NOVEL SIMPLE
Chapter 43
The first exam was Chinese.
The test papers were handed out, and when the exam time came, Qiao Ying calmly picked up her pen to answer the questions.
For a while, the only sound in the entire exam room was the rustling of writing.
The exam takers were all scratching their heads and racking their brains, occasionally glancing at the clock, hurriedly writing, and showing desperate expressions.
By contrast, Qiao Ying remained composed the entire time, completely detached from the tense atmosphere.
It was a stark contrast to the other exam takers.
After finishing the last question, she glanced at the essay topic, and finally handed in her paper ahead of time under the astonished and disapproving looks of the proctor.
As soon as she stepped out of the school gate, Qiao Ying was surrounded by reporters asking for an interview.
Qiao Ying bypassed them directly, and saw a teenage boy standing under the shade of a tree not far away.
When the boy noticed her, he walked over quickly under the blazing sun.
"Sis, you handed in your paper early?"
"Mm."
"You didn't go back?" Qiao Ying looked at his bright red face.
"No - how did you do on the exam? Was it difficult?"
"It was alright." Qiao Ying said between heavy breaths. Qiao Yi listened and felt relieved, but then Qiao Ying added: "I didn't write the essay."
"You didn't write it?!"
Qiao Yi was dumbfounded.
"Sixty points, and you didn't write it?"
Qiao Yi anxiously said. Only then did he remember that he only knew Qiao Ying was good at math, but had no idea how she did in other subjects.
Qiao Yi thought it was over.
"It won't affect getting into Peking University." Qiao Ying calmly reassured him in a sentence.
"The total score is 750, last year Peking University's admission cutoff was 690. Without the essay, you're already missing 60 points. Even if you got full marks on everything else and just met the admission cutoff..." How is that possible?"
"Why wouldn't it be possible?" Qiao Ying lightly rebutted, bringing Qiao Yi to a nice-looking restaurant near the school: "Let's eat first."
By the time the food was served, the exam time was already up. Large groups of exam takers walked out of the school one after another, and the restaurant quickly filled up.
Xu Mingchen and his parents also came to the restaurant.
Xu's father had reserved a table early. Going upstairs to the second floor, Xu Mingchen immediately caught sight of the Qiao siblings sitting by the window.
"Mingchen, how was the exam?" Xu's father asked caringly.
"It was a lot more difficult than the last few years' national college entrance exam papers that I've done before." Xu Mingchen answered truthfully. The national college entrance exam papers from the previous years, he had done them all.
The other students who came to eat also complained to their families that the questions were difficult, looking utterly devastated and under a lot of pressure. The ones with weaker resilience even cried directly.
Xu's father comforted his son: "Don't stress yourself out."
Qiao Yi, seeing those exam takers crying and wailing about the difficulty, was even less in the mood to eat.
"Why didn't you write the essay?" he asked Qiao Ying.
The Xu family happened to be sitting next to the Qiao siblings. Even though Qiao Yi had lowered his voice, Xu Mingchen still heard it, but he didn't pay much attention to it.
Qiao Ying smiled and said, "I was too lazy to write that many words, plus the essay required realism." Mainly because she had enough points already.
Realism? Write about her life as an assassin? Or write about her extravagant leisure time? Or write about Qiao Ying being bullied since she was little? Or how her soul was reborn?
At this time Xu Mingchen glanced at Qiao Ying again, with no other intention, just feeling that Qiao Ying was hopeless. During the exam he had already seen Qiao Ying leave early after handing in her paper ahead of time.
He didn't expect her to have handed in a completely blank essay.
"You could have just made something up, even poorly written that's still 20 or 30 points. Do you know high school entrance exam scores are separated by just one point for so many students?"
"But I'm no good at making up stories." Qiao Ying smiled.
Seeing Qiao Yi with a worried expression, even a little angry, Qiao Ying picked up some food with her chopsticks and placed it in his bowl, saying: "If I don't get admitted, I'll take that essay question and go to Peking University, how about that?"
Hearing Qiao Ying say this, Qiao Yi finally felt reassured.
What they didn't know was that Qiao Lingling had already taken the exam in Qiao Ying's place.
And hearing Qiao Ying's words, Xu Mingchen couldn't help but glance over again. Yet from beginning to end, Qiao Ying didn't look at him, as if she hadn't even noticed him there.
Qiao Yi, on the other hand, shot him a complex look at first.
"What are you looking at, hurry up and eat, you can rest after eating." Xu's father picked up some dishes for his son.
In the math, science, and English exams that followed, Qiao Ying handed in her papers ahead of time before the allowed time was up, and was the first to leave the exam room each time.
Over the past couple days, Qiao Yi had learned from students' cries of distress online that this year's national college entrance exam was the most difficult in nearly ten years. And seeing Qiao Ying be the first one out every time, Qiao Yi no longer held out hope. Fortunately, Qiao Ying had Peking University's admission quota spot reserved.
After finishing the last exam, English, Qiao Yi waited at the school gate holding a bouquet of flowers, and was asked by reporters if he was there to pick up his girlfriend or classmate.
Qiao Yi expressionlessly replied: "Picking up my sister."
As soon as Qiao Ying came out she saw Qiao Yi holding the flowers.
She had just walked over when Qiao Yi stiffly shoved them in front of her and curtly said, "Here."
"What?" Qiao Ying didn't take them, looking at him with an ambiguous smile.
"Giving them to you."
"Giving me flowers for what?"
"To celebrate. And...everyone else has some." Qiao Yi was extremely awkward, blushing and unnatural.
Qiao Ying smiled and didn't tease him further, taking the flowers from him.
"Thanks."
"I think this is the first time someone's given me flowers." Qiao Ying mused, then seemed to recall that maybe it wasn't.
If she remembered correctly, that brat Ye Si had given her flowers before.
Of course, not formally, and not to celebrate anything. Just sometimes at balls he'd rakishly hand her a red rose.
There was never any of this sort of trite gift-giving between them.
Qiao Yi pressed his lips together, suppressing the smile at the corners of his mouth.
This time Qiao Ying didn't get away cleanly, and was surrounded by some reporters.
"Excuse me, you handed in your papers early and were the first one out for every subject. Everyone's saying this year's exam was the hardest. What did you think of the difficulty level? Could you tell us a bit about it?"
Facing the camera, Qiao Ying coolly yet bluntly answered with the truth: "Just needed skill."
Knowing Qiao Ying was weak in liberal arts and had left the Chinese essay completely blank, Qiao Yi wanted to warn Qiao Ying to be cautious answering.
With the internet being so advanced nowadays, if she didn't get ideal scores, it would be easy to get flamed online.
"Then how many points do you expect to get? What's your ideal university? How have your grades been normally?"
"With grades so good, why didn't you get an admission quota spot?"
Hearing Qiao Ying's arrogant tone, the reporters all stretched their mics toward her.
Qiao Ying frowned slightly, a few traces of icy impatience seeping from her brows and eyes: "You're crowding me and ruining the flowers."
The reporters were a bit frightened by Qiao Ying's warning look.
In the moment they were stunned, Qiao Ying had already left with Qiao Yi.
Just as Qiao Yi imagined, good news doesn't travel fast, but bad news does. Qiao Ying's interview video spread wildly online, provoking the intense resentment and denunciation of countless candidates who had suffered setbacks in the exam hall.
Passersby and parents also criticized Qiao Ying for being too arrogant.
Informed sources then exposed that Qiao Ying had been the very last in her high school class for all three years, and had even cheated on the final math exam last time to get the top grade in the cohort, but the school not only didn't punish her, they even covered it up for her.
More and more people claiming to be Qiao Ying's high school classmates from her senior year 3rd class stood up to expose Qiao Ying's past.
Some even directly leaked out Qiao Ying's grades this semester, listing all of Qiao Ying's black history.
In the end, everyone was waiting for the scores to come out and slap Qiao Ying in the face.
And so, Qiao Ying became randomly notorious online for a while.
Returning home, Qiao Yi was surprised to find Qiao Lingling sleeping at home.
He felt confused, and was just about to ask Qiao Lingling if she hadn't gone to take the exam, when Qiao's father got home from work and called him: "Little Yi."
After a while, Qiao Yi knocked on Qiao Ying's door.
"Sis, Dad said we're not eating at home tonight. Third uncle invited us to eat at a nice restaurant."