Chapter 2: Cheating

Chapter 2: Cheating

Only then did I realize being well-read was useless. Exams didn’t test how much you knew. They tested what was taught in class.

Why hadn’t Grandma told me? She loved me so much.

Too late now.

I snuck a glance at Zhu Zhaojie.

That pretty little girl actually lived right upstairs from me.

My family on the second floor, hers on the third. We were classmates. She was the girl next door. There should’ve been a story. But her father was strict.

Ye Ziping said her dad thought I was a slacker and told her to stay away. Said slackers who happened to be good-looking were bad boyfriend material. Guys like that were fickle with feelings and tricked girls.

I had no words.

I hadn’t even tried to chase her. Her dad had already slapped that label on me.

Staring at Zhu Zhaojie’s back, I suddenly felt a strange, airy tremor, like I’d heard something.

No way.

It was like I could hear Zhu Zhaojie silently working through the exam in her head.

Holy crap. Was she feeding me answers?

I sat diagonally behind her. I could still see her profile.

Her mouth wasn’t moving. The classmates and proctors around her showed no reaction.

Was I the only one hearing this?

I focused harder on Zhu Zhaojie. The effect sharpened.

Whatever she thought, I could sense. Just like Grandma’s inner voice yesterday.

Matching her thought process to my own exam paper was like having someone sit beside me, explaining every question and answer clearly.

Forget it.

I got a little excited. Looked around.

Two proctors, one up front, one in back. Security camera in the corner, red light blinking.

But what did I have to worry about?

I wasn’t cheating. You couldn’t accuse me unfairly like that. I was hunched over my desk, honestly working through the exam.

Wherever Zhu Zhaojie’s thoughts went, I followed. While copying, I thought:

My dear little Zhu-Zhu, you’re too good to me. Big Brother will buy you milk tea later.

Every time she worked through a problem, I wrote it down.

One after another.

Same answer sheet format for everyone.

Fill it in.

I nearly laughed. When did I get this ability? Why hadn’t I noticed before?

The black-clad men?

Grandma?

What had they done to me?

Had something changed in my body during those three days?

No wonder Meng Ran wanted tech to catch up with Zhu Zhaojie. Cheating could be this easy?

Damn. My head wasn’t going to explode, was it?

Thinking of Meng Ran made me nervous. I touched my head, then knocked on it. It felt fine. Besides, I didn’t have a Wisdom Capsule in there. If something had been installed, wouldn’t I know? Wouldn’t Grandma know?

What was I afraid of?

The exam was two hours, but Zhu Zhaojie finished in ninety minutes and turned hers in early. After she left, I deliberately stalled, pretended to check my work. Waited until time was up, then shuffled forward to hand mine in. That fit my usual pattern.

Turning it in early would look strange.

Ms. Mei noticed me during the exam. Came over several times. Sometimes stopped beside me. Once she stared at my paper in shock, circled me repeatedly, inspected me with her eyes. Said nothing in the end.

I didn’t even look up.

I was taking an exam. I was busy.

What could she do to me?

I used the same method for the other subjects.

At home, I could barely keep from smiling.

Was my life about to come with a cheat code?

Fate had a sense of humor after all.

Turned out the heavens hadn’t failed my vast learning.

A week passed.

The day the prelim results were posted arrived.

I went to school in high spirits, thinking Zhu Zhaojie’s papers couldn’t be too bad. Best if they didn’t shock people too much, though. That’d be hard to explain.

But then I thought—so what? I hadn’t cheated. Everyone saw me write the papers myself. If anyone had questions, check the cameras.

Still, I’d underestimated how shameless people could be.

The moment I got to school, I heard talk. Ms. Mei had gone straight to Principal Gao Minjun and accused me of cheating. My overall score ranked second in the whole school.

Damn. I’d deliberately made the papers look imperfect.

On every paper I’d written a few things wrong or skipped a few steps, trying to avoid suspicion. I hadn’t dared mess up too much in case my judgment was off.

But I never expected this round of exams to be brutally hard. Meng Ran was dead. The gap between Zhu Zhaojie and everyone else ended up massive.

Somehow I landed at second.

Years as a slacker.

Fine. Even I didn’t believe it.

Should’ve gotten more wrong. How was I supposed to know Zhu Zhaojie was that strong, or that the gap between first and third would be that huge?

Over the next few days, people kept saying I’d cheated. I didn’t explain. I was ready for Gao Minjun to find me.

I’d even drafted responses, waiting for him.

But everything stayed quiet.

No one came.

Even Ms. Didn’t-Stand-Up didn’t question me.

Were the rumors false? Did Principal Gao and Ms. Mei actually believe in my character?

No way.

For days I acted like a thief, constantly listening to what people said. But aside from mockery from classmates, the teachers were strangely silent.

That wasn’t normal. Extremely abnormal.

Sure enough.

Someone was following me.

Sophisticated tailing—I never saw them. Just felt it. A pair of eyes always fixed on my back.

I asked Ye Ziping to watch. He observed for days, said I was paranoid. Nobody was there.

Really?

I trusted my instincts. Those instincts took me from slacker to second in school. Couldn’t I drag this person out?

So I bought a pinhole camera and clipped it to the back of my collar. I wanted to see who was bored enough to follow me.

After days of observation, I found something. It seemed to be Gao Minjun, the principal from the provincial capital. He kept appearing behind me in ways that looked casual.

Sometimes on my way home. Sometimes riding slowly behind me after I left school. Sometimes picking fruit at the stand across from my place. Sometimes chatting under a tree when I bought breakfast.

Was it him? Why follow me?

But it wasn’t coincidence. I was sure.

I could feel his seemingly casual glances sweeping toward me.

I ignored him.

I didn’t have secrets.

Actually, maybe I did. But could he tell?

In the days that followed, I did what I was supposed to do.

Soon, the official placement exam arrived.

Originally I hadn’t wanted to take the elite university track assessments. The regular college exam would’ve been enough. I’d have been satisfied with an ordinary university.

But damn it, I was second in the whole school now. If I didn’t go, that’d look weird.

So I forced myself through all the elite university exams.

Same method.

To master this sensing ability more skillfully and accurately, I practiced beforehand. Found crowded places. Picked people I knew, locked onto them, listened to their thoughts. Then quietly verified if what I heard was accurate.

I avoided Gao Minjun while doing this, of course.

Speaking of him—one thing was especially strange.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t sense his thoughts at all. Tried multiple times. Nothing.

That guy definitely had secrets.

The placement results were coming soon.

I felt confident. I’d learned my lesson. Couldn’t just copy one person. Had to leave mistakes. Keep my score around lower-middle, or upper-lower.

Not long after, the official gaokao scores came out. Next was the mutual selection process between schools and students, which you could handle on your phone.

Then my real trouble arrived.

That day I went to school for forms. Someone told me to go to Principal Gao’s office.

I’d been mentally prepared, so I didn’t think much of it. Went straight there.

The moment I opened the door, I froze.

The teachers for several subjects were all there.

Five main-subject teachers sat in a fan arrangement. Each held a sheet of paper. A chair sat in the center, clearly for me.

I sat down nervously, looked at them, waited for questions.

Almost simultaneously, the five teachers handed me their papers, expressions stern. I took them and looked.

Oh no.

They were testing me again.

Each sheet had a standard question from that teacher’s subject.

The five teachers sat upright across from me. Five pairs of eyes stared at me in silence. Principal Gao stood to the side and said, “Beichen, your two exams—ten papers in total—could be called a stunning performance. As teachers, we sincerely hope our school can produce an outstanding talent, especially given that ours is a remote mountain school. Of course, Meng Ran’s lesson is still before us, and its impact has been far-reaching. For the sake of fairness, we need to verify the integrity of your exam results. These five questions were all taken from Exam Form B. Work through them one by one. It won’t take much time. Do them here, in front of the teachers, so everyone can make an assessment. After all, there has been a great deal of talk outside over the past few days, and we owe everyone a proper explanation. Please understand.”

I looked up. Ms. Mei wasn’t there.

She was my homeroom teacher. Taught math. I’d never passed her class. She’d been the first to suspect me. For some reason she hadn’t come. The Class One math teacher was there instead.

I held the papers blankly, looked at the questions one by one.

I really didn’t know how to do them.

The problem was, nowhere to copy from now. These teachers weren’t working through problems, so I couldn’t sense anything useful.

I could use a miracle. Preferably now.