Chapter 13

Chu Yin?! A perfect score?!
The class was too stunned to applaud. Only the English teacher clapped enthusiastically, the sound echoing through the room.
"As you all know, Chu Yin transferred from a town middle school. Her foundation in English wasn’t as strong as yours, but! This proves that even disparities in educational resources are no match for the fruits of hard work! I’ve often seen Chu Yin sitting quietly at her desk, studying while the rest of you were taking breaks and having fun…"
No one could process what the English teacher was saying anymore.
The entire Class 5 was reeling from the shock.
Chu Yin felt a twinge of guilt.
The gap in educational resources was indeed real… after all, she had studied abroad.
How embarrassing.
The final class of the day ended with the English teacher lavishing praise on Chu Yin. As soon as the bell rang, Class 5 erupted into chaos.
"How is that possible? We’ve all seen her previous report cards, what was her English score again? She didn’t even pass!"
"Anyway, I don’t believe she could get a perfect score in English. Are you kidding me?!"
Fu Mingxuan’s expression was the ugliest in the class. English had always been her proudest subject, and this time she had performed exceptionally well. Just moments ago, everyone had been congratulating her, but then out of nowhere, a perfect score appeared,
And it was from that country bumpkin from the village?!
Everyone was wondering how Chu Yin had managed it. Almost instinctively, they all thought of one possibility, but no one dared to say it out loud.
Fu Mingxuan pushed her test paper aside and sneered coldly, "If you’re so capable, why not copy your way to first place?"
Chu Yin didn’t pay much attention to the whispers around her because, in her mind, the Study System was playing a notification sound:
Beep, Additional reward for achieving first place in a single subject: [Word Modification] permission granted once, already deposited into the host’s account!
Chu Yin hadn’t expected an extra reward and was quite pleased.
...She’d probably have a use for it later.
Song Zhaolin sat in a daze for a long time before snapping out of his sorrowful state of "I thought we were in the same boat, but you abandoned me and soared to the top."
He looked at Chu Yin with a mix of resentment and melancholy. "Sis Yin, your English is actually this good?"
Seeing his handsome face twisted into an expression reminiscent of Xianglin’s wife, Chu Yin couldn’t help but feel amused. "Did I ever say I was bad?"
Song Zhaolin froze for a moment, then exclaimed, "Oh, right?!"
All the rumors, Chu Yin being an academic failure, Chu Yin pretending to be a top student, Chu Yin not understanding English, were all spread by others and had never been confirmed!
A terrifying suspicion suddenly dawned on Song Zhaolin. "Then your other subjects wouldn’t be…" this impressive too, would they?
Chu Yin smiled faintly.
"We’ll see."
The next class was Chinese.
The Chinese teacher didn’t keep them in suspense and handed back everyone’s test papers right away.
"Jiang Yan scored 138 in Chinese! Wow, " someone exclaimed.
Learning from the previous class, the students asked in advance, "Teacher, is 138 the highest score?"
The Chinese teacher smiled. "Yes, and it’s also the highest score in the grade for this subject. Very impressive!"
For some reason, everyone felt a sense of relief.
Xing Lan scored 128. She nudged Fu Mingxuan and asked, "How about you, Mingxuan?"
Fu Mingxuan had scored 132, which was also quite high. She turned around and glanced at Chu Yin, who was looking down without any sign of joy. Fu Mingxuan snorted softly, and much of her frustration faded away.
Chu Yin looked at her Chinese exam paper, 135. Hmm, within her expected range.
The Chinese class ended halfway through going over the exam, and the atmosphere during the break was much more relaxed. Everyone gathered to discuss their scores, occasionally glancing in Chu Yin’s direction.
The last period was history class, and the history teacher brought the results for all three liberal arts subjects with him.
The male teacher was straightforward. After distributing the papers and seeing the eager looks from Class 5, he simply announced the top scores for the three subjects:
"Highest score in history, 95! Politics... let me think, Teacher Song said the highest in your class was 98. Geography, the highest was 94. Not bad, everyone did well!"
With each subject he announced, cheers erupted from the students.
"I got the highest in history!" "Haha, geography is me!" "Wow, I’m the top in politics!"
Not a single cheer came from Chu Yin.
The students of Class 5 were now completely reassured.
Subjects like Chinese and the liberal arts, with their densely written answers, left no room for cheating. Hadn’t someone’s true colors been revealed? Only English had given her a loophole to exploit!
Fu Mingxuan felt relieved too. She had the highest score in history, and her other two subjects weren’t bad either. She estimated she’d rank in the top three in the class for the liberal arts subjects. Combined with her English score... as long as she performed normally in math, she was sure to be the top student in the class!
The history teacher’s lively teaching style kept the atmosphere upbeat throughout the class. It wasn’t until near the end that a boy remembered to ask:
"So, Brother Liu, who’s the overall top scorer?"
"Huh? Didn’t I say?" The history teacher laughed heartily. "There’s a student in your class who ranked second in all three subjects, history, geography, and politics, but their total score is over ten points higher than the second-place student!"
"Whoa, who is it?!"
The history teacher scanned the room. "I’d like to see this student’s face, where is Chu Yin sitting?"
As soon as he spoke, the entire class erupted in an uproar!
Everyone turned around in unison, craning their necks so hard it seemed they might snap.
The person in question, however, calmly packed her papers, raised her hand, and replied impassively, "Here."
Song Zhaolin’s premonition had come true. Clutching his chest, he felt so impressed by her coolness that he could cry.
After class ended, the classroom was unusually quiet.
Only math remained. Originally, everyone had been eagerly anticipating it, but now, a sense of dread began to creep in.
What if... that country bumpkin they had always looked down on was actually a top student? Judging by her scores so far, she was already exceptional in English and the liberal arts. If her math wasn’t too bad either...
Fu Mingxuan’s composure was on the verge of collapsing.
She calculated in her head, currently, Chu Yin was at least twenty points ahead of her. Twenty points! How was that even possible?!
Fu Mingxuan couldn’t suppress her frustration. No matter what, she couldn’t accept this reality. So when she glanced back at Chu Yin again and saw her secretly folding something and stuffing it into her backpack, she snapped.
Acting on impulse, she rushed over and grabbed Chu Yin’s bag. "Did you cheat?!"
Chu Yin had expected her to stir up trouble but hadn’t anticipated it would be so sudden.
While instructing the system to load the script, she pulled her bag back. "Let go."
The students of Class 5, who were already questioning their lives, immediately focused their attention on the commotion.
Chu Yin skimmed through the script:
[Fu Mingxuan refuses to let go and turns to announce loudly to the class, "I just saw her sneakily hiding something!"
The students, hearing this, exchange suspicious glances.]
Fu Mingxuan continued to press Chu Yin: "Your grades are so abnormal, did you prepare cheat sheets? Let me check your bag!"
Who would still have cheat sheets at this point?? Chu Yin almost felt like applauding this idiotic plot: "I did put in a piece of..."
Fu Mingxuan immediately became aggressive: "You admit it!!"
Chu Yin was so angry she laughed: "Are you out of your mind?"
What she had folded was actually a page of notes, which indeed contained key points for the comprehensive liberal arts exam. It wouldn’t have been a big deal to show it, just requiring some explanation, but at that moment, Chu Yin changed her mind.
She decided to personally stamp Fu Mingxuan as a certified idiot, once and for all.
[Fu Mingxuan forcefully snatched her bag, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and loudly declared: "Look! This is it! It even has the key points for this exam!"]
Chu Yin moved her light pen and changed one word in this passage.
As a result, Fu Mingxuan snatched her backpack, rudely opened it, and rummaged through it.
Everyone stared at her intently.
A few seconds later, Fu Mingxuan pulled out from the backpack, a flatbread.
"Look! This is it!"
Everyone: "…?"
Isn’t this just a damn pancake?
This time, the suspicious gazes shifted to Fu Mingxuan. In this situation, it looked exactly like a farce orchestrated by Fu Mingxuan out of jealousy.
Chu Yin took her things back and said sincerely, "If you’re sick, go get treated."
Fu Mingxuan’s face turned pale.
As the heat of the moment faded, she saw her classmates’ expressions and suddenly realized how outrageous her behavior had been.
Fu Mingxuan’s lips trembled a couple of times as she was about to explain, but just then, the math teacher walked in carrying the exam papers.
At this critical moment, the entire class looked on with trepidation.
"Why do you all look like that? You did very well on this exam!"
"Especially one student who completely changed my impression, "
Fu Mingxuan, along with the rest of Class 5, felt a wave of ominous foreboding.
The last word they wanted to hear right now was "changed impression"!
But the next moment, the math teacher’s voice rang out clearly: "Chu Yin, full marks in math! Brilliant!!"
Fu Mingxuan felt as if she had been struck hard over the head.
Only one thought remained in her mind: Her first place was gone, gone...
Fu Mingxuan’s composure finally shattered completely. A few seconds later, she ran out of the classroom in tears.
…
"I just saw Fu Mingxuan run out crying, probably bombed the exam."
A girl from the International Class returned to her seat and said to Chu Qiuqiu with a smile.
Chu Qiuqiu looked surprised on the surface, but inwardly, she felt a surge of delight.
Scores were being released one after another today, and she had done exceptionally well, both math and English were over 140. Not only would she maintain her grade ranking, but she might even move up a few spots. Her parents would surely be very pleased.
How many points could Chu Yin possibly have? Once the rankings came out, she would make sure to look for her. Then she could show both results to their parents, creating a stark contrast!
She didn’t have to wait long before someone ran down the hallway shouting, "The rankings are out!!"
The students in the International Class quickly turned on the multimedia system, logged into their accounts, and checked the scoreboard.
"Hurry up and check for our Qiuqiu, did she make it into the top five this time?" a few of her close friends urged from below.
"Alright, alright, we’ll have to scroll up to find it. Let me see, "
Everyone stared at the projector screen as the scroll bar moved upward. In the process, Chu Qiuqiu seemed to vaguely catch sight of a familiar name.
The scrolling stopped, and the grade ranking settled on the top ten. Chu Qiuqiu was ranked 7th with a total score of 661.
"Such a high score, Qiuqiu!"
"Rank 7 in the grade is amazing! If I could get that score, my dad would be over the moon!"
Before they could say much more, everyone’s attention was suddenly drawn elsewhere,
Someone exclaimed in shock, "Holy crap, who’s this in first place? Is this person a monster?"
"Total score 713?! Second place only has 702!"
"Which class are they from? Class 5?"
After a few seconds of silence, an even louder roar erupted from the front of the classroom: "First place, Chu Yin?!"
In the corner of the classroom, Lu Zhen, who had been playing on his phone with his head down, suddenly looked up.
"Holy crap, isn’t that the one with the transcript, "
"Yeah! Wasn’t her performance supposed to be terrible??"
Tan Ke also looked up, carefully reading the name of the top-ranked student, and clicked his tongue in amazement. "Wow, Zhaolin’s desk mate is really hiding her skills."
Lu Zhen tilted his chin up slightly, staring fixedly at the scoreboard. After a long moment, he chuckled.
Tan Ke asked, "Brother Zhen, what’s so funny?"
Lu Zhen shook his head with a smile.
That little bookworm really is a good student, huh.
So… does she dislike a bad student like me who doesn’t take exams?
Chu Qiuqiu’s face turned deathly pale. Stunned by the news, she stood up with an expression of utter disbelief. "Impossible!"
Her friend beside her was startled. "What’s wrong, Qiuqiu?"
"My sister, she studied in a small town and her grades were terrible. There’s no way she could score this high!"
Indeed, who hadn’t seen that transcript? Not a single subject was presentable.
"You mean, could she have…"
"Holy crap, no way. With such a high score, could she have cheated?"
Chu Qiuqiu composed herself and spoke up, "If she really did something like that, for the sake of fairness across the entire grade, I will definitely, "
Before she could finish her sentence, someone in the back of the classroom suddenly kicked a desk.
The legs of the desk scraped loudly across the floor, and the classroom’s noise instantly died down.
"Shut up."
The entire class immediately turned to look,
Chu Qiuqiu’s face turned ugly as she met Lu Zhen’s icy gaze. She realized her legs had gone weak.
Lu Zhen spoke, his words clear and deliberate: "She was in the last exam room. No one in front of her, me behind her, and the students on her left and right didn’t score over 200."
The young man’s thin lips curled into a mocking smile.
"Who could she have copied from? Me?"
Chu Qiuqiu’s face alternated between green and pale.
No one in the International Class dared to say another word.
Meanwhile, in Class 5, the rankings were also made public.
Ranked first in the grade was Chu Yin, with a total score of 713.
Full marks in Math and English, with a total deduction of 37 points across the other four subjects, placing her 23 points ahead of the second-ranked student in her class.
No further explanation was necessary.
Who could possibly cheat their way to the top of the grade?
And who would she even copy from?
Chu Yin looked at the rankings, listening to the delightful system notification in her mind:
Ding, Mission to rank first in the grade completed! Congratulations, host, on obtaining the [Edit Single Sentence] permission and the special reward item [Replacement Card]!
Thank you, she was thrilled.