"Ouch, ouch, ouch," he grimaced like a monkey, "My legs are shaking uncontrollably, ouch!"
Shen Zhifei found him noisy, but she held back and didn't say anything.
Song Lang tightened his grip on his neck and asked in surprise, "How come you're alright?"
Shen Zhifei said, "I've stretched my ligaments, and I didn't feel anything."
As Song Lang stepped down the stairs, his legs trembled so badly he almost knelt, but Shen Zhifei held him tightly around the waist to keep him upright.
When Song Lang got home, his parents teased him mercilessly, asking if he wanted to give up and learn Go to train his mind. He was both angry and annoyed, but gritted his teeth and thought to himself that he must learn it well.
And so, with the stubbornness and unwillingness to admit defeat of a young man, he truly persevered.
Time flies, and the final exams for promotion came in the blink of an eye. On this day, Shen Zhifei did something quite sensational.
He applied to take the senior exams, skipping the third year and becoming Song Lang's classmate.
Song Lang was not happy about this at all.
Because Meng Fanxing mocked him for a long time after she found out the news.
"Hahahaha, I wasn't wrong, was I? I'm a fucking genius prophet."
Song Lang rolled his eyes at him: "I really don't know what you're so happy about. Didn't someone catch up with you in terms of progress too?"
Meng Fanxing shook her head: "That's different. He's your brother, not mine."
Song Lang pursed his lips and remained silent, sensing that the future was not going to be easy.
As expected, the classes were reassigned at the start of the new school year, and the two brothers were placed in the same class.
For three years straight, until he graduated from elementary school, Song Lang lived in the terrifying shadow of Shen Zhifei's top scores in all subjects.
Almost everyone in the school knew about these two brothers from different surnames, and naturally, they talked about how their academic records were worlds apart.
Finally, the day of the transition from elementary to middle school arrived, and Song Lang felt that he could finally escape the shadow of his younger brother.
"Feifei, how did the exam go?" Shen Mingyu smiled as she heated up a cup of milk for her youngest son, who had just finished taking the entrance exam for the city's top junior high school.
"Thank you, Mom." Shen Zhifei took the cup, biting the rim without answering the question from before.
Song Lang casually chimed in, "Definitely no problem. How could the Demon King, who gets full marks on every exam, not handle No. 1 High School?"
Shen Mingyu turned to him and asked, "And what about you? I had to plead with you to avoid having to repeat a year. What are you going to do about being such a bottom-of-the-class student?"
"I'll go to No. 8 Middle School."
No. 8 Middle School was the junior high school that was affiliated with his elementary school. As long as he didn't miss the exam, he could basically get in. Meng Fanxing was also going there to cultivate for three years.
Song Lang chuckled, "Mom, you can focus all your efforts on raising Feifei, and I'll strive to become the King of Taekwondo."
"More like a turtle." Shen Mingyu sighed helplessly. "I only have one request for you: behave yourself at school, don't bully others, and don't cause trouble. Can you do that?"
"I swear by the lamp that I will definitely do it!" Song Lang patted his chest and promised.
Shen Zhifei finished his milk in one gulp, then went to his room to get his and Song Lang's taekwondo uniforms. "Brother, time to go to class."
"Okay, okay." He cheerfully took the large bag of clothes from Shen Zhifei, hoisted it onto his shoulder, put his arm around her shoulder, and skipped out to class.
However, this good mood didn't last long, because Shen Zhifei's name was not on the list of students admitted to No. 1 Middle School.
He failed the exam.
Everyone was surprised.
At the dinner table, Song's parents, fearing that their child would be upset, offered words of comfort, but Shen Zhifei showed no signs of sadness.
He just sat there obediently, smiling and saying, "I'm fine, there's still No. 8 Middle School I can go to."
"But that school..." is notorious for its sea of underachievers, a disaster that even top-tier teachers can't save.
"It's okay, I'll work even harder."
Song Lang felt it was very relevant.
Although he still treats Shen Zhifei like a protected animal, boys grow up after all, and not only are they vain, but they also want to be able to run wild more freely.
With Shen Zhifei around, even though they weren't in the same class, he couldn't be so unruly.
He was depressed for half a month because of this.
On the first day of school at No. 8 Middle School, Meng Fanxing was startled by the person who appeared at the school gate.
"What the heck? Little Fei, what are you doing here?"
"Hmm." Shen Zhifei responded casually and went to the fence next to him to look at the class assignment list.
It was a big red list, ranking more than 400 new first-year junior high students according to their exam scores, with their scores and classes marked after their names.
He first went to the very end to look for Song Lang's name, 222 points, Class 4, Grade 7.
Let's go back to the very beginning. The first name is his: Shen Zhifei, 417 points, Class 4, Grade 7.
He smiled; that blank exam paper wasn't wasted.
At this moment, Meng Fanxing dragged Song Lang over, and upon seeing the top spot on the leaderboard, she couldn't help but exclaim, "Holy crap, Xiao Fei, you pulled the second place up by almost 100 points! Awesome!"
He scored 420 points in the entrance exam for junior high school, only 3 points away from a perfect score. Meng Fanxing was deeply impressed.