A Literary Life Starting from the First Year of High School

January 19th, Wednesday.

The first day of final exams.

When Lin Shubai arrived at the school, he found that the atmosphere of the entire campus had changed. There was no one chasing or playing in the corridors, and no one was chatting at the classroom door. Most people were nervously giggling. He looked at these people, but he didn't feel anything. He had taken too many exams in his previous life, such as the college entrance examination, the postgraduate entrance examination, and various qualification certificates. He had long passed the stage of being so nervous that his palms would sweat.

His exam room was on the third floor of the teaching building, an empty classroom that was not usually used. The desks and chairs were arranged neatly, and there was a small white paper strip on the corner of the desk with the seat number and name printed on it.

The first exam was in Chinese.

The proctor was the homeroom teacher of the class next door, surnamed Fang. When he came in, he was holding a brown paper envelope. He stood on the podium, held up the envelope and let the students check the seal. Then he tore open the seal and took out the exam paper.

"For those with curly hair, write your name and examination number first, but do not start writing. You can begin answering questions after the examination bell rings."

When the test paper was handed to Lin Shubai, he first flipped to the last page to look at the essay topic, which was "On the Road." He thought for a moment, quickly reviewed the possible directions he could write about, and then flipped back to the front to start working on the basic knowledge.

The dictation test consisted of "Short Song Ballad" and "On Teachers." He first memorized the entire passage on a draft paper, making sure there were no mistakes before filling it in on the answer sheet. He read the classical Chinese reading passage twice. He finished the multiple-choice questions very quickly. One question asked, "Which of the following explanations of the underlined words is incorrect?" He immediately knew to choose the option that explained "之" as "往"—it was too obvious. The teacher probably put an easy question there because they were afraid the students would score too low.

After finishing the Chinese exam, the corridor was full of people comparing answers.

Which character, '之', should be chosen in classical Chinese?

"I chose to cancel sentence independence."

"Me too!"

"Oh no, the pronoun I chose..."

Lin Shubai walked through the crowd without participating. When he reached the stairwell, he encountered Liu Yang.

"How was your Chinese?"

Liu Yang crushed the milk carton and threw it into the trash can. "I filled in two of the four blanks in the dictation question correctly, but I wrote the other two backwards."

Liu Yang sighed: "Never mind, math is the main event this afternoon. Could you help me with a couple of challenging problems at noon? There's one I just can't seem to get right when I was reviewing yesterday."

"Okay, I'll come and watch it for you after I finish eating."

I have a math exam this afternoon.

After receiving the test paper, Lin Shubai first flipped to the last page to look at the major questions. The derivative questions didn't seem difficult, but the second question on conic sections was a bit tricky. He did them in order, and finished the multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions very quickly, in less than forty minutes.

The first question was on trigonometric functions, which was a free point. The second question was on sequences, which wasn't difficult either. The third question was on solid geometry, and he wrote a detailed proof, explaining the reasoning behind each step.

As I walked out of the math exam room, some people were sighing in the corridor, some were slapping their thighs and shouting "It's all over!", and others were walking out expressionlessly, seemingly having accepted reality.

Thursday, January 20th.

The exams were held the next day, covering English, physics, and chemistry.

English is Lin Shubai's forte. He was already good at English in his previous life, passing the CET-4 and CET-6 exams on his first try and doing well in the postgraduate entrance exam. In this life, he has a good memory and a vocabulary that is much larger than that of his peers. He can finish the test very quickly and doesn't need to review the reading comprehension questions. He can choose the answer directly after reading.

The essay was a classic letter to Li Hua, which posed no difficulty for Lin Shubai.

After finishing his English exam, Liu Yang was waiting for him in the corridor, looking much more relaxed than yesterday.

"I've finished all the English questions! For the reading comprehension, I used your method—reading the questions first and then the passage—and it was much faster!"

"And what about your accuracy rate?"

"I don't know, but at least it's all filled."

In the afternoon physics exam, Lin Shubai's physics score wasn't outstanding, but it wasn't bad either. He did okay on the multiple-choice questions, but he wasn't sure about two of the multiple-answer questions, so he only chose the one he was most certain of. His physics score was probably around 70 or 80 points, which was good enough as long as he didn't drag the class down.

When he handed in his paper, he glanced at his watch; there were two minutes left.

After the physics exam, there was a 15-minute break before the chemistry exam. Lin Shubai did better in chemistry than in physics. He did well on the multiple-choice questions, but spent a little time balancing a few equations in the fill-in-the-blank questions, though he still managed to solve them.

January 21st, Friday.

The first subject in the morning was biology.

Biology was Lin Shubai's strongest science subject. After the biology exam, there was no rest; the geography exam was handed out immediately.

Lin Shubai's geography skills were average, but he wouldn't do badly on the test based on his memory alone. He answered multiple-choice questions quickly, and most of the questions were map reading.

The first subject in the afternoon is history.

When the test papers were handed out, he first flipped to the back and glanced at the essay questions, which were about modern history—the Opium War, the First Sino-Japanese War, and the Xinhai Revolution, all of which he had reviewed.

The last subject: Politics.

The multiple-choice questions tested content from the compulsory course "Economic Life"—the nature of money, the impact of supply and demand on prices, consumer psychology, types of companies, and the role of public finance. He had reviewed all of these topics and finished the multiple-choice questions very quickly, in less than twenty minutes.

After finishing, he checked it to make sure he hadn't missed any questions, then turned the answer sheet over and placed it face down on the table.

When the bell rang to signal the end of the exam, Lin Shubai put down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and let out a long breath.

The exam is over.

He walked towards the stairwell, and when he reached the corner on the second floor, he met Su Wan. The two of them went downstairs, and Liu Yang chased after them from behind.

Liu Yang felt revitalized as soon as he finished his exams. "Shubai, what did you do during winter break? You were writing things?"

"Write, what about you?"

"I played video games all winter break. My mom said I could play as much as I wanted after the exams, but I'm doing this now before the results come out, otherwise she might change her mind in a few days."

Lin Shubai and Su Wan walked towards the bus stop.

"When did you start reading the manuscript during winter break?" Su Wan asked.

"The day after tomorrow, I'll rest tomorrow."

The bus arrived, and the two of them squeezed on, standing next to the back door holding onto the handrail.

Su Wan leaned against the car window, watching the street scenes flash by outside.

"Lin Shubai".

"Um?"

"If you're free during winter break, how about we go see a movie together?"

Lin Shubai turned to look at her, but she didn't look at him. She was staring out the window with a calm expression, but the tips of her ears were slightly red.

"Okay, when?"

"We'll talk about it later. You go ahead and do your thing."

Lin Shubai's heart stirred. He remembered how Su Wan always handed him that Hello Kitty mirror, how earnest Su Wan was as a member of the campus story column, and her words just now, "No rush, you go ahead and do your thing." She was always like that, speaking very lightly, as if she were talking about something insignificant, but every word touched a soft spot in his heart.

"good!"