Yang Liu handed out a mock Chinese language test.

In this class, hardly anyone ever listened during Chinese lessons, and Yang Liu didn’t plan to waste her energy trying to make them. Instead, she decided to go with testing—after all, throwing them into a sea of questions couldn’t go wrong.

To prevent them from leaving questions blank, Yang Liu had even put together a set of preventive measures.

For example, the student who answered the fewest questions would have to help her grade papers for an entire day.

No one wanted to be the last one, so even if they had to guess, they’d fill in every blank.

Yang Liu glanced at the large clock hanging at the back of the classroom.

“One hour. No essay; answer as much as you can. Whoever answers the fewest questions stays after school to help me grade.”

Chu Tao: “?”

This was the first time he’d heard of such a rule.

But everyone else in the class was already used to it, and no one objected.

Chu Tao flattened his test paper and wrote his name at the top.

He first glanced over the whole test paper and found that it was mostly composed of past years’ college entrance exam questions from different provinces.

It seemed Yang Liu had pieced together this test from a workbook.

He even recognized two of the reading passages.

Though an hour was definitely too short, he was sure he wouldn’t be the one with the fewest answers.

With limited time, he decided to start with the quickest questions: classical poetry fill-in-the-blanks.

Just as he was about to begin, he heard Fang Sheng behind him muttering, “What comes after ‘Autumn fills the sky with echoes of bugle calls’?”

Chu Tao raised an eyebrow slightly.

It seemed these two second-generation rich kids weren’t entirely clueless; they knew which question would be fastest to answer.

Then he heard Jiang She respond impatiently, “Long smoke and the setting sun close the lone fortress.”

Fang Sheng slapped his thigh. “Damn, She-ge, you’re amazing; I just remembered it.”

Chu Tao: “…”

With that level of skill, knowing which question to answer first wasn’t going to help them much.

After a while, Fang Sheng asked again, “Bro, do you know On the Teacher?”

Jiang She replied coolly, “Skip it. Go to the next question.”

Fang Sheng fell silent for a moment, then complained pitifully, “I barely know Wandering Far and Free, Appeal for My Family, or The Difficulty of Shu Road. What question am I supposed to answer?”

Chu Tao struggled to keep a straight face and almost burst out laughing.

With that kind of performance, they’d fail even with open-book exams.

He quickly finished the poetry fill-ins and moved on to the classical text translations.

He heard Jiang She say, “Why don’t you just copy?”

The classroom wasn’t quiet; clearly, they weren’t the only ones with this idea.

Yang Liu, sitting on a chair on the podium with her eyes closed, seemed to ignore it.

To her, if these students could memorize even a bit from copying, that would be a win.

The original Class 3 had had some good students—not as chaotic as now.

But high school is a race against time, and the parents of the good students couldn’t tolerate the disruption. They went crying to the principal’s office, begging to transfer.

The principal, eager to avoid trouble, transferred them all out and replaced them with troublemakers from other classes, thus creating this group of “elites.”

Yang Liu figured this new diligent student probably wouldn’t last long here, so she hadn’t even bothered to remember his name.

Fang Sheng, with his head resting on his arm, twirled his pen and asked Jiang She, “She-ge, did you bring your Chinese textbook? The school turned on the signal blocker again; I can’t get online.”

By now, Chu Tao had reached the sentence translations.

Unsurprisingly, he was probably the fastest in the class.

Suddenly, someone kicked his chair.

Chu Tao’s whole body jolted, and his pen slipped, puncturing the paper and leaving a small round hole on the translation section.

Even a word on the reading comprehension was ruined.

Chu Tao took a deep breath, his expression growing cold.

Pretending nothing happened, he continued to write.

The kicking didn’t stop; Fang Sheng was muttering like a chanting monk, kicking his chair and tugging at his uniform.

“Hey, new guy.”

“Did you hear me? Say something.”

“How much have you written? Let me see.”

“Do you even know what you’re doing?”

“What comes after ‘The winds howl, the apes cry mournfully’?”

Fang Sheng’s constant movements were making Chu Tao tremble, leaving him unable to keep writing.

Finally, Fang Sheng stood up, grabbed Chu Tao’s collar, and jerked him backward. His tone turned hostile: “Are you mute or something?”

Caught off guard, Chu Tao’s neck was pinched by the zipper, and he reflexively leaned back in pain.

It left a slight, stinging pain on his neck.

Chu Tao took a deep breath, grabbed his uniform, and yanked away forcefully.

Breaking free from Fang Sheng’s grip, he stood up, his gaze icy, fists clenched. He kicked Fang Sheng’s desk hard. “Get lost!”

A harsh scraping noise echoed in the classroom as Fang Sheng’s desk slid backward, scattering items onto the floor.

Even Jiang She, who hadn’t spoken a word, wasn’t spared.

Fang Sheng’s desk collided with his, and a can of Coke on Jiang She’s desk wobbled and finally tipped over.

The Coke was full, bubbling and spreading quickly, soaking Jiang She’s entire test paper and dripping onto his uniform pants.

Fang Sheng, furious, sprang up, grabbing Chu Tao’s shirt, his veins pulsing.

“Damn it, what’s wrong with you?”

Chu Tao was a bit taken aback.

He’d just wanted Fang Sheng to leave him alone but hadn’t expected his kick to cause this much of a mess.

In fairness, Fang Sheng had been the one bothering him, and Jiang She hadn’t said a word.

But now, Jiang She had become the most affected.

The class fell silent. Everyone stopped writing and looked at Chu Tao as if he were an alien.

After a year and a half, he wasn’t the first Alpha to stir things up, but he was definitely the boldest.

Even with the teacher present, there’d be no protection for him now.

Maybe nothing would happen in class, but after, Jiang She wouldn’t let it slide.

In just a few days, this one might have to drop out.

Chu Tao pressed his lips together, now pale, letting Fang Sheng hold his shirt.

His once neat uniform, with its carefully folded collar, was now a mess.

A faint red mark, where the plastic zipper had dug in, was left on his neck.

Finally, Jiang She casually tossed his pen into the spilled Coke, looked up with a cold expression, and said to Chu Tao in an indifferent tone, “Come with me.”