A Certain Someone ( The On1y One ) Chapter 029 – Grades

In The Eyes Of The Other People In The Exam Venue, His Silhouette Was ‘Arrogance’ In Full Capital Letters.

During the monthly break, Fuzhong welcomed its rare peace and quiet.
Li Yu stood at the first floor of Duxing Block as she waited. Qi Jiahao came in from outside, a phone in his hand, and said, “Jing-jie will arrive soon.”
He Shu of Class B and Ma Shi of Class 9 nodded in apprehension. “You also have Teacher Yang’s number?”
“Mn, for sure. Sometimes she would get me to help her grade the papers, transcribe the scores and stuff. It’s more convenient to be in contact.” Qi Jiahao said proudly.

Jiang Tian and Sheng Wang chose to fly solo, but the few of them still decided to gather in school first as Qi Jiahao said that he contacted Yang Jing, who would be doing some pre-competition coaching.
Soon enough, Yang Jing appeared with a plastic bag in her hand. She opened up the bag and said, “Passed by the convenience store and got you guys some drinks. One can for each person.”
A Yang Jing outside of class still had an intimidating aura, everyone was overwhelmed by her show of favour, and accepted the rewards in trepidation and reverence. They followed behind her like ducklings.

“Teacher, why are you at Duxing Block today?” Qi Jiahao was the only one who was more daring, he even had the guts to start chatting with her on his own accord.
“Marking scripts, duh.” Yang Jing lifted her chin at the staircase. “The exam for this monthly test is a combined effort between four schools, we are grading each other’s papers. I’ve been cooped up here for two days marking Yizhong’s scripts.”

Student affair’s Dean Xu entered the block as they chatted. Yang Jing shot a brief glance at him, and increased her volume on purpose: “You guys are really treating this quite seriously, you know to talk to me before the competition. Unlike some higher ups, who only know to care about math, physics and chemistry. Is English not a main subject? Our Olympiads are treated with barely any care.”

Things like taking only one week to prepare for a competition will never happen for math, physics and chemistry Olympiads. Class A of Fuzhong typically prepared and entered everyone into these competitions, and would get into a full swing as they went along. In comparison, affairs like English, composition, biology and computing were much more quiet.

The utilitarian higher up was ragged on out of the blue, he could only sheepishly say: “Ay, it’s about the cost-performance ratio. Students have limited energy after all, we have to consider the cost-performance ratio. As long as they clinch a provincial level bronze award and above for math-physics-chemistry, they could already get an admission ticket for advance admissions. What about English then?”
Yang Jing hmphed, and refused to back down. “For our province, the top 40 will do too.”
“Please count how many top 40 came out within these few years.”

Within the city, each key school has their own strengths and weaknesses. Fuzhong’s niche was in math and physics. As for English……the top few were essentially reserved by Yizhong every Olympiad, all the other schools basically couldn’t squeeze in at all.

“You all don’t place much importance on it, whose fault is it?” Yang Jing said.
“Ok ok ok.” Big Mouth Xu raised both his hands in surrender, and then bowed to motion her to proceed. “Go mark your scripts, comrade Xiao-Yang.”

Yang Jing led four students upstairs and entered the grading office. English teachers from each level were sparsely spreaded throughout the table, scripts with their names sealed away laid beside their hands on the table.
Qi Jiahao nosed around, wanting to get a sneak peak at how grading was going.

“Quit looking.” Yang Jing brought them to the corner, far away from the grading table. “Those aren’t your scripts anyway, no point looking at them.”
“Teacher, who’s marking our scripts?” Li Yu asked.
“Nan Gao I think.” Yang Jing said with much schadenfreude, “They are strict with their grading and harsh in deducting marks, you guys are in for a ride.”
“……”
Li Yu internally said, might as well don’t ask, after asking their state of mind crumbled.

The male teacher at the side interrupted, “They’re harsh, but we’re harsh too. We’re harsh, but Yizhong wouldn’t let up either. One sabotages the other, everyone can cry together.”
No matter what kind of mindset this bunch of teachers had, the four students’ faces all turned green either way at this.

“In any case, the score for this English exam isn’t getting too high anywhere. The test is difficult, and the marking is strict.” Yang Jing turned to reply to him. “I was on the phone with that Yang Ziwen from Nan High yesterday, he said that there are very few who scored over 100 marks for this English exam, there’s only like 2-3 of them who scored 110 and above. Apparently there’s one they could tell has a decent foundation in English, but everything came crashing down at the MCQs. The name is all sealed up, so they don’t know who it was either.”

That male teacher gave a hoarse laugh. “Probably your class’ Sheng Wang, he missed listening compre.”
Yang Jing sighed. “I get pissed whenever I think about this. What was that brat even thinking.”

“Right, where’s said brat?” She interrogated Qi Jiahao, “Why isn’t he here? He’s scared I’ll scold him?”
Qi Jiahao was caught by surprise by that question, and nearly jumped out of his skin. He squeezed out, “We tried to get him to come yesterday, he said he’s not coming.”

Yang Jing’s eyes bulged. “That kid’s getting full of himself or?”
Li Yu gave Qi Jiahao a quick side eye, and hurriedly explained: “Teacher, we didn’t mention that we’re looking for you yesterday. Sheng Wang didn’t know, he said he will take the metro there, so did Jiang Tian.”

“Oh, that’s fine then,” Yang Jing was like Empress Dowager, “when you see him this afternoon remember to pass the message, tell him that the grades for the monthly test are out tomorrow, get him to behave himself, I’ll speak with him at any moment.”

The people did not dare to disobey her orders, they nodded obediently.
“Tell him after the competition, I don’t want his mood to get affected before that.” Yang Jing said.

It was supposed to be pre-competition coaching, but she didn’t actually go through the questions, rather, she went through what to look out for.
Yang Jing appeared to be dominant and overbearing, but she actually took note of each and every students’ strengths and weaknesses. She told Li Yu to keep calm and keep track of the time, Qi Jiahao to treat this with a normal mindset, not get too caught up over frivolous matters, and learn to know when to give up on questions.

Around 12pm, the group of four left Duxing block, and walked to the nearest train station, Beyond Parasol Trees.
As they walked out of the west gate and through the residential zone, Li Yu suddenly let out an “eh” and said, “Isn’t that Jiang Tian?”
“Where?”

They followed the direction of her voice, and saw a tall boy standing next to the metro entrance, wearing a simple white T-shirt, continuously attracting the eyes of various passerbys.
He tugged at the bag strap with one hand and his head was lowered as he fiddled around on his phone, paying zero mind to the attention he was receiving.

“Wasn’t he planning to take the metro?” He Shu asked a dumb question.
“Yeah,” Li Yu pointed at the sign at the side, “isn’t this the metro?”
“……”

“Sure, after all that fuss turns out he’s boarding from here too. Why didn’t he go with us then.”
Ma Shi was also one of the girls who would blush upon seeing Jiang Tian. She glanced over there as she said, “Since when did you see him buddying up with anyone?”
Qi Jiahao said, “He’s a boy, he wouldn’t be like you all, he doesn’t need to find someone to accompany him even just for a trip to the bathroom.”

After he said that he was immediately slapped in the face——another familiar figure came in from the street corner.
He was also wearing a loose fitting T-shirt with short sleeves, a gym bag slung across one shoulder. The black bag with a logo written in alphabets slung from his left shoulder to the right side of his waist, the image of a fresh and handsome young man.

“Hey, Sheng Wang!” Ma Shi called again, and turned around to sneakily say to Li Yu, “It’s so worth it no matter if we get a prize or not this time, this is truly a feast for good-looks lovers.”

As they waited for the red light at this end, they watched Sheng Wang weave through the crowd to go behind Jiang Tian.
He reached out to snap his fingers at Jiang Tian’s left ear, and then speedily dodged to his right. Unexpectedly, Jiang Tian refused to play into his hands, and turned to the right straightaway, directly catching him in the act.

Judging by his mouth movement, Sheng Wang said a “Fuck.”
Jiang Tian placed his phone in his pocket. After the two of them exchanged a few words, they walked towards the entrance of the metro.

The traffic light for the sidewalk turned green, Qi Jiahao along with three other people hurriedly chased over.

*
When Sheng Wang was going through the security check, he heard someone calling his name. He turned around in surprise, and saw the students sprinting over.
“Eh? You guys are here too?”
“Yeah, we came over from the school, and happened to see the two of you here too.” Qi Jiahao said.

“You guys really did gather in school?” Sheng Wang thought that he was kinda like a tour guide, it was a little funny.
“Jing-jie summoned us to do pre-competition coaching,” Qi Jiahao said, “she even asked about you, asking if you’re hiding from her.”

“Why would I hide from her?” Sheng Wang asked blankly.
Qi Jiahao laughed dryly: “That……”
Sheng Wang then recalled the miserable matter of this monthly exam. He let out a very soft “Ah”, and said: “I nearly forgot I flunked it.”
Jiang Tian’s brows briefly furrowed.

He probably really disliked having too many people around, or maybe he simply did not feel like chatting at all. He dug out his phone and started scrolling through it again.
Yet, Qi Jiahao opened his mouth again: “Jing-jie said to not put your mind on the monthly exam, settle the Olympiad first, she’ll probably look for you for a chat tomorrow.
“Huh?” Sheng Wang asked, confusion evident on his face.
Li Yu hurried: “Tell him that after the competition!”

“Oh oh oh, sorry.” Qi Jiahao said, “Let’s not talk about this now, competition first.”
The conveyor belt at the security check slowly rolled out. Jiang Tian bent over, grabbed the bag and said to Sheng Wang, “Let’s go.”
Upon saying that he went straight ahead without any further notice, his expression as if he just ate a ton of salt. As long as you are human, you could tell he wasn’t feeling particularly pleased.

Sheng Wang was briefly dazed. When he discovered his bag was already taken away by him, he didn’t bother about other people and quickly chased after him.
After running a few steps he was shoulder to shoulder with Jiang Tian. He retrieved his bag from his hands, slung it behind his shoulder, and grumbled under his breath: “I have a question that has gone unanswered for a long time.”
Jiang Tian’s expression hadn’t phased out from ‘Freezing’, he lifted his eye a little lazily.
“The rep has been studying in Fuzhong for so long, are you sure he hasn’t been beaten up before?” His befuddlement was incredibly sincere, thus increasing the mockery in his question by several levels.
Jiang Tian’s expression finally started defrosting, he swept a neutral look behind him as he said, “If he continues being like this, soon.”
Sheng Wang gave two short chuckles, yet he soon turned stern: “Unacceptable, good students shouldn’t talk behind people’s back.”
Jiang Tian rolled his eyes at him, and increased his stride. Sheng Wang refused to lose, and increased his stride too.

The two of them soon arrived with the advantage of their long legs. Coincidentally, there was a train already waiting for them with doors wide open. They crossed over with a single step.
There weren’t particularly many passengers boarding from Beyond Parasol Trees in the monthly break, and so Sheng Wang and Jiang Tian sat on the empty seats.

He winked at Jiang Tian, and waved his phone with a little craftyness. He then casually opened up the Olympiad group chat of six made by Li Yu right in front of Jiang Tian, and keyed in a sentence at a speed that was neither too fast nor too slow.
Canned: Where are you guys, are you on the train yet?
And then tagged Qi Jiahao in all propriety.

“Childish.” Jiang Tian mercilessly commented, and the moment he turned away a corner of his lips briefly jerked.

Qi Jiahao and the rest just came down from the escalators, as they were prepared to run for it, they heard two beeps from the train doors, and so the doors closed right in their faces, the train hurtling past them.
Qi Jiahao: “……”

He was a little unhappy. He replied in the chat, “You two were too fast, we didn’t manage to catch up. We’ll wait for the next one.”
Abou 30 minutes later, when they were only one stop away from Erzhong, the group chat buzzed with a new message.

Canned: The signal’s pretty bad in the metro, just saw the message.
Canned: We already left the station, we’ll wait at the exam venue.

These two messages were sent in quick succession, nobody could cut in at all.
Li Yu and the rest weren’t the epitome of happiness either, they grumbled at Qi Jiahao, “Told you to not say it before the exam! Look at how awkward it is now.”
“……”
Qi Jiahao carved a ‘fuck’ in his heart.

He thought that Sheng Wang was a people pleaser with barely any temper, or the type to try to keep things harmonious on the surface no matter what. Who would have thought that he has his ways of letting everyone know he wasn’t particularly pleased, and you would not even be able to find a gap to argue right back.

The English Olympiad ran a total of 2.5hours, which was basically just answering questions. Other than the slight increase in level of difficulty and the number of traps, to Sheng Wang, this was barely any different from the monthly exam.
His state of mind towards exams was always pretty decent, he already worked hard before the test, whatever the result was it was all up to fate.
Whether fate was stressed out at all he wouldn’t know, either way he wasn’t stressed.

The more difficult the language was, the more the number of questions, the more obvious his advantage in speed.
15 minutes before the exam ended, he put down his pen. For exams like this, he never got tied up about the answers. Past experience told him that as long as he was feeling conflicted, his first choice based on instincts has the highest rate of accuracy.
His so called checking of script was just a quick scan, as long as he didn’t make any low-level mistakes or miss out a question, it would be fine.

And so……he handed in the script ahead of time under the stunned gazes from everyone, and waited outside as he fiddled around on his phone, leaning over the corridor railing.

In the eyes of the other people in the exam venue, his silhouette was ‘Arrogance’ in full capital letters.
The invigilator endured for a while before they couldn’t hold it back anymore. They stuck their head out, and softly said, “Student.”

“Hm?” Sheng Wang turned around and politely asked, “Is there anything, teacher?”
“Don’t wait for people here, they will be taking a while more, you can’t loiter here.” The invigilator said.
Sheng Wang replied, “Um, I wouldn’t be staying here for long actually.”

As he spoke he shot a glance at the teacher’s desk, the invigilator was full of questions, and followed his gaze too……
And saw yet another one who handed in his script ahead of time.

Fine, whatever.
The invigilator said internally, you can’t even stay put for 15 minutes, I’m going to see what kind of results you can get!

Of course, Sheng Wang wouldn’t know what this teacher was internally mocking. He waited for Jiang Tian to come out with his bag, and the two of them left together.
In the eyes of the other examiness, that was remarkably ”swaggering away”!

The second day, the duo who “swaggered away” were both dragged by Yang Jing to her office for a face to face chat.
Other people’s chats flowed both ways, Madame Yang’s chat was a single sided series of scoldings from her side.

“Got too big for your britches, and now you’re acting cool in the exam venue, huh?” Yang Jing rapped the table. “Didn’t I warn again and again to try not to hand in ahead of time, to try to be more imperturbable? Didn’t I say this before, huh?”
Jiang Tian moved his lips: “Tried.”
Yang Jing: “……”

It was the first time Sheng Wang witnessed how he conversed with teachers……he was really damn good at it, he took only a single line to make the teacher explode from anger.
Jiang Tian was an incredibly proud person, the first time Sheng Wang met him he could already tell. In actuality, most teachers have great tolerance towards top students like him, they could smile for the entire day from his grades alone. Still, that did not get in the way from wanting to smack him in other times.

Sheng Wang hurriedly tried his best to salvage the situation, he lowered his head as he said: “We are sorry.”
Yang Jing: “……”
She’s more pissed off than ever now.

By chance, He Jin walked into the office with the monthly exam’s scripts in hand. “Come, come, come, scripts fresh out of the oven. Claim it now and critique it ASAP.”
Yang Jing received the English scripts with a dark look on her face, as she flipped through it, she said, “Here, I want to see just exactly what did the two misbehaving people score for the monthly exam, especially you! Sheng Wang! Let me tell you I haven’t even approached you yet, you ——”

Before she finished speaking, she reached their scripts.
Jiang Tian scored 115, Sheng Wang danced at the edges, 110. He got 7 questions wrong for listening compre, and had 3 marks deducted for his essay, one of which was because of his poor handwriting.
Other than that, Class A had no other script that began with a 11.

As for the student who crumbled according to Yang Ziwen of Nan High, how unfortunately, it was the English rep himself.
For some unknown reason, he was totally out of it during the exam, more than 20 marks were deducted for multiple choice, and he only scored a 92 in the end.

Yang Jing stared at the scripts with her hands on her hips. She didn’t know if she should laugh or rage first. After she remained frozen in a female demoness state for a good while, she didn’t keep it up by herself anymore.
She looked at Jiang Tian who was neither servile nor overbearing, and Sheng Wang who pretended to apologise, and waved, “Scram, scram, scram! I’ll settle this when the results of the competition comes out! Get out!”

“Aye!” Sheng Wang replied with a barely concealed laugh, and ran away as he pushed Jiang Tian along.
“Hold on!” Yang Jing called them again.
Sheng Wang was already out of the door, he stuck his head in again and said, “Your command?”
Yang Jing felt her stomach ache just at the look of him pretending to be obedient. She stifled herself for a while before she managed to say with a poker face, “Get Qi Jiahao to come over for a bit.”

TO BE CONTINUED.