Chapter 43 The End of the Mid-term Examinations

Administrative Building, Head of Discipline's Office.

Lu You sat properly on the sofa. The head of discipline poured him a cup of tea and said, "Here, Little Lu, have a drink of water first. Aunt Fang will be here soon."

He quickly reached out to take the teacup and said politely, "Thank you, Director."

"What Director between us? Just call me Uncle Zhong. You don't need to be so polite, just relax." With that, Zhong Muchufan sat down on the adjacent sofa.

"Alright, Uncle Zhong, I will," Lu You nodded in response.

"Was the math test just now difficult? Were there any questions you couldn't do?"

"It was alright," Lu You answered truthfully. "I finished all of them. There wasn't anything I couldn't do."

"That's good," Zhong Muchufan said with satisfaction. "Do your best on the remaining subjects too. Whatever your grades were in junior high are in the past now. If you study hard now, you can catch up."

At that moment, a knock sounded on the door.

"Your Aunt Fang is here. Get ready to eat," he said, standing up to open the door.

...

Inside the Class Three classroom.

The atmosphere in the room was quite subdued, and everyone's spirits were low.

Meng Yi slumped over Lu You's desk, sighing deeply.

"Why hasn't Brother Lu come back yet? It's almost six o'clock."

Yuan Wenliang sat to one side, ignoring him and continuing to read his book. With math being so difficult this time, it was normal to feel down. He himself had several questions he wasn't sure about, but he had a good mindset and could take things in stride.

Not long after, Lu You, having finished his meal with the elders, walked into the classroom.

Meng Yi immediately stood up and pushed him back down into his seat.

Lu You found this inexplicable and asked, "What are you doing? Is something the matter?"

Meng Yi circled around to sit in the empty seat in front and said, "Nothing. Just wanted to ask you, how did you do on the math test? Did you finish it?"

"I finished it all. It felt pretty simple. I even had half an hour left to sleep."

"Right? You thought it was really hard too, right? These questions were not meant for human beings to solve—" Meng Yi got halfway through his sentence before snapping out of it. He asked in confusion, "Wait, you said it was pretty simple? Did I hear wrong, or did you say the wrong thing? Say that again."

Yuan Wenliang, who was reading nearby, also paused his hand as he was about to turn the page and turned his head to look at Lu You.

"I said, the questions were quite simple. After finishing them, I even had half an hour left to sleep."

Meng Yi snatched the test paper from him and began checking the multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions from start to finish, one by one.

"How many points do you think you got on the multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blanks?"

"However many there are, I'll get all of them."

Still finding it hard to believe, Meng Yi continued, "What about the last two big essay questions?"

"I wrote a rough outline of the process on my test paper. Take a look yourself."

He quickly flipped the paper over to check Lu You's problem-solving steps. Although written quite concisely, all the key points were there, and as he looked and thought about it, he basically understood it.

"How on earth did you figure out these questions? The moment I saw them, my mind went completely blank."

"As soon as I saw the questions, I naturally knew how to solve them. Do I need to think hard about it?"

"Damn it!" Meng Yi didn't want to talk to Lu You anymore. "Talking to you is just asking for suffering. We are not from the same world."

Yuan Wenliang also took the test paper and sighed with some emotion, "Amazing. Every time I saw you reading math stuff before, I thought you were aiming too high, but looking at it now, you really understood it."

You aren't afraid of doing poorly yourself; you're only afraid your buddy does too well.

Wearing a mask of agony, Meng Yi asked bitterly, "Brother Lu, what do you think your score is roughly?"

"There are two ways to put it: one is modest, and the other is a bit arrogant. Which one do you want to hear?"

"Let's hear the arrogant one first."

"As for a perfect score, if not me, who else!"

The corners of Meng Yi's mouth twitched slightly. "That is indeed arrogant enough. What about the modest one?"

"The absolute floor should be one hundred and fifty points."

"Damn it!" Meng Yi couldn't take it anymore. "Get lost! How are these two any different?"

Lu You shrugged and said with an innocent expression, "I'm just speaking the truth, not exaggerating."

"You..." Meng Yi choked on a mouthful of metaphorical blood, and his mood plummeted rapidly. He said dejectedly, "Forget it, at least getting a Hellfire skin is some consolation. I'm going back to review."

...

After Meng Yi left, Yuan Wenliang asked Lu You, "There are a few questions on this test I don't quite understand. Can you explain them to me?"

"Huh?" Lu You looked somewhat surprised. "Aren't you going to review tomorrow's subjects?"

"No need. Physics, biology, and chemistry are fine either way. I'm choosing the humanities track, so these three subjects aren't that important," Yuan Wenliang explained.

The arts and science streams hadn't been divided yet in the first half of the first year of high school, and the exams were still held separately for each subject. The division into humanities and sciences for examinations wouldn't happen until the second half of the semester.

"Then go ahead and ask. Self-study hasn't started yet, so I'll explain it to you."

Yuan Wenliang spread out the test paper between the two of them and said, "Just the last two multiple-choice questions. I got the answers by plugging in the options, but I haven't figured out the specific reasoning yet."

Lu You took a glance, organized his thoughts, and then pulled out a pen and paper, writing and explaining at the same time.

...

Saturday, 12:00 PM.

With the ringing of the bell signaling the end of the exam, the English test papers of all candidates were collected, and the three-and-a-half-day midterm exams officially came to an end.

Lu You returned to the classroom, packed his things, and prepared to go down to the second floor to find Li Yu and go home together.

The school hadn't had a long break that month, so it decided to give a day and a half off after the midterms, with everyone returning to school for evening self-study on Sunday.

"Brother Lu, what are your plans for today?" Meng Yi asked, walking over with his schoolbag on his back.

"Go home, pet the cat, and look after my little sister."

Meng Yi immediately said with excitement, "A little sister! Where's a little sister? What games do you guys play? Count me in!"

Lu You: (-ι_-)

"Aside from games, do you have anything else in your head besides women?

She's my biological sister, only a year and a half old. I have to play with her and feed her."

"Oh," Meng Yi instantly lost interest. "Are you going to line up and play games at the internet cafe this afternoon?"

"An internet cafe?"

"Yeah."

"Can minors get in? I remember they started cracking down pretty strictly a few years ago."

"Ha!" Meng Yi said triumphantly, "My cousin owns the place. I'm just visiting a relative, so I don't even have to pay. You coming?"

Just as Lu You was about to agree, he saw a white, snowman-like figure appear at the classroom door, with a boy and a girl arguing in the corridor behind her.

Seeing him look over, the snowman even waved and smiled.

"Actually, I'd really love to go gaming with you, but you see, I have more important things to do. I can only say 'next time'," Lu You said with a hint of regret.

Meng Yi also spotted Tang Wan. He immediately clutched his chest, a look of profound grief and heartbreak on his face as he cried out, "Why! Why did the goddess personally come to look for you!"

"Perhaps, if you look in the mirror, you'll find the answer."

"Impossible, absolutely impossible! My goddess is not that shallow!"

Lu You patted him on the shoulder and said, "Pity, no matter how pretty she is, she's still just an ordinary girl."

Meng Yi found this fact impossible to accept.

"I'm heading out first. See you tomorrow."

With that, Lu You shouldered his backpack and walked toward Tang Wan.

...

On the bus, Lu You and Tang Wan sat side by side on the double seat in the back, heading toward Carp Club.

As for Li Yu and Xu Nian, they had taken Lu You's electric scooter and set off ahead.

The situation at the time was that Xu Nian caught sight of Lu You's motorcycle helmet and windproof gloves and immediately exclaimed, "Damn! So dashing! Why don't you, Wanwan, take the bus with Lu You, and I'll drive the electric scooter to take Li Yu over?"

Li Yu immediately shook her head like a rattle-drum, resisting fiercely, "No way! I can't trust your driving skills."

"Have you ever seen my driving skills? How can you not trust them?"

"I haven't seen them, but they certainly aren't going to be any good."

"Hey, you little..."

In the end, Li Yu was subdued by Xu Nian's overwhelming coercion and obediently climbed onto the back seat.

Tang Wan sat by the window, wrapped up so only her eyes and nose were exposed, clumsily swiping on her phone with a gloved thumb.

Sitting beside her, Lu You watched her quiet, adorable appearance. His heart felt completely at peace, and the longer he looked, the more entranced he became.

Tang Wan couldn't quite handle that kind of gaze. She put down her phone, turned her head, and asked, "Why have you been staring at me the whole time? Is there something on my face?"

Lu You shook his head and said, "Nothing there, it's very clean."

"Then why are you still looking?"

"There's a moving, pretty snowman right beside me. I doubt anyone wouldn't look."

Tang Wan tilted her head slightly, looked at her own attire, and realized the snowman he was referring to was herself. She asked, "Why a snowman?"

Lu You smiled and explained, "Because only a snowman is both white and round."

Tang Wan gave him two slaps in annoyance. "Who's round! Who are you calling round!"

"Whoever hits me is who I'm talking about."

Tang Wan gave him a few more hits in succession.

After venting her frustration, she brushed a few rebellious strands of hair to the sides of her cheeks and said helplessly, "I don't want to wear this much either; it makes moving around inconvenient. But I have no choice, I'm afraid of the cold.

As soon as winter comes, my hands and feet are ice cold, and sometimes I even get chilblains."

"Are you using the hand cream I gave you?"

"Mm, used it for a few days."

"How's the effect?"

"It feels pretty good." With that, Tang Wan took off her left glove and held it out in front of him. "Look, it feels like my skin has become a lot more hydrated after using it, and I really like this citrus scent."

Her fingers were slender and rosy, her skin white and smooth, resembling an art piece carved from white jade.

Unfortunately, Lu You didn't get to admire it for long before Tang Wan pulled her hand back and tucked it into her glove once more.

"Freezing to death, it's better to keep the gloves on."

"You don't like winter?"

"Yeah, I don't," Tang Wan complained. "Wearing too many clothes makes bending your arms to write uncomfortable, and wearing too little makes you scared of the cold.

My hands and feet are still freezing, like they don't even belong to me anymore. Writing and walking are both miserable; I just want to chop them off.

At night when I take a shower, I have to agonize over whether to wash my hair or not. If I don't wash it, it feels like it's been coated in peanut oil. If I wash it, blow-drying is a hassle, and water droplets keep dripping down the back of my neck.

And especially when you have to touch water at school, it's absolute torture!"

"Doesn't your house have heating installed?"

Tang Wan said dejectedly, "My mom says it wastes electricity, and she also says if wearing a few more clothes solves the problem, why buy something you don't use often."

"That really must be tough."

"Sigh, as long as I don't freeze to death," Tang Wan sighed, then continued, "Do you have these troubles in the winter?"

"Not at all. My house has floor heating installed, so even in winter at home, I wear short sleeves."

Tang Wan's expression changed instantly. She turned her head toward the window, puffed out her cheeks, and said, "I don't want to talk to you anymore. You're just watching me make a fool of yourself for your own amusement."

"Alright, alright," Lu You said soothingly, like coaxing a child. "Carp Club has heating installed. You'll get to experience it in just a moment."

"Really?" Tang Wan's anger vanished just like that.

"Mm, really."

"I'm so envious of you guys with floor heating at home. You can spend the winter in total comfort," Tang Wan said, longing in her eyes.

"Right, I haven't asked you yet," Tang Wan looked at Lu You and asked, "Do you like winter?"

Lu You averted his gaze, looked out the window, and said gently, "I didn't feel much about it before, but now I really like it."

"Why?"

"Because you can see a snowman in the winter. Although that snowman only lets you see its eyes and nose, it's already enough to stun the world. Plus, it's plump and white, making you can't help but want to give it a hug."

As she listened, Tang Wan used her scarf to cover her blushing cheeks, fighting back her shyness as she said, "Aren't you embarrassed to say things like that?"

"Huh? Why would I be embarrassed?" Lu You asked, feigning incomprehension. "My absolute favorite thing is winter snowmen. There's nothing wrong with praising a snowman for being pretty, right?"

Tang Wan buried her head even lower, gently patted Lu You's arm, and said in a voice as soft as a mosquito's buzz, "Say any more and I won't talk to you today."

Lu You stopped talking and simply watched her shy appearance quietly, a warm smile lingering on his face.