A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 003 – Tests

For How Long Do You Intend to Keep My Paper From Me?

The sparsely lit lamps carved out light and shadow in the courtyard, Jiang Tian stood in that patch of shadow. He had a tall stature, and the unique nimble figure of youth, yet he was not overly lanky. He carried his school bag on one shoulder, his thumb hooked onto the black colour strap, and kept his head looking in a different direction.
It was only when Sheng Mingyang dragged his son over then he finally turned to face them, and immediately the expression of having eaten spoilt food appeared.
After seeing the extent of the other person’s unhappiness, Sheng Wang felt a little more invigorated.

“It’s my fault, I really did not do my part as an elder well. I only just found out that Xiao-Tian is also a year two studying at Fuzhong, the two of you are in the same class!” Sheng Mingyang had his arm over his son’s shoulders, and attempted to move Sheng Wang, who was still rooted to the ground, a step forward: “So therefore, did the two of you already meet in the day?”
Apparently interacting with his own son was not enough, he even looked up at Jiang Tian, as if Jiang Tian would give him the time of day.
Jiang Tian obviously did not respond to him.

It only took a moment’s effort for Jiang Tian to already revert his expression back to a cold one, he looked at Sheng Wang like he was looking at a stranger.
“Xiao-Tian.” Someone softly called.

After hearing a woman’s gentle voice, Sheng Wang then remembered that other than Jiang Tian, there was actually a more important person on the scene–
Jiang Ou stood right next to her son, and was simply dressed. Her style was completely different from what he thought it would be. She was considered to be more willowy among women, yet she was still a good chunk shorter than Jiang Tian.

Not only did this juxtaposition make her seem completely harmless, she even gave off a sense of delicate cordiality.

She tugged at her son’s elbow, and quietly said: “Xiao-Tian? Uncle Sheng was asking you something, you are classmates with Xiao-Wang(3), and already met him, right?”

Jiang Tian turned his head, the space between his brows quickly wrinkled, the expression in that instance was full of his instinctive impatience and resistance. And yet, in the end he was not able to withstand the gaze of his own mom, a moment of rigidity later he turned his head back, and tossed out a neutral line: “Was asleep for the entire day, didn’t notice.”
Sheng Wang said internally, bullshit, you liar.

If the conversation kept going on, it would only become more awkward. Sheng Mingyang intervened and mediated at the nick of time.
He gave a laugh: “It’s the first day of being classmates, it’s only too normal to not remember so many faces. You will slowly become close after you get to be along with each other for a while, we have plenty of time ahead.”
Jiang Tian looked at him expressionlessly, the thumb on his bag strap slipped, and pulled his bag upwards. His attitude seemed as if he was going to leave and walk away the very next second.

Just as expected, he opened his mouth and spoke in a low voice: “I’ll go–“
“Go accompany your mom for a meal, wouldn’t you?” Jiang Ou’s gentle voice held a tinge of cautiousness, sounding very much almost like a plea.
Jiang Tian: “……”

Sheng Wang thought he almost saw the soul within this person’s flesh suit violently struggle for a bit, and then sullenly lay back down.
He was rejoicing very much in watching other people’s misery, but he soon was unable to rejoice, as after Jiang Ou dealt with her son, she turned and smiled at him.

It was the first time Sheng Wang got a proper look at this woman’s front view, in the instance she smiled, he suddenly discovered that her looks half resembled his mom’s.
Maybe the lighting blurred her features, maybe both their cheeks had a light dimple.
Or maybe it had been too long, no matter how hard he tried to strengthen it, the colours of the person in his memories faded irreversibly, and was no longer that clear anymore, even to the point that it was gradually blending in with a certain stranger……

“Xiao-Wang?” Jiang Ou asked him uncertainly.
Sheng Wang snapped out of it, he suddenly was no longer in the mood to even give a half hearted excuse, he muttered: “I have gastric, dad, I’m going upstairs first.”

“Hey don’t run away, what about dinner?” Sheng Mingyang did not manage to grab him even though he wanted to, “Didn’t we go through this, are you not going to reward a little face(4) for your dad?”
Sheng Wang doved indoors with his bag in his hands, and said without looking back: “Your son has tests tomorrow, with not a single subject out of five learned yet, the hell with time for dinner.”

The hired lady presented him his slippers, and he shuffled upstairs. When he reached the corner, he could not help but take a single glance outside the window. They were still in the courtyard downstairs, Sheng Mingyang was saying something to Jiang Ou.
It could not be anything but to explain how his son had a young master temper, take it lightly and it would be over, do not take it personally.

Jiang Tian was still trapped in his mother’s grip, and could not leave. He stood in the darkness apathetically, his spare hand holding his phone, his head lowered as he scrolled.
He was barely on his phone before it was as if he detected something, and looked upwards unexpectedly, towards him.
Sheng Wang was startled, and quickly left.

He placed a sign that said “Do not knock” on his door handle, locked his room from the inside, stuffed in his earpieces and turned the volume higher, high to the point that he would not be able to even hear thunder, then he sat down.
The new teaching material was laid out in a row across the table, he curled up in his chair, and spun his pen around.

The screen on the phone he left at the side lit up for a bit, and lit up yet again. He accumulated a few before he finally reached out to unlock his phone,

The one sending him messages on WeChat was his deskmate from his previous school, he was not super good at studying, but he was upright and loyal, and had natural heroic energy. Sheng Wang often felt that he was not there for school, but was there to ascend Mount Liang. As long as the person was alive, people from all the way in year one to year three were acquaintances with him.

StarAniseCrab:
The sciences exam papers from year 2’s end of semester? What do you want this for? Big boss don’t tell me……you are already preparing for classes the moment summer vacation started?

StarAniseCrab:
Wait that doesn’t seem right, why would you even want exam papers for revision?

StarAniseCrab:
Big boss? Reply to me.

StarAniseCrab:
Sheng-ge?

StarAniseCrab:
Class monitor! Fine, you won’t even look at the messages if I don’t send over the exam pics.

Sheng Wang spun his pen around and jabbed at the screen with one hand–
Canned:
I just saw that.

StarAniseCrab:
Pretend, go on and keep pretending. You’re just lazy, and think that it’s too much effort to even send another message, every time you would wait for the messages to accumulate before you would even reply altogether.

StarAniseCrab:
See, you are doing it again.

StarAniseCrab:
Fine, you’re handsome, you can get away with anything. I already acquired the exam questions for you, one copy each for math physics and chemistry, right? Why don’t you want the papers for languages? Why are you practising subjects discrimination.

Canned:
You’re the discriminatory one here, I won’t have time for this many tonight, got to learn to give and take.

StarAniseCrab:
What the heck? One night? What are you doing? And also aren’t you so usually so lazy to the point that you refuse to send messages if you could just send voice messages, what’s up with you today? You actually manually typed two messages.

Sheng Wang’s finger hovered above the screen as he ‘tsked’, finally gave up on typing, and sent a voice message over: “This is because I just arrived at this tragedy of a school today, they have a weekly test tomorrow, testing them on everything taught in the first semester of year two. If I don’t embrace Buddha’s leg at the last minute I would get zeroes across all five subjects. No time for language and English, it’s all on fate now, the three subjects math, physics and chem are still worthy of a deathbed struggle.”

StarAniseCrab replied him with eight black man question mark stickers, and then sent the three papers over without any further questions, even attaching a single voice message with it.
“No, I don’t think I understand yet. Even if you do one paper for one subject you would still barely score? There’s no way people would test the exact same questions on these papers.”

Sheng Wang: “Who said I’m doing the papers”
StarAniseCrab: “Then what are you doing with it?”

Sheng Wang: “I’ll highlight the key points according to their score weightage in the tests. There may be a wide range of diversity of questions asked in tests across provinces, but the main difficult points are still somewhat similar. I’ll take a look at which component scores the most, gather them together and huddle them tonight, the cost-performance ratio is better that way.”
StarAniseCrab: “This works too?”
Sheng Wang: “I already said, this is a deathbed struggle.”
StarAniseCrab: “What about the rest then?”
Sheng Wang: “It’s all up to fate.”

After replying with that line, the little young master suddenly felt a wave of heartache. He had mixed around in the Jianghu for sixteen and a half years, and yet the day where he had to rely on fate for exams arrived.
He thought for a bit, and asked Crab: “What is that answer-guessing mnemonic chant again?”
StarAniseCrab: “Ay, you wait for a bit, I got it noted down on the first page of my notebook, I’ll send a pic to you. My god, I can’t believe I get to see the day you use the answer-guessing mnemonic chant, what a call for universal celebration.”

Twelve plus, midnight, Sheng Wang settled chemistry and physics, his eyes dry and aching. However, his stomach was the one that ached even worse–he was on the verge of starving to death.
He went two rounds around his room, searched through three snack hoarding spots, and was unable to find any spare food at all. He had no other choice but to open his door.

As expected, there was a post-it stuck to his door, with 「There’s washed red grapes in the fridge, and matsutake with shredded chicken porridge left heated in the kitchen. Don’t eat the rest at night, it’s bad for your stomach.」written on it.
This was left behind by the hired lady, Sheng Mingyang was often not home, without a parent making sure, Sheng Wang’s three meals were irregular. Every time the lady did not receive a response from knocking, she would leave some food suitable for eating in the middle of the night, thus providing him some ease whenever he would go down to hunt for food. Eventually, it became an unspoken convention between them.

With Sheng Mingyang’s schedule, he was definitely asleep by this time.
Sheng Wang did not even bother with his slippers, he wore his socks and silently went downstairs. Just as he opened the fridge, stuck his head inside and searched for food, he heard Sheng Mingyang’s low speaking voice from the balcony beyond the glass.

He stopped for a moment, carried his red grapes and sneaked over. Sheng Mingyang was talking to someone, a hand on his phone, the other pinching the space between his brows, looking like he was extremely sleepy too. Still his tone was tender.

Sheng Mingyang told the person at the other end of the phone: “I’ve asked about the school dorms, he could only apply for it when school starts. Xiao-Tian can’t move over yet for the time being even if he wants to.”
“Yes, moving in here first is better.”
“Actually, I would be happier if you stay here for the long term, the morning after tomorrow I’ll bring Xiao-Chen over to help you move. You can tell Xiao-Tian that the courtyard is symmetrical, both sides have their own bedrooms, living rooms and bathrooms, he could pretend that the two of us are splitting rent, and we just happen to share the kitchen.”

The mouthful of grapes got stuck in Sheng Wang’s throat, his ear tips even reddened from choking.
He predicted that the two of them would soon officially move in after this meal, but he did not think that it would be this fast, so fast that he got three nightmares in a row that night.
He dreamed of getting chased by blank exam scripts, getting chased by dogs, and getting chased by Jiang Tian.

The weekly tests in Fuzhong were organised in a relatively screwed up manner, five subjects in one day, from seven in the morning, all the way to nine at night. The first subject tested was mathematics, possibly out of the desire to help them get their heads clear first thing in the morning.

The invigilator counted the papers in front, and separated it into a few copies according to groups, getting the students sitting in front to pass it behind. Gao Tianyang who sat in front withdrew one copy, passed on the remaining to him, and conveniently asked: “So what do you plan to do?”
Sheng Wang gave a bitter laugh: “I’m done for, if nothing works choose C for all, at least better than no marks at all.”
“You–” Gao Tianyang gave him a look, wanting to say more, but he hesitated, and silently shut up and sat properly under the invigilator’s stare.

I what?
Sheng Wang perplexed for a moment, but in the very next second, he knew why Gao Tianyang had that look on his face. It was because as he quickly scanned through the paper he discovered……
There was no! Multiple choice questions! In mathematics!

Just as he numbly meditated in silence, he suddenly received two jabs on his shoulder, Jiang Tian’s low, throaty voice came from behind: “You can also try filling in C for all fourteen fill-in-the-blanks questions.”
“……”
Are you nuts?
Sheng Wang twisted his head and stared him down: “If I want to fill it in that way, then I’ll fill it in that way, it’s none of your business? You had to poke me to say it?”
Jiang Tian looked at him, and unfolded his palm wide open: “I poked you because I wanted to ask, for how long do you intend to keep my paper from me?”
Sheng Wang’s mind went blank for a moment: “……Oh, I forgot.”

TO BE CONTINUED.