Chapter 18 Minor Test

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The next day, Mr. Yu received the exam papers and notes that Song Jiawen and Jiang Yan had sent to him. He quickly flipped through them, pulled out a few math papers for a closer look, and immediately became excited.

"Everybody come over, come over, these are the exam papers from Yunzhou First Middle School that Song Jiawen and Jiang Yan sent, come take a look...."

As soon as they heard that these were papers from Yunzhou First Middle School, the teachers all hurried over in a flurry.

"Ms. Xue, this is from Song Jiawen for you."

Xue Ying was still poring over an English exam paper from Yunzhou First Middle School when she heard Mr. Yu call her and reached out to take the papers.

At first, she didn't notice what the stack of stapled photocopies in her hand was, and it wasn't until she returned to her seat with the English exam paper that she opened them and gave them a close look.

She began reading somewhat carelessly, but as she continued, her expression gradually became more serious.

Was this… the notes of a top student?

Not bad, these two kids. They had just got there and had managed to get hold of so many test papers, and even photocopied someone's study notes.

"Quick, go make copies, we'll start on them today."

"Start, for all we know, next week these two kids might send a few more sets back."

"They were indeed students we taught. Even though they have left, their hearts are still here."

"Exactly..."

The teachers all felt very moved for a time and missed Song Jiawen and Jiang Yan even more.

......

Yunzhou First Middle School.

She had been there for nearly two weeks already, and these past few days Song Jiawen's name had been called by the teachers from time to time. It wasn't for anything else, but because her test pages were too neat, her handwriting too meticulous.

Shi Peirong knew calligraphy, but in fact, Song Jiawen's grandfather was even better with a brush and also skilled at traditional Chinese painting. In primary school, her grandfather had personally taught her for two years.

Shi Peirong also occasionally gave her some guidance. She was quick to learn, usually getting it right after just being told once. In fifth grade, her regular script even won a competition.

She got a first prize at the county level.

Later, the county notified her that she could continue the competition at the city level, but Xie Jingying declined.

Over the past two weeks, Song Jiawen had been diligently working on test papers every day to fit in.

The teachers didn't grade all of the usual practice work, most of the time they would just flip through. They wanted to see if everyone had done everything, if anyone had failed to hand in their work?

But just flipping through like that, they occasionally came across Song Jiawen's test papers.

The handwriting was as perfect as printed, a sight for sore eyes.

When compared like this, the teachers couldn't help but start to disdain the other students' papers.

"Look at Song Jiawen's paper, and then look at yours. Doesn't it hurt your eyes? To say that your handwriting looks like a dog's scribbles is to overpraise you."

Such remarks had been echoing in the classroom repeatedly of late, and everyone went from initial surprise and emulation to eventual numbness.

They simply couldn't learn it.

They had watched Song Jiawen do the test papers, and her speed was not a bit slower than theirs, yet her handwriting was still so neat, truly like something stamped.

They had no idea how she did it.

The matter gradually spread to other classes, and some scoffed, "What's the use of just having pretty handwriting? What about the grades?"

Everyone knew about Zhu Zhen, the grade's top-ranking student and the class president of Class One. His handwriting was infamous for being hard to read, although not to the point of causing the teachers any real trouble to decipher, but it was indeed not particularly pleasant to look at.

Yet his position as the grade's top student remained unshakeable!

"Hey, do you think Song Jiawen has also learned calligraphy? Who writes better, her or Deng Tao?"

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"How come you're comparing her to Deng Tao again? A country bumpkin from the countryside, how is she even comparable to Deng Tao?"

"Exactly, Deng Tao has been studying calligraphy since she was young and her traditional Chinese paintings have even competed at the provincial level, can she do that?"

....

Song Jiawen from the other class knew nothing of the commotion, and even if she did, she wouldn't care. Tomorrow would mark the start of the bi-weekly exams, and she was currently outlining the steps to analyze the math problems Jiang Yan had gotten wrong.

By now, Jiang Yan had nearly mastered the level of difficulty of the usual practice papers, and he had gotten used to the question styles at Yunzhou First Middle School, of course, except for English and biology.

These two subjects were his weak spots. Although he had been trying hard to improve, it was quite challenging to raise his scores significantly in a short amount of time.

Mainly because after he was reborn, he had initially focused most of his energy on math, physics, and chemistry.

"For biology, you still need to do more practice questions. Math, physics, and chemistry are mostly fine now, you can put them aside for the time being. As for English...."

When it came to English, Song Jiawen was just as perplexed about Jiang Yan, who would have walked down the road memorizing words if he could, yet why was his vocabulary growing so slowly? Whenever he did a test paper he would get stuck, making a messy array of mistakes.

Incredible!

So for English, let's just leave it up to fate.

Jiang Yan understood her meaning, but he was just as helpless. He really was earnestly studying the foreign language, but... what can he do if he's just not that good at it?

During the last period that afternoon, resigned to his fate, he was doing biology in the classroom.

Wang Xiaole wanted to run, so he called Song Jiawen along to the track field.

Xiao Qi originally wanted to ask Jiang Yan to play basketball together, but when he turned around, he saw Jiang Yan taking out another paper from his desk, slowly unfolding it.

Xiao Qi: ...

Right, another Zhu Jin in their class, both equally obsessive and hardworking!

But looking around the classroom, Song Jiawen was nowhere to be seen.

"Jiang Yan, is Song Jiawen's academic performance better than yours?"

"Yeah," replied Jiang Yan without looking up.

Xiao Qi seemed thoughtful. No wonder he often saw Song Jiawen explaining problems to Jiang Yan, yet she didn't seem to study as hard as Jiang Yan did. Last time, he even saw Zhu Jin urging her to buy a small desk lamp.

But it seemed... she hadn't bought it yet.

So the 'better performance' that Jiang Yan mentioned, did it pertain to certain subjects?

It was also possible that she used to be better than him, but Xiao Qi felt that after Jiang Yan's recent efforts, his overall scores definitely wouldn't be worse than Song Jiawen's.

Jiang Yan wouldn't know what he thought. If he did... haha, he would tell him you're still too young to understand what 'obsessive' means.

.....

The small exam that took place every other week was the next day.

Though it was just a minor test, not used for grade ranking but only for class ranking, it was still taken very seriously at Yunzhou First Middle School.

The teachers scrambled the seating arrangements, ensuring a proper distance between each desk. After several reminders for students to behave conscientiously, they began to distribute the test papers.

The first morning exam was Chinese language. Song Jiawen gave the paper a quick glance and found it slightly more difficult than the usual practice papers, especially one of the classical Chinese texts in the reading comprehension section, which was particularly obscure and complex, completely baffling for those with weaker comprehension skills.

But for her, it was nothing special. Her grandfather had introduced her to classical literature in childhood, and she had already finished reading classics like "Spring and Autumn Annals," "The Commentary of Zuo," "Mother Language," and "Mencius" by the time she left primary school.

Her grandfather had once said that she was naturally suited for studying.

After completing the entire Chinese language test, there was still half an hour left before the end of the exam. Song Jiawen had no habit of reviewing her answers, and it was tiresome to just sit there, so she decided to hand in her paper early.

The invigilator, who was also the class teacher Mr. Gao, first admired the neatness of her answer sheet and then... seeing her fully written test paper, he was very pleased and placed it on the lectern.

As a math teacher, he had no idea how well she had done.