Chapter 44: About the Same

Although Xu Yannuo was the one who started the joke, she never expected Chen Ciyi to respond like that. Her face instantly turned red as she snapped, “Chen Ciyi, have some shame!”

Chen Ciyi shrugged indifferently and continued lounging around, doing whatever he pleased. Suddenly, Xu Yannuo remembered something important. She turned to look at him just as he was spinning a pen while scrolling through short anime videos on a certain site. “Hey,” she called out.

“Hmm?” Chen Ci responded absentmindedly, his gaze still fixed on his phone, though he tilted his head slightly toward her.

Xu Yannuo looked at him with concern. Now that they were friends, she felt she should remind him, “The exams are next week.”

“Mmm.” Chen Ci answered distractedly, still watching the video as if completely unaware of the seriousness of the matter.

Xu Yannuo tapped his phone screen to pause the video, “Are you even listening to me?”

Chen Ci tilted his head to look at her, his expression calm and composed. He didn’t seem angry about having his video paused. “I heard it. There’s an exam next week. What about it?”

“And you’re asking me what about it? Didn’t you hear a single thing the chemistry teacher just said about you?”

Chen Ci looked utterly clueless. “He talked about me? I had a bitter coffee last night and barely slept. I was so deeply asleep just now that I didn’t hear anything. What did he say?”

“He just questioned the authenticity of you being a top student and said he’d settle the score with you after this exam.” Xu Yannuo sighed. “Probably the other teachers feel the same way. They’ve all been pretty displeased with you lately, even if they haven’t said it out loud. After all, in class…” you’re either sleeping or buried in your own stuff, hardly paying attention. You don’t even bother pretending, and that kind of arrogance naturally makes all the teachers angry.

Xu Yannuo paused for a moment, “Anyway, don’t sleep in the next class. Put on a good performance first, at least leave a good impression on the teacher before the exam. Just in case you really don’t do well…” Who knows if it’ll end so badly, right?

Sensing the unspoken words from Xu Yannuo, Chen Ciyi smiled and bluntly pointed it out, “You mean everyone’s waiting for me, and after the exam, it’ll be my doom, right?”

Xu Yannuo nodded worriedly, “Pretty much.”

Chen Ciyi responded with an “Oh” and asked, “Then how many points would make them shut up?”

Xu Yannuo thought carefully for a moment, making sure to convey the information accurately to Chen Ciyi so he could be mentally prepared. “The principal recruited you as a top student based on your academic reputation. Following past precedents, you’d at least have to rank within the top 50 in the grade.” That’s why Xu Yannuo was a bit worried about him—after all, the scores needed to be in the top 50 were genuinely high. “Ji Yang from Class 4 has always been the top student in the grade. In the last monthly exam before you arrived, he scored 647. The top 50 scores are fiercely competitive—even the 50th place requires a score between 570 and 590. So, don’t you think you should review properly?”

Watching Xu Yannuo’s nervous expression, Chen Ciyi smiled. “Trust your deskmate.”

Xu Yannuo pursed her lips, watching him continue to open his phone and watch videos. She really didn’t know what to say; she actually wanted to believe him.

But from the time we met until now, skipping studying and staying up late to run into her fighting in those deserted alleys no one goes to, not going home after school but standing behind her in shady internet cafes teasing her about tutoring, flaunting everywhere only to get bullied, framed by Li Wei and called out to be extorted by vocational school thugs, sleeping or playing dumb games and watching videos in class instead of paying attention—oh, right, and showing off by solving those test questions she couldn’t even understand… What top student isn’t low-key, afraid others might find out they’ve been studying in secret?

She really wanted to believe he was a top student, but the key question was—what reason did she have to believe him?