A Young Woman's Heart

Chapter 152 Citywide Ranking

(One)

"According to the meteorological observatory, this rainfall will continue until around the Spring Festival..."

The tape recorder with its antenna extended was receiving a broadcast from Hangzhou.

The somewhat bumpy carriage was nearly empty.

Mo Xueyao gently held the tape player between her legs, rested her elbows on the window, and looked out at the rain-soaked streets.

The continuous rain made the weather bitterly cold.

Both she and Li Wanyan wore thick cotton-padded trousers and coats.

Even her neck was wrapped in a scarf, though it still had a few raindrops that had been blown up by the wind as she walked over.

"Crunch, pop." Mo Xueyao took out a strip of milk tablets, ripped one off, put it in her mouth for a while, and then couldn't help but bite it into pieces.

The rich aroma of milk fills your mouth, accompanied by an exceptionally crisp sound.

"How do you think you did on the exam?"

"Hmm... I don't want to guess now, let's wait until we see the report card..." Mo Xueyao swiped another piece of paper, but this time she brought it close to Li Wanyan's mouth, "This is rare, Wanyan, are you a little nervous?"

“…A little.” Li Wanyan, with a milk tablet in her mouth, turned her face to the left.

"I guess I'll just leave it to fate. Surely I won't even be able to make it into the top ten in the whole school."

"……uncertain."

"Do you feel you didn't perform well this time?"

"Everything is possible."

"Tsk, anyway, it's almost here, we'll know the results soon, there's no point in thinking so much." Mo Xueyao put the last milk tablet into her mouth, and this time she followed Li Wanyan's example and didn't chew it, but held it in her mouth and quietly waited for it to dissolve.

……

(two)

Since it was a city-wide high school joint exam, the results were released exceptionally slowly this time, probably because the review process was quite strict.

In short, by the time the official results were released, there were only a few days left until the Chinese New Year.

Today, Mo Xueyao and Li Wanyan received a text message from their teacher informing them to come and pick up their report cards.

It was still early, and students could pick up their report cards tomorrow, so although the school gates were open, there were not many students.

The sky was so overcast it looked like 5 a.m., even though it was actually only a little before 8 a.m.

The middle-aged man was leaning against the entrance of the security booth, yawning. As you walked past him, you could smell the strong stench of tobacco on his breath.

From afar, Mo Xueyao saw An Ruosu walking ahead, holding a red umbrella. He was dressed in a simple light gray outfit, which made the red umbrella appear even more vibrant, like blood.

"Hey, Susu!" Mo Xueyao waved vigorously at him, ran out from under Li Wanyan's umbrella, and jumped under his umbrella. "You're here so early too?"

“Uh, Mo Xueyao…” An Ruosu’s eyes darted around, after all, she was the only one in school who knew her secret.

"What's wrong? You don't like girls anyway, so why are you so shy?"

"Huh? Ah...uh...don't, don't be so loud..." An Ruosu muttered softly, "And...I don't specifically like that...it just happens to be..."

"I know, I know—" Mo Xueyao interrupted him perfunctorily, because she had already seen these words in his love letters. "So, what kind of grades do you think you can get this time?"

"I don't have high expectations... I'll be happy if I can get an average score."

"Then why did you come so early?"

"Because after I get my report card, I'm going back to my hometown this afternoon."

Mo Xueyao clicked her tongue, then ran out from under his umbrella and rushed into the hall.

The rankings of all grades in the senior year were specially displayed on a separate wall.

The most striking feature is the overall city ranking.

This time, all the top-tier high schools participated, and almost all the regular high schools were also involved. The few schools that didn't participate were among the worst-performing regular high schools.

Although there are many senior high school students in the city, their rankings only go up to 200th in both the arts and sciences categories.

Even a student ranked 200th would be considered a top student in their own high school.

In a regular high school, the 200th place would be in the top 20 or 30 of their own school—and that's a conservative estimate.

Mo Xueyao tilted her head back, stood on her tiptoes in high boots, and tried to look at the slightly reflective parts of the boots.

Starting from the first one, searching for their own name.

“Mr. Xue… Ah, Xiao Xue is actually number one?” Mo Xueyao was startled. Moreover, the line with his name on this ranking list was the most special. It not only showed the total score of all humanities papers, but also the total score of all science papers. In other words, he took both humanities and science papers by himself.

And in both cases, the total score far surpassed that of the second place.

These results are so high that they are beyond the reach of most people, and one cannot even feel any envy.

Because they were from another world...

"What's wrong, Mo Xueyao? How did the exam go?" An Ruosu asked curiously as she approached. "Why are you spacing out?"

"Damn it...damn it...look at Xiaoxue."

"Huh?" An Ruosu looked up suspiciously and glanced at it, then was so shocked that she looked at it several times. "Arts... Arts... 708, Science 737..."

"Now look at the second place."

In the citywide rankings, each person's school is listed, and the second place goes to Hangzhou No. 2 High School.

This is one of the top high schools; the only school that can rival it is Xuejun High School.

Mr. Xue was placed in the science rankings.

The second-place finisher had a total score of 705.

They all seem to have scores over 700, but there is a huge difference of several tens of points between them.

"As expected of No. 2 High School..."

"Xiaoxue's grades are good enough to get her into Tsinghua or Peking University without taking the entrance exam, right?"

"I think it's about right?"

Li Wanyan only just entered the hall.

Mo Xueyao quickly pointed to Mr. Xue's name on the overall ranking.

She, who was usually indifferent to many things, opened her eyes wide, then closed them again and let out a long sigh: "Rather than saying it was unexpected, it was more like it was expected."

"Xiao Xue is really... invincible." Mo Xueyao scratched her head. When she thought about how there were many students of Mr. Xue's caliber at Tsinghua and Peking Universities, she suddenly felt that the world was still too big and too big.

The ceiling of one city seems ordinary when you go to other places.

Most importantly, he was clearly a liberal arts student, but he took a science exam.

However, Mo Xueyao also discovered Cha Li's name on the science side.

Perhaps she knew something, and out of interest, she took the science exam with Mr. Xue?

Her ranking was a bit more average, at fifty-seventh overall, with a score of six hundred and forty-nine.

In a school dominated by top-tier high schools, being able to appear as a regular high school student is already an achievement in itself.

Mo Xueyao took several deep breaths to compose herself before turning to look at the ranking table of total scores for liberal arts students.

In comparison, the scores for humanities subjects are slightly lower.

Unlike science subjects, which have precise answers, even relatively formulaic reading comprehension exercises carry a degree of subjectivity.

Getting a perfect score on an essay is almost impossible.

"Mo Xueyao, Mo Xueyao, Mo Xueyao..." Mo Xueyao searched for her name quickly, her tension increasing with each downward step of her gaze.

Finally, she found herself in ninth place.

"Mo Xueyao! Ah, I found it!" Filled with excitement and anticipation, she carefully examined her score. "Six hundred and fifty-six..."

Then I quickly glanced at the score of the top liberal arts student, which was 701, still not as high as Mr. Xue's.

The college entrance exam may become even more difficult, but such a score is already quite outrageous.

Following closely behind Mo Xueyao was Li Wanyan, who had the same score as her.

Therefore, the two are tied for ninth place.

Feeling much more relaxed, she happily continued reading.

They found Hua Yinyin when she was ranked over 100th.

Her score was 580, with a note in parentheses next to it:

The essay received full marks.

Of all those people in the list, she's the only one with this label.

Even Mr. Xue didn't seem to get a perfect score on his essay.

So even at this ranking, her name is quite prominent.

After a hundred or so students, there were more students in regular high schools.

These are all top students from regular high schools; they would probably be in the top ten at their own schools.

"Oh, Xiaoxiao is on the list too, exactly two hundredth, five hundred and forty-second..."

The competition in this citywide ranking is quite fierce, with the scores of the two players being very close.

Unlike when I was ranked in my own school, sometimes I was ranked in the fiftieth place and still managed to pull ahead of the next person by nearly ten points.

“You two are really amazing…” An Ruosu didn’t even look for me in the city-wide rankings; she found me in the school-wide rankings, where I was in the middle, quite inconspicuous.

……

(three)

"Ah Wen, Ah Wen, Ah Wen~" Mo Xueyao hummed a pop song with modified lyrics and ran lightly into Ye Wen's office, where the latter was looking down at the report card.