This humble Taoist priest wants to take the college entrance exam.

Chapter 53 (To be continued) (Bonus chapter of 4400 words)
If we were to rank the "enjoyment" of physical education classes on a scale...

The worst kind of physical education class is one where everyone learns gymnastics or a specific sport.
A moderately enjoyable physical education class is one where you study for a short while and then are dismissed for free time.

Gao Dengshuang's physical education class was a free activity period for the entire class;
The best PE class is one where the whole class is free time, and it happens to be the last PE class.

Unfortunately, this afternoon's PE class wasn't the last one, so I didn't qualify to compete for the top spot.

However, everyone still has some expectations; a high-level experience wouldn't be bad either...

Just one sentence from the PE teacher shattered everyone's last shred of expectation for this high-class experience—

"Line up! Line up! Everyone's in line! After a whole summer vacation, you don't even know how to line up anymore?"

"Teacher, we didn't have a summer vacation, we're so busy with extra classes we're dizzy..."

"Who is speaking?"

"..."

The physical education teacher's surname was Wan. He graduated from a physical education teacher training college. He was tall and burly, with a scar near his eye. It was said that he was elbowed by his grandson when he was playing basketball. However, some people suspected that he was slashed in a street fight. Compared with the other gentle and refined teachers, Teacher Wan had such a frightening appearance.

Teacher Wan looked around at the students of Class 5 lined up in front of her, holding the attendance list.

"From left to right, each row will count off—"

"one,"

"two,"

"three,"

……

Chen Shi'an stood in the last row of boys on the right.

He was still curious about what number to call out, but seeing everyone turn to their right one by one and shout out their numbers, he understood. He then followed suit, turning to Liu Zhuoran standing next to him and shouting:
"seven,"

"eight,"

After the roll call was finished, Teacher Wan asked again, "Where is the sports representative?"

"Here!" Xu Zihan shouted.

"You take the group to run two laps first, and then meet them at the track."

"……it is good."

As Teacher Wan finished speaking, a slight commotion arose in the crowd. Oh no, does this mean we won't even have a moderately enjoyable PE class anymore?

Xu Zihan waved, and the boys starting from his row followed in an orderly fashion, running out of the shade and onto the scorching midday track.

Chen Shi'an also ran up, at a moderate pace, keeping up with the others.

As students in the top class, they spend 90% of their time sitting and studying. Apart from a few students like Xu Zihan who love sports, most of the students are not very physically fit.

One lap of the track is 400 meters, so two laps is 800 meters.

At first it was fine, but gradually some students started to fall behind.

The boys ran ahead, the girls behind, completely out of formation, scattered into two chaotic groups, with a gap of about ten meters between them. Among the girls was even a wobbly bamboo pole—

"Young Master Yu! How did you end up in the girls' group!"

"Would the young master with kidney deficiency be alright?"

"I can testify! Young Master Yu's bedside is full of antiques!"

"What kind of cultural relic?"

"Paper from the State of Lu!"

Several close roommates burst into laughter.

Dong Wenyu's face flushed red and paled in turns, and he was almost out of breath, but he still managed to retort sharply, "Stop barking! Huff, huff, your father... huff, I..."

"Young Master Yu, be careful not to faint! We know those artifacts belong to Zihan; he put them by your bedside!"

"Your mother..."

Chen Shi'an observed the various reactions of people running with amusement. To him, this 800-meter warm-up jog was no different from a walk.

To his surprise, Lin Mengqiu seemed to have pretty good physical strength compared to the other girls in the class.

Before the girl went to PE class, she tied her hair up in a ponytail. The color of the hair tie was just like her personality—a very ascetic, hazy blue.

She ran at the very front of the girls' group, even overtaking the weak-willed young man who had fallen behind.

Perhaps because of her good looks, her running posture was also pleasing to the eye, and her long ponytail swayed back and forth with the movement of her arms.

Her pretty face was flushed from exercise, and a few strands of hair on her forehead were stuck to her skin with sweat, appearing somewhat glistening in the afternoon sunlight. Her mouth remained tightly closed, and she breathed only through her nose. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, and the sunlight cast a shadow under her long eyelashes, making it impossible to discern what she was thinking.

She ran alone through the gap between the boys' and girls' lines, without accompanying anyone.

Teacher Wan stood under the shade of a tree, pointing at several students who were slacking off and walking around.

"Don't leave!"

"Oh, I'm so touched. In all my life, only you, Teacher Wan, have ever told me not to go..."

"?"

Teacher Wan pretended to raise his hand to hit them, and the lazy students were so frightened that they ran away.

After running two laps, the students were panting heavily, no longer having the energy to do anything more abstract.

Most of the girls didn't look too good, but Lin Mengqiu seemed to be doing alright. However, she was sweating quite a bit and stood alone in a corner, breathing heavily and deeply, but she kept her mouth tightly closed and only breathed through her nose.

A hand landed on Chen Shi'an's shoulder. Chen Shi'an turned his head and saw that it was Liu Zhuoran, the "Instant Noodle Bro".

"Master Dao, your stamina is amazing! In this heat, you ran 800 meters without even breaking a sweat or getting out of breath?"

"Fortunately."

"Want to play ball later? We can split into two teams and play the whole court!"

"Not really."

"Hey, you're back! You've already taken off and dunked! If you still can't do it, I'll just hand you the ball and you can just dunk it!"

"Zihan, go ask Teacher Wan if the group has disbanded yet. Let's hurry up and play some ball!"

"I'm too busy knitting, there's a physical fitness test coming up for school!"

"what?"

As soon as Xu Zihan finished speaking, Teacher Wan asked everyone to reorganize the team.

"Today in PE class, we'll do a physical fitness test. Same rules as always: boys run 1000 meters, girls run 800 meters..."

"Ugh... I just finished the 800 meters... I should have just gone straight for the physical fitness test..."

"What 'huh'? If you want to break up quickly, then get ready! Boys first or girls first?"

"Boy!"

"girl!"

"Boy!!!"

Ultimately, they couldn't out-shout the girls in the class, so Teacher Wan waved her hand and told the boys to run first.

The physical fitness test for high school students is not as rigorous as a formal track and field competition. Ten people are grouped together and take their positions at the starting point. Xu Zihan is responsible for blowing the whistle at the starting point, while Teacher Wan keeps time at the finish line of the opposite track. One thousand meters is exactly two and a half laps.

"Hurry up, send out ten brave men!"

"Damn it, can't someone get a break first?!"

"Young Master Yu has arrived!"

Dong Wenyu, who was still sitting on the ground recovering his health, couldn't speak when he heard the sound, and could only wave his hand.

"Forget it, I'll show you how Young Master Yu dies in a bit."

"Master Daoist! Master Daoist, would you like to go first?"

"Okay, two and a half laps, right?"

Chen Shi'an walked onto the track; he hadn't had his physical test yet.

"Yes, four and a half minutes is passing, three and a half minutes is good, three and a half minutes is excellent, and three and a half minutes is perfect. Just run, Teacher Wan is timing you over there."

"More than three minutes?" Chen Shi'an was taken aback.

"That's right, four and a half points is more like it!"

"..." Chen Shi'an didn't mean that at all! He was thinking, could running two and a half laps really take more than three minutes...?

If he hadn't damaged school property yesterday, which taught him to restrain himself, he could have finished in two and a half laps in the blink of an eye if he were going full throttle.

"Are you all ready? Run!"

Xu Zihan, a good friend, abused his power for personal gain. He shouted "Run!" first, and only after Chen Shi'an and the other ten people had run away did he blow his whistle loudly.

Teacher Wan was well aware of his little trick. The moment he heard the shout to run, he had already pressed the timer to start! There's always someone better! He would still test the actual results, but as for the scores on the form, that depended on his mood and the students' performance.

The boys ran first, so the girls could rest first.

Everyone is eager to join in the fun, as long as it's not them who are on stage.

Normally, Lin Mengqiu wouldn't bother joining in this fun. Maybe it was because the wind was cool, maybe the clouds were white, maybe the track was straight... whatever the reason, she stood alone under the shade of the tree and turned her gaze to Chen Shi'an, one of the ten boys.

Chen Shi'an ran very fast from the start, at a speed comparable to a 100-meter sprint, and quickly pulled ahead of the other nine students.

"Daoist Master, don't run so fast!"

"..."

Indeed, we need to be more restrained.

"...Otherwise, you won't have the stamina for the second half!"

"?"

Despite his friend's well-intentioned reminder, Chen Shi'an slowed down and maintained a relatively fast pace, running the two and a half laps steadily and smoothly, becoming the first to reach the finish line.

"First, 2 minutes and 43 seconds."

Teacher Wan called out a number.

Perhaps because the second place was still quite far away, he had the time to remind Chen Shi'an: "Remember your score, come over to register in a bit."

"Okay. Thank you, Teacher."

After running two and a half laps in about two minutes and forty seconds, Chen Shi'an was still not out of breath or red-faced, clearly having plenty of energy left.

Teacher Wan was also surprised. He knew that Chen Shi'an was a Taoist priest who had transferred to the class. His impression of Taoist priests had always been that they were otherworldly, spoke slowly, and walked slowly... basically, the impression of a scholar. He never expected that this little Taoist priest, Chen Shi'an, would have such good physical strength!

"Weren't you the one who shattered the backboard yesterday?"

"Yes, I didn't control my strength very well..."

"sharp."

Teacher Wan complimented, "You must play a lot of ball games, right?"

"I can't play basketball."

"……what?"

After a few casual words, the rest of the students finally arrived late.

"Second, 3 minutes and 20 seconds."

"Third, 3 minutes and 24 seconds."

Until the last student: "Tenth, 3 minutes and 56 seconds."

"Great! It seems like your physical fitness has improved compared to last semester!" Teacher Wan praised.

The other nine students were panting heavily, some even gagging, thinking to themselves, "Did we really want to run this fast?"

It's all because the Taoist priest messed up their rhythm! Seeing how far behind the Taoist priest had they fallen, they wondered if they'd already been running for more than five minutes! How could they not rush forward with all their might!

Before long, the boys' team had all finished running, except for Dong Wenyu, who had to be helped back to the classroom halfway through the race...

Next up was the girls' turn to run.

Most girls are averse to such public sports activities and feel inexplicably ashamed. Xu Zihan had been shouting for a long time, but they still couldn't gather ten people at the starting line.

Lin Mengqiu was already standing at the starting line, not talking to anyone else. She just stood there, like a green bamboo by the water.

Yu Guangzhong noticed that Chen Shi'an, who had just been talking to Teacher Wan at the finish line, was walking over, and she looked away.

Teacher Wan also came over. For the girls' 800-meter test, the starting point is the finish line.

"What are you all dawdling for? Hurry up and finish the run, then we're dismissed."

Teacher Wan randomly selected a few people to join, and together with Lin Mengqiu who was already standing on the track, they finally made a group of ten.

Most of the boys who had finished running went off to do their own thing, while quite a few who weren't good at sports came over to watch the girls' physical fitness test. But with so many girls around, none of the guys dared to get too close.

Chen Shi'an didn't care about any of that. As his deskmate, he smiled and shouted something to Lin Mengqiu on the track:

"Go, squad leader!"

"..."

The volume wasn't loud, just enough for Lin Mengqiu to hear, and also for the other girls around her.

Under pressure from the class monitor's authority, the girls, who were all smiles and laughter, did not dare to make a fuss, but they still couldn't help but look at the handsome Chen Shi'an and the aloof Lin Mengqiu on the track with a certain ambiguous gaze.

Lin Mengqiu ignored him and didn't even turn her head to look at him.

The midday sun shone on her pretty face, and she felt her cheeks burning. Before she even started running, her heart was already pounding wildly.

You stinky Taoist priest! What are you doing?! Do you think we're that close?!
With a whistle, the girl shot off the starting line, her movements so fluid and controlled, it didn't look like a start, but more like an escape...

Lin Mengqiu runs so fast! In the blink of an eye, she has pulled far ahead of the other girls.

Each tremor of her footsteps traveled down her slender back to the tips of her hair, and as the arc of her arm swings increased, her tied ponytail swayed into waves.

The wind blew in through her sleeves and collar, ruffling the sweat-dampened hair around her neck, while her ponytail remained raised high behind her like a tireless black tail.

After finishing one lap, she passed by Chen Shi'an, who was standing by the track.

She had already slowed down a bit, but that stubborn, wicked Taoist priest said to her again, "Class monitor, keep it up!"

The girl neither stopped nor looked around, her slowed pace suddenly picking up again as she strode through the crowd at the start and finish line.

Her mouth, which she had stubbornly refused to open during her warm-up run, finally opened slightly as her tender chest and lungs were about to explode.

huh, huh, huh...

She gasped for breath, her legs began to feel heavy as if they were filled with lead, and sweat poured down her forehead, face, and neck like it was free.

Some of the tears got into the corners of her eyes, and she only had time to raise her arm and wipe them with her sleeve.

Her mind was completely blank. The not-so-wide curve of the track made her feel a little dizzy.

That 100-meter straight line reappeared before her eyes.

Her vision cleared, and she could see the smelly Taoist priest waving at her from afar!
Aaaaaah...!
at last!

The class monitor, with an exceptional performance and a significant lead over the other girls, broke Chen Shi'an's first-place ranking among the boys and crossed the finish line first.

The tender lungs protested, the leaden legs went weak, and even the ears began to ring...

She intended to stop gracefully, but when she tried to brake with her toes, her knees buckled, and the momentum of her upper body hadn't subsided, so her entire petite body tumbled and fell face-first into the open space ahead...

It’s over.

In that instant, only one thought occupied her mind.

But the scene she had anticipated—falling to the ground exhausted and being ridiculed by her classmates who had long harbored resentment towards her—did not happen...

She fell into Chen Shi'an's steady, strong arms.

As she took deep breaths, the unique scent of herbs and pine from his embrace rushed into her nostrils, making her feel inexplicably dizzy...

Lin Mengqiu had no idea how Chen Shi'an managed to catch her before she fell;

I don't even know how I left his embrace in such a shameful way;

The girl's face turned so red it looked like it was about to bleed...

"Are you alright, class monitor?"

"..."

"Ok?"

"...No, it's nothing."

(Bonus chapter for the last long chapter of the new book period, available tomorrow! Please vote with your monthly tickets~)

(End of this chapter)