The medicine in the infirmary was very cheap—just a few cents per box when paid with a student card.

Chu Tao took the appropriate medicine and quickly recovered.

It wasn’t long after he recovered that the midterm exams arrived.

This midterm was a joint exam between three provinces, using a shared set of papers. The exam questions were set by top teachers from these three provinces, and the difficulty was particularly high, so all the schools took it very seriously.

These teachers were famous because of their extremely accurate grasp of the direction of the college entrance exam, having produced dozens of students who had gone on to attend top universities like Tsinghua and Peking University.

When the midterm results came out, Chu Tao ranked 21st in the grade, just one place behind last time.

Although Jiang She didn’t make as much progress as last time, he still advanced by 180 ranks.

Chu Tao took back his exam papers and frowned as he compared them with the answer key.

To be fair, he felt that he had performed even better than in the mock exams this time. Chemistry was no longer his weak point, and considering the scores from all subjects, he didn’t make any major mistakes. He had earned the points he deserved, so logically, he should have made progress, not a regression.

But then he thought, perhaps he had been too eager for quick results. Although he felt he had improved a lot recently, others had likely made even greater progress.

And it was just a midterm, with still a year left until the college entrance exam, so his mood improved considerably.

After class, Chu Tao went to ask about Chu Xingning’s results.

Chu Xingning was also a bit disappointed.

This time, he ranked 11th, falling out of the top five in the grade, which was his lowest rank since entering high school.

Chu Tao was surprised. “How did that happen?”

Chu Xingning shook his head and quietly said, “Maybe I’ve been a bit distracted lately.”

He had indeed been spending some time with that little kid from junior high.

That kid brought him a hapiness and he often thought of him, even during class.

Chu Tao paused for a moment before asking, “What about Fu Kaiyi?”

Chu Xingning looked up and lightly kicked the railing in the corridor. “Fu Kaiyi didn’t do well either. He’s ranked 6th in the grade this time.”

To think that the perennial first-place student came in 6th— it was hard to believe.

Chu Tao sighed. “This midterm was really a big shake-up. Maybe we just weren’t used to the three-province joint exam.”

Chu Xingning patted Chu Tao’s shoulder and comforted him, “Actually, you did fine. 20th and 21st, that’s essentially holding your ground.”

“Mm.” Chu Tao didn’t undervalue himself. Although this result hadn’t met his expectations, it at least proved that he had the strength to stay in the top 20.

Chu Xingning cleared his throat, glanced around, and whispered, “By the way, did you know? Shen Hongfang ranked 90th this time, and he’s only barely ahead of the bottom ten. That means he almost fell out of the top 100.”

Chu Tao and Chu Xingning exchanged a glance, silently sweating for Shen Hongfang.

Given Tang Lingmei’s obsession with results and her strictness towards Shen Hongfang, this ranking was likely going to cause a huge uproar at home.

Chu Tao pressed his temples and took a deep breath. “Aunt Tang isn’t going to call Mom again, is she?”

Chu Xingning shook his head, helplessly saying, “Who knows? When I ran into Shen Hongfang at the little convenience store, he didn’t seem very stable emotionally. He’s probably pretty shaken up. But the Omega from my class already broke up with him, so it shouldn’t be affecting him now. It’s just that the midterm was so close to the mock exam. How could his ranking drop so much?”

Chu Xingning was also puzzled inside—how could his own ranking have dropped so much?

When the class bell rang, Chu Tao ran back to the classroom.

The class was as chaotic as usual.

Dai Wenjian sat on a desk, grumbling to Pang Cai, “Damn, you’re way too exaggerated, huh? 750? Who are you trying to impress?! You made more progress than Jiang She!”

Pang Cai had always been at the bottom of Class Three, and it was hard to be lower-ranked than him, let alone in the whole grade.

Pang Cai rolled his eyes and sneered, “How was I supposed to know you guys were so useless? I just copied a few science multiple-choice answers and somehow I jumped 500 places. You all in the top 1000 are a bunch of fools?”

Dai Wenjian immediately laughed, “You idiot, you have no idea what you’re talking about. The exam was harder this time! It was a joint exam with three provinces, and everyone was just copying a few random questions. You could’ve progressed by a few dozen places at most. Look at you, do you really think your mom would believe it?”

Pang Cai’s face dropped, and he said gloomily, “Of course she wouldn’t believe it. My mom wouldn’t even believe me if I won a hundred million in the lottery, let alone think I jumped 500 places.”

Dai Wenjian laughed even more, “Ha ha, good luck explaining that to her.”

Chu Tao listened with little interest, not really paying attention. The students in Class Three didn’t care much about their grades, but their parents did, so whenever there was an exam, everyone would try to copy a little bit to avoid trouble at home if their grades improved.

Jiang She leaned in close, whispering in Chu Tao’s ear, “Do you think you didn’t do well on the exam?”

Chu Tao was already used to his proximity. Hearing this, he just turned his head slightly and glanced at Jiang She from the corner of his eye. “Not exactly. It was okay, at least I didn’t regress.”

Jiang She held Chu Tao’s shoulder, gently rubbing it with his thumb as if to comfort him. “If you feel like any subject didn’t go well, I can find a teacher for tutoring.”

Chu Tao quickly replied, “Don’t. You should focus on your own weak subjects.”

Fang Sheng overheard their conversation and loudly said, “Hey, class monitor, you’re being too hard on yourself. The exam wasn’t that bad. Didn’t you know?”

Chu Tao turned around, confused. “Know what?”

Fang Sheng paused and raised an eyebrow. “Wait, you really don’t know?”

Chu Tao didn’t say anything, and even Jiang She frowned.

Fang Sheng licked his lips excitedly. “The exam questions were leaked this time. The answers were posted on a forum. How do you think Lin Jianbi got first place in the grade? And Liang Qiufeng and Chunyu Jing—those two have been professionals at copying for years. When it’s time for big exams, their true colors always show.”

Chu Tao had seen the grade rankings, and indeed, some people had made seemingly exaggerated progress, but he hadn’t considered the possibility of the exam questions being leaked.

“Our school’s computers has a firewall, right?”

Fang Sheng shrugged innocently. “The answers were released the day before the exam. You could just download them or make copies. Only people who frequent the cheating site could get the answers firsthand. By the time I found out, it was too late.”

Chu Tao sighed.

He felt quite regretful.

The exam had been designed by the best teachers from three provinces, and it was supposed to be the most reliable indicator of the deficiencies in various schools. However, all the hard work from so many schools was completely nullified by the cheating.

If there were students in every school who had access to the answers, and there were a significant number of them, then the resulting scores would be completely meaningless.

Jiang She gritted his teeth. “Who’s the idiot that leaked the exam questions?”

Although he had comforted Chu Tao, he himself wasn’t happy about it.

This was the first time in his life that he had put effort into studying, and yet his score was similar to Pang Cai’s. If the scores were accurate, he might even question his own intelligence.

Dai Wenjian leaned over. “I know who did it. Someone hacked the email of the teacher who created the exam questions—someone from another school. After stealing them, they shared the answers generously. That’s why the rankings changed so drastically this time. I bet the school will investigate it. Did you notice that even Teacher Yang didn’t mention the rankings?”

Not only did Yang Liu not mention the rankings when the list was announced, but even during the parent-teacher meeting, she didn’t bring it up.

After the midterm exams, each class held a parent-teacher meeting as required by the school.

Of course, Jiang Qifeng didn’t need to attend, and Chu Tao’s meeting was attended by Song Mian, while Chu Xingning’s was attended by Chu Jiangmin.

At the meeting, Yang Liu subtly emphasized that the rankings didn’t truly reflect the children’s abilities and encouraged parents to focus on addressing weaknesses.

Song Mian was confused. Actually, she was quite satisfied with Chu Tao’s performance this time, at least he had stabilized, but what did it mean that rankings didn’t represent true scores?

Wasn’t ranking more convincing than just the raw scores?

After the meeting, Song Mian ran into Tang Lingmei in the school lobby.

As soon as Tang Lingmei saw her, she angrily said, “Did your class teacher mention the massive cheating?”

Song Mian was stunned. “Huh? Massive cheating?”

Tang Lingmei was also surprised. “Didn’t they say anything? Shen Hongfang’s class teacher said the cheating was especially serious this time, and it messed up the whole grade’s results. Some students’ cheating was just absurd!”

Song Mian, remembering what Yang Liu had said, finally realized what was going on. “So that’s why? No wonder Xingning didn’t perform well this time!”

Tang Lingmei was so angry that her face turned pale. She crossed her arms and stood with her legs apart. “I’m really furious. I just can’t believe that Shen Hongfang, no matter how ridiculous he is, couldn’t even make it into the top fifty. And your son, Xingning, when has he ever dropped out of the top five? What are those kids thinking? This isn’t the college entrance exam—if they could cheat on that, it would actually be a skill!”

Tang Lingmei had nearly had a heart attack when she heard about Shen Hongfang’s score. She spent several days recovering, and only after hearing the teacher’s explanation did she manage to calm down.

Song Mian was also angry. “Exactly, such a good exam was wasted. Our children are just too honest.”

She had originally been concerned about Chu Xingning, but because of his poor health, she didn’t dare to bring it up and just kept it to herself.

Now, hearing that many others had cheated, she felt a little more at ease.

But Tang Lingmei suddenly fell silent and gave Song Mian a deep look.

Song Mian noticed the subtle change and thought maybe something was wrong with what she had said, so she asked quietly, “What’s wrong?”

Tang Lingmei cleared her throat, looked away, and smiled. “It’s nothing, nothing.”

Song Mian gently nudged her arm. “Come on, what can’t we talk about?”

Tang Lingmei hesitated for a moment, looking conflicted. “I hope you won’t be upset when I say this. Actually, I didn’t want to bring it up, but I’m afraid you might overlook something and it might affect your child.”

Song Mian felt uneasy at her words, a chill running down her spine. “Xiao Tang, just say it.”

Tang Lingmei lowered her gaze, her expression becoming serious. She whispered, “You see, even the teachers said there were so many people cheating this time, right? The rankings have completely changed for the whole grade.”

Song Mian hesitated but nodded. “Yes, I guess so.”

Although Yang Liu hadn’t said it that way.

Tang Lingmei narrowed her eyes. “We all know that the honest kids’ rankings dropped this time—more or less, they all dropped. Shen Hongfang from my family, Chu Xingning from yours, Lan Mengzhi, Xu Di, Fu Keren. The top spots are all taken by cheaters, so the honest kids’ rankings were bound to fall.”

Song Mian felt that her logic wasn’t wrong. “Yes, but what’s your point?”

Tang Lingmei smiled, but there was no real warmth in her eyes. “But your son, Chu Tao, didn’t drop.”

Song Mian’s face immediately darkened when she heard this. “Xiao Tang, what do you mean by that? Maybe if there hadn’t been any cheating, Tao Tao would have improved on his own.”

She was, after all, protective of her own child. No matter what, Song Mian believed in Chu Tao’s character. She had always taught them to be honest, to work hard, and to have a clear conscience.

Tang Lingmei grabbed her hand and gently patted it. “You see, I knew you’d be upset. Of course, I hope Tao Tao really did improve. It would be great if he could be first in the grade and set an example for Shen Hongfang. But think about it—Tao Tao has always been hovering around the 50th place. How did he suddenly jump into the top 20? Don’t tell me that it’s easy. The top 50 is usually fixed, it’s never changed much. And what has Tao Tao done that deserves such a big improvement?”

“Remember not long ago, we were worried he might be in a relationship, and you even said he was rebellious, refusing to listen, not even attending online classes. Oh, can that suddenly raise his grades? Didn’t you ever think maybe he already had the answers before?”

Song Mian pulled her hand away from Tang Lingmei, her face stern. “Tao Tao is not that kind of person. You’ve seen him grow up.”

Tang Lingmei took a deep breath. “Of course, I believe Tao Tao isn’t that kind of person, once upon a time. But now he’s in Class 3, where there are all kinds of kids, and some of them are bad influences. Can you guarantee that he won’t be influenced? If the whole class is cheating, do you think he won’t think it’s okay to cheat? If you don’t believe me, go look at the class rankings. Compared to the mock exams, so many people have jumped hundreds of places!”

“Song, this is bitter medicine that really hard to swallow, but you need to face the problem now if you want to fix it. If you wait until senior year, it’ll be too late.”

Song Mian’s muscles twitched, and she felt a tightness in her chest.

She glared at Tang Lingmei, her voice firm and slow. “My son is not that kind of person.”