My IQ has been increasing year by year.

After the sun came out, the car started to get hot.

The air conditioning on the 2002 King Long buses was always a bit slow to start cooling.

The driver had just turned off the heater, and the back of the car hadn't cooled down yet. With the sun shining directly in, the car quickly developed a smell of warm, stale leather.

The fog dissipated, and the poplar trees on both sides of the national highway looked grayish.

The car picked up speed and stopped braking intermittently.

As long as you don't shake, the dizziness will gradually subside.

There was some movement in the back row.

With a sizzling sound, someone tore open the vacuum-packed chicken leg.

Then came a very strong orange peel smell.

Little Fatty Liu Kai is alive.

This guy can't stop talking unless he gets carsick.

He was peeling an orange and putting it in his mouth.

"Hey, um... team leader, here you go."

Liu Kai didn't turn around, but stretched out his hand and handed over half an orange.

Chen Zhuo was leaning against the window, trying to take a nap, when he was woken up by this poke.

He glanced at the half of the orange that had been squeezed and was slightly deformed, but without any disgust, he took it, broke off a segment, and popped it into his mouth.

As soon as he bit through the skin, Chen Zhuo's cheek twitched violently.

"......Depend on."

Chen Zhuo couldn't help but swear, his face contorting in pain.

This isn't an orange, it's a lemon!

"Sour, isn't it?"

Liu Kai chuckled as he walked ahead, then turned around to reveal a set of white teeth.

"My mom insisted I bring it, saying the sourness would calm my nerves. I just ate one, and my teeth are practically falling out."

"You're practically taking revenge on society."

While inhaling the cool air, Chen Zhuo slowly ate the remaining few petals.

It's sour, but it really cuts through the richness.

After inhaling the strange smell of the bus for half a day, this sour smell actually made me feel much better.

With Liu Kai's introduction, the lifeless carriage came alive.

The two girls in front started whispering to each other, occasionally letting out a soft laugh.

Li Hao and Zhang Wei stopped pretending to be dead and huddled together to look at some magazine.

"Hey, have you guys heard?"

Zhao Chen, always the gossip, was leaning back in his chair, whispering mysteriously to Wang Yang.

"There are two freaks at the provincial experimental school this year."

"How is it perverted?"

Wang Yang closed the book, rubbed his temples, and his face was still a little pale.

"I heard that people don't need to draw diagrams to solve geometry problems."

Zhao Chen gestured to indicate his name.

"Just think about it in your head, like in three dimensions, and write down the steps directly. Last time in the joint exam, their exam paper was as clean as new, and they just wrote down an answer."

"That's bullshit."

Li Hao, who had been resting with his eyes closed, snorted.

"He doesn't draw anything just to show off. I don't believe his draft paper is blank."

"Really! And he's related to a professor from the provincial university!" Zhao Chen exclaimed anxiously. "That's called genetic advantage; we can't compete with that."

Such baseless rumors spread fastest in the enclosed space of a train carriage.

The more they talked, the more fantastical it became, as if the students at the provincial experimental school all had two heads.

Wang Yang was stunned. He was already feeling uneasy, and now he felt even more uncertain. He subconsciously reached for the exercise book in his schoolbag.

"Alright."

A lazy voice came from the back row.

Chen Zhuo threw the orange peel in his hand into the trash bag and wiped his hands.

"Zhao Chen, you should read less cheap, low-quality literature."

Chen Zhuo pushed up his glasses, slid down a bit, and found a comfortable position to slump over.

"It's not that amazing. I saw the first prize paper from the province last year. It was just that the steps were more concise. No diagrams? That's because he was lazy, or he was afraid of forgetting the diagrams in his mind, so he quickly wrote them down."

"As for the professor relative..." Chen Zhuo scoffed, "The names are all pasted on the exam papers, how can the examiners see through them?"

"Yeah, that's true." Liu Kai chimed in from the front, "If he's really that good, he could just get a direct admission to Tsinghua University, why would he be competing with us for the provincial first prize?"

"that is."

Everyone laughed a few times.

Old Zhao, who had been sitting in front for a long time, finally couldn't sit still anymore.

He's the kind of person who's destined to worry a lot.

Once the car was stable, he started strolling around in the aisle.

Hearing the students start spouting nonsense, he felt it was time for a mental boost.

"Stop joking around."

Old Zhao gripped the luggage rack railing with one hand, his body swaying with the car.

"Don't listen to those ridiculous rumors. 'Internal affairs' and 'connections'—that's all nonsense!"

"Once you get to the exam hall and the papers are handed out, nobody knows anyone! The examiners look at the steps and the results, not who your dad is!"

"What should I do first after I get the test paper? Huh? What should I do first?"

Old Zhao stared at Zhao Chen.

"Write your name." Zhao Chen shrank his neck.

"Yes! Write your name! Fill in your exam number!"

Old Zhao was really anxious; he was practically spitting as he spoke.

"In the last mock exam, some idiot filled in their exam number incorrectly! Zero points! That's a zero!"

"There are also more challenging questions."

Old Zhao walked up to Wang Yang and tapped on the back of his chair.

"Don't leave it blank if you can't do it. I've said it eight hundred times, don't leave it blank!"

"Write down the word 'solution,' copy down the conditions in the problem, and list the formulas. As long as it's related, you'll get points for each step!"

Those one or two points can sometimes be the difference between a gold medal and a silver medal!

"Alright, Lao Zhao, sit down. You're making me dizzy."

Old Zhou, who was in the passenger seat, turned around and shouted.

Old Zhou was holding a steaming stainless steel thermos in one hand.

In his other hand, he was holding the tea egg that Chen Jianguo had forced on him that morning. The shell was half peeled off, revealing the dark brown egg white.

"I only have one sentence to say about physics."

Old Zhou didn't stand up either, he just twisted his body and looked at the physics students behind him.

"If you really can't do it, just draw a diagram."

"Don't scribble force analysis diagrams, optical path diagrams, and circuit diagrams in the corner of your draft paper."

Draw it big, draw it precisely. As long as the drawing is correct and the force relationships are clear, the solution will naturally emerge.

"Also, don't be intimidated by the length of the question."

The old men who set the questions are really cunning; they love to make up stories, like spaceships and particles. Once you strip away all that nonsense, the remaining models are usually quite simple.

At this point, Old Zhou paused, his gaze sweeping over Li Hao and Zhang Wei before finally settling on Chen Zhuo, who was looking out the window in the last row.

"Um...we'll eat oranges later."

Old Zhou suddenly called out names.

"Why."

Chen Zhuo responded from the last row.

"Don't be so arrogant, kid."

Old Zhou took a sip of water.

"The teachers in the province are old and have poor eyesight. You need to correct your habit of skipping steps and only writing the answers. Don't write so little; writing a couple more lines won't kill you."

"understood."

Chen Zhuo answered lazily.

"I will definitely write as verbose as Wang Yang, explaining every step clearly, even proving 1+1=2 for him."

"Get lost!"

Wang Yang laughed and cursed, then turned around and threw the thick book "Olympiad Classics" he was holding at them.

"Who's being long-winded? I'm just being meticulous!"

The carriage erupted in laughter.

Even Old Zhao, who had been tense all along, couldn't help but smile slightly.

After a while of excitement, everyone got a little tired.

After all, I got up too early and had a long and tiring journey.

The sun warmed me up, and my eyelids felt heavy.

Wang Yang leaned back in his chair, the book in his hand already closed.

He stared blankly at the monotonous railings and utility poles outside the window.

Those formulas, theorems, and the words Old Zhao just shouted were like a pot of porridge bubbling and cooking in my head.

Chen Zhuo could tell from his expression that the child was still stuck in a rut.

He sighed.

He pulled the black D-777 out of the side pocket of his backpack.

This thing is ice-cold; touching it makes you feel refreshed.

"Brother Yang."

Chen Zhuo called out and leaned forward.

Wang Yang turned around.

"What's wrong?"

Chen Zhuo didn't say anything, but untied the headphone cord.

Sony's signature long and short lines, with the right line being particularly long, are designed to be wrapped around the neck.

Chen Zhuo handed over the long wire earphone marked with an "R".

"Stop thinking about the problem, take a break."

Wang Yang paused for a moment, looking at the delicate little earbud.

"What is this?"

"Old Zhou's personal opinion."

Chen Zhu blinked.

"I heard that listening to this can improve brain function."

Wang Yang took it with some skepticism and put it in his right ear.

Chen Zhuo leaned back in his chair and put his left earplug in.

Press Play.

First came a slight background noise.

Then, a string of crystal-clear piano notes flowed out.

There were no lyrics, and no energetic drumbeats.

It's just a simple piano, with the left hand following the right, like two people having a conversation, or like a person talking to themselves.

Wang Yang's furrowed brows slowly relaxed.

He didn't know anything about Bach, nor did he know how amazing this piece was.

He felt that the sound was very clean.

It felt like drinking a sip of cool boiled water on a hot summer day—refreshingly cool.

"What's this song? It's quite nice," Wang Yang asked in a low voice.

"lullaby."

Chen Zhuo closed his eyes and made up a bunch of nonsense.

"Go to sleep, I'll wake you when we get there."

Wang Yang didn't say anything more.

After a while, Chen Zhuo felt a slight tugging sensation from the headphone cord.

Wang Yang fell asleep, his head tilted to one side.

Chen Zhuo didn't move, letting the wire remain taut.

The carriage was quiet, with only the monotonous hum of the engine and the occasional snoring.

Liu Kai was fast asleep with crumbs of biscuit hanging from his mouth.

Old Zhao leaned back in his chair, his mouth slightly open.

The sunlight shone on Chen Zhuo's eyelids, making them appear reddish.

In the headphones, Gould was still playing tirelessly.