling into a lecture hall and sitting wherever they liked, so long as there was one empty seat between any two students.

Fundamental Principles of Marxism was, very obviously, a “loose” exam.

Zhu Yun stared at Li Xun with a stiff expression.

What is this supposed to mean?

Are the two of us, the class’s resident Marxism underachievers, going to huddle together for warmth? The thought that just days ago she had been mocking Li Xun’s political theory grades, and now they were apparently going to sink to the same level together — Zhu Yun felt that karmic retribution truly did not waste any time. She didn’t even have it in her to say hello.

The invigilator walked in carrying the exam papers.

“Everyone settle down. Student ID cards on your left, bags on the windowsill at the back. Nothing is allowed inside your desk.”

Students shuffled to their feet in a scattered, half-hearted wave.

Zhu Yun picked up her bag and squeezed past Li Xun. The young lord had his long legs stretched out straight, arms folded across his chest, eyes closed in a restful doze.

What time had he stayed at the base last night? His under-eyes were so dark they looked like he’d put on stage makeup. Zhu Yun decided not to wake him and carefully stepped over his long legs.

The teacher began distributing the papers, and Li Xun finally stirred awake.

Zhu Yun answered what she knew and made wild guesses at the rest. This resigned, throw-caution-to-the-wind mentality gradually loosened the tension in her shoulders. Everything was already doomed — she might as well face it with flair. She wrote and paused and wrote again, occasionally stealing glances at the figure beside her.

The sight of Li Xun holding a pen felt oddly unfamiliar. In Zhu Yun’s mental image of him, his hands were always on a keyboard.

She answered questions and muttered to herself inwardly — partly because she had come to know Li Xun well enough by now to recognize that his arrogantly commanding personality made him seem like he was perpetually striking a pose.

Take right now, for instance.

Everyone else in the exam hall was hunched dutifully over their desks, heads down, scribbling away in focused silence. Only he was leaning back in his chair, as if the space were too cramped to contain him — turned slightly to one side, brow faintly furrowed, eyeing the exam paper with a look of languid disdain, like a sovereign surveying his domain.

Those legs of his were impossible to ignore, especially in black trousers. The clean, unbroken lines of them prompted an involuntary appreciation for the artistry of nature.

Zhu Yun let out a quiet internal sigh — and before she had even drawn in the next breath, Li Xun had already finished the first page of the exam. Then — he folded the paper in half, pressed it down with one finger, and gave it a single light flick across the desk.

The paper shot over to Zhu Yun’s side.

?!?!?!?!

Zhu Yun inhaled sharply.

What are you doing!!!!

Her scalp felt like it had split open.

Li Xun’s movement had been so fast, so casual, so completely unruffled, that time itself seemed to pause around him. No one had caught the terrifying exchange. Only Zhu Yun sat there with her heart hammering like a drum, her mouth dry, her entire body breaking out in cold sweat, every part of her in complete disarray.

What was this?

…Cheating?

— Cheating!!!!

Good God!

Zhu Yun had hardly ever done anything like this in her life. Whatever minor incidents she might have gotten into as a child barely counted, and nothing had ever been this direct, this brazen. She had never even witnessed anything quite like it.

A bad grade meant two miserable weeks at home at worst. But getting caught cheating — if her mother found out — that smooth, fair skin of hers would not survive the consequences.

Li Xun, I’m going to kill you…

Agony. The exam had become absolute, unrelenting agony.

The two invigilators transformed in her mind into harbingers of doom. She hunched over her paper, arms pressed down hard on top of it, heart offering frantic, scattered prayers to every deity she could think of.

A full ten minutes passed before Zhu Yun’s nerves slowly began to settle. The one advantage of a “loose” exam was that invigilation was never particularly strict. Both teachers were seated at the front podium — one was openly reading a book, the other appeared to be watching the room but was in all likelihood simply staring into the middle distance.

Zhu Yun stole a glance at Li Xun. He looked exactly as he had before — same posture, same expression — racing through the second page of the exam.

Perhaps sensing her gaze, his eyes shifted slightly and met hers.

Zhu Yun was about to glare at him to communicate her feelings, when Li Xun’s gaze dropped downward, gesturing toward the paper she had pinned under her arm — a faint, unhurried prompting in his expression — before he looked away and went back to answering his questions.

Zhu Yun was almost moved to tears by his composure.

Her seat was well-positioned: toward the right side of the lecture hall, slightly toward the back. The teacher, too lazy to angle his head in that direction, had inadvertently granted her a comfortable margin of survival.

She lowered her eyes.

The paper quality was flimsy — pressing down hard enough made the handwriting on the sheet beneath bleed through. She could faintly make out dark lettering.

In Zhu Yun’s imagination, Li Xun’s handwriting had always been like a printed font at standard document size…

She hadn’t expected his handwriting to be this striking.

It wasn’t neat — even a little hurried — but that didn’t diminish its appeal in the slightest. Each stroke was decisive and forceful, the thinking behind it clear and direct, the pen moving without hesitation from start to finish. It reminded her of his code.

“Thirty minutes remaining. Please manage your time.”

The invigilator’s announcement broke through her thoughts.

Zhu Yun quickly silenced all those stray musings and began comparing answers between the two papers.

Multiple choice, true or false, fill in the blank… there were differences throughout.

She was torn. When it came to academics, Zhu Yun had always maintained a certain quiet confidence in herself behind the humble front she put on in public. Crossing out her own answers to copy someone else’s…

Two soft taps broke her deliberation. Zhu Yun glanced sideways. Li Xun had already finished. He was leaning back with one leg crossed over the other, chin resting in one hand, the other hand resting lightly on the desk, fingers tapping a slow, idle rhythm.

He wrinkled his brow at her with unmistakable exasperation. For a brief moment, Zhu Yun felt she could hear his inner voice with perfect clarity:

“Would you hurry the hell up?”

Zhu Yun drew a deep breath — and crossed out her own answers.

“That girl! What do you think you’re doing!?”

A sharp reprimand rang through the exam hall. The entire room flinched. The invigilator finally snapped out of his daze and looked over, pointing from the front toward Zhu Yun’s general direction.

“The girl with the glasses! What are you doing! Take that out and show me!”

The gods have abandoned me. This is the end.

The color drained from Zhu Yun’s face. All hope abandoned her. She had no idea how the teacher had spotted her — and no desire to find out. Results were everything.

The teacher came striding down toward her like an avenging spirit, bearing down with all the menace of a demon come to collect a debt. Zhu Yun had never been this frightened in her life. She had not known until this moment that a single instant could contain so much terror.

Her eyes began to sting.

The teacher reached her, hand extending, and with one swift motion pulled out —

A piece of paper from the desk behind her.

“What is going on here?” the invigilator demanded sharply.

Huh?

The teacher quickly scanned the paper, then picked up the student ID card sitting at the corner of the desk behind Zhu Yun and examined it.

“Come with me.”

The girl sitting behind her was someone from Class Two. Zhu Yun recognized her face but couldn’t recall her name. The girl let her hair fall forward to cover as much of her face as possible and followed the teacher out of the room.

“Take note, everyone,” said the teacher who had been reading at the front. “Don’t take any chances. Keep your eyes on your own paper.”

Zhu Yun’s fingers were trembling, cold sweat still damp on her skin. She felt as though she had been marched out of the room and executed alongside that girl.

Then she heard a faint sound from beside her. She turned her head. Li Xun was slumped forward onto the desk — and he was shaking, just as she was.

But not from fear.

He was shaking from laughter.

He lifted his eyes from the crook of his arm long enough to take in the ashen pallor of Zhu Yun’s face, then couldn’t hold it back any longer and buried his head again, shoulders continuing to shake, his tousled blond hair trembling with each silent laugh.

Good.

Zhu Yun thought, with a certain gentle serenity.

Very good.

If I make it out of this classroom alive, tonight I will salt you and steam you whole.

When the papers were collected, they passed them forward from the back row. Zhu Yun was still too wound up to move freely, but Li Xun’s reflexes were quick — he reached out, arm extending with easy precision, and neatly retrieved his own exam paper from the stack.

That exam had been nothing short of a trial by ordeal.

Zhu Yun walked out of the exam hall on slightly unsteady legs.

A hand came down on her shoulder. She turned to find the instigator of all her suffering standing behind her. She would have liked nothing more than to grind him to dust and scatter him to the wind. She was just drawing breath to let him have it when Li Xun took hold of the back of her neck.

“This way.”

He steered her out of the building by a different route. The moment they were somewhere slightly less crowded, Zhu Yun couldn’t contain herself any longer.

“Are you trying to kill me!?”

Li Xun wore a faint smile, pulling out a cigarette, looking down at her with that characteristic sidelong gaze.

“What kind of nerve do you call that?”

“And now you’re blaming me!?”

They stepped out of the building into a cold gust of wind, and her heart rate dropped a fraction. Zhu Yun said indignantly, “You could have at least told me beforehand!”

“I sat down right next to you.”

“You—” Zhu Yun pressed her fingers to her temple.

I hope your way of communicating things eventually becomes as direct as your way of cheating.

The cold sweat on her forehead had still not fully dried.

Li Xun exhaled a languid breath of smoke and added, “I’ve never slipped up. Not once.”

Zhu Yun: “You’ve done this a lot?”

Li Xun looked straight ahead, remarking mildly, “If I told you about my history of taking exams for other people, it would scare you senseless.”

…You can stop talking now.

They arrived at the base. Li Xun fished out his keys and unlocked the door. With exam week underway, base activities had been suspended — but the project wasn’t finished, and Zhu Yun couldn’t bring herself to let it go. She had even caught herself thinking she wouldn’t mind if the school delayed the start of the holiday by a few more days.

Li Xun went to fill his water bottle. Zhu Yun watched him for a moment, then said on impulse, “Why did you…”

His throat moved as he swallowed — half the bottle gone in one go.

“Hm?”

Why did you sit next to me? Why did you let me copy your paper?

Zhu Yun looked at the clear brightness in Li Xun’s eyes, and suddenly didn’t want to ask.

Li Xun raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Zhu Yun gave a small pout and said, unhurriedly, “Nothing. I just remembered — your political theory scores have always just barely scraped by. You were crossing a river on a crumbling raft yourself. Letting me copy off you — weren’t you worried something might go wrong?”

Li Xun glanced at her. “Worried?”

“Of course.”

Li Xun leaned back against the chair, that signature smile spreading across his face.

He had just finished drinking, and his lips were still slightly damp. That smile, against those lips, was enough to make a person’s heart skip.

“Your Highness,” he said, “let’s be a little more honest with each other, shall we?”

…

Zhu Yun gave a small inward scoff, turned her head, and refused to look at him.