A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 013 – English Practice

Go Ahead And Write, Otherwise You Are Too Unoccupied.

Yang Jing talked for five minutes with the practice paper in her hands before she noticed that the one who was sick was twirling his pen, his ruler, and his eraser. In any case, everything within his reach, he could twirl.
This was probably a problem among teenage boys in general.

She eyed him a few times and finally recalled, “Sheng Wang?”
“Mm?” The one who was called on gripped his pen.
“I almost forgot, do you not have a paper to look at now?” Yang Jing said.
Sheng Wang laughed dryly, and internally went: you didn’t almost forget, you indeed forgot.

When Yang Jing commandeered Qi Jiahao’s paper, she never cared about the after-sale service. Qi Jiahao would shift his chair and share the paper with a classmate next to him, all he needed was a pen and a notebook.

The students of Class A could be separated into two factions, one would be the “checking answers with everyone after exams” faction, the other would be the “I’m done the paper can perish for all I care” faction. Qi Jiahao belonged to the former.
The members of this faction all had “photographic memory”, as long as they did the question, they could recite everything from the steps to the answers, including essays. With practices like these English practices involving multiple choice questions, memorising them was a piece of cake.
Therefore even if the paper he was looking at was someone else’s, Qi Jiahao still knew which question he got correct and which he was wrong on, he only needed to do corrections on his notebook.

As for Sheng Wang…….
A single look and it was obvious that he belonged to the “I’m done the paper can perish for all I care” faction.

Yang Jing could not stand to see students being all unoccupied, not even if they got the answer correct. With a jut of her chin, she directed Sheng Wang, “Find someone to share with you.”
Sheng Wang replied with an ‘okay’.

Was finding someone to share supposed to be a challenge? He stood up, and was going to shift his chair forward until he heard Yang Jing add on, “Carry your chair behind, and just make do with Jiang Tian’s, alright?”

Not alright.
Sheng Wang internally said the person behind him still owes him a beating, he did not want to share with him at all.

However, the reasoning Yang Jing gave was very adequate, “I reckon that your rate of correct answers is probably around the same as Jiang Tian’s, it would be just nice if the both of you could share. As for Gao Tianyang……save some face for him, ha.”
Jing-jie must drag Gao Tianyang during class, that was already daily business as usual, there was no stopping it.

Sheng Wang dragged his chair to the last row, and sat on Jiang Tian’s right. Even though he did not remember his own answers, he still performatively brought along a pen.

Initially, he kept to himself more. He sat a chi (1)away from the table, and he had to lean over when he wanted to see the paper.
Jiang Tian shot quite a few glances at him, and finally he could not help but to say, “Are there nails on the table poking at you?”
“There aren’t,” Sheng Wang absent-mindedly replied. Another two seconds, then he realised that the person was mocking him for his posture.

Sheng Wang side-eyed him, and shifted his chair a step forward.
With one, there would definitely be two and three. In the next five minutes, Sheng Wang nudged, and nudged again, and soon enough both his arms were on the table.

Yang Jing was not slow in going through the answers, but there were three papers and 150 questions after all. Those who got many answers wrong were really busy, those who did not were extremely bored otherwise.

Sheng Wang was already dizzy and light-headed from being sick, along with Jiang Tian’s paper being almost impeccable, he started feeling drowsy after listening a short while. His whole body slumped lower and lower, the territory his arms took up got bigger and bigger.

He had his elbows on the table as his hand propped up his chin. As he dozed off, his head nodded to the left a couple of times, and to the right a couple of times. Suddenly, his elbow slipped, and his forearm bumped into another person. The warmth of body heat was transmitted through skin to skin contact. Sheng Wang leaned against it in all muddle-headedness until he woke up with a start.

Teenagers often get uneasy easily. A certain line, a certain glance, a certain contact would all cause someone to be subdued, for no reason, for no idea at all.

Sheng Wang’s elbow shrunk back, and Jiang Tian changed his pose too, the elbow near him was simply removed from the table.
The other person was too obvious in his avoidance, the young master was displeased again. He internally said: will a little touch poison you? How fast of you to give way.

Coincidentally, Yang Jing reached the end of the second practice. Sheng Wang, who was restless all over, finally found a wrong answer.
He had something doable at last. He uncapped his pen and marked the paper with a cross, and did his correction with a practised ease. He even made a line of notes.

Sheng Wang gave the last ‘g’ a magnificent giant tail. When he looked up after he drew, he saw Jiang Tian staring at him, a red pen in his hand, his expression complicated.

Sheng Wang said, “What, got a toothache?”
Jiang Tian said, “My paper.”
Sheng Wang: “……”
He lowered his eyes towards the paper, the doggy-crawl handwriting was especially ostentatious due to how conspicuous it looked. Its presence was extremely strong, and even slanted upwards.

Sheng Wang capped his pen sheepishly, and let out an “oh”. As he was sick, the way he looked was extremely deceiving, when he lowered his eyes a trace of loneliness could be found.
In actuality, he was just zoning out in complete boredom.

He zoned out for only a few seconds when he suddenly heard a light rustling noise from the table. He looked up, and the paper he pushed away was back to his front once more.
Jiang Tian tossed his red pen to the side, and leaned backwards against the chair, looking as if he gave up on listening.
He whisked out an English olympiad question bank, and said to Sheng Wang without even lifting his eyes, “Go ahead and write, otherwise you would be too unoccupied.”

Yang Jing was very good with pacing her lessons, two periods was just enough for her to go through all the answers.
Sheng Wang deigned himself to help JXXXX TXXX mark and correct his answers, and even helped him calculate his score out of impishness. He only made a mistake for five out of 150 questions, when the total score was readjusted to 120, he would lose only four points.

Jiang Tian was done with a page of olympiad questions. After he checked the answers, he folded the page’s corner. When he looked up from his book, he saw a brilliant red number on his practice paper: 116.

He did not even need to look to know where this ugly thing came from. Jiang Tian looked away as he pursed his lips, and seized his stolen red pen back from Sheng Wang. He gestured at his front-desk, inviting him to scram.

Sheng Wang dragged his chair back to his seat. Yang Jing was summarising her own thoughts about the practice. She dug out her own red pen, and marked Sheng Wang’s paper as she crouched over the table. As she marked, she said, “Overall it’s still passable. He only got seven to eight answers wrong, when placed in a formal exam setting the rate of accuracy is still viable. Still, there’s still quite a bit of distance from being the best.”

The students shrunk. With the difficulty level this time round, only getting seven to eight wrong was awesome enough, at the very least they would be top five within Class A.

Yang Jing kept her red pen, and lifted her chin at the subject rep Qi Jiahao, asking, “How ‘bout you? How many?”
Qi Jiahao retracted his gaze from Sheng Wang, and smiled at the teacher, “four.”

“Oh,” Yang Jing asked again, “Jiang Tian?”
“Five.”
“Good enough.”

Qi Jiahao raised his eyebrow, and sat up straight. Yang Jing shot a glance at him, and said to everyone, “I’ll be printing some papers later, English rep, please remember to go collect the homework from the office this afternoon. Alright, class dismissed.”

The moment the bell rang, Gao Tianyang’s head slowly turned behind. He said to Sheng Wang, his own paper in hand, “It’s wrong!”
Sheng Wang was on the way to catching up on his sleep. He half-heartedly asked, “What’s wrong?”

Gao Tianyang said, “You didn’t get seven to eight questions wrong!”
Sheng Wang did not really care, “Didn’t Jing-jie say so?”

“I copied all 150 answers from you, you didn’t get seven to eight wrong at all. You are super damn good wow you —” Gao Tianyang wanted to continue when the sound of high heels clicking came close.With a twist of his head, he saw Yang Jing walking towards them with Sheng Wang’s papers. This person instantly went silent, winked at Sheng Wang, and sat back down in all propriety.

“Here—for you.” Yang Jing slapped the paper onto his table.
Sheng Wang took a look. There were three giant ticks on three pieces of paper, and not a single cross.

All correct?
Sheng Wang paused for a bit, and finally understood why Gao Tianyang was going on non-stop.

But, if he did get everything right, why did Yang Jing say that he got seven to eight questions wrong?
As he puzzled, Yang Jing clapped his shoulders, “Follow me to the office while it’s still the long break.”

The long break in Fuzhong was after the first two periods in the morning, a total of 30 minutes. For Monday, it would be the flag-raising slash public reprimand assembly, for Tuesday to Friday it would be jogging, and for the weekend it was free time.

Heaven was not cooperating this long break today, the thunder rolled for an entire morning, and finally became the pouring rain. The jog was cancelled and the 30 minutes became free time. The students both upstairs and downstairs behaved like rats in a rice vat, and went absolutely wild, causing a few teachers to chase them down for scoldings.

When Sheng Wang entered the office, only Yang Jing was there.
She sat at the office desk, and used her feet to hook a stool over. She said to Sheng Wang, “Sit.”

“Did you get a clear look at your score for the practice papers?” Yang Jing asked.
Sheng Wang nodded, “I got it.”
“Confused? Everything was clearly right, and yet I said you got seven to eight wrong. Are you glum?”
“Do I answer honestly?”
“If not what else?” Yang Jing said, exasperated.

Sheng Wang said, “Then I’m not glum, I did not need to copy as many questions that I got wrong for, why should I be glum.”

Yang Jing raised a brow and looked at him, and bursted into laughter. When she raised an eyebrow she gave the feeling of being domineering, and yet when she laughed it was the exact opposite, “Sure, your mental fortitude is good. Then do you know why I said you got seven to eight wrong?”

Quite a few students zipped by outside the windows, chasing each other towards the toilets.
Sheng Wang gave a look, retracted his gaze, and mused, “I roughly know.”
Yang Jing was slightly surprised, “You do? I want to hear it.”

“I just transferred over for a few days so far, I haven’t truly blended into this class yet. The ones that I’m close to so far are just Gao Tianyang and……” Sheng Wang’s brain jammed up.
“And what?” Yang Jing asked.
“Nothing else, roughly just Gao Tianyang. But the reason why we are close is because he’s naturally familiar with people, and easy to get along with, it doesn’t mean that I’ve been accepted by this class yet. In reality, most classmates still see me as an outsider, like they were just watching me for fun. If I score too badly, I would not fit in anywhere in this class. If I score too well and take up some spots from some classmates, I would be excluded. Therefore, matching up to Class A without being the top is the best way to go. Am I right, teacher?”

Yang Jing was briefly stunned, and properly sized him up once more, “Who would have thought, you even think of these issues?”
Sheng Wang sniffled, “Not really, I thought of it just now.”

“Sure, it is roughly like this,” Yang Jing said. “The ecosystem in the top class can be both simple and complex. As the average standard is roughly the same, birds of the same feather are more likely to flock together. Yet, there is still competition between friends. Most students are quite simple, but there are a few who are too competitive, and they would be more heavily guarded.”

Sheng Wang nodded.
Yang Jing continued, “I’ve already discussed this with Old He and Old Wu and the rest. You are behind for three subjects, you generally can’t avoid seeking help from your classmates. If you get some people on guard, then it would be difficult for you to get help. That’s why, as you said just now, to keep up excellent grades while not reaching the point of attracting jealousy from other people would be the best. Just like that paper just now, only you need to know how good you are, while in front of other people you can conceal some of your true ability, and stay low-key. What do you think?”

Sheng Wang gave a dry laugh, “I think You are right, but—”
Yang Jing said, “But what?”

Sheng Wang let out an ‘um’, and said, “There’s a possibility I can’t stay low-key with those papers just now.”
Yang Jing said, “Mm?”
“The classmates passed it around before morning class.”
“How many?”

Sheng Wang recalled Gao Tianyang’s sphere of radiation, and conservatively estimated, “Eleven to twelve I guess.”
“……”
Yang Jing felt like she was suffocating, she internally went: you wasted this old lady’s efforts.

Just as expected, with the span of a single long break, the entire class knew that Sheng Wang scored full marks for 150 questions in the English practice papers.

TO BE CONTINUED.