Chapter 32

The sight before her was so startling that, after the initial shock, Zhao Lianqiao suddenly realized this might be a chance to completely split up Qiao Zhenzhen's family.
Her heart immediately raced and the hand on her backpack strap trembled slightly. Just as she was about to follow upstairs, an astonished voice sounded nearby: "Zhao Lianqiao?"
Zhao Lianqiao froze for a moment; when she turned and saw the homeroom teacher, she straightened reflexively. "T-Teacher."
"Why aren't you home at this hour? What are you doing here?" the homeroom teacher frowned.
Zhao Lianqiao forced a laugh. "Nothing, I'm leaving now." With that she ran off.
The homeroom teacher glanced at her hurried back with puzzlement, then carried the vegetables upstairs.
Unaware she'd been followed, Qiao Zhenzhen stayed at Chi Shen's until after eleven that night. They finally reviewed several key problem types, and by the time she went downstairs she felt light as air and could barely keep her eyes open. Chi Shen stayed until he handed her over to Qin Jing before turning to go home and rest.
Qin Jing took her and, half amused and half exasperated, drove them home. "It was only two hours of tutoring. How are you this tired?"
"You don't get it. My head's stuffed with so many facts, I feel lightheaded," Qiao Zhenzhen sighed.
Qin Jing laughed. "You're working so hard, if you don't do well tomorrow, won't you be devastated?"
"Pah, don't jinx it," Qiao Zhenzhen quickly said.
Qin Jing rolled her eyes and hit the gas, driving her superstitious daughter home.
When the two of them returned, the living room was pitch dark. Before Qin Jing could flip a switch, they heard Qiao Jian's gloomy voice from the dark: "Didn't school let out two hours ago? Why are you only coming back now?"
Qin Jing paused, turned on the light, and saw him sitting on the sofa. "Weren't you out?"
"This is my house. I'll come back whenever I want," Qiao Jian snapped.
Qin Jing and Qiao Zhenzhen exchanged a look. Qiao Zhenzhen, knowing better, walked into the room. Qiao Jian's face turned cold. "Can't you even say hello to your father? Did a few days at the Qin household wipe all your manners away?"
"It's nothing to do with the Qin family if I don't greet you," Qiao Zhenzhen couldn't help snapping back.
Qiao Jian sneered. "What, after eating a few meals there you've forgotten your own surname?"
"Don't use this as an excuse to rant. I already said Zhenzhen went for tutoring, that's why she came back late. What is wrong with you?" Qin Jing frowned.
Qiao Jian continued sarcastically, "Who knows if she went to tutoring or to beg for food at the Qins? She's mine by blood, how can she be so hopeless?"
Qin Jing was about to lose her temper, but Qiao Zhenzhen pulled her inside. "Don't argue with him, it's not worth it. Let's go to bed."
"Yeah, yeah, Qin Jing is your real mother and I'm not your father, so of course it's not worth arguing with me. If you want to fight, find your real dad..."
Qiao Jian hadn't finished his sentence before Qiao Zhenzhen briskly went upstairs and shut the door. The words stuck in his throat and he felt even more irritated. He looked down and saw a message from Zhao Ying: I’ve been vomiting badly these past few days. Why aren’t you coming back?
Already annoyed, Qiao Jian snapped back without patience: Go see a doctor if you keep vomiting. What good does texting me do?
Zhao Ying, upon receiving the message, angrily complained to Zhao Lianqiao, "See? Men are all the same. Before the child they coddled you, afraid you'd run off. Now that there's a child they think they've got you locked down. He actually talks to me like that."
Zhao Lianqiao glanced at the message but didn't reply.
After her rant, Zhao Ying grew anxious. "Do you think he might refuse to acknowledge the child?"
"He's wanted a son for years. Now that there's one, how could he deny him?" Zhao Lianqiao said casually to reassure her.
But Zhao Ying remained uneasy. "He'll certainly recognize the son, I worry he won't recognize me. His family isn't someone to be taken lightly. What if they team up and take the child away and leave me with nothing?"
Zhao Lianqiao snorted. "Relax. That won't happen."
"You're so sure?" Zhao Ying was still uneasy, sounding petty.
Zhao Lianqiao shot her a look, suddenly a little impatient. Her luck was terrible, if she had to transmigrate into a book, at least don't make it as a supporting character with such a spineless mother. If she hadn't encouraged this woman to approach Qiao Jian using her high school first-love identity, the two of them might still be sleeping under an overpass.
"Just take care of yourself; don't worry about anything else," Zhao Lianqiao said, then frowned and left.
Zhao Ying didn't miss the disdain in her eyes; she snorted and muttered, "That brat, getting more rebellious every day..."
The next day was the midterm. High school students from first to third year had no classes; they just needed to show up at the exam halls on time.
Qiao Zhenzhen slept until eight in the morning, washed her face, and set off. Sure enough, when she reached the school gate, she saw Chi Shen waiting in the same spot.
"There are two exams in the morning; they'll finish at noon. The third one isn't until three in the afternoon. Let's go out to eat after school, after eating you can nap at your place," Qiao Zhenzhen suggested as they walked into the school.
Chi Shen naturally had no objections; he only asked her to check whether she'd brought her stationery.
Qiao Zhenzhen didn't feel like checking, but seeing his insistence she took out her things. Chi Shen took them and even tested the pens to make sure they wrote properly before returning them.
"…As expected of the top of the grade, your pre-exam prep really is something else," Qiao Zhenzhen marveled.
Chi Shen glanced at her, as if about to say something, then stopped.
Qiao Zhenzhen, brimming with patience: "What do you want to say?"
"I don't check my exams," Chi Shen replied.
Qiao Zhenzhen: "…Oh." So those checks were aimed solely at her.
But she seemed to be the only one he treated so seriously. Thinking that, Qiao Zhenzhen felt pleased again.
The two of them walked to the academic building. Chi Shen tried to follow her further, but she stopped him: "You go into the exam room. I can go up on my own."
At Chengde High, important exams are assigned to rooms by grade ranking, the higher your rank, the closer to the front. Chi Shen, for example, sat in the first seat of the first exam room, while she, unfortunately, was in the eighteenth of twenty.
Recently Chi Shen had learned to let go of certain stubbornness; like now, after she told him, he obediently went into the exam room. Qiao Zhenzhen watched him enter before heading upstairs alone.
Senior-year exam rooms were spread from the first to fourth floors, with students on every level. When she reached the third floor, she accidentally met Zhao Lianqiao's gaze. Zhao Lianqiao watched her keep going up, a naked arrogance in her eyes.
Without fake friendships to hide behind, she no longer bothered to mask her superiority. For example, as she looked at Qiao Zhenzhen, who would be taking the exam on the fourth floor, her expression was as if she were looking at an idiot.
"…This transmigrated female supporting character is so annoying," Xiao Ba snorted.
Qiao Zhenzhen took a deep breath: "It's fine. Calm down, there's absolutely no difference between the third and fourth floors."
"Come on, host! Try to beat her this time!" Xiao Ba cheered in her mind.
Qiao Zhenzhen tugged the corner of her mouth, signaling she had no real expectations. She'd only been studying seriously for a month or so, while Zhao Lianqiao had been secretly getting tutoring for a year or two; she wasn't confident she could surpass her.
Qiao Zhenzhen sighed, found her seat and sat down. As the time until the test papers were handed out grew tight, she couldn't help but ask Xiao Ba, "How's your knowledge bank? Can you help me out?"
"…I'm not a study-oriented system," Xiao Ba replied tactfully.
Qiao Zhenzhen nodded: "Got it. So you mean you don't know anything."
"Xiao Ba is a high-level AI with its own thoughts; it can converse with its host!" Xiao Ba protested.
Qiao Zhenzhen: "You're just a gabby illiterate."
Xiao Ba: "…"
After teasing it a bit, Qiao Zhenzhen felt less nervous. Still, when the test paper was handed out her palms were a little sweaty; but after filling in her name and exam number, her mood steadied. The first period was Chinese, a subject she was fairly good at.
She breathed out softly, lowered her head and skimmed the test. She first found the ancient poetry fill-in-the-blanks and started there. Lately she'd been memorizing Chinese and English every morning; she'd learned the key pieces in the first volume well enough that she could fill in six of the eight blanks.
After finishing, she finally relaxed and bent over the rest of the questions. The invigilating teacher was her first-year teacher, also Chinese, and seeing her so serious for the first time, he couldn't help but glance at her a few extra times.
Chengde High's midterms were held for three grades at once; the campus was quiet now, the air heavy with solemnity.
Chi Shen was unusually unsettled. Each time he looked at a problem, he'd wonder whether Qiao Zhenzhen could solve it. He had been tutoring her lately and knew her weak points better than she did; whenever he saw a tougher question, his heart sank.
The male invigilator saw him hesitating and couldn't help asking the female teacher beside him, "A-Hun, is this Chinese paper very difficult?"
"Not really. It's the first big exam, who would dare make it too hard? What if it crushed the students?" the female teacher whispered.
The male teacher frowned: "Then why is our top student so nervous?"
The female teacher paused, walked over to glance at Chi Shen's paper, and soon returned: "Don't worry, he has no problem at all."
If he's getting them all right, what's there to be nervous about?
The male teacher relaxed and unscrewed his thermos for a sip of hot tea.
The two morning exams ended quickly. When Qiao Zhenzhen came down to find Chi Shen, she looked utterly despondent: "There are so many math problems I couldn't solve."
They said only the first volume would be tested, but there were questions from other volumes nonetheless.
"It's okay; others couldn't do them either," Chi Shen comforted.
Qiao Zhenzhen always trusted him, and at his words her eyes lit up: "Really?"
"Knowledge memory has cycles. If they haven't reviewed, most people won't know," Chi Shen nodded.
Qiao Zhenzhen: "What about you?"
Chi Shen hesitated: "I can."
Qiao Zhenzhen: "…" Understood: knowledge has cycles, but not for top students.