My IQ Increases Year by Year

Provincial Experimental Middle School was not far from the guesthouse, just two streets away.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon, and the sun was shining brightly.

The group walked along the sidewalks of the Provincial City.

The roads were wide, lined with plane trees, but they couldn’t block the heat rising from the asphalt.

There was road construction everywhere.

Excavators roared, and piles of sand and cement pipes lined the roadside.

In 2002, China was one big construction site, and the Provincial City was no exception.

They arrived at the entrance of the Provincial Experimental Middle School.

The retractable gate was open. A security guard glanced at the team leader’s pass hanging around Old Zhao’s neck and waved them through.

The moment they stepped through the school gates, the clamor of the construction site seemed to be cut off completely.

The campus was quiet.

The path was lined with neatly trimmed holly bushes, and there was even a fountain in a flowerbed.

"We’re going to that building."

Old Zhou pointed to a large, red-tiled building up ahead.

That was the senior year academic building, which was also the test site for the competition.

Everyone followed him inside.

As soon as they walked through the glass doors into the lobby, a blast of cool air rushed over them.

Liu Kai, who had been fanning himself with a newspaper, was so startled by the cold air that he couldn’t help but sneeze.

"Achoo! Holy crap... It’s this cool?"

He looked up and around the room.

In the corners of the lobby stood two enormous Haier standing air conditioners, humming as they blasted out cold air.

The indicator light showed 24°C.

"This school... Is electricity free here or something?"

Li Hao was stunned too.

At City No.1 Middle School, the classrooms only had four large ceiling fans that creaked as they spun.

As for air conditioning, only a few important labs, the conference rooms, and their own competition classroom had it.

This kind of treatment—being greeted by air conditioning the moment you walked in—was something they couldn’t even dream of.

"Zip up."

Old Zhao shot Liu Kai a glare, reaching out to pull his school uniform collar tight.

"Don’t try to cool off too fast. The sudden change from hot to cold is how you get sick. If you end up with a fever tomorrow, there’ll be no use crying about it then."

Everyone quickly pulled their open uniforms tight.

They headed up the stairs to the third floor.

The hallway was silent, the only sound being the scuffing of their shoes on the floor.

The floor was so clean it was almost slippery.

Zhao Chen walked cautiously, afraid he might slip and fall.

They found the exam room, but the door was sealed shut, so they couldn’t go in.

They pressed their faces against the window to look inside.

One look, and they fell into that familiar, awestruck silence of people who hadn’t seen much of the world.

The classroom was very bright; it was hard to tell if it was from good natural lighting or the powerful lamps.

The most striking thing was the desks.

They weren’t the pitted, decades-old, wood-and-iron two-person desks they were used to.

Here, it was all single desks for single students.

The off-white composite desktops had a matte finish.

The legs were gray metal tubes and looked very light.

The chairs weren’t hard wooden benches, either. Both the seats and backrests were soft, upholstered in blue fabric.

Each desk was separated by a full meter of space.

In every direction, there was just empty space.

"These desks..."

Wang Yang pressed his hand against the glass, his brow furrowing.

"Isn’t this a little too... empty?"

At City No.1 Middle School, they were used to being crammed together.

Your deskmate’s elbow would bump into you when they wrote, and the back of the chair in front would press against your desk.

But here...

Each person was an island.

In this unfamiliar city, at this unfamiliar school, sitting at these standardized single desks that seemed made for robots, a profound sense of alienation began to well up inside them.

"Hey, you guys, look at that."

Liu Kai pointed at the ceiling above the blackboard.

A white, rectangular machine was hanging there, aimed at the blackboard like a cannon.

"That’s a projector."

Li Hao was a physics geek and had seen one in a magazine.

"It’s for multimedia teaching."

"How do you use this thing? Does the teacher not write on the blackboard anymore?" Zhao Chen asked.

"It connects directly to a computer and projects the problems onto a screen."

Li Hao pointed to the rolled-up white cloth next to the blackboard.

"Saves them the trouble of erasing the board."

No one said anything.

This technological gap was even more unsettling than that blue book of internal lecture notes.

Because it was everywhere.

From the air conditioning at the entrance, to the floor beneath their feet, to the single desks, and to the projector overhead.

All of it was a constant reminder.

This was the Provincial City. This was another world.

’You’re just country bumpkins.’

’The days you’re used to—hands covered in chalk dust, drenched in sweat, crammed together doing problems—are a symbol of being backward here.’

"Are you done looking?"

Old Zhou stood in the middle of the hallway with his hands behind his back, his voice echoing slightly in the empty space.

He didn’t look at the advanced equipment, nor did he comment on the air conditioning.

He just watched his students, who were clearly stunned.

"If you’re done looking, then let’s go. Don’t just stand here like the cleaning crew. You think it looks good with your faces pressed against the glass?"

Old Zhou turned and walked toward the stairwell, his footsteps steady.

"No matter how fancy the desks are, they’re still just for holding your test papers. No matter how cool the AC is, it can’t solve equations for you."

"The projector is for the teachers, it has nothing to do with you. The test paper you get tomorrow will still be the same kind of test paper, and the words on it will still be printed in the same old font."

"Don’t be dazzled by all this flashy stuff."

"We’re here to take a test, not to tour a science museum."

Wang Yang took a deep breath and pulled his hand away from the window.

A blurry handprint was left on the glass.

He rubbed his face hard.

’Yeah.’

’What does a slippery desk have to do with whether or not you can solve the problems?’

’Even if you were sitting on the emperor’s throne, you’d still have to solve that conic section equation yourself.’

"Let’s go!"

Wang Yang shouted, as if to bolster his own courage.

Dinner was at the KFC across the street from the test site.

The guesthouse had a buffet, but Old Zhao thought the food was too greasy and worried the students would get upset stomachs. Besides, he also wanted to boost their morale.

After all, in 2002, KFC was still a rarity—a high-end Western meal.

They pushed open the door to that same familiar blast of cold air.

It was peak dinner time, and the place was crowded.

A long line snaked in front of the counter, and the air was filled with the distinct aroma of fried chicken and the tangy smell of ketchup.

Old Zhao told the students to go grab a table while he took the money and got in line.

Chen Zhuo, Liu Kai, and the others found two empty tables and pushed them together.

Liu Kai stared at the ice cream in a child’s hand at the next table, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

It was Old Zhao’s turn.

He stood before the counter, rising slightly on his toes to look at the densely packed menu and prices, and his brow furrowed slightly.

’It really is expensive.’

’One burger cost as much as several of his breakfasts.’

But he didn’t hesitate to pull out his money.

This was from the specially approved school funds. The principal had told him not to skimp.

"Uh... three family buckets, six large Cokes, no ice, and add a few orders of fries."

The employee tapped away at the register and read out a number.

Old Zhao counted out a wad of cash from his wallet and handed it over.

"I’ll need an official receipt, please."

Old Zhao leaned forward and specifically instructed the employee behind the counter, his tone extremely professional, with the meticulousness of a dean of discipline.

"Make it out to Zeyang City No.1 Middle School. Make sure you write the full name, not a single word left out. And list the item as ’meal expenses.’"

"And definitely don’t write things like ’burgers,’ ’chicken wings,’ or ’family bucket.’"

Old Zhao added, still uneasy.

"The accounting department back at the school makes it hard to get reimbursed otherwise, you know?"

"I get it. I’ll give you a fixed-amount receipt that doesn’t show the itemized details."

The employee had clearly seen plenty of this sort of public-funds spending and deftly tore off a stack of receipts to hand over.

Old Zhao took them, but didn’t leave right away. He stood there counting the amounts on each one, and only after confirming they were correct did he fold them neatly and tuck them into the innermost compartment of his wallet.

Meanwhile, at the pick-up counter.

Liu Kai and the chubby Zhao Chen were waiting with eager eyes.

"Hey, miss, could we get some extra ketchup?"

Liu Kai pointed to the small box holding the ketchup packets, a look of pure longing on his face.

"Grab a bunch, they’re free," Zhao Chen chimed in from the side.

In their eyes, KFC ketchup was the most delicious thing in the world—perfectly sweet and tangy, and an absolutely divine match for french fries.

The employee glanced at the two teenagers, said nothing, and casually grabbed a handful of ketchup packets, tossing them onto the tray.

"Is that enough?"

"More than enough! Thanks, miss!"

The two walked away gleefully, carrying the tray.

The joy of scoring a few extra ketchup packets was more real to them than getting a perfect score on a test.

Soon, the family buckets were on the table.

Three enormous paper buckets sat in the middle like three golden mountains.

"Dig in!"

Without another word, everyone dove right in with their hands.

The crispy chicken skin crackled in their mouths, and hot, savory juices burst forth.

Followed by a big gulp of ice-cold Coke.

"Awesome!"

Zhao Chen let out a loud burp, his mouth shiny with grease.

"This tastes so authentic! That ’McKenji’ knockoff by our school is total garbage in comparison."

"Duh, this is the real KFC."

Wang Yang didn’t even look up as he ate, a drumstick clutched in his hand.

"I heard every single one of these chickens has a serial number. They’re scientifically raised."

"For real? Chickens with serial numbers?"

They all shot the breeze while they ate.

Their topics were random and mundane.

They talked about how clean the bathrooms were, how even the hand soap was fragrant, and about the hand dryer that blew out warm air.

They talked about the girls from the Provincial City they saw in line, how short their skirts were, and about whether they could go check out a mall after the test tomorrow.

Old Zhou and Old Zhao didn’t squeeze in at the same table with them.

The two old men couldn’t handle the fried food. They each ordered a hot black tea and sat at a small round table nearby.

Old Zhao took out two meat sandwiches he had bought on the way and gave one to Old Zhou.

The two of them chewed on their meat sandwiches and sipped their black tea, watching the boys wolf down their food.

Old Zhou smiled as he sipped his tea, not saying anything about them eating too fast.

’This is how kids should be.’

’Able to eat well and sleep well—that’s the right state of mind for going into battle.’