Cheng Ran arrived on the morning of the 3rd, and reported to No. 10 Middle School in the afternoon. The transfer exam officially took place on the 4th. In the morning of the 4th, he took Chinese and math, and in the afternoon, he took English, physics, and chemistry. It was concentrated in one day, and No. 10 Middle School might have wanted to avoid adding burden to the families who came to take the exam.
After the four exams, the scores will be summarized. Qualified students will send their final scores to No. 10 Middle School, and the admissions department will select the best students for admission based on the scores of this exam and the final scores. Of course, the final scores will not have much impact, the most important thing is the transfer exam.
When I arrived at the door, I saw many parents with their children waiting anxiously for the door to open and let their children in. They pursed their lips. Some observed the people around them calmly, some turned a deaf ear to the outside world and smiled mysteriously, and some were using this time to memorize formulas and classical Chinese texts... It's obviously just a high school, but why is there this sense of tension that is exactly the same as that of Peking University
I was a little nervous. With a creak, the door opened and the security guard came out, signaling the candidates to enter. Everyone was like rabbits with their ears pricked up. Even those who appeared to be relaxed on the outside were obviously feeling uneasy. Cheng Ran waved his hand and Xu Lan walked in.
After entering the main gate, you can see a main hall of an ancient building in front of the Hanque buildings. The door of the hall opens, and the threshold is almost knee-high. After entering the door, there is a lobby with several-story high ceilings, a low mahogany table, a wooden fence, and a portrait of Confucius. The photo wall on the left is covered with pictures of the school in modern times and the surrounding street scenes. On the right are excerpts from ancient books that record the text of this school carved on huge wooden slips. All of these make people feel like they are traveling back in time to the ancient Confucian Temple and Academy.
It was as if the world around me slowed down all of a sudden, and all that passed by was ancient time.
Then, the faculty and staff in formal attire, who were scattered behind a few desks that had been moved in and handing out admission tickets to candidates, brought people back to reality.
Someone was looking at the students through thick glasses, and a female faculty member was shouting, "Get your admission ticket and go this way. Follow the signs to go out and enter the examination room!" The scene had an inexplicable sense of conflict.
After each candidate's identity was verified and they received an exam card, they were guided out of the corridor, across an ancient garden bridge, and into several classrooms in a stand-alone teaching building next to it.
Passing by these rockery pavilions and corridors, Cheng Ran glanced at the playground and open space on the other side of Hanque Tower. The golden leaves of ginkgo trees covered the ground. Occasionally, some sounds came from the buildings. At this time, No. 10 Middle School had already been on vacation, but there were probably some school clubs holding activities and some students were still in school, but they were a very small number.
Chengdu has already become sweltering in the summer. The noisy chirping of cicadas rings in our ears, and lush yellow vines cascade down from the stone flower stands. The air is filled with the slightly sweet scent of these woody flowers.
Cheng Ran thought that at some point in the past, Jiang Hongshao might have walked between such stone slabs and corridors. It was really a... slightly strange feeling.
Those were two lives that were once separated by the sea, and now were approaching and converging together, like the overlap of two string worlds.
Cheng Ran would think of the world he left behind, where everyone's life would continue to move forward. The ones who would be in pain would probably be his parents who knew he was no longer in this world, and his friends around him, like Yu Xiao and Yang Xia. Would they feel regretful? As for Jiang Hongshao... maybe one day when she chats with his friends in Shanhai, they would learn about the death of Cheng Ran. That would be a world where nothing had ever happened to them.
Cheng Ran, who lives a miserable life, feels that life is pretty good now.
Walking along the road into the examination room of the teaching building, the classroom was on the second floor. There were four examination classrooms here. Cheng Ran went in and sat in one of them. There was a gentle breeze, and the ground was stuffy. The classroom was cool because of the lush vegetation around it. This should have been a very pleasant scene, but when Cheng Ran looked around, everyone seemed to be holding their breath, and some people were staring at the window in a daze.
Cheng Ran followed those gazes and suddenly understood. Outside the window, the Hanque palace buildings appeared.
The building they used for the exam was not part of those connected antique buildings, but an independent building.
In the eyes of many people, it is like reminding them that they are still not students of No. 10 Middle School. If they want to study there, they can only prove their qualifications on this battlefield. They can ignore the strict regulations of educational zoning and the constraints of previous schools and be accepted by this peak class school.
Those eyes are full of desire, longing, and the kind of unwilling fighting spirit and pride that they arouse.
Two teachers entered the classroom and began to distribute the test papers. Because it was a transfer exam, it did not seem as serious as the formal unified exam. No. 10 Middle School rang a bell, which echoed in the empty outer room, indicating that the exam was ready, and everything became silent.
Amid the sound of flipping through test papers, the invigilator explained some precautions. It was similar to any other exam, except that this time there wouldn't be the whispering or collusion as in the past, because those who were eligible to take the exam all believed that they could study in this school, and must have been top students in their previous studies, so there wouldn't be anyone hoping to get away with it.
After the last bell rang, the invigilator signaled that it was time to answer the questions. Cheng Ran took a deep breath, and thought back to the night when he and Jiang Hongshao graduated from junior high school. They took a bus on Shanhai Ring Road to send her home, and he said that she would come to No. 10 Middle School first, and he would come to find her later.
Jiang Hongshao didn't even think about it and just said "Okay"...
But it was obviously a polite answer with an awkward smile.
Now in the examination room of Rongcheng No. 10 Middle School, Cheng Ran looked out the window, smiled, and buried his head in answering the questions.
…
After finishing the Chinese and math exams, Cheng Ran came out at noon and had lunch with Xu Lan at a noodle restaurant across the street.
Originally Xu Lan suggested that he go to eat a good meal to replenish his nutrition, but Cheng Ran said forget it and just eat a simple meal. Eating too well would consume energy, and he would be drowsy for the afternoon exam. This was of course just an excuse. Xu Lan thought about it and it made sense. After eating noodles with Cheng Ran, she forced him back to the hotel to take a nap.
After waking up, I had English and physics and chemistry exams in the afternoon.
Six o'clock was the last time to hand in the Physics and Chemistry papers. Cheng Ran finished his final check at half past five, handed in his paper and walked out of the classroom. When he handed in his paper, some people looked up at him, as if they were wondering why he handed in his paper half an hour earlier than the last one in the previous classes. Was he impatient? Or did he know that he didn't do well in the exam and gave up on himself? Some people thought so with relief in their hearts...
Cheng Ran was the last person to hand in his paper during the entire exam. It wasn't because the questions were difficult, but because he usually finished only in the last 10 to 20 minutes. He basically used the last minute to check his papers. However, after checking the first three subjects, he didn't seem to find any mistakes, so he didn't pay attention to the mistakes.
There are only two possible results. Either the test questions he had prepared for Chengdu No. 10 Middle School were very well planned and completed, so he accumulated a lot of experience here and achieved results, and was able to complete the test paper in one go with a very high accuracy.
Otherwise, it means that he has reached the limit of his ability and is no longer able to discover his own mistakes.
No matter which of the two is it, it is an established situation that cannot be changed.
Finally, he finished the physics and chemistry papers forty minutes ahead of schedule. After checking them for ten minutes and finding that the results were probably the same as those of the previous three subjects, he decided to hand them in early.
I don’t know if it’s because the reference questions he had done before included difficult questions from all the previous exams of No. 10 Middle School, but this transfer exam was not as difficult as he had imagined. Among all the questions he had done before, the difficulty of this one was only considered medium.
After leaving the classroom, Cheng Ran was originally planning to go out directly, but a display window of honors beside the ginkgo tree caught his attention. He stopped and walked along the golden broken ginkgo leaves in the garden to the display window. The title on the display window was "List of outstanding students in the grade", with photos on it and some text introduction under each photo.
As expected, Cheng Ran saw Jiang Hongshao wearing a blue and white school uniform.
In fact, in the month before the end of the semester, probably because Lao Jiang was very busy, the two of them only exchanged letters once, and then fell into a long silence. In the letter, she said that there were many things to do this month, sprinting for the finals, club affairs, and she arranged to go out with her mother after the exam, and she probably wouldn't be in Chengdu. Of course, the letter still reminded Cheng Ran to do well in the exam, and then the two of them would compete. It was obviously a way to provoke him... She really wanted to coordinate everything, even helping herself to improve.
But Lao Jiang would never have expected that he would come directly to Rongcheng No. 10 Middle School.
As summer approaches, the days get longer. The sun is still strong at this time, reflecting on the glass of the window, which makes Jiang Hongshao's photo and the text below reflect light. Cheng Ran subconsciously stretched out his hand in an arched shape and leaned against the glass window, then he took a closer look at the text under the photo.
At this time, a few girls happened to pass by. The way he leaned forward, shielding the light with his hands and getting close to Jiang Hongshao happened to be seen by the girls, and he looked very unrefined.
The expressions of this group of girls immediately became interesting. Some showed disgust and aversion, some looked like they had caught someone red-handed and wanted to see clearly if they were planning to publicize him, and some looked at him with a half-smile.
One of the girls with freckles on her face stared at him and said rudely, "Hey! Why don't you use a magnifying glass to look at me... What are you looking at? Your eyes are about to pop out of your head... It's just a crush... Do you want to steal her photos?"
"I remember now... Oh well, it was you who stole our Jiang Hongshao's photo last time!?"