The main reason he insisted on heading out himself was to withdraw some cash. If he didn’t pull that thousand yuan from his bank card, he’d truly be out of living expenses.
Withdrawing a grand like that in front of his mom? As a student, no amount of explaining would help, even if it left him parched.
Besides, though a hundred yuan a week was more than enough, lining up repeatedly to top up his meal card wasn’t exactly thrilling.
After grabbing the money from the bank and returning to school, it was right in the middle of class time. Down on the sports field, underclassmen were shooting hoops and jogging.
He knew they were underclassmen because no senior in their final year had PE classes.
Extracurricular exercise had been replaced by something called the morning run exercise.
Now, with the Gaokao looming, even those sessions had become few and far between.
No time to wax nostalgic about this familiar campus or ogle the vibrant underclass girls brimming with youth. With the other seniors still in class, he hustled to the cafeteria to recharge his meal card first.
The auntie at the recharge window eyed his five-foot-nine frame and launched straight into stern reproach. “A senior sneaking out before class ends to top up your meal card?”
He’d anticipated this and shot back with utter confidence. “I’m a junior, Auntie. It’s PE class for me.”
She gave him a skeptical once-over, but luckily, the build difference between juniors and seniors wasn’t that stark. No matter how she scrutinized him, Mo Xiangwen stood tall and unshaken.
As long as he didn’t feel guilty, the guilt would be on her.
“Fine, you are pretty tall. I figured you for a senior.”
“No worries, Auntie. Hurry and top it up for me—assembly’s starting soon.”
After urging her to finish the recharge, he made it back to the classroom just as the homeroom teacher was giving a math lesson.
Down below, students buried their noses in extracurricular books or fiddled with their phones, while up front, the teacher droned on about obscure, impenetrable formulas.
Homeroom teacher Xiang Ming was a potbellied middle-aged man with the stereotypical Mediterranean hairstyle and a pair of black-rimmed glasses.
In the students’ eyes, Xiang Ming was the prickly type—quick to anger and tough to talk to.
He hadn’t liked this homeroom teacher much back in the day, what with his own slacker attitude and carefree vibe. He’d caught an earful from Xiang Ming more times than he could count.
It wasn’t until much later that he realized some teachers scolded for the sake of scolding, but most who chewed you out actually believed you had potential. The ones who didn’t bother? They’d already written you off.
Like college professors—they got it. You sleep through class, they lecture away. Take it or leave it; we were just passing ships.
As long as you didn’t skip outright, they couldn’t care less if you dozed off right in front of them.
“Reporting in!”
Every eye in the class snapped to him, then just as quickly lost interest and went back to their own thing.
After all, he’d only been gone a day on sick leave. Nothing special.
Xiang Ming glanced toward the door and adjusted his glasses. “Mo Xiangwen… back already? Take your seat, quick.”
He slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed to the back row, stopping at the middle seat in the very last row.
No sooner had Mo Xiangwen sat down than his desk mate nudged his arm and leaned over. “Weren’t you sick? Why not rest a couple more days?”
Cai Yibin was both his desk mate and roommate—a classic square-jawed guy with neat short hair.
Back in freshman and sophomore year, Cai Yibin partied harder than he did. Then, out of nowhere in senior year, the guy did a one-eighty in the first semester, knuckling down to be a model student.
Old habits died hard, though. These days, he was still three days fishing, two days drying nets—scores hovering around the same mediocre level as his own.
“Say I wanna buckle down and study for real. You buying it?”
“Nope. I’d buy it more if you said you hit Challenger rank trash-talking in Honor of Kings and lost your taste for gaming.”
“Then go with that. Same difference in the end.”
Mo Xiangwen clapped him on the shoulder, straightened his books, and pulled out his math textbook.
“Where’re we at?”
“Page 117.”
Mo Xiangwen flipped it open and tuned into the lesson.
Gradually, something felt off.
Math, which he’d abandoned for years, he was following with effortless ease—right in step with the teacher’s train of thought.
Even at his sharpest back then, a single lapse in attention during math class would leave him completely lost.
The bell rang, snapping him out of his deep dive into problem-solving.
Reviewing the textbook and examples again, he realized he could grasp maybe seventy or eighty percent of the material.
“Heading to the school shop?” Cai Yibin asked.
“Nah, I wanna cram some old lessons while I can.”
Suddenly, a guy leaned in, slapping his hands down on both their shoulders.
“What’re you studying for? You can scrape by with a third-tier college at best—or a community college if it comes to that.”
Liao Feiyang grinned. “What, after one day away, how many ranks’d you climb on the sly?”
Truth be told, Liao Feiyang wasn’t exactly a friend, but they’d shot the breeze about games a few times—familiar enough.
Mo Xiangwen helplessly patted his hand, signaling him to back off.
“Not a single rank. Lost the itch for it.”
“Fair enough. We’ll grind ranks together another day.”
“Nah, not feeling games right now. You guys go.”
Liao Feiyang eyed him oddly. “Half-day off on the weekend and no internet cafe? What’s the plan?”
He sighed and pulled out his Chinese textbook.
His mind was wholly on that weird sensation from earlier—no bandwidth left for them.
“Rest. Catch some real sleep.”
“Half a day free and you’re sleeping it off? Haven’t you slept enough in class?”
“No more sleeping. Time to study for real—you too.” Mo Xiangwen glanced at him. “One month left. Hustle a bit, you might snag that community college spot.”
Hustling for a community college sounded laughable.
But that was the grim reality for the bottom-feeders in the regular classes at this, the city’s worst high school.
Sleeping through the day, scaling the walls at night for gaming sessions.
Pathetic as it was, he’d joined them on a few wall-climbs himself.
If not for the solid foundation from his top-tier junior high, he’d probably be scraping for that same community college level.
“Tch, this late in the game, putting on a show?” Liao Feiyang scoffed, sounding bored. “Like cramming now’s gonna do squat?”
His words barely landed before a bunch of guys crowded in.
“What, Lao Mo’s hitting the books?”
“Didn’t you say aim for community college, third-tier’s a stretch?”
“Gaokao’s in thirty-odd days. Starting now? Kinda late, yeah?”
Mo Xiangwen regarded them silently. He knew most meant no harm.
They just didn’t see it in him—or themselves. Stating the obvious, that’s all.
That was the vibe in so-called elite schools: everyone grinding, you hustled to keep up.
But surrounded by this crowd—poor grades, confidence worn to a nub—your own drive eroded too.
Close to vermilion, you turn red; near ink, black as night. Simple as that.
Any kid actually trying to study stood out like a sore thumb among them.
“Alright, alright. You slackers won’t study, but you won’t let him either? What’s that about?” Cai Yibin shoved the onlookers back.
Classmates or not, those game nights shooting the shit weren’t fake.
Mo Xiangwen mulled it over, then said, “Never too late. You guys too.”
He wasn’t one for lectures, didn’t plan to preach—just a heads-up for old times’ sake.
As expected, a few snickers rippled through, but at least they lost interest and dispersed.
“Lao Mo, you serious about turning over a new leaf?” Cai Yibin eyed him curiously.
“Like you.” Mo Xiangwen shot him a look and handed over his meal card. “Since you’re hitting the school shop, grab me some ham sausages and snacks on the way back.”
“Sure thing, Lao Mo. Knock ’em dead.” Cai Yibin clapped his shoulder, pocketed the card, and sauntered off.
Finally, some peace, he thought.
Time to test that odd feeling from earlier—probably not his imagination.
He cracked open the textbook at random. Boom—Qin Yuanchun.
He’d always had a soft spot for this ci poem. A quick skim, and he’d committed the whole thing to memory anew.
Not counting that. Flip again—Classic of Poetry.
Well, damn. He’d never fully memorized this passage from the Classic of Poetry before.
“The rustic rube came a-wooing, with coarse cloth for fine silk he traded…” He read along with the text a few times, suddenly brimming with the confidence that it was burned into his brain.
Mo Xiangwen hesitated, closed the book, and recited from memory, slow and steady.
The whole thing flowed out flawlessly, no hitches.
Opening the book to check: spot-on, no errors.
Unreasonable, sure. He’d studied this lesson ages ago, recited it even.
But his recall wasn’t deep—not like with favorites such as Qin Yuanchun or the Memorial on Sending Troops, the kind that rolled off the tongue forever once learned.
This was rote for exams—shallow stuff. Fresh off the test, maybe the gist; years later, just a vague impression.
Rediscovering it after a few reads… compared to reincarnating, hey, not so bad.
He pondered for a moment, then pulled a nearly pristine English textbook from the bookshelf.
His English was abysmal—truly awful, scraping by with barely passing grades.
Most exams relied on blind guessing, and anything he couldn’t guess at, he simply left blank.
If not for his terrible English, he could have tested into the city’s top key junior high. He wouldn’t have ended up in the worst regular high school.
Even if his youthful laziness accounted for ninety-nine percent of the blame, couldn’t English share at least a sliver of fault for being so damn hard to learn?
Setting those facts aside, the real reason he chose English was that he had almost no deep-seated memory of it. Every passage felt brand new, as innocent as starting from zero.
Mo Xiangwen flipped to the word list at the back and tentatively began memorizing by sounding out each letter.
After repeating the process a few times, he had a rough sense of it. He pulled out the math textbook from earlier, flipped to the end, and gave it a try.
Sure enough, it proved that old saying: Women might deceive you, but math never lies—if you don’t get it, you really don’t.
No matter how hard he racked his brain for half a day, no solution came to him.
It felt less like photographic memory and more like an efficiency boost, one that kicked in whenever he focused.
Perhaps because his Chinese skills were already excellent to begin with, the improvement in his review efficiency stood out most there.
English lagged far behind by comparison. Even memorizing the same characters took far longer than with Chinese—but it was still better than before.
Math? Hopeless.
Maybe after working through more problems, the ability would help him rapidly connect the dots to solutions.
But for now, without enough practice problems to build on, no amount of focus could crack them.
His math wasn’t irredeemably bad, though. Catching up on the lessons should be manageable.
Just a few minutes of testing had left him noticeably hungry. That must be the ability’s price.
It burned through energy at an accelerated rate to heighten focus and efficiency.
For the time being, he’d call it “Overload Mode.”
“Here, your snacks.” Cai Yibin tossed a pack of ham sausages and some other treats onto his desk. “Oh, and I grabbed you a bottle of Ice Coca-Cola. No thanks necessary.”
“Thanks.”
Mo Xiangwen tore open the wrappers and demolished the snacks in mere minutes. Cai Yibin stared, slack-jawed.
“You skip breakfast or what?”
“I ate, but it didn’t stick.” Mo Xiangwen eyed the snacks on his desk. “You bought a ton—share some more?”
“No dice. This is my three-day emergency stash.”
“I’ll hit the shop after next class and pay you back.”
High school seniors ran on a different schedule from other grades. Morning or afternoon, the last period always started twenty minutes early and ended twenty minutes early.
It was all to spare them cafeteria lines, freeing up more time to study.
The cafeteria even stayed open for late-night snacks after evening self-study—a perk unique to third-years.
Next period was the morning’s final class. Afterward, he could grab food and swing by the shop without the crowds.
“Fine, you twisted my arm.” Cai Yibin hesitated, then dropped his guard over the snacks. “Pick what you want. After that, I’ve got something to ask you.”
It was Mo Xiangwen who’d asked in the first place, so he didn’t stand on ceremony. He snatched the highest-calorie packs and tore right in.
“Shoot.”
“What’s your deal? You really turned a corner?”
“What’s the point of asking? Didn’t you pull a one-eighty at the start of senior year?”
“It matters—a lot.” Cai Yibin nodded, dead serious. “If you’re not messing around, that means I’ve got a study buddy.”
Mo Xiangwen paused mid-bite, silent for a beat before countering, “Do I look like I’m messing around?”
“That’s exactly why it seems so insane.” Cai Yibin sighed. “Over summer vacation, Old Dad dumped me on the assembly line at our family factory. Whole damn break.”
“You might not get it—the place is hot, stuffy, and when it’s busy, you can’t even catch your breath.”
“Two months in, and I swore I’d never go near it again.”
“Shift end was always midnight. My legs and hands didn’t even feel like mine anymore.”
“Dad told me, ‘With your skills, you can’t even handle basic accounting with someone walking you through it. Assembly line’s all you’re good for.'”
“Ever since getting back to school, I’ve been thinking, screw the factory.”
“Learning? Piece of cake, as long as it keeps me out of there.”
Mo Xiangwen let out a sigh. Sure enough, for kids their age, nothing drove home the need to study like a taste of real hardship.
“Ever seen the sunrise at four in the morning from a construction site?”
“Ever baked on a worksite in the June-July scorch?”
“Don’t dwell on it.” He clapped Cai Yibin on the shoulder. “Let’s grind together.”
Do you know that gnawing fear when your savings are nearly tapped out, yet layoffs loom on the horizon? He swallowed those last words and kept them buried deep inside.
