I was a top student in America.

It's 5:30 in the morning.

Li Ao had been sitting at the folding table for twenty minutes.

It was still dark outside the window, and the street was quiet without a sound.

In the entire apartment building, only his room had the light on.

Algebra II, Chapter 7: Quadratic Inequalities.

Although it was a bit more difficult than the previous chapters, Li Ao had experienced the harsh realities of the college entrance examination in his previous life, so he could basically understand each example problem after reading it twice.

The feeling of rapidly absorbing knowledge is irresistible.

He couldn't even bear to waste a few minutes in the bathroom, writing down several difficult formulas on the back of his hand and reciting them silently.

The panel will pop up prompts as needed.

[Focusing on studying... Intelligence +0.1]

Just after six o'clock, the bedroom door creaked open.

Grandma came out wearing a coat, and when she saw Li Ao sitting at the table through the curtain, she was stunned for a moment.

"Why are you up so early?"

"I can't sleep, so I'll get up and read for a while."

Grandma didn't ask any more questions, turned around and went into the kitchen to turn on the gas stove.

She had seen too many good-for-nothing boys in her life who vowed to "turn over a new leaf," and her own good-for-nothing son had made the same vow back then.

The greater the hope, the greater the disappointment, so she said nothing.

Li Ao closed his textbook, followed him into the kitchen to help carry the half-jar of pickled vegetables from last night to the table, and then took out two eggs from the refrigerator to boil.

The lesson of dying from overwork in a past life is right there in front of me—

Health is the foundation, especially since this body is already malnourished and its stamina is barely at 90. It needs to be replenished.

"The eggs were given out by the church. You're growing, so eat them all." Grandma sat down with two bowls of white porridge.

"One for each of you." Li Ao threw the peeled eggs directly into his grandmother's porridge.

The old lady muttered about how wasteful it was, but she didn't push it back.

After finishing breakfast and getting ready, Li Ao grabbed his schoolbag and went out.

It was 7:15, and the sky was not yet fully light.

It takes seven or eight minutes to walk from the apartment to the school bus stop, and you have to go through an alley without streetlights.

A cold wind whipped up the discarded newspapers on the ground, and Li Ao subconsciously wrapped the backpack strap around his wrist twice—

Last winter, in this very alley, a Latino student had his lung punctured and was stripped naked, along with his old Air Jordans.

It wasn't until he boarded the school bus that the warmth inside the carriage allowed his tense back to relax.

When I arrived at Wyndham High School, there were still twenty minutes before morning reading.

Instead of going directly to the classroom, which reeked of overnight sweat, Li Ao followed the smell of cheap coffee in the corridor and knocked on the door of the math office at the end of the corridor.

"Enter."

Robert Brown lifted his bald head from the pile of newspapers, and upon seeing who it was, his gray eyebrows rose two inches.

Having taught at this school for nearly twenty years, students who proactively seek him out before class are rarer than giant pandas.

"What's up?"

"Mr. Brown, I'd like to ask if the school has any past AMC 12 question banks or study materials?"

Brown put down the newspaper and looked him up and down.

They fell silent.

The combination of "Wyndham High School" and "AMC competition" is truly comical.

But he ultimately didn't dampen the enthusiasm.

"I don't even have any extra high school textbooks here. I'll try my luck at the public library on 61st Street."

He picked up his coffee cup and took a sip. "But I suggest you understand Algebra II first. The midterm exam is in three weeks."

"I will, thank you."

Li Ao received the answer he expected and turned to leave.

Brown stared at his tall, thin back, holding his coffee cup for a long time without moving.

Did this kid get high on drugs first thing this morning?

The old man twitched the corner of his mouth and turned his gaze back to the newspaper.

Anyway, it's better than sleeping in the classroom.

-

The first lesson was English literature.

Li Ao sat in the back row, his pen never stopping as he listened and jotted down new words in his notebook.

The Chicago street slang in the original owner's memory was fine for everyday communication, but it completely failed when faced with advanced vocabulary and complex sentences in the textbook.

He recognized less than half of the many obscure words in the text.

However, there's no rushing this; we can only learn by tackling it word by word.

DeMarcus, standing next to Li Ao, stared at the densely packed words on Li Ao's draft paper, and he was completely bewildered.

"Yesterday you were looking at the textbook, today you're taking notes... Dude, you're not actually planning to take the college entrance exam, are you?"

"It's not just a plan, it's a certainty."

Li Ao didn't even look up.

DeMarcus opened his mouth, but in the end, he couldn't retort.

He scratched his dreaded braid in frustration, and then, almost inexplicably, opened an English book.

Although it was covered up again on the face three minutes later.

Patricia Coleman, the Black female teacher on the podium, is probably the only teacher at Wyndham who is still teaching seriously.

Halfway through her lecture today, as she passed by the back row, her high heels visibly paused for a beat when she caught a glimpse of Li Ao's notebook filled with annotations.

She didn't say anything, but as she turned to walk towards the podium, she wrote the chalk words on the blackboard with even more force.

After two classes, the panel popped up twice, quite generously:

[Focusing on studying... Intelligence +0.1]

[Focusing on studying... Intelligence +0.1]

Current intelligence: 98.7.

Noon, canteen.

The school's free lunch always consists of the same three things: a pizza with a crust so hard it could kill a dog, chicken nuggets fried until they're oozing black oil, and a pile of unidentifiable macaroni.

It may not taste good, but for the poor kids in the South District, it might be the most proper meal of the day.

Li Ao took his plate, found a dark corner to sit down, spread out Algebra II next to him, and ate while reading.

Chapter 8, Exponential Functions and Logarithms.

DeMarcus brought over the plate and plopped down opposite him.

"Dude, are you serious? You're even making a scene while eating—"

He hadn't finished speaking.

A large hand wearing a copper ring slammed down on Li Ao's shoulder.

Li Ao frowned and turned his head away.

TyShaun Jackson.

The head of the "Deacon Gang" at Wyndham, and the starting power forward on the school's basketball team.

His towering height of over 1.9 meters blocked the aisle like a wall, with two henchmen in red hoodies following behind him.

Seeing that things were not going well, the students at the surrounding tables quickly picked up their plates and moved to the side, creating a vacuum in the originally noisy corner.

Taishaun glanced down at the algebra textbook on the table and chuckled.

"Your name is Li Ao? I heard you were on the school bus yesterday, telling DeMarcus not to take my job?"

DeMarcus's face turned deathly pale instantly. He was about to stand up and explain when Li Ao stepped on his knee under the table.

"I didn't instigate anyone." Li Ao tossed the plastic fork into his plate, looked directly at Ty Shawn, and said, "I just did the math for him. Fifty dollars in cash for a criminal record for illegally transporting contraband—that's not only stupid, it's a bad deal."

Upon hearing this, the mockery on TySean's face vanished.

He suddenly braced himself on the table, his massive body leaning forward with an overwhelming sense of pressure:

"Who do you think you are, daring to tell me how to do things?"

"I have no interest in teaching you how to do things," Li Ao shrugged, his tone indifferent. "But I'm reading a book right now, and you standing here is affecting my study."

"Excuse me, could you move aside?"

Tae-Sean was stunned.

He had been arrogant and domineering at Wyndham High School for over three years, and had been both confronted and beaten, but being left standing there in such a nonchalant tone was truly unprecedented.

The thug in the red hoodie behind him immediately changed his expression and reached out to grab Li Ao's collar.

But TySean suddenly raised his hand to stop his underling.

"Fine." He straightened up, his gaze sweeping over Li Ao. "You've got guts."

After saying that, he turned and left with his men.

As the oppressive feeling dissipated, DeMarcus slumped into his chair, his voice trembling.

"Are you crazy? Do you even know who TySean is? That guy's had real guns stuffed in his suspenders!"

"Know."

"Then why don't you—"

"He won't lay a hand on me." Li Ao took a bite of the now-cold pizza. "With so many people watching in the cafeteria, he'll at most slap me twice, he won't hit me hard."

He smoothed out the crumpled corner of the textbook and said calmly, "Gang leaders rely on unknown 'deterrence' and won't act easily."

"Once he loses his temper in public and beats up an unarmed weakling over a couple of words, in the eyes of his underlings he's not 'unfathomable,' but 'brainless' and 'a mad dog with an out-of-control temper.'"

DeMarcus listened, completely bewildered.

He didn't quite understand this logic, but he vaguely felt that it made some sense.

How do you know all this?

Li Ao smiled.

In my past life, I worked as a study abroad consultant and came into contact with many clients from families with complicated backgrounds. Some of the children's fathers were from this category.

With more experience, one can naturally discern the nuances.

But this statement cannot be explained.

"That's how it's portrayed in TV dramas," he said without changing his expression.

"Huh?" DeMarcus was skeptical, but didn't delve into it. "You weren't this kind of person before..."

"The past is the past."

Li Ao gave a perfunctory reply and lowered his head to continue reading.

Many eyes were already turning to look in their direction.

Li Ao ignored the complicated gazes around him.

He pushed the leftover pizza aside, intending to use his lunch break to review the basic concepts of logarithmic functions.

In the corner of the panel, the number for Intelligence sat quietly.

98.8.

We are only 1.2 away from the 100 mark.

……