Chapter 253: Exam
In the blink of an eye, four months had passed, and Xuan Chong began to adapt to life after “rebirth”.
As he increasingly focused his mind on studying, the absurd fantasies in his head gradually faded.
Due to rebirth, he possessed the robust mental power of a thriving teenager, so Xuan Chong occasionally still fantasized about “taking a trip to otherworld”. But now Xuan Chong was obsessed with the great undertaking of “stacking numerical values” on his junior high school transcript. Jumping from seventy points to eighty points, leaping from eighty points to ninety points; Xuan Chong himself cut off the occasional “whirling” stray thoughts. Only when flipping open Brave Soldier did he suddenly feel that he seemed to have once delved deeply into illusion to enter a certain world.
For this novel Brave Soldier, Xuan Chong always felt he hadn’t finished reading it and wanted to find time to read it carefully; but every time he opened it and read a few pages, the urgency from courses and homework made him hastily close the book. Thus, for this semester, this book had been hidden at the bottom of his schoolbag, renewed once every two weeks at the library.
In the blink of an eye, winter had arrived, with small snow falling from the sky, and automobiles crushing the streets, turning the snow into a mixture of damp ice water.
The sky was dimly lit, parents hurriedly prepared for work, heated a hamburger for Xuan Chong in the microwave, and gave him two yuan; Xuan Chong packed his schoolbag while listening to his mother nagging: “There’s an exam today. Compass, ruler, pencil, eraser, draft paper, and such, have you brought them all?”
His father emphasized: “At school, you still need to get along well with other classmates.”
Xuan Chong agreed while stuffing the math textbook into his schoolbag.
Stuffing the math book into the schoolbag was to review those few example questions one last time before the exam; this wasn’t “sharpening a spear just before battle, even slow practice shines”, but to find that feeling of solving problems. But after opening the door, a gust of cold wind made Xuan Chong feel there was no need to touch that cold math book anymore; reviewing the chapters in his head would suffice.
The bus swayed left and right, and the office workers and students inside also rocked back and forth. Everyone’s eyes lacked spirit. As the vehicle swayed, Xuan Chong also swayed, swinging from left to right. After accidentally stepping on someone, Xuan Chong quickly said sorry. However, the person opposite just pulled back his foot and said nothing.
Everyone was in their own world, although on the same bus, each person seemed to be in otherworld.
Thus, Xuan Chong followed the repeated trajectory of these few months and entered the campus; while others outside the campus also entered their respective workstations.
By the way, last night, Xuan Chong saw on television news about a woman who, for stanning, forced her original family to go bankrupt. His mom commented: “These are all mentally ill, immersed in a false world, unable to recognize their own weight in reality.”
…Normal people wouldn’t neglect “reality” life, but not everyone lives only in reality…
“Ding dong, ding dong”, the pre-exam bell different from the usual class bell rang in the school.
This was a whole-grade baseline exam, and teachers tirelessly emphasized that the “exam” was extremely important.
The sharp voice of the neighboring class director scolded the students: “This determines whether you can get into a good “high school” when “advancing to higher school” in the future! If grades aren’t enough, you can only go to “vocational school”, and in the future, you’ll have to enter “society” early and endure the ups and downs!”
Xuan Chong rubbed his frozen red cheeks, then rubbed his stiff ears. Soon, his earlobes felt hot, and the burning sensation could reduce the power of the cold words entering his ears.
The homeroom teacher began reading the exam room rules for this exam. Few students in the class listened seriously—good students had no such intention, poor students had no such qualms.
The poor students in the back row seemed to still be discussing the drops from last night’s game. And those games they discussed were at the level of online “web games” a dozen years later.
…Destinies vary, but at this moment they sat together…
Xuan Chong sat at his desk, took a deep breath, opened the pencil case, took out a pen, and silently wrote a formula on his palm.
All formulas and theorems were memorized by heart, but the former self as a poor student still lacked confidence. This was the first major exam after effort studying post-rebirth.
When Teacher Gao, the proctor, walked over, Xuan Chong began “fly rubbing hands”, the writing on his palm disappeared, turning into dirt, which he shook onto the floor.
“Tap tap tap”, the footsteps of leather shoes stepping in the classroom circled from front to back and returned.
The exam papers sealed with cowhide paper were opened on the podium. Then passed from front to back, test papers landing on every desk.
As the exam papers were passed down from the front row to Xuan Chong, “rustle”, the sound of paper flipping back and forth rose continuously in the classroom, but ten seconds later, this sound stopped, turning into the swish of answering questions.
Xuan Chong quickly flipped both sides, scanned the question types, and found they were all ones he had done; and because he knew clearly “how much time each question type took to understand”, he even estimated that certain question types would eliminate a certain percentage of the class, allowing him to advance how many places!
Xuan Chong, having been a poor student, knew very well that some questions “won’t be done” not because of poor brains, but because no consecutive days were set aside to learn them. Exams test not theoretical IQ aptitude, but mindset; at least for this exam, it tested these for him.
“I know them all!”, Xuan Chong’s heart leaped with joy. —In the most painful activity of exams, the greatest pleasure is having done the questions on the test paper; this is like the joy of a fisherman catching a big fish.
Xuan Chong quickly picked up the pen, aimed the tip at the brackets, and began filling in one by one. He first filled the fill in the blanks with simple calculations, and after finishing, checked the time—there were still ten minutes left for fill in the blanks—so he immediately did those requiring a bit more calculation “slowly and surely”.
After filling the answers he was confident and accurate in, the pen tip trembled.
And when writing the last major questions, after confirming the relevant exam points for the major questions, Xuan Chong’s mind automatically searched for the “similar” solution steps from the example questions done in these months.
The last three major questions theoretically had steps increasing one by one.
Once upon a time, when he was still a poor student, he couldn’t see how the question setter, to screen enough students with one question, set enough difficulties.
And now, Xuan Chong fully understood the question setter’s “good intentions”.
Knowing that he had spent a lot of pre-class practice questions to become proficient, now racing against time to solve these major questions that could help him surpass how many people.
Xuan Chong flipped the pencil case, pulled out the ruler and protractor to do the geometry questions. Xuan Chong glanced at the question, and where to draw the “auxiliary line” was immediately clear.
After solving these “tricky questions”, Xuan Chong’s heart was filled with pleasure.
Thirty minutes into the exam, students who usually didn’t listen seriously began handing in papers, followed by most others handing in one after another.
The clock hands on the classroom clock were moving bit by bit, with ten minutes left in exam time.
In the exam room, Teacher Gao walked to Xuan Chong’s side, glanced at the exam paper, then stood nearby, back to Xuan Chong, continuing to proctor. Teacher Gao’s voice rang through the entire classroom: “Watch the time.”
Tick tock, tick tock. After Teacher Gao circled once, from the exam papers, it was clear who had strong “aptitude” and who had weak “aptitude” in these months.
“These simplest math questions aren’t calculus, even a dog could do them!” This was Teacher Gao’s usual catchphrase.
Obviously, Teacher Gao’s “aptitude” didn’t refer to students’ math talent, but whether they could endure the boredom to pay the patience for measurement and calculation.
And Xuan Chong completed all calculations in the last ten minutes. Then flipped the paper to the front, quickly reviewed the calculations done tens of minutes ago starting from fill in the blanks, and mentally recalculated them swiftly.
After recalculating to the last question, his eyes felt a bit sore, then he rubbed them, but after putting his hand down, everything changed.
…Spacetime isolation appeared around the desk…
A dimensional well mouth appeared, and Xuan Chong fell in. Of course, from the perspective of other exam students, Xuan Chong was staring straight at the test paper, clearly fully focused and immersed in the exam. This state was just like the passengers on the morning bus lost in thought.
Of course, also staring straight at the test paper was Xie Ming. He had finished five minutes ahead of Xuan Chong and was now checking the personal information on the paper.
And outside the exam room, students who handed in early were also in the corridor corners; some students in the gaming circle began taking out their game consoles, heads clustered together, seemingly busy discussing how to max attributes.
…The math exam began the last question…
Xuan Chong felt his eyes somewhat sore, and after opening them, looking at the small room in front of him, he sat on a Chinese canopy bed, but outside the bed was a writing desk. However, immediately after, Xuan Chong felt something wrong—where was the pen in his hand, and that chilly classroom?
Xuan Chong: “Did I hallucinate from the exam?” Then he pinched himself and found his thigh wasn’t under a down jacket hem, but his lower body was under the quilt.
His mind boomed, and a large amount of memory poured in, including memories of this world, and the Da Yao transmigration memory he had long forgotten.
Of course, the Da Yao memory wasn’t detailed in every aspect. He couldn’t remember those personal names, but how to train soldiers, the associations between various systems and soldiers’ enthusiasm, were pouring like a waterfall, smashing into his little brain.
Xuan Chong felt a severe headache and needed good rest, but anxiously couldn’t sleep. So he arduously stood up and found himself wearing silk pajamas.
The canopy bed’s structure was complex; the environmental space created by this bed style was like a small house nested within a room.
Under the canopy bed was a raised platform, also with doors and railings, giving a strong “bed within bed, enclosure within enclosure” feel; and currently, it obviously had modern modifications, with a row of twelve zodiac metal heads at the bedside, touchable to know it’s hydronic heating. And a wooden drawer; when pulled out, inside was actually a small electric light. The lamp’s shell was red-black lacquerware, with gold silk inlaid dragon patterns on top.
And Xuan Chong got off the bed, looked at himself in the mirror. A chubby, pudgy thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy appeared in the mirror. Clearly overnourished from eating too much meat. But his features were very proper, high bridge of nose, a pair of big eyes staring at himself in the mirror surface.
His mind rapidly surged with key information like a catalog: time, location, who he was, why here now, what he did yesterday, etc.
After a long time, Xuan Chong confirmed that he had transmigrated again, name Liu Haoxing. And now it was Han calendar 2102. He was in Dongtu land, now twelve years old.
At this time, the buildings outside the window somewhat resembled tube buildings, but the roofs were Eastern-style black tile tops, with continuous green pine forests on the distant mountain range. The view from this room he was in was exceptionally good, overlooking a large area of the city.
Xuan Chong scanned his room; the room was very large, besides the bed accommodating him, the decoration was very exquisite. No exposed iron radiators visible in the room, but heat currents surged within. After carefully searching, the iron painting on the east side of the room of a roc whaling at sea was actually the radiator. The relief roc feathers were lifelike, wings protruding half an inch from the wall.
On the opposite west side wall, there was also an embedded fish tank big enough for a person. The fish’s palm-sized bulb eyes swayed freely in the water; the tank was sealed, obviously not allowing tampering.
Soon, Xuan Chong found the key. Next to the fish tank hung a feng shui map of the entire Dongtu. Oh, Xuan Chong was familiar; this place was called “Sakhalin” in his previous life.
Xuan Chong got off the bed and walked to the window; after two steps, Xuan Chong found the swimming ring on his belly swaying. This not-light feeling made Xuan Chong rub his chubby face.
As he approached the window more, more scenes outside revealed.
Modern productivity, Eastern-style brick buildings stacked like building blocks in the city. On the streets in the city ran vehicles. There were old-style small cars and four-wheeled horse carts dragged by multiple tall horses. Everyone wore thick coats, comparable to 1980s Northern military coats. Clothes’ colors were generally gray, brown. Comparable to the dark colors of wolves and bears in the jungle.
Note that before transmigration, in winter, looking out on the street, one could see blue, bright red, etc., bright down jackets. This was brought by advances in dyeing and printing technology. As for now, want to see a bit of bright color on the streets?
Xuan Chong glanced and found some ladies downstairs wearing white fur hats on their heads.
Under current productivity, no artificial fluff; fur of this color was either mink or fox.
“Uh, what’s the situation with my family?” Xuan Chong reacted, then continued observing the room. So he went to the side window.
Here Xuan Chong saw a seaside lighthouse, and at the city’s leeward edge, factories deployed with numerous chimneys. And a workers’ area crammed like a fortified village, this was a city with at least five hundred thousand people huddled together.
And he could see all this through the window, almost taking in half the key points of the entire city at a glance! The building he was in occupied the best view in the city.
So, Xuan Chong looked up at the corridor courtyard outside the room, gradually recalling that his surname was Liu, and he was the heir of this land.
On the great land of China, after four previous dynasties Yuan Han, Heng Han, Li Han, Zhen Han, this dynasty was the fifth great Han rise, officially called “Qian Han”, established for four hundred years. But folk call this dynasty “Xian Han”.
Just as Xuan Chong was accepting this knowledge, he suddenly glanced at the room corner, then stared straight at the wall corner.
In the wall corner was his “schoolbag”, the one from his just-now exam.
Xuan Chong rushed over and opened the “schoolbag”; inside were ruler, compass, eraser, ballpoint pen, and that Brave Soldier novel, right, and a watch.
The time on the watch was stopped.
“Wait!” Xuan Chong felt something wrong, looked at the watch again; though the watch looked the same, he felt this watch’s scale had a year scale.
Xuan Chong looked at the calendar, December 23rd,
“Dong~” a huge clock toll rang, and the downstairs gate opened, clearly someone timing it busily.
…Everyone has their tasks…
At this time on the New Continent. The Star of Bethlehem hung at the top of tree after tree, for holiday celebration. Below the Star of Bethlehem, the number 1900 was written.
In the metal-framed factory on a bricks and tiles base, multiple steam engines were turning, a teenager stood behind the window, people beside him were both barbarian and Han.
Xie Ming also transmigrated, the likewise sixteen-year-old teenager also tidied his schoolbag. But from the calm degree, clearly not just the first time.
As the young master of a large factory owner, Xie Ming: “Oh, from the looks, this is a ‘Marvel-style supernatural ability superhero’ plane.” He took out a mobile phone from his pocket, preparing to confirm the time.
