Chapter 31: Does This Make Sense?
Late at night, in the senior year teaching office of the Wool Textile High School.
Ding Rong滴了滴眼药水，继续修改试卷。
Teachers of senior year classes are very tired; homeroom teachers are the hardest-working among them.
Ding Rong was still young, and this was her first time serving as a homeroom teacher for a senior class. She already felt her hair thinning compared to last year.
But what could she do? As a people's teacher, a gardener cultivating the flowers of the motherland, a model for teaching and nurturing...
If it weren’t for her husband, who owned an electronics factory worth tens of millions, she wasn’t sure she could have held on.
At that moment, a particular test paper caught Ding Rong’s attention.
Zhai Da.
Since fainting during a mock exam, this student had been largely left to his own devices. Although he seemed more attentive during class, he hadn’t handed in a single homework assignment.
As for the vague youthful affections between him and Lin Shuyao, the teachers didn’t pry too deeply. With dozens of students in a class, who didn’t have a crush on someone?
Ding Rong picked up Zhai Da’s paper. It was filled with written answers. With a trace of curiosity, she focused to carefully grade it.
Multiple choice... two mistakes.
Modern text reading... all correct.
Classical Chinese reading... one mistake.
Subjective questions... 20 points available, he scored 17.
She hadn’t yet seen the essay, but Ding Rong was somewhat surprised—the total score had already reached 62.
It’s worth noting that the total score for the Chinese language section in this standalone paper was 160, with the essay worth 70 points. That means the other questions combined were worth 90 points. Scoring 62 was quite impressive, surpassing Zhai Da’s previous performance.
“If the essay is decent... wouldn’t that push his score over 100? Could Zhai Da’s Chinese grade actually improve?”
She recalled that previously, he only managed around eighty or ninety points.
Don’t underestimate that score. Class 8 of the senior third grade, as a county-level “pseudo-key” normal class, only had about half the students scoring above 250 under the new 480-point system.
To be precise, half of the students in senior year class 8 wouldn’t even get into a public junior college.
Most were expected to attend private junior colleges, vocational schools, or enter the workforce directly.
If Zhai Da could get 100 points in Chinese and not fall too far behind in the other two subjects, reaching a combined score of 150 or more, he could basically secure a place at a public junior college.
In Dongyang County, this was entirely normal.
Ding Rong turned to the essay’s title.
“A World of Flowers.”
The title was nice...
She began reading the content.
After a while, Ding Rong stared at the final line, unable to calm down for a long time.
“Spring makes an appointment, flowers do not delay, year after year, never failing each other.”
After reading the entire essay, only one thought lingered in her mind:
What am I? Just an ordinary small-town Chinese teacher. What right do I have to grade an essay like this?
This kind of writing should appear in Chinese textbooks! In newspapers!
Whether it was the structure, the meaning of the words, the rhyming, or the literary embellishments...
This writing... was simply too exquisite!
It couldn’t possibly have been written by Zhai Da! Ding Rong immediately took out her phone and used her expensive, notoriously slow data to search on Baidu.
She searched every paragraph thoroughly, only to be forced to admit the truth.
The plagiarism rate... was almost zero...
Ding Rong furrowed her brows so tightly it could crush a tardigrade.
The love letter was terribly written... well, that wasn’t really a teacher’s concern.
The real issue was... how to grade this?
From her heart, even setting aside personal preferences, simply judging by the college entrance exam essay scoring standards, this essay deserved more than 60 points.
Essay grading was arguably the most subjective part of the entire college entrance exam system. Graders who had reviewed countless papers were often willing to award extra points to an essay that stirred them emotionally.
The handwriting was neat; no points would be deducted for presentation.
She wanted to give 70 points... full marks.
In other words, with a perfect essay, Zhai Da would score 132 points on this test—by far the highest in senior year class 8.
No, no, no... as a small-town Chinese teacher, Ding Rong reminded herself to stay grounded. She wasn’t qualified to grade such an essay, much less give it full marks.
At this level of score, teachers like her could hardly gauge it properly. From an educational standpoint, it was also best to avoid awarding “perfect essay” scores that seemed unreasonable.
After much thought, Ding Rong finally settled on 68 points.
Zhai Da’s test score stayed at 130.
It seemed she would have to single him out for discussion in class the next day.
Suddenly, Ding Rong realized something: Class 8 was a science track class, meaning under the 2008 regulations, the 40-point bonus questions would be placed in the math subject.
If Zhai Da were in the arts track, with a 40-point bonus in Chinese, pulling up his base score even more...
Wouldn’t he be able to score nearly 180 points in Chinese alone?
That would already surpass the total scores of students like Wu Yue.
There were 64 days left till the college entrance exam... Zhai Da was only now showing a clear improvement in his grades and a talent for writing.
Ding Rong felt a strange unreality.
What was this?
Playing around for two and a half years, then his older brother would make the final push?
——————
The next morning, Zhai Da rubbed his eyes, fighting off drowsiness.
He had indulged himself again last night... The “Old Man TV” really was addictive.
The truth was, nothing done without restraint ever turned out well.
Including studying.
Zhai Da walked lazily, preparing to cross the pedestrian bridge he passed every day.
At the intersection, a Mercedes-Benz S350 suddenly stopped. Zhai Da was very familiar with this car because before buying a Maybach in his previous life, a saleswoman had enthusiastically recommended this model and privately met with him several times.
In the end, because she was so persuasive, he bought the more expensive Maybach and met her many more times after.
He missed those days. Aside from everything else, the saleswoman’s hands-on explanation of the suspension system had left a deep impression.
Though the car before him was an older model from this era, it was still an absolute luxury vehicle, costing around 80-90 thousand yuan—a true luxury in a backwater place like Dongyang County.
It seemed as if the car was waiting for Zhai Da. As he approached, the door opened and a bright young girl stepped out.
Lu Siwen, wearing her school uniform, stood gracefully. Her short, shoulder-length hair fluttered slightly in the morning breeze, revealing the pale skin of her neck.
“Good morning, Zhai.”
Zhai Da wiped the tears left by yawning from the corners of his eyes. “Morning. Were you waiting for me?”
He vaguely sensed a gaze from the driver’s seat of the Mercedes observing him.
But Lu Siwen paid no mind and cheerfully walked alongside him.
After their first meeting, she had roughly guessed that this pedestrian bridge was Zhai Da’s daily route home from school, so she had her car wait a bit longer this morning—and sure enough, she caught him.
In truth, Zhai Da had been slow to reply to her messages, and Lu Siwen was trying everything to get him to communicate.
“Zhai, did you look at my notebook yesterday?”
Zhai Da replied, “I looked at some of it, then went to study.”
Lu Siwen felt a little embarrassed, thinking she had disturbed his studying.
She herself wasn’t under much academic pressure, but she knew very well what the hardworking senior students were like.
She didn’t blame Zhai Da; if anything, she blamed herself.
“By the way, Zhai, you said last time you’d send me some of your writing by text message... do you remember?”
Zhai Da’s heart skipped a beat, but then a new, brilliant idea struck him.
“Actually, after reading your notebook, I got some inspiration for a creation. I’m planning to write a long... um, a novella.”
Lu Siwen’s eyes lit up. “What kind of story? What’s the theme? Can I read it?”
“The theme’s undecided... the content too. I’m a bit stuck. I remembered you said that writing with an ink fountain pen would inspire more creativity. Could I borrow that fountain pen of yours?”
Lu Siwen hesitated for a rare moment. “I have other fountain pens... would that be okay?”
Zhai Da naturally refused. He immediately launched into a metaphysical appeal.
“I don’t know why, but I keep thinking back to the first time we met on this bridge. The fountain pen in your hand, the sapphire blue one—is it made of enamel? I want to borrow it for a while. Don’t worry, I won’t damage it. I’ll definitely return it.”
Artistic youth, a little pretentious was normal.
Lu Siwen pondered for a few seconds but finally agreed.
At the school gate, she shifted her backpack to the front and, to Zhai Da’s delighted surprise, took out the sapphire blue enamel fountain pen.
“Zhai... please use it carefully...”
Zhai Da accepted it solemnly.
At the same time, a new notification appeared in the system.
“Discovered white special item: [Artistic Girl’s Pen].”
“Status: Owned (temporary), Activated (temporary).”