Volume 9: The Acidity of the Setting Sun
Chapter 27: The College Entrance Examination
Amidst the intense preparations for the exam, the calendar numbers on the phone kept ticking over, finally stopping on April 15th. Some say that an ordinary person in Shenzhou only has two chances to change their destiny: once with the College Entrance Examination, and once with marriage. If both fail, an ordinary person will forever lose the chance to get back on the track. No matter how hard they try, they will only stray further and further down a divergent path until they turn into a handful of dust, leaving a mountain-like pressure for the next generation, and the generation after that…
Lu Li had officially entered the game industry in his previous life because, after releasing his first game, he had received extra points during his university interview and was successfully admitted. After graduation, he was able to rely on his professor’s connections and, with the help of his senior classmates, raise enough funds to establish his own company. He had to admit, if he hadn’t gotten into university back then, he might have been like most of the dropouts from the Low-Rent District, still struggling on the poverty line. The resources he could control in his lifetime would have continuously flowed to an unknown destination through endless transactions. When he got old, he might have lamented that he had few savings in his life.
April 15th, the unified College Entrance Examination of Shenzhou, first batch. An Baili and Wen Hupo couldn’t participate in the first batch of exams, so today’s battlefield was left to Lu Li alone. Yameng sent him a message: “Good luck! You’re the best!” Lu Li smiled. It was the most clichéd line ever, but he liked hearing it. He wouldn’t get tired of hearing it for another fifty years.
He was perhaps the most eye-catching candidate at the examination site. Before entering the exam hall, two beautiful young women, one from the east and one from the west, doted on him with utmost care, their intimacy apparent to all.
After indulging in happiness, An Baili had become more and more thoughtless. This “thoughtless” was not meant in a derogatory sense; Lu Li actually preferred it this way. This girl’s first half of her life had been miserable enough; from now on, it was fine for her to just enjoy her blessings in a silly way. She hugged Lu Li’s arm and said stickily, “Li, good luck, good luck! Actually, it’s okay if you don’t do well. None of us will look down on you for being uncultured anyway. Hupo, would you look down on Lu Li for not having gone to university?”
Wen Hupo shot An Baili a contemptuous look. She had become more and more familiar with An Baili these days and had gotten used to teasing the little village girl. Even so, Lu Li always felt that they seemed to have grown closer; the faint barrier that had existed between them seemed to be constantly fading. If it were just daily interaction, these two, with their incompatible personalities, shouldn’t have gotten along so harmoniously… Lu Li couldn’t figure out the principle behind it either.
“Outstanding Representative, I believe this entrance exam will be no difficulty for you. But if you still want to see her, you—no, we—need to think further ahead. For example, your arrangements after you enroll…” Wen Hupo was still so rational. Although her tone was cold, her words were filled with enthusiasm and concern. Lu Li looked at her chattering appearance and couldn’t help but smile.
“What are you smiling at?” Wen Hupo asked curiously.
“Hupo, when did you become so talkative? You’re like a mother,” Lu Li teased. He had thought Wen Hupo would be annoyed, but she said seriously:
“Because I like you.” She said this sentence so easily, like the wind blowing through a bamboo forest, calm and fragrant.
Lu Li was stunned for a moment, then also said seriously, “It is my great fortune.” Wen Hupo was just this kind of woman.
“Good luck.” She nodded slightly. Her expression was cold. Lu Li thought she was so cool, like a piece of ice.
An Baili looked back and forth between the two of them. She probably understood now why Lu Li had gotten together with Wen Hupo in the beginning. Wen Hupo was truly a terrifying rival, able to unleash a powerful move without making a sound, able to speak words of love as easily as drinking water. Even Lu Li, that old hand, was caught off guard. Fortunately, in this life, Wen Hupo was considered her ally. A thousand thoughts ran through the little village girl’s mind.
Lu Li imitated Wen Hupo’s cool demeanor, giving a wave without looking back as he walked toward the security gate. He originally thought he was being extremely suave, but halfway there, he heard the girls’ cheers from behind him. He couldn’t help but turn his head back and wave cheerfully, completely ruining his suave image.
After having his admission ticket checked at the gate, Lu Li walked into Chuanhai No. 1 High School with two pens.
He remembered that third-year students always liked to compare the entrance exam hall to a battlefield and the candidates to swordsmen sheathing their swords. After he took his seat, he looked at the candidates sitting upright in front of and behind him and thought the metaphor was apt. The solemn atmosphere of the exam hall was no different from a battlefield, and the ticking of the quartz clock on the wall was as loud as a war drum.
Half of the candidates in the same hall were students from other high schools in Chuanhai. They didn’t have the illustrious family backgrounds of the Chuanhai No. 1 High School students and seemed a bit cramped sitting in the unfamiliar classroom. The boy sitting in front of Lu Li, in his nervousness, accidentally dropped his pen under the seat. In an instant, dozens of pairs of eyes from everyone in the classroom shot toward him. The boy awkwardly bent down to pick up the pen, praying in his heart that the ink cartridge hadn’t broken. When he stood up, he saw Lu Li’s face and suddenly asked, “Are you… Lu Li?”
“You know me?” Lu Li didn’t consider himself a celebrity; his name shouldn’t have been famous throughout Chuanhai yet.
“You’re that Zou Yameng’s younger brother… I know. I saw it on the news.” This boy was a little excited; it seemed he was one of Yameng’s fans. So it wasn’t that he knew him, Lu Li, but that he knew Yameng. Unwittingly, Yameng had also become a celebrity, while he, Lu Li, was dragging the small family down.
The little fanboy was about to say more, but he saw two proctors walk into the classroom, each holding a sealed bag. The boy could only swallow the words in his stomach.
Half an hour later, the preparatory bell rang, and the proctors unsealed the exam papers in front of everyone. The papers were not uniformly set, but were independently prepared by each university and then packaged in envelopes and sent to the various examination sites. Lu Li received the envelope and could see a line of large characters printed on the seal: “To be opened by the candidate, Lu Li.”
Lu Li opened the envelope and briefly scanned the exam paper. The morning exam on the first day was on the basic principles of society, which covered a wide range of subjects including psychology, logic, sociology, and history, and was somewhat beyond the syllabus. As far as Lu Li knew, the difficulty of these universities’ independent exams was increasing year by year, and a university degree was becoming rarer and more precious year by year. He thought idly, would there be a day in the future when Zhu Xi, on a whim, would reform the College Entrance Examination, have a unified national exam, and expand university enrollment, so that every young student in Shenzhou could go to university?
The exam questions were not difficult for Lu Li. He had the experience of two lifetimes and was at ease with these questions that tested a student’s understanding and analytical skills. Lu Li estimated that when An Baili took the second batch of exams, she probably wouldn’t stumble on this subject either. In terms of experience, Auntie An Baili was perhaps the most senior one.
Lu Li answered the questions quickly. After finishing the paper, he still had leisure time to think about his past life:
He remembered that in his previous life, Chu Jingyi had, by a strange coincidence, been in the same examination hall as him. That’s right, what was it she had said back then…
