Chapter 168: There’s Someone Even Stronger?
Hearing what Chen Mo said, Su Yuqing’s face flushed red again at the thought of how she had silently climbed into his bed late at night.
Last night, she had been half-asleep and startled by a nightmare, so she hadn’t really thought about what she was doing.
Recalling it now, she was overcome with embarrassment.
After breakfast, the two of them headed to school together.
By today, Chen Mo had mostly recovered.
He had a strong constitution. In the past, he could tough out a cold or fever for three to five days and be fine. Now, with medicine and injections, he was recovering even faster.
It was Tuesday, the day the results from last week’s exams were being released.
The papers had been graded over the weekend. On Monday, they were cross-checked for any grading errors, and then the scores were tallied.
The scores were scheduled to be announced on Tuesday.
Chen Mo had previously made a bet with He Xiaoyun. If he could score in the top ten of their grade, he would be allowed to change seats.
He Xiaoyun, however, had lowered the bar to the top ten in the class.
Early in the morning, He Xiaoyun entered the classroom with a smile on her face.
Seeing that Chen Mo was actually in class, she immediately walked over to him and asked with concern, "I heard from Yuqing that you caught a cold after jumping into the river to save someone. How are you feeling now?"
"I’m mostly better. I should be fully recovered by tomorrow," Chen Mo replied from behind his mask.
"That’s good. But next time, you need to think things through more carefully. Don’t act so impulsively, you understand? Saving someone is a good deed, but only on the condition that you don’t get hurt yourself." He Xiaoyun was genuinely concerned about her students.
Some teachers become more indifferent toward their students the longer they teach.
But other teachers treat their students as if they were their own children.
He Xiaoyun was one of the latter.
She always paid close attention to her students’ well-being.
"I’ll be more careful next time," Chen Mo nodded.
After returning to the podium, He Xiaoyun cleared her throat twice. "Everyone, please pause your morning reading for a moment," she said. "The results for last Friday’s midterm exam are out. I’m going to read the names of the students from our class who placed in the top fifty of the entire grade based on their total score.
Our class did quite well this time. There are five classes in the senior year, with a total of 200 students. Thirteen students from our class made it into the top fifty of the grade, which is well above the average."
It was clear He Xiaoyun was truly happy; the smile never left her face as she spoke about the scores.
As their head teacher, the better her students’ scores, the more pride she naturally felt.
Soon, He Xiaoyun began reading the list.
"I’ll announce them from the bottom up," He Xiaoyun said, smiling as she looked at a boy in the far-right row. "Yang Wei, with a total score of 645, is ranked forty-ninth in the grade."
Out of a total of 750 points, 645 was a very respectable score. He had only lost 105 points in total. Across the four exams—Chinese, Math, English, and the comprehensive liberal arts/science test—that averaged out to a loss of about 25 points per test.
Although he was only forty-ninth in the grade,
most people didn’t really care about the scores of those in the middle of the pack.
Aside from Yang Wei himself, who felt very proud to have his name called, no one else paid much attention.
He Xiaoyun quickly continued announcing the scores.
The next three were all ranked between fortieth and fiftieth place.
Again, no one paid much mind.
There were still nine names left to be called, since He Xiaoyun had already said that thirteen students from their class had made it into the top fifty.
The students were all curious to see what the highest rank anyone from their class had achieved.
Even if it wasn’t their own score, they were all one collective. If their class produced someone amazing, they would all feel a cut above the other classes.
The next three were ranked between thirtieth and fortieth.
Now, there were six left.
Two were between twentieth and thirtieth place.
And two were between tenth and twentieth.
"Li Yun, total score of 680, ranked eleventh in the grade."
Seeing that He Xiaoyun had now announced a full eleven names, the students started to feel a little uneasy.
The more names that were left, the higher those students must have ranked.
Now, with only two students from their class left to be named in the top ten, the chances of securing a top-three position seemed slim.
Soon, He Xiaoyun began announcing the names of the students who had made it into the top ten.
"Yang Jiayi, total score of 705, ranked seventh in the grade. Yang Jiayi’s performance this time was excellent. Her Math and Chinese scores were nearly perfect. Her English and comprehensive science scores were a bit lower, but it’s very difficult to get a perfect score in Chinese anyway. All in all, it’s a fantastic result." She smiled as she praised a petite girl sitting at the front of the middle row.
As He Xiaoyun read out her classmates’ scores, Yang Jiayi had already started to get nervous.
She was confident she had done very well on her Math and Chinese exams, so she was eager to find out exactly where she would place within the grade’s top ten.
She hadn’t even considered the possibility of ranking outside the top ten.
And indeed, she had successfully made it into the top ten. Seventh place was an impressive achievement.
She had lost only 45 points in total. Averaged across the four exams, that was a loss of only about 11 points per test, indicating very few mistakes.
"Yang Jiayi is seventh? But isn’t there still one person left? Someone scored even higher than her?!"
"That’s weird. Yang Jiayi is usually way ahead of everyone else in our class. If even she only got seventh, who could possibly be ranked higher?"
After announcing Yang Jiayi’s result, He Xiaoyun was finally ready to announce the score of the last student.
The students were now incredibly curious. Who on earth could have scored higher than Yang Jiayi?
After all, Yang Jiayi’s scores had consistently been at the top of the class.
Almost no one had ever surpassed her.
If she only placed seventh this time, who could possibly be better than her?
Generally speaking, some high schools intentionally group their top-performing students into a single honors class.
This results in one class having exceptionally high scores. But this school didn’t do that; the proportion of high-achieving students was roughly the same across all classes.
However, over time and through dedicated study, students who once had similar scores would gradually pull apart.
For the top student in Chen Mo’s class to only rank seventh in the grade clearly showed that a significant gap had already formed between them and the top students in other classes.
Under normal circumstances, there was no way He Xiaoyun would be smiling.
But this time was different. This time, someone had stepped up.
In fact, they had taken first place in the entire grade.
If she wasn’t happy about that, who would be?
Just as all the students were burning with curiosity, Su Yuqing suddenly turned her head to glance at Chen Mo.
’If there’s anyone in class who could have scored higher than Yang Jiayi,’ Su Yuqing thought, ’I can’t think of anyone other than Chen Mo.’
Previously, Chen Mo had always been rather half-hearted about his studies and exams. His scores hovered in the middle of the pack; he basically just did enough to get by. Su Yuqing used to think of him as just an average student as well.
But after watching him solve those problems the other day, Su Yuqing had changed her mind.