Chapter 516 - Chapter 516: 206 Difficult to Surpass College Entrance Examination (First Update)_2

Chapter 516: 206 Difficult to Surpass College Entrance Examination (First Update)_2

Mathematics and Mandarin are always headline news during the annual college entrance examination.

After the math exam, “national college entrance mathematics exam” quickly topped the trending searches, and the high school seniors who had held in their anxiety all day finally let loose, venting about the difficulty of the math exam.

Top comment:

[I’ve competed in math contests, but I only managed to draw an auxiliary line on the penultimate problem (smile)]

Netizens clicked in and indeed saw the provincial team medal that this student had boasted about last year. They were somewhat surprised. It was one thing for the average person to find it difficult, but why was it hard even for a prodigy who made it into the provincial team?

**

In the afternoon, Shen Qing and Ji Shaojun both waited for Bai Lian at the school gate. Seeing the collapsed state of a group of students, they didn’t dare to ask Bai Lian a single question.

Jiang Fulai stood beside Bai Lian, looking down and about to ask how Bai Lian did on the math test.

Shen Qing cleared her throat lightly, “Xiaojiang, come have dinner with us tonight.”

She interrupted Jiang Fulai.

Jiang Fulai just glanced at Bai Lian and didn’t ask any more questions.

The group returned to Ji Heng’s courtyard, where Ji Heng was playing Go with Jiang He. When they arrived, Ji Heng saw Jiang Fulai, let out a sigh of relief, and quickly stood up with his smoking pipe in hand, “Xiaojiang, come here.”

Jiang He slowly looked up, saw Jiang Fulai, and his casually swinging leg slowly came to a halt.

Jiang Fulai sat casually opposite Jiang He and picked up a white stone at random.

Two minutes later, Jiang Fulai glanced at Jiang He and stood up unhurriedly, “We must respect our elders.”

Jiang He: “…”

Ji Shaojun and Shen Qing were busy in the kitchen when he received a call from the butler.

On the other end of the phone, the butler was standing in the courtyard, “What time are you leaving tomorrow? I’ll arrange for a car to take you to Beicheng.”

They were going to fly to Jiangjing from Beicheng.

The college entrance examination would end tomorrow.

“I can’t come back tomorrow,” Ji Shaojun pondered slightly, “let’s leave on the 9th in the afternoon.”

The 9th was the Dragon Boat Festival, and Ji Shaojun wanted to have a meal with Ji Heng before he left.

The butler was silent for a long time. He pressed against his brow, his eyebrows soaked in numerous weathered experiences now revealing his age, “That’s fine. How did your niece do on the exam?”

“I don’t know,” Ji Shaojun rinsed vegetables with one hand, his voice lightening a bit, “We heard the math problems were too difficult, so we didn’t ask her about it.”

The butler was merely making a polite inquiry, and he was not surprised to hear Ji Shaojun respond in that way, “If possible, I still hope you can return before the Dragon Boat Festival.”

**

The following day, the last two exams.

Comprehensive science and English, there was no hardest, only harder.

In the afternoon, the last exam, English.

In the examination room, after Bai Lian finished writing the last word of her English essay, after double-checking the questions, and after confirming her multiple-choice answers on the answer sheet were correct,

she just looked at the black pen in her hand.

She didn’t have many fancy pens. This was the pen she had been using since her senior year of high school, the refill changed countless times, its black casing had already lost its shine.

Bai Lian set aside her answer sheet and capped her pen.

At the same time, in the examination room at School No. 3,

Yang Lin also finished the last sentence. She drew a period at the end of her essay, and as the sunlight from outside fell on her exam paper, Yang Lin appeared somewhat dazed.

She had struggled for twelve years, studied hard for twelve years, seemingly all for this very moment.

Five o’clock.

The bell rang, symbolizing the end of the most important exam of the senior students’ lives, but their journey in life was only just beginning.

After handing in her exam paper and answer sheet, Bai Lian followed the flow of people out.

It was earlier than the usual end of class, and the sunlight was slightly glaring. Bai Lian carried her pencil case lazily through the crowd.

Under the tree at the school gate.

Jiang Fulai wore a loose short-sleeve shirt and stood casually under the tree, looking somewhat relaxed.

There were many parents waiting for students at the school gate, most of them holding bouquets of sunflowers, but Jiang Fulai was different.

What he held in his hand was a bouquet of flowers most people wouldn’t recognize.

Single-layered petals, each as light as a cloud and swaying gently with the wind, stood tall and delicate. They were red and radiant, pink as peach blossoms, white as snow, and blue like mist—simultaneously elegant and magnificent, dazzling in their brilliance.

Many around him glanced in his direction with sidelong looks.

There were just a few parents waiting for their children’s exams which is why quite a few people recognized Jiang Fulai over the past couple of days.

His demeanor was excessively cold; his presence, even when subdued, was still so daunting that it kept people at bay, making him seem like an unattainable flower on a high cliff.

Now, seeing him with flowers, most were surprised.

Jiang Fulai’s light-colored eyes casually scanned the crowd. When he saw Bai Lian, he stood up straight. As she approached him, he didn’t speak but instead handed her the bouquet of flowers.

Bai Lian took them, raised her eyebrows at Jiang Fulai, and he also handed her phone back to her.

Right after the test, the Class 15 group chat was buzzing nonstop.

Weng Qi was stirring things up again.

Weng Qi: [>]

Others lined up to chime in below. Bai Lian put her phone back into her pocket and began gently fidgeting with the petals again before looking up at Jiang Fulai, “Let’s go to the hotpot restaurant near the school.”

Jiang Fulai knew they had a gathering today and led Bai Lian toward the car.

As they passed through the crowd, many watched their retreating figures, speculating in whispers whether they were celebrities from somewhere else.

Xiangcheng remained the same.

The girl was still the same girl.

The poppies bloomed year after year without fail.

**

Jiangjing.

On the last day of the exams, Madam Xu took Xu Zhiyue to the test center.

After which, she stayed in the prayer hall the whole time.

When the exams ended, she finally came out of the prayer hall, anxiously waiting in the hall for Xu Zhiyue to return.

In the hall, Xu En sent a text to ask how Bai Lian had done on the exam. Since she hadn’t replied, he worried the child might not have done well.

Seeing Madam Xu frequently stand up to look towards the main door, he said, “Mom, don’t worry. Sit down and wait patiently. The exams are over.”

How could Madam Xu not be anxious?

She sat back down and asked the people in the hall, “Do you think Zhiyue did well this time?”

“Of course,” nodded Ji Mulan, who always had great faith in Xu Zhiyue, “Zhiyue is the smartest child I’ve ever met.”

The butler even laughed, “Just get ready to celebrate being the top scholar’s grandmother.”

The old lady felt reassured.

It was at this moment that a car horn sounded outside; the driver had come to pick up Xu Zhiyue.

Madam Xu quickly got up, leaning on her cane, and as soon as Xu Zhiyue got out of the car, she went over to ask, “Zhiyue, how did it go? What do you estimate your score to be?”

A student prodigy like Xu Zhiyue usually had a good idea of their score right after the test.

This time, however, Xu Zhiyue shook her head, “I’m not sure.”

Xu Wenyao, who was looking at his phone, was surprised, “Was this year’s college entrance exam that difficult?”

Was it so hard that even Xu Zhiyue couldn’t be sure?

“Extremely difficult,” said Xu Zhiyue with her glasses on, speaking politely, “The last problem in both math and physics were types I had never seen before. On my way back, I asked Liang Dog, and he was uncertain too.”

Xu Zhiyue and Liang Wuyu were both considered geniuses in Xu Wenyao’s eyes, especially Liang Wuyu, who had been participating in various competitions since middle school, finished high school curriculum in his freshman year, and by his senior year, he was studying in a laboratory with a mentor.

One could say his knowledge had surpassed 99.9% of senior students.

Even Liang Wuyu was unsure?

How difficult were the questions this year?

“That hard?” Xu Wenyao clenched his phone, standing up, surprised, “What happened?”

The difficulty level of the college entrance exam was usually similar each year, unless there was an exception. Xu Wenyao remembered that several years ago, there was a particularly hard set of exam questions that came to be known as “the toughest college entrance exam ever,” and to this day, no other exams had surpassed its difficulty. But this year…

What happened?