A perfect score on the college entrance exam? The Preface to the Pavilion of Prince Teng has astonis

This is Tang Tang—Su Wanci's deskmate and best friend. She has a round face, big eyes, and two shallow dimples at the corners of her mouth when she smiles.

"Where did you go? I've been wandering around the underground parking lot for ten minutes!"

Tang Tang complained, then her gaze fell on Chen Mo, and the smile on her face paused slightly.

"Chen Mo is here too."

There was a subtle, almost imperceptible undertone in her voice.

It wasn't hostility, but it certainly wasn't enthusiasm either.

"Um."

Chen Mo nodded without saying anything more.

"Let's go, let's go upstairs first."

Su Wanci naturally stood next to Chen Mo, and the three of them walked into the mall together.

The air conditioning in the mall was blasting.

It stood in stark contrast to the heatwave outside.

MixC was quite crowded on the weekend. A pop-up event by a certain brand was taking place in the atrium on the first floor, and a crowd had gathered around it.

The sound of the three people's footsteps was drowned out by the noisy background noise.

They first went to a boutique on the third floor.

Su Wanci took a liking to a silk scarf, held it up in front of the mirror for a while, then turned to Chen Mo and asked, "Does it look good?"

"good."

Chen Mo leaned against the shelf next to him, his tone relatively calm.

Su Wanci puffed out her cheeks.

"Can you use a different word? Every time I ask you, you say 'it's okay'."

"It looks pretty good."

Chen Mo changed his tune.

But there was a hint of helplessness in his tone.

Tang Tang watched this scene from the side, her eyes flickering.

She held a baseball cap in her hand, pretending to try it on, but her gaze kept shifting between Chen Mo and Su Wanci.

After leaving the boutique, the three of them went to the milk tea shop on the fifth floor.

I ordered three drinks and sat by the window.

Outside the window is the mall's atrium, from which you can see the crowds coming and going in the central courtyard below.

The conversation started with my plans after the college entrance exam, then moved on to the cities I wanted to go to for university, and finally to the TV series I've been watching recently.

Tang Tang kept talking, Su Wanci occasionally chimed in, and Chen Mo listened most of the time, nodding or humming occasionally.

Tangtang took a sip of milk tea and suddenly changed the subject.

"Hey, speaking of university—have you estimated your college entrance exam scores yet?"

Her tone was casual, as if it were a topic that had suddenly come to mind.

But Chen Mo noticed—when she said that, her eyes weren't on Su Wanci, but on him.

Su Wanci nodded: "I estimate it to be around 660, but the exact number will depend on the score."

"660!"

Tang Tang's eyes widened. "Wan Ci, you're amazing! I estimated it to be around 580, and my mom said I'd be lucky to get over 600."

"580 is not bad, it should be enough to get into a top-tier university."

Su Wanci comforted her.

Tang Tang turned her gaze to Chen Mo, a curious smile playing on her lips: "Chen Mo? How much did you estimate?"

Su Wanci's fingers tightened slightly.

Of course she remembered the incident in the class group chat—Chen Mo wrote 700 points in the word chain, and was then ridiculed by the whole class, called out by the teacher, and told as a joke for half a month.

She was about to speak up to help Chen Mo out of the predicament when Chen Mo spoke first.

"700".

His tone was flat, as casual as if he were saying, "The weather is nice today." He didn't even put down his milk tea cup; he simply leaned back in his chair, gazing calmly out the window.

Tangtang's milk tea cup stopped in mid-air.

She stared at Chen Mo for three seconds, then burst out laughing.

The laugh was very short.

She looked as if she had choked on something, but she quickly regained her composure.

"700?" she repeated, a deliberately suppressed laugh in her voice. "The total score is 750, you guessed 700?"

"Hmm." Chen Mo neither explained nor added anything.

Tangtang put down her milk tea cup, leaned forward slightly, and placed her hands crossed on the table.

Her expression remained smiling, but a sharp edge was beginning to emerge beneath that smile.

"Chen Mo, I didn't mean to say anything."

Her tone became soft and gentle, like a sugar-coated pill.

"But you scored around 480 on your last monthly exam, right? If you get 700, that means you scored 220 points higher this time. That's way too much!"

She pronounced the word "exaggerated" very lightly, but it was precisely because of this lightness that it sounded particularly jarring.

Su Wanci frowned slightly.

"Tangtang—"

"I was just curious." Tang Tang immediately put on an innocent expression and turned to look at Su Wanci.

"Wanci, don't you find it strange? You know Chen Mo's grades before. He could never finish his Chinese essays, and he struggled to even pass math. This time, he suddenly says he can get 700 points..."

She didn't finish her sentence, but the unfinished half-sentence was louder than the spoken one—wasn't that blatant boasting?

Chen Mo's expression remained unchanged.

He even found it a little funny.

It wasn't because Tang Tang's sarcasm was particularly clever, but because—he had seen sarcasm ten thousand times more clever than this.

The subtle mockery from an eighteen-year-old girl was nothing more than a tickle to him.

But he also realized that Tang Tang's curiosity wasn't the only reason he was interested.

She was deliberately nitpicking.

Chen Mo's gaze lingered on Tang Tang's face for an extra second.

He noticed the slight upturn of her eyes as she spoke, and the overly smooth turn of her head when she turned to Su Wanci.

Chen Mo already had the answer in his heart.

Is this Tang Tang just unhappy with him? Does she think he's not good enough for Su Wanci?

Or rather...

They felt that the original owner was not good enough for Su Wanci.

"Just an estimate."

Chen Mo said calmly, "We'll know when the results come out."

Tangtang didn't expect him to be so calm.

She thought Chen Mo would defend himself, blush, or get angry—that way she would have more to say.

But he just replied casually and continued drinking his milk tea, as if what she had just said was no different from "the milk tea is a little sweet today".

Tang Tang was stunned for a moment.

Then the strategy was quickly adjusted.

She didn't press Chen Mo further, but instead turned to Su Wanci.

"Wan Ci," her voice became serious, filled with concern.

"Let me tell you something from the bottom of my heart."

Su Wanci looked at her without saying a word.

Tang Tang glanced at Chen Mo, then turned back and lowered her voice—but lowered it just enough so that Chen Mo couldn't hear her.

"Wan Ci, you really don't need to put all your heart on Chen Mo."

Su Wanci's brows furrowed even deeper.

"What did you say?"

"I'm telling the truth."

Tang Tang's tone became earnest, like an experienced person advising a stubborn young person.

"Think about it, your grades, your looks, your family background—what are your advantages? Top three in your grade, school beauty, parents both work in the public sector. The line of suitors stretches from the school to the train station; you could easily outdo any one of them—"

She paused, glanced at Chen Mo, and the contempt in her eyes was almost undisguised.

"Better than him."

...

...