It's like if Lao Gui swore he would write 100,000 words a day for a year, anyone would know he's just talking nonsense. But if Lao Gui, after assessing his own abilities, said he would write more than 4,000 words a day without interruption, except in special circumstances, and would make up for it later if there were any issues, those who know Lao Gui would believe him.
Episode 2, Metropolis, Chapter 19: I Dare to Whistle
"Leilei, your dad's on the phone!" There was no phone at his maternal grandparents' house, so it was his third aunt who called Zhang Lei. She lived nearby, less than a minute's walk away, so it wasn't too much trouble.
Zhang Lei rushed to his aunt's house, "Dad, what's up?"
"Oh, you're here. Let me make this quick. You know all those fugitives from last time have been caught!" Zhang Lei's father's voice came through the phone.
"Hmm, is that all? Why are you telling me about them? I don't want to think about that, don't mention it to me!" Zhang Lei was still agitated when he heard about these guys, and he didn't care about talking to his father anymore.
"Your eighth uncle asked me to tell you that he used some connections to get those guys transferred to Dachengzi Prison. Don't worry, none of them will have a comfortable time, especially that ninth one, he doesn't like...!"
Zhang Lei was quite annoyed when his father spoke, he just didn't want to hear about those guys, but after hanging up the phone, Zhang Lei couldn't help but feel a sense of vengeful pleasure.
Although the Zhang family wasn't a major force in that area, and usually kept a low profile, even those within the network might not know about them, when it came to actually using their influence, the advantages of a large family became apparent. Many connections were brought into play, and things that seemed impossible were accomplished smoothly.
After those fugitives were captured, they were supposed to receive harsher sentences and be sent to a heavy-duty prison in the Gobi Desert. However, Zhang Lei's eighth uncle used all his connections to keep them there. Of course, keeping them there wasn't for the purpose of treating them to a meal, especially the ninth brother. Zhang Lei knew without even thinking what kind of treatment he would receive.
Perhaps good things always come in pairs. Zhang Lei thought that the fate of his other subjects would be similar to that of math, with most of the points being deducted for the process, and he would be lucky to get an average score on the major questions.
But before classes officially started the next day, during the morning self-study period, the news had already spread throughout the class: "Did you hear? Four people got full marks in chemistry. One of them is in our class, and the other three are in the direct-entry class!"
The direct-entry class, as the name suggests, consists of students who are directly promoted from within the school, and those who have achieved relatively good grades. They have the best teaching staff and the best learning environment in the school. In fact, it is just another name for the honors class.
"Who is it? Who is it?" Although other classes had just started school, the advanced class had already been attending classes for over a month—that's why it's called an advanced class. The advantages of the advanced class haven't really become apparent yet, but while students in other classes are still playing and haven't gotten back into the swing of things, it's probably only the advanced class that can produce monsters who can get perfect scores.
Everyone did the test together. No one would believe that the chemistry test was easy. In addition, there is a lot of chemistry that requires rote memorization, and many students were worried that they would fail. Now that they heard that someone in their class actually got a perfect score, how could they not be surprised?
Zhiguang Middle School is now at the bottom of the district's key schools, so there aren't many students. Therefore, there are only five classes per grade: one direct-entry class and four regular classes. Zhang Lei is in the third regular class, which, including the direct-entry class, is Class 4 of Grade 11.
"I don't know. I heard from Class 1 that it's in our class, but I don't know who it is. The teacher didn't say, but said that there's also a perfect scorer in Class 4!" There are always well-informed people. Class 1 had their chemistry class yesterday, so that's where the news came from.
Zhang Lei had a premonition that this person was himself. After much anticipation, the chemistry class finally arrived, like a pretentious little girl, belatedly.
"Zhang Lei, 100 points!" The chemistry class representative was a very delicate-looking boy. His beauty surpassed even that of Zhang Lei before the incident, except that while Zhang Lei could be described as handsome back then, he was anything but. If it weren't for seeing him use the men's restroom and use the urinals without any difficulty, one would really suspect he was a woman in disguise. Therefore, the chemistry class representative had a nickname, "Little Girl," while Zhang Lei still hadn't remembered his real name.
Zhang Lei took the test paper, his eyes deliberately flashing a provocative and mocking look. He met the chemistry class representative's gaze head-on, thinking, "You're the first one." He had thought he'd have to figure out the rules after the next exam, but unexpectedly, a huge windfall had fallen from the sky.
Zhang Lei also has his own principles when it comes to reading books, or rather, he understands the bottom line of most teachers. He reads books for specific subjects. Although the chemistry teacher has covered most of what we learned in junior high school, there are still some differences. Moreover, unlike math, there are no overlapping parts that Zhang Lei needs to catch up on. Zhang Lei has also listened to some lectures.
Most importantly, chemistry doesn't have the same strict requirements for the solution process as mathematics. As long as the molecular formula is correct and there is a reasonable derivation process, points can be awarded.
Chemistry teacher Dai was very happy, "This time our class also has a perfect score, Zhang Lei, stand up and let everyone introduce him, everyone applaud!"
Zhang Lei stood up, his face flushed, his legs not fully extended, half of them still wedged on the edge of the chair. He was nowhere to be seen with any of his previous arrogance; instead, he looked somewhat flattered.
Teachers don't like arrogant students, and even among students, they can't afford to give others cause for criticism. However, they can make good use of that kind of provocative look. I'm appointing you as the class representative.
I don't know if this counts as jealousy, but jealousy is a very powerful emotion. No matter how good your friends are, once jealousy gets to the point of overreaction, they can turn on each other and frame each other. Not to mention whether those class representatives have any connection with Zhang Lei or not, Zhang Lei hasn't even memorized a single one of their names yet.
There was one exception: the math class representative, Lin Feng, who had shown Zhang Lei around the campus. But Zhang Lei was most interested in this position because he had been the math class representative in junior high school.
Zhang Lei's memory is pretty good in other aspects; he can memorize classical Chinese texts and Tang poems in just two or three tries. However, he really forgets names very easily. I think many people have this problem.
Zhang Lei left a good impression on Teacher Dai. First impressions are often the most important. Zhang Lei also knew that Teacher Dai was the grade leader for this grade and that she was on the stage during the opening ceremony.
However, she didn't teach Class 1. The teacher of Class 1 was a principal of the school, who seemed to be a senior chemistry teacher. He was the one who set the exam questions this time.
In this situation, the test questions were of course based on knowledge points that he had specifically taught in his class. On the contrary, there were many points that Teacher Dai had not emphasized. Therefore, it was even more gratifying that one of the other classes she taught produced a perfect score.
Zhang Lei wasn't sure if this was considered a success. Although he hadn't left a good impression on his homeroom teacher, the grade leader's satisfaction with him had suddenly reached its peak.
In fact, given the situation of this exam, it would be much easier to replace the chemistry class representative with the math class representative than to remove the chemistry class representative from the exam.
Because teachers ultimately need to consider the feelings of the original class representative, they can't simply replace them with whoever has the highest score. Generally, as long as the original class representative's grades in the subject are above average, the teacher won't consider replacing them, as this could potentially harm the students.
Although the chemistry class representative's chemistry grades weren't as outstanding as Zhang Lei's, they were definitely in the top tier. Lin Feng's math grade, on the other hand, was barely passing. While Zhang Lei himself only scored in the seventies, he was confident that with some modifications to the problem-solving process and a little more effort in math, he could surpass everyone. As for Lin Feng, well, he felt sorry for him. If Lin Feng maintained his previous grades, even if Zhang Lei didn't replace him, the teacher would find someone else to take his place.
Besides chemistry and mathematics, the results for other subjects were also released one by one.
The other subjects were pretty much as Zhang Lei had predicted. Except for Chinese and English, the other subjects were basically what Zhang Lei had expected. This time, even the history score was good.
"Zhang Lei, you're not as tall as me this time!" The person who put his arm around Zhang Lei's shoulder was Qiu Yi, the sports committee member. If Qiu Yi hadn't come to hand out the geography exam papers, Zhang Lei wouldn't have known that he was the geography class representative.
It's been almost three weeks since school started, and we've had three PE classes. That weird PE teacher made all three of us run long distances. Each 45-minute PE class starts with running three laps, which is about 750 meters.
Zhang Lei's biggest fear is long-distance running, and he is even reluctant to use a tiny bit of his internal energy during training-style long-distance running. For Zhang Lei now, every bit of internal energy represents a bit of future strength.
Qiu Yi noticed that this chubby boy seemed to be even weaker than the big fat boys. Every time they ran in PE class, Qiu Yi would either pull him along or give him a push from behind. Over time, the two became familiar with each other. Besides his deskmate, Qiu Yi was probably closest to him.
"Hmm, why are you paying attention to my grades!" Zhang Lei looked down at the geography test paper in his hand, turning it over and over as if trying to find something interesting in it.
"What score did you get?" Zhang Lei asked casually.
"87.5, that's the highest in our class. I'm the geography class representative, you know. You usually score way higher than the class representative in every subject, which makes a lot of class representatives get scolded by the teacher and lose face. Luckily, you didn't score as high as me this time!" Qiu Yi shook the test paper in his hand. "You only got 78.5, right? Don't look at it anymore, it doesn't mean you can improve your score!"
Zhang Lei glanced at him, his eyes crinkling into crescent moons with amusement. "Hehe, that's not necessarily true. Maybe I really can tell the score?" he said, glancing at the geography teacher who was explaining a problem to the students.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Qiu Yi sensed something was wrong.
"Hehe, let me do a math problem for you. What is 28 plus 30 plus 18.5 plus 12?" Zhang Lei looked at him with a smile. "If you're only one point behind first place, it shouldn't matter much!"
Before he could finish mentally calculating the string of numbers, Zhang Lei had already stood up and walked towards the teacher. Zhang Lei had considered not making things difficult for him, but in the end, his competitive spirit and, cough cough, honesty prevailed; it should be such and such a score, after all.
If it's a fill-in-the-blank or multiple-choice question and the teacher marked it wrong, to get the points back, firstly, there must be no trace of correction on the paper, and secondly, the student must have a good reputation with the teacher. It's only the beginning of the school year; who has a good reputation then?
However, this simplest case of adding points incorrectly is different. There is absolutely no possibility of cheating or alteration in this case. The only possibility is that the points were indeed added incorrectly when the teacher was adding them. This is not necessarily the teacher's fault. Usually, in this situation, several students who are on good terms with the teacher will help the teacher copy and enter the scores.
Qiu Yi finally managed to understand the relationship between the numbers Zhang Lei was talking about, but by then Zhang Lei had already taken the test paper to the geography teacher. He could only watch helplessly as the teacher made a couple of marks on Zhang Lei's paper and then drew a new score on it.