I was a top student in America.

The last math class was already more than halfway over.

Mr. Brown, standing at the podium, glanced at the clock on the wall. There were still five or six minutes left before the end of get out of class. He simply closed his textbook and waved his hand.

That's all for today. Go back and do the exercises in Chapter 7. There's a test on Friday.

As soon as he finished speaking, the lifeless classroom came alive instantly.

The sound of zipping up a zipper and the harsh sound of pushing the table interrupted Li Ao. He stopped flipping through the book and looked up.

He spent the entire class studying the textbook "Algebra II", flipping through chapters one through four, his mind filled with polynomials and function graphs.

He rubbed his sore neck and watched Brown's figure disappear through the door, shaking his head inwardly.

This teacher's teaching skills are actually not bad, and his blackboard writing is quite organized. It's just that after staying in this godforsaken place for a long time, he exudes a perfunctory attitude of "I'm clocking out and you can all die if you want."

If they were in a better school district, they probably wouldn't have ended up in this situation.

"Bang."

A stack of exercise books slammed heavily against the edge of the desk.

Li Ao looked up and saw an Asian girl wearing black-rimmed glasses.

Lin Jinni.

Another Chinese student in the class has a family that runs a Chinese restaurant in the Bridgeport area, north of the school.

This girl's grades were in a league of their own in the class—of course, in a school like Wyndham where illiteracy was rampant, being able to simplify fractions was considered a "top student".

She is the class representative for Brown's class and is responsible for collecting and distributing assignments.

"Leo, homework."

Lin Jinni tapped the table with her pen. "Chapter Six Exercises."

Li Ao looked down at the Algebra II textbook spread out in front of him—he had turned to Chapter 4.

"I didn't write it." He spread his hands, quite frankly.

Lin Jinni frowned, too lazy to waste any more words:

"Whatever you want, the midterm exam grade will be based on participation."

After saying that, he turned around and left to collect food from the next table.

The black guy next to me, DeMarcus, witnessed the whole thing, immediately came over, leaned half his body on the desk, and grinned:

"Oh, got scolded by that bookish little sister?"

Li Ao ignored him and casually slung his backpack over his shoulder.

Not handing in homework is no big deal at this lousy school, and he did gain something from it.

He glanced down at the panel.

【Intelligence: 97.9】

It increased by a full 0.3 compared to when the class started.

The results of an afternoon weren't much, but the feeling of watching the progress bar move forward was truly captivating.

"Let's go, let's go, if we dawdle any longer there won't be any seats on the school bus."

DeMarcus didn't even zip up his backpack properly; he yelled and strode out.

At Wyndham High School, missing the school bus is like throwing half your life away on the street.

Last semester, there was an unlucky freshman who was stripped down to his underwear by a gang on 63rd Street because he was walking home stupidly.

Stealing a school bus is tantamount to stealing lives.

Li Ao slung his schoolbag over his shoulder and quickly followed.

The two of them squeezed into the crowded corridor one after the other, and were pushed and shoved by the grumbling crowd toward the stairwell.

Li Ao rushed down to the first floor in one breath, and he wasn't even out of breath.

If it were that office worker from my past life, drained by paperwork and PowerPoint presentations, I would have been seeing stars after all this.

Young is so good.

"I'm going to take a dump."

As he passed the men's restroom on the first floor, he gestured with his chin toward DeMarcus and slipped inside.

Yellow water was gushing from the tap. He scooped up some cold water and splashed it on his face, then looked up at the dirty mirror with a cracked corner above the sink.

Water droplets dripped down a stranger's Asian face.

My cheekbones are slightly prominent, and my skin tone is dull and yellowish due to a long-term diet of cheap junk food.

His hair was messy and hung down in front of his forehead, and he looked completely dejected.

Fortunately, he's tall enough, probably a little over 1.8 meters, but he's as skinny as a clothesline pole.

Compared to his previous life, the only thing that satisfied him was the look in her eyes—

It doesn't have the blurriness of someone with 600 degrees of myopia; it's clear and bright.

"It's alright, but if you look closely, he's actually quite handsome."

Li Ao muttered something to himself in front of the mirror, brushed the stray hairs from his forehead to the side, grabbed a rough piece of toilet paper, and glanced at the curled-edge notice next to the mirror.

The bold, black font reads—

October 21, 2006, midterm exams.

2006...

Upon seeing the year, a series of dates immediately flooded back, as if from muscle memory—

November SAT registration;

The AMC 12 Mathematics Competition next February;

Early Decision/Early Action (ED/EA) deadline is next November...

He used to use this timeline to remind clients, never expecting that one day he would use it on himself.

He tossed the crumpled paper precisely into the trash can, then shook the water off his hands.

"Let's talk about it after the midterms."

Pushing open the heavy iron gate of the teaching building, DeMarcus was kicking an empty can at the bottom of the steps in frustration.

"Are you giving birth in the toilet?"

The Black man complained, then tilted his head and looked Li Ao up and down with a strange gaze. "Hey Leo, something's off about you today?"

Something's not right.

"You've been studying textbooks all afternoon!"

DeMarcus gestured dramatically with his hands, "We started reading from the first chapter!"

"Even if you've only listened to one minute of a lecture before, you wouldn't need to start from the beginning."

Li Ao was amused by his words: "Then what do you want me to do? Keep sleeping, and then after graduation, work with you at Walmart to manage inventory for the rest of my life?"

"Fuck! Going to Walmart to stock up comes with health insurance! You thought it was such a cool idea before!"

DeMarcus's words reminded Li Ao of his current predicament.

The original owner spent more than two years at Wyndham High School with zero clubs, zero AP (Advanced Placement) courses, and a GPA that hovered around the passing mark of 2.0 for years. He was an invisible person who walked down the hallway and even the school bullies didn't bother to bully.

Did the original owner not want to go to university?

It's not that I don't want to, it's that I simply dare not even think about it.

The family is left with only the grandmother who lives on welfare. In Chicago's South Side, where people die every day in alleys over twenty dollars, being able to breathe is considered a success. Who would dare to touch the tuition bill of tens of thousands of dollars a year?

The overall environment was terrible, so the original owner accepted the fate of "going to work as a supermarket stocker after graduation" with a clear conscience.

Not far away, a dimly lit school bus emitted a pungent odor of diesel exhaust, and its pneumatic horn blared like a death knell.

Li Ao stared at the plume of black smoke, a strange anger rising within him.

The original owner wasn't actually stupid—her intelligence was 97.6, and she was a mentally sound and normal person, but she was turned into a useless person by being stuck in this quagmire.

American slums are places like this.

It doesn't need to actually kill anyone with knives or guns; it just needs to gradually strip you of hope, making you feel that all your efforts are meaningless.

"What are you standing there for! Run!"

DeMarcus spat a wad of phlegm on the ground and yelled at the top of his lungs.

Li Ao looked away and suddenly tightened the shoulder strap of his backpack.

Forget it, the original owner's life has already ended badly.

My script is only just beginning to unfold.

He strode forward, running towards the school bus against the blinding sunset.