Jiang Zheng was just about to get into his family’s car when he looked up and noticed that the neighboring car had been replaced. He raised an eyebrow slightly, then, without hesitation, closed the car door and walked toward the neighboring vehicle.

“Yo, you change your car? And it’s the modified one too.” Jiang Zheng remarked with interest. “Ah Min, didn’t you always say this car was too flashy and that you’d never sit in it? What made you change your mind today?”

“This car has more space. It’s convenient for three people.” Bai Qiming replied succinctly.

“Is that so……” Jiang Zheng flashed him a meaningful smile, and then, without needing an invitation, he opened the car door and got in. “The backseat has four seats, so adding one more person shouldn’t be a problem, right?”

Bai Qiming watched as Jiang Zheng slid in skillfully, his expression speechless. After hesitating for a moment, he ultimately let it slide. Anyway, whether it was one extra person or two, a light bulb^[1]third wheel was a light bulb— just that some were brighter, and some were dimmer.

Lin Niannian pulled Yu Qian inside as well. Yu Qian leaned against the seat and let out a comfortable sigh. This car was simply perfect for catching up on sleep during the ride.

Just as she was thinking that, her eyelids suddenly felt heavy again.

Only heaven knew how difficult it had been for her to wake up these past two days. She needed to set three alarms just to drag herself out of bed each morning. Thinking about having to endure this kind of life for another year, Yu Qian wanted to throw her head back and sigh dramatically.

“Niannian, I’m going to take a nap. Wake me up when we get there.”

Since the drive to school would take half an hour, Yu Qian wasn’t about to waste this precious chance to catch up on sleep.

With that, she swiftly drifted off into slumber.

Jiang Zheng watched as Yu Qian fell asleep in seconds, feeling an inexplicable urge to poke her cheeks.

Lin Niannian, seeing how Yu Qian could sleep just like that, felt a bit bored and started playing on her phone. She would occasionally share funny things she found with Bai Qiming.

Jiang Zheng sat across from Yu Qian, watching as she curled up obediently in her seat, her cheeks slightly flushed. His fingers itched.

In the end, he couldn’t resist and took out his phone, snapping a photo of her sleeping face.

Staring at the picture on his phone, Jiang Zheng felt a strange sensation in his chest. Since when had he become so childish, sneaking pictures of a girl like this?

Even as he thought that, he never considered deleting the photo. Instead, he simply turned off his phone and closed his eyes to rest as well.

────ρя


Yu Qian looked quiet and well-mannered on the outside, always smiling when she spoke to people. It wasn’t long before the students in Class 1 all developed a good impression of the new transfer student.

Especially when they saw how she always paid serious attention in class, taking notes diligently every lesson. Everyone thought their class had just gained a straight-A student.

Unfortunately, that impression was quickly shattered.

On the third day after transferring, Yu Qian was hit with a devastating blow.

She stared blankly at the language test paper in her hands, utterly lost.

Someone, please tell her how had she gotten so unlucky? She had only transferred three days ago, and now she was facing the monthly exam?!

She had only picked up her textbooks for three days! Why was fate treating her like this? Wasn’t she supposed to be heaven’s little favorite?

Yu Qian stared bitterly at the test paper but had no time to lament. She gritted her teeth and began writing furiously.

For the essay questions in language, she could make things up. But for the others…… she rewrote history, restructured continental plates, and invented new political quotes. As for math, she could only manage to write one solution.

As a liberal arts student, Yu Qian had only one stubborn principle left— never leave a question blank.

By the time the day’s exams ended, Yu Qian felt like half her soul had left her body. Her mind was filled with nothing but ‘solve, solve, solve’ and ‘answer, answer, answer’.

“So, Student Qianqian, how do you feel about the exam? Confident you’ll get first place in the class?” Jiang Zheng leaned on his desk, propping his head up with his hand and looking at Yu Qian with a teasing smile.

Yu Qian silently glanced at him before dropping her head onto the desk. Right now, she refuses to process any more information.

This reaction wasn’t right.

Jiang Zheng frowned slightly. He had glanced at her paper during the exam and she had filled in everything. Could it be that he had misjudged?

Yu Qian remained in a depressed mood until the test papers were returned.

High school teachers graded papers at lightning speed, and by the next day, all the exams had already been marked.

The first subject to be handed back was English.

Yu Qian looked at the 140 points on her test paper but felt no joy at all. This was probably the only subject where she would score over 100.

────ρя


Language: 106, History: 45, Geography: 61, Politics: 53, Mathematics: 43.

Staring at the shocking scores on each test paper, Yu Qian felt completely defeated.

The classmates around her kept sneaking glances her way. No one had expected that Yu Qian, who looked every bit like a model student, would actually rank fourth from the bottom in the entire class.

“Qianqian…… you……” Lin Niannian didn’t even know what to say. She had never imagined that Yu Qian’s grades would be this terrible.

Jiang Zheng and Bai Qiming had both been pre-admitted to a top university in their first year of high school, proving their academic excellence. Lin Niannian’s grades weren’t as stellar as theirs, but she was still ranked in the top ten of their grade.

She had never thought that she would one day be sitting next to an academic failure.

Jiang Zheng was also surprised by the results. Curious, he picked up Yu Qian’s math test paper and found that out of twelve multiple-choice questions, she had only gotten four correct. In the long-answer section, she had completed only one question, left most problems with just the formulas written down, and even managed to write one formula incorrectly.

Seeing the visible eraser marks and calculation attempts in the multiple-choice section, Jiang Zheng was speechless.

This…… Even if she had just guessed randomly, she should have scored higher than this, right?

Yu Qian’s grades completely shattered Jiang Zheng’s and the others’ perceptions of her.

“This doesn’t make sense.” Jiang Zheng muttered, frowning as he held the test paper. He had seen Yu Qian listening attentively in every class. She didn’t look like a struggling student at all. Could it be that she was just born with a limited academic ability?

“Please…… just let me have a moment alone with my test papers.” Yu Qian murmured, hanging her head.

Scoring this badly was embarrassing enough, but now she had to endure everyone’s pitiful stares? She felt like she was about to explode on the spot.

To think that back in the day, she wasn’t exactly a top scorer, but at least she had been a promising student well-regarded by her teachers. And now? She had fallen all the way to the bottom of the rankings. If her former teachers saw this, they would be utterly disappointed in her.

Yu Qian looked so pitiful that everyone exchanged glances and silently agreed not to say anything more. Even Jiang Zheng, who was usually sharp-tongued, refrained from making any comments— afraid that one wrong word might crush Yu Qian’s already fragile pride.

────ρя


It took Yu Qian an entire day to recover from the blow.

So what if she did terribly on one test? She had just forgotten some things. If she put in more effort, she could still turn things around.

Determined, Yu Qian reignited her fighting spirit. Then she picked up the phone and called her mother.

“Mom, find me a tutor.”

Yu Qian felt like she desperately needed outside help.

“Hm? Qianqian, why do you suddenly want a tutor?”

“I did really badly on my exams……”

“Phew…… I thought something serious happened. Haven’t your grades always been bad? It’s just a bad test, I won’t scold you. Be good…… If you need money, just let me know. I won’t force you to study.”

“No, Mom, listen to me!”

Yu Qian was on the verge of tears as she clung to the phone, desperately trying to convince her mother. After much struggle, she finally got her mother to understand her determination to improve.

After hanging up, Yu Qian collapsed onto her bed, completely drained.

How exhausting. Other students had to fight their parents just to avoid tutoring, but she had to fight just to get one.

Her mother was the biggest obstacle on her path to academic success!