Pretending? What does that even mean?
After hearing what the System said, Su Wanli unconsciously blinked, raising herself up from the desk.
“You mean, all those things Meng Huange said about being bullied were actually just acting?”
[That’s exactly right.]
“Wait, then… then when did she start pretending? Was it when we went to the Office of Academic Affairs? Or after we came out?”
The System responded immediately.
(Of course, from the moment she leaned over and patted your shoulder, all the way until you both returned from the Office of Academic Affairs.)
“Huh? So, all of it was fake!? Meng was never a real actress, how is that even possible!”
“It shouldn’t be… impossible, right?”
[To have climbed up from the very bottom, she must have some acting skills, and besides, Host, do you still remember the heroine’s disgust level toward you? It’s still… even now…]
Su Wanli paused in thought, sighing with a strange sense of relief.
“…It’s always, seventy?”
[Right, more or less, it’s about that number.]
For some reason, the System’s answer this time sounded rather ambiguous.
[Anyway, with the heroine’s upright personality, just being seen leaving the classroom with you during an exam and being gossiped about all over school was already difficult enough for her, let alone smashing the Window of the Office of Academic Affairs to show her loyalty to you. Doing so many things against her conscience in one go, of course Meng Huange’s disgust for you would only deepen.]
“Hold on, what do you mean? Clearly, Meng Huange did all these things on her own! I didn’t even realize she was going to throw rocks at the Office of Academic Affairs! Why does this count as her proving her loyalty to me?”
Admittedly, hearing the Homeroom Teacher’s startled yell was a little satisfying, but only a little. After that, she’d had to drag Meng by the hand all the way to the nearest classroom building, wasting a ton of energy — honestly, it was a complete loss!
Recalling that fleeting moment back then, when she and Meng Huange unconsciously exchanged a smile, Su Wanli’s cheeks flushed, and she quietly covered her face.
“All in all, she can’t hate me even more just because of this, right!? I didn’t even do anything on purpose! This logic is just too weird!”
The more she thought about it, the stranger she felt. Su Chunli shoved her hands into her school uniform pockets, then fiercely poked the little white lump making noise.
“I don’t get it. It must be this stupid System messing with me. What’s the real story? Tell me the truth!”
[The real situation is, Meng Huange, who is always thoughtful, saw through your reason for leaving the class. Even though it wasn’t what she wanted, in order to win your trust and secure her position in the Su family, she forced herself to do those bad things for you — she even dirtied her hands with the ‘fresh blood’ of the Office of Academic Affairs’ window! What endurance, what flexibility! She truly is a heroine who can swallow her pride and bear humiliation!]
“You’re just making things up now.”
Su Wanli picked up her water cup and sipped it quietly, staring blankly out the classroom window at the scenery.
[So, Host, there’s no need to get hung up on these pointless things. Besides, the Math Exam papers have already been handed out, and the System suggests you calm your emotions and focus on your test. After all, your most important mission right now is to pass this exam. If you don’t do well, nothing else will matter.]
[Also, the sooner you finish your Test Paper, the more time you’ll have to continue your patrol. You’re still far from checking fifty students. Good luck!]
“…Yeah, yeah, I know, all you ever talk about is the exam and the mission…”
However, although the System was forcing her to accept it with some far-fetched reasoning, being pushed to refocus did help her nerves loosen up a bit.
Su Wanli took a small sip from the white lump, then spread out her Test Paper and looked at the questions.
Just like Meng Huange had said, when they ran back to the classroom together, there were still more than ten minutes before the exam began. But after hearing Meng call her by that nickname, her mind had become a complete mess, and she couldn’t concentrate on the questions at all.
So, from the very start, Meng Huange gave her a Notebook with math problems at the front. Even if she didn’t have that time, she should still be able to get about seventy or eighty percent of the answers right…
In reality, she only got thirty or forty percent done.
Wait, what’s going on? She definitely remembered this formula before, wasn’t it just plugging this into that? Why does it feel so wrong now?
There were forty questions on the Math Exam, half of which were multiple choice. Of those, she only remembered about ten. For the other ten, Su Chunli only had a vague impression — and vague impressions rarely led to the right answers.
—The answers she calculated didn’t even exist in the multiple choice options…
Damn, forget about the other questions — she could just guess for those. But this final problem wasn’t even in the practice questions Meng Huange gave her! It looked kind of familiar, but she had no idea how to solve it.
[Math questions are easy to modify. If you don’t understand the underlying logic, just memorizing answers won’t get you a high score.]
“Yeah, yeah, it’s all about cheating, isn’t it?”
Su Wanli gritted her teeth, forced herself to write the word “solution” in the answer area, and filled in the first number that popped into her head, then squeezed the white lump in her pocket.
“Don’t just stare blankly, aren’t you supposed to be a System? You didn’t help at all in the language exam, but math should be your specialty, right?”
[Unfortunately, this is the normal progression for the protagonist. In the original, there wasn’t an all-powerful high-tech System living in Su Chunli’s brain, much less one answering the questions for her.]
“There are plenty of things in the story that didn’t exist before! Did Meng Huange go out with the supporting girls and break the Window of the Office of Academic Affairs in your original plot!?”
[…Fine, you’ve got a point. The System can give you a small hint: the answer you wrote is correct, but if you turn it in as is, without any explanation, you’ll only get part marks.]
“That’s it? Useless System…”
Su Wanli rolled her eyes at it, then flipped the Test Paper over.
Forget it, she hadn’t expected it to be any help anyway. Only a few students could solve the final big problem, so rather than struggling here, it was better to skim through the whole test.
She’d only fully solved one out of four big problems, forced out a half-hearted answer on the fill-in-the-blanks, and got about ten of the twenty multiple choice right — the other ten were random guesses. So, altogether, she’d probably end up with about half the points.
Alright, whatever, it doesn’t matter. She still needed time to check on Cheating, no use wasting it on this Math Exam.
After organizing her Test Paper, Su Chunli subconsciously wanted to call out to the chess-haired girl at her side, but the words caught in her throat.
No, it wasn’t because she was still tangled up about what to call her after all this time. It was just that it was still exam time, and everyone was supposed to keep quiet. She should just walk up and turn in her paper, and wait for Meng Huange to come on her own…
However, just this tiny sound was still caught by Meng Huange’s sharp ears.
She had finished her Test Paper a long time ago. Smiling at Su Chunli, she nodded, then picked up her own Test Paper and walked directly to the podium.
“Liu Laoshi, I’ve already checked my answers once. I’d like to use the remaining time to prepare for the English exam, so could you please collect my Test Paper early?”
After that, she stood by the classroom door, smiled gently at Su Wanli, then quickly made a few gestures —
Multiply, add, subtract…
What did that mean? Was she trying to give her a hint?
Wait!
Su Wanli flipped her Test Paper back to the last question, then slapped her own forehead.
So that’s it. The final big problem was actually a variation of the last multiple choice question Meng Huange had given her during yesterday’s Self-Study Class!
“Liu Laoshi, here, you just need to observe the signs in the original formula. If it’s ten here, then the answer is always…”