The examination room was like a battlefield, and every difficult question was a strong enemy. The enemy's city was impregnable, trapping most of the students in the competition class. Jiang Yubai had just finished writing the first page of the test paper when he heard a series of sighs coming from behind his seat.
The number of places for the winter vacation training camp is limited. As early as before this midterm exam, Teacher Zhang told everyone that only the top 40 students in the grade are eligible to participate in the winter vacation training camp.
Many students in Class 17 had made full preparations for the training. They worked hard day and night to practice questions, and no one expected that the test paper would be so difficult!
Mathematics is no longer mathematics, it has become the flames of hell, burning a group of helpless test takers.
The windows in the classroom were closed, the atmosphere was quiet, and an invisible pressure hit Duan Qiyan's head. He was stumped by a fill-in-the-blank question and couldn't figure it out.
It was a seemingly simple geometry problem, and Duan Qiyan spotted the trap set by the questioner at a glance. However, because he knew that the ordinary solution was not applicable to this problem, he couldn't think of any other solution he could use.
Coincidentally, Lin Zhixia was sitting on Duan Qiyan’s right.
Duan Qiyan's eyes slightly tilted to the right - it was this glance that made him regret for a long time and made him feel chest tightness and shortness of breath. He saw that Lin Zhixia had already written to the eighth page of the test paper.
Lin Zhixia doesn't draft. She holds a pen and randomly scribbles on the questions. She can find the solution and write quickly on the answer sheet.
Pages 8 and 9 were all math proofs. Lin Zhixia deliberately slowed down her pace and wrote down the answers in great detail. She even raised her head and looked towards Jiang Yubai's seat, secretly cheering for him in her heart: Jiang Yubai must score higher than Duan Qiyan!
Jiang Yubai noticed the gazes of others. He glanced back and happened to meet Lin Zhixia's eyes.
Jiang Yubai never thought that Lin Zhixia would dare to stare at him during the exam. Perhaps, Lin Zhixia was worried that he couldn't answer any questions... But he was actually solving the questions on page 4 of the test paper.
He planned his time reasonably and answered the questions meticulously. Three hours passed in a flash, and a loud bell rang over the radio. The invigilator said in a serious tone: "All students, stop writing. No more writing. The boy in brown clothes in the fourth row of the second group! I'm talking about you! Put your pen down, or I'll give you a zero!"
The student who was threatened by the invigilator was Duan Qiyan.
A test paper has sixteen pages, and Duan Qiyan's handwriting stopped on the twelfth page.
The moment he handed in the paper, Duan Qiyan's heart seemed to stop for a moment, just like King Henry VIII of England who did not expect to fall off his horse, and King Louis XVI of France who did not expect to be beheaded in public. Duan Qiyan's life suffered a tragic Waterloo. He staggered to his feet from his seat, his brain empty, as if it had been drained by mathematics.
His only wish was that Jiang Yubai would score worse than him.
He walked to Jiang Yubai's seat.
Jiang Yubai unscrewed the thermos and poured out a cup of warm water. Lin Zhixia, Shen Fuxuan, Han Peng and others gathered around Jiang Yubai. Shen Fuxuan was the first to ask, "Jiang Yubai, did you do well in the exam?"
Lin Zhixia was worried: "To you, is today's test paper... particularly difficult?"
"Can you guess the difficulty of the test paper?" Jiang Yubai looked at Lin Zhixia.
Lin Zhixia held onto the desk with both hands: "During the exam, many people sighed."
"Why is the test paper so difficult this time?" Han Peng couldn't help but ask, because he was one of the students who was feeling dejected in the exam room.
Jiang Yubai said: "The person who wrote the test wanted to widen the gap between us."
Jiang Yubai calmly tried to figure out the intention of the test-taker. His calm demeanor made people suspect that he had done exceptionally well in the test. Shen Fuxuan suddenly became excited and shouted, "Jiang Yubai! Let's compare answers! Compare the multiple-choice questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, and the first four big questions. Hahahahahahahahaha, I wrote so smoothly."
Jiang Yubai answered readily: "Let's start with the big questions. The answer to the fourth big question is seven-ninths, right?"
"No." Shen Fuxuan frowned. He held his right elbow with his left hand and supported his chin with his right hand. He thought for several seconds before saying, "The answer to the fourth question is 2/17. It's a simple inequality problem, I can't get it wrong."
Shen Fuxuan's statement attracted Duan Qiyan.
Duan Qiyan echoed, "Two-seventeenths, I got the same result! Shen Fuxuan!"
Shen Fuxuan glanced at him sideways: "That's right, why are you yelling at me?"
Duan Qiyan's face turned pale. He failed in today's exam, and his title of "No. 1 God of War in the Normal School Attached Primary School" was probably going to be buried forever.
The glory of the past is gone forever, where is the future? Duan Qiyan was full of worry, swallowing hard, his Adam's apple rolling slightly in the development of puberty, he whispered: "Shen Fuxuan, if I fall out of the top 20 in the class, how about you sitting next to me?"
Shen Fuxuan was stunned: "Fall out of the top 20?"
Duan Qiyan held his head high and said, "How is it? Let me ask you a question!"
Shen Fuxuan smiled and said, "Sure."
Duan Qiyan thought he was hallucinating. He asked again, and Shen Fuxuan replied, "Sure."
Duan Qiyan stretched out a finger, pointed at Shen Fuxuan, and shook it three times: "You keep your promise."
Shen Fuxuan agreed with great generosity. His current deskmate, Han Peng, could not believe Shen Fuxuan's impromptu decision. Han Peng and Shen Fuxuan had been classmates and good friends for six years in Shengli Primary School. Now, for the sake of a mere number one warrior in a normal school, Shen Fuxuan had abandoned Han Peng!
Why!
Han Peng hooked his arm around Shen Fuxuan's shoulders, but Shen Fuxuan ignored him. The deep friendship built over six years collapsed at this moment. Han Peng wanted Shen Fuxuan to regret it. In the Grade 17 class, only Lin Zhixia was stronger than Shen Fuxuan!
Han Peng took two steps back and said to Lin Zhixia, "Lin Zhixia! Next time after the rankings are announced, you can sit at the same table with me. I'll treat you to strawberry candies every day. I see your pencil case is covered with strawberry stickers."
Many students in the class like to buy stickers at the canteen for 50 cents a piece. The selection of stickers is very wide, including various fruits and cartoon characters. Lin Zhixia is keen on strawberries, and her love for strawberries is obvious to everyone.
Sure enough, when Han Peng mentioned strawberry candy, Lin Zhixia's eyes lit up and she repeated softly, "Strawberry candy?"
Han Peng observed Shen Fuxuan's expression and responded casually: "Yes, Lin Zhixia, I treat you every day..."
Before he finished speaking, Jiang Yubai stood up with a loud bang. Jiang Yubai pushed Han Peng away and said righteously, "Eating candy every day is bad for your teeth. If Lin Zhixia sits at the same table with you, she will probably get cavities."
Tooth decay
Jiang Yubai is really good at sophistry!
Han Peng opened his mouth, unable to refute. He wanted to start from other aspects and continue to win over Lin Zhixia. However, Lin Zhixia showed half of her face from behind Jiang Yubai and declared seriously: "I will only sit at the same table with Jiang Yubai."
She also said, "Jiang Yubai, you calculated the fourth question correctly. The answer is 7/9, not 2/17. Shen Fuxuan and Duan Qiyan both made mistakes because they considered one more possibility and mistakenly narrowed the range of the correct answer."
"What did you say?" Duan Qiyan pursed his lips. On the surface, he asked a question, as if he was questioning Lin Zhixia. But in fact, he had already surrendered to Lin Zhixia from the bottom of his heart, and regarded all her judgments as standard reference answers.
Jiang Yubai turned around and asked Lin Zhixia: "Is the answer to question 5 6.7?"
"Right!" Lin Zhixia applauded him. She announced without reservation: "The answer to the multiple-choice question is cbacddbac, Jiang Yubai, do you agree with me?"
"Lin Zhixia, before handing in the paper, did you go back and recite the answers to the multiple-choice questions?" Duan Qiyan asked relentlessly.
Lin Zhixia didn't answer him. She carried her schoolbag and left the classroom with Jiang Yubai.
People were coming and going in the corridor, light and shadows intertwined, Lin Zhixia followed Jiang Yubai down the stairs, and their backs were gradually completely covered by the steps. They seemed to have built another world in their daily interactions, a world that contained trivial life insights and resonances, and it was difficult for other students to squeeze in.
Duan Qiyan held his breath and suddenly realized: "I am so stupid."
Han Peng teased: "How did you find out?"
Duan Qiyan looked ahead: "Lin Zhixia must have given Jiang Yubai extra lessons. How come Jiang Yubai has improved so quickly?"
"You don't understand this," Han Peng told him, "Jiang Yubai is known as the richest man in Experimental Primary School. His classmates all call him Jiang the Richest Man. I heard that he has several tutors."
Duan Qiyan had a bad feeling in his heart.
On the day when the math results were announced, Duan Qiyan went outside the classroom to enjoy the cool breeze after class. The head teacher also posted the report card next to the blackboard so that the whole class could review it together.
There were major changes in the class rankings for this midterm exam. Lin Zhixia was still the unshakable first place, and she even scored full marks again. Jiang Yubai followed closely behind, and Shen Fuxuan ranked third... Jiang Yubai did not look for Duan Qiyan's name. He decided to let Duan Qiyan go first and not actively provoke Duan Qiyan's heart, which had been hit hard.
Lin Zhixia was a little gloating: "Duan Qiyan is going to shout His Majesty Jiang Yubai in the winter vacation training camp! How did he come up with this idea? What kind of TV series does he usually watch at home? Hahahahahaha..."
Lin Zhixia's arrogant and wild laughter reached Duan Qiyan's ears without missing a single word.
Duan Qiyan stood at the door of the classroom, not knowing whether to go forward or backward. It was difficult for him to take a step forward. In the days when he made the bet, he watched "The Legend of the Twin Dragons" at home. He was indeed influenced by the TV series and also wanted to become a hero like the emperor.
However, reality was too cruel for him.
Time passed day by day, and the students in the competition class gradually got used to the life with mathematics. The connection between classmates became closer, and Lin Zhixia's work as the monitor was also progressing smoothly. With her test scores, almost all the classmates showed her respect and admiration from the bottom of their hearts. No matter where Lin Zhixia went in the class, people around her would call her "Lin monitor."
Squad Leader Lin is the pride of Class 17.
No matter how difficult or abnormal the test paper is, Squad Leader Lin will not fail.
Before the winter vacation training camp started, the seniors in the eighth grade competition class had heard of Lin Zhixia's name.
It was the dead of winter, and the railings were covered with a layer of unmelted snow. The entire campus was freezing cold, with a howling north wind. Three senior girls from the second grade of junior high school braved the dangers and came together to peek at Lin Zhixia.
Lin Zhixia happened to be sitting by the window. During the break, she wrote in her Human Observation Diary: "Winter is here, and it snowed again this year. What changes have Jiang Yubai made in 2006? His mental arithmetic skills have steadily improved, and he has a certain understanding of the basic introduction to physics. Although he is struggling with a simple irrational number proof, I believe he can at least solve it today..."
Lin Zhixia glanced at Jiang Yubai and found that he only wrote the word "解", so Lin Zhixia crossed out the word "today" on the paper and changed it to "this year".
Her entire sentence became: "I believe he can at least solve this problem this year!"
After finishing her Human Observation Diary, Lin Zhixia stopped writing. Across a glass window, the senior students standing outside the classroom commented: "She is Lin Zhixia? The first place in the first grade competition class."
One of the senior students said: "Lin Zhixia, she's so cute."
Lin Zhixia heard someone calling her name. She immediately looked out the window. The seniors dispersed, but she remembered the appearance of each of them. She confided to Jiang Yubai: "Jiang Yubai, the seniors in the second grade competition class seem to have something to ask me, or they just came to see me quietly. Which one do you think it is?"
"I think it's the latter." Jiang Yubai's pen tip hovered over the reference book.
Lin Zhixia picked up a mechanical pencil and wrote an expression in his notebook. After a little guidance from Lin Zhixia, Jiang Yubai figured out how to solve the problem. He sighed, "The teacher said that the winter vacation training is very hard. For you, it should not be hard, only..."
Only what
Jiang Yubai hadn't finished speaking yet, and Lin Zhixia added for him: "Only relaxation."
She held down the tip of her mechanical pencil and spoke her heart out to Jiang Yubai: "My hometown in the countryside doesn't feel like my home. My home is where I live with my parents and brother. I don't have to go to the countryside during the winter break this year, and I can see you every day. I'm so happy."
Jiang Yubai noticed that Lin Zhixia didn't say "you" but "you all". He asked in a subtle way: "Which classmates do you want to meet during the winter vacation?"
Those classmates might be potential competitors who might surpass Jiang Yubai in future exams.
Jiang Yubai believed that the students that Lin Zhixia cared about must be strong people with certain strengths and abilities.
Lin Zhixia said: "I, Lin Zhixia, am now the monitor of Class 17!"
Jiang Yubai responded cooperatively: "Squad Leader Lin."
"Yes!" Lin Zhixia nodded proudly, "So, I want to meet all my classmates in the winter vacation training camp."
Jiang Yubai thought to himself that only 23 people from Class 17 were among the top 40 in the grade. The total number of students in the winter vacation training camp was 140. By then, the students from Class 17 and 18, the seniors in the second grade of junior high school, and those students from other schools would all see how Lin Zhixia was different from the others.
The winter vacation training camp of Provincial No. 1 Middle School officially opened on January 7, 2006.
The head coach of the junior high school mathematics competition is the person in charge of this training camp.
The coach is about 40 years old and speaks with a slight accent. He is decisive and has his own ideas. At the mobilization meeting of the training camp, he introduced in a loud voice: "Hello, students! My last name is Zhai, and I am your teacher Zhai! Let's make it short! There are only two goals for this training camp. The first is to consolidate the knowledge points of junior high school math competitions! The other is to familiarize yourself with the math competition questions of previous years! After the winter vacation, you will have a qualitative improvement, from quantitative change to qualitative change, from ordinary students to first prize winners of competitions, it all depends on how much sweat you are willing to put in!"
The students of Class 17 and Class 18 of the first grade of junior high school were all participating in the training for the first time. They were more or less curious, expectant, and nervous. However, Lin Zhixia actually sat in her seat and enthusiastically played cat's tuck with Wan Chunlei.
As long as Lin Zhixia doesn't mention Go, Wan Chunlei is willing to play any game with her.
A person's bottom line will suddenly collapse in the process of giving in step by step - Wan Chunlei knew this very well, but she still set up the red rope and had a lot of fun with Lin Zhixia.
The students sat in the first-tier classroom, and each class had a designated area. On Wan Chunlei's left was Lin Zhixia, and on her right was Duan Qiyan. Even when Teacher Zhai was giving some meaningless inspirational speeches, Duan Qiyan wrote them down in his notebook.
Duan Qiyan is arrogant, but his handwriting is very neat and beautiful. He wrote stroke by stroke: From quantitative change to qualitative change, from an ordinary student to the first prize in the competition, it depends on how much sweat you are willing to pay...
After he finished writing, he mocked Wan Chunlei: "Is cat's cradle a game for kindergarten?"
Wan Chunlei sneered: "Duan Qiyan, when are you going to call Jiang Yubai His Majesty? After this class, do you dare to go to the first row and call him?"
Duan Qiyan shuddered all over. He remained silent, as if he was going to deny his debt.
At this time, Lin Zhixia hooked the corner of the red rope, pulled out a beautiful red flower, and held it in front of Wan Chunlei: "Look, a little red flower!"
Wan Chunlei was stunned: "You are better than others at playing catwalk."
Lin Zhixia turned her head again and faced Jiang Yubai who was sitting on her left: "Wen Tingyun, a literati in the Tang Dynasty, wrote in a poem - 'Red flowers are just blooming and snowflakes are lush'. Jiang Yubai, look, it's snowing outside. I have a little red flower here. Isn't it very appropriate for the scene?"
Jiang Yubai put down the paper and pen. He lowered his head slightly and picked up the rope with his fingertips. He wanted to play with Lin Zhixia for a while, but he scattered Lin Zhixia's red flower with a little effort. He hurriedly said, "I'm sorry, this flower has disappeared."
"It doesn't matter, the river is getting whiter!" Lin Zhixia said with a smile, "The flower has not disappeared, it will always bloom in my mind."
Jiang Yubai drew a red tulip on the paper with a red pen: "This one is for you too, Linlinlinlin Zhixia."
At the front of the lecture hall, Mr. Zhai had finished explaining the outline of the training course. He brushed off the chalk dust on his hands and said loudly: "Students, take a 15-minute break. In the next class, Mr. Zhang from the Grade 17 class will summarize the first category of questions in the competition. We must digest the knowledge of the day on the same day! After the morning and afternoon classes, we will hold an in-class test in the evening! The test papers will be distributed the next morning! Your test scores will be recorded for each test, and outstanding students will have the opportunity to be selected as representatives to participate in provincial and national mathematics competitions!"
Some of the students in the lecture hall ran out for some fresh air, while the rest of the students were listening to Teacher Zhai.
Teacher Zhai told everyone: "Last year, I took students to Macau to participate in the national league. Those students went on a trip in Macau. The school reimbursed them all, and the prize money for the competition was also high. You should not regard competition as a painful thing. Competition has a lot of added value, you know? You are all teenagers, you should have confidence and don't be afraid of difficulties."
Many students were very resistant to the rule of "one in-class test every day". Everyone knows how tiring and terrifying the "winter vacation training" is, but Lin Zhixia was deeply attracted by what Teacher Zhai said, "We had a trip to Macau by the way". She also expressed her thoughts to Jiang Yubai: "This training class activity is really interesting!"
Before he finished speaking, Teacher Zhai walked out of the door of the lecture hall. He was going to the printing room to get materials for the students.
Duan Qiyan slammed the table and stood up.
His pen rolled to the floor. He didn't pick it up.
The students in Class 17 guessed what he was going to do, and they were both excited and nervous. If Duan Qiyan's performance was too embarrassing, the reputation of Class 17 would be ruined.
Duan Qiyan stood at attention and stomped his left foot heavily on the ground. The sound was calm and powerful, and the students nearby cast their eyes on him. He was so ashamed that he could hardly open his eyes. He could only identify Jiang Yubai's location through the squinting of his eyelids. He bowed deeply in that direction and shouted loudly: "Your Majesty... Your Majesty!"
Jiang Yubai said nothing. Lin Zhixia answered for him: "Who are you?"
Duan Qiyan gritted his teeth, blushed, and replied: "I am his subordinate!"
The entire lecture hall fell into silence for three seconds, and then a huge wave of laughter broke out. Many students from other schools and this school made fun of Duan Qiyan, but Duan Qiyan did not run out of the classroom. He tried hard to stay calm and sat in his seat with his hands on his knees.
This is his growth.
Lin Zhixia was not disturbed by the outside noise at all. She cut a delicate little crown out of white paper and put it on the tip of Jiang Yubai's left index finger. Then, she lay on the table and whispered to him: "Congratulations, Jiang Yubai, the little prince has successfully ascended the throne, Lin Zhixia crowns you."