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Ren He had originally thought that improving the gap of 14 push-ups would be an easy task, but it turned out not to be the case.
After finishing a new chapter of his 'divine book,' he would make time to do push-ups and think about the subsequent plot developments while doing them. Ren He didn't have an outline, only a main storyline; he always felt that the details of the story that came to him in a flash of inspiration were the most brilliant parts of the book.
After two days of practice, he found that the number of push-ups he could do per minute had increased from 76 to 80. However, after reaching 80, it became very difficult to make further progress, as if he had reached a bottleneck.
In the meantime, Ren He's physical fitness level jumped automatically from 3.11 to 3.12, a result of his training.
To improve physical fitness, one needs not only rely on rewards but also persistent exercise and personal growth.
When he arrived at school, Xu Nuo looked at him with surprise, "Why do I feel like you've grown taller recently?"
"You're not blind," Ren He said.
"There's the monthly summary exam today, how well did you prepare?" Xu Nuo, while sketching cheat notes with a pencil on the desk, was trying to give himself a bit of an edge during the exam...
"An exam today?" Ren He was stunned.
Seeing Ren He's expression, Xu Nuo knew it was bad news; this guy didn't even know there was an exam today.
When the class bell rang and the teacher walked in with a stack of papers, he said, "First up, English. Put your books away; no cheating. If anyone cheats, they'll have to call their parents."
Xu Nuo became nervous upon seeing the papers, but Ren He didn't react much. After all, he had been to university, and his academic performance there had been quite good. Even if he had forgotten most of it, handling junior high school knowledge shouldn't be a problem.
Moreover, when it came to the English exam, Ren He had spent a year as an exchange student at the University of California, Berkeley, in his senior year. Junior high school English could not possibly stump him. Come to think of it, the opportunity to become an exchange student back then was only possible because of Ren's influence. Without his family's Ren, even if his grades were good, it would not have been his turn to go to Berkeley.
When Ren He started quickly filling out the English test paper, Little Fatty Xu Nuo was dumbfounded: "Ren He, are you guessing or do you actually know the answers?"
"Guess my ass; hurry up and copy mine," Ren He whispered without lifting his head.
Xu Nuo, doubtful, copied the multiple-choice answers from Ren He, then whispered, "I swear, if I don't pass this time, I'm holding you responsible!"
"Above 80 points, bet a hundred bucks? Do you want to bet?" Ren He glanced at him.
Xu Nuo, seeing how confident he was, quickly shrank his neck, "No bet."
After a day of exams, except for chemistry and physics, which were a pain, Ren He found the other subjects relatively easy. At this time, there was no separation between liberal arts and science subjects, although chemistry, physics, history, and politics counted for less.
Originally, Ren He had studied liberal arts. In his previous life, when he was in high school, his chemistry and physics scores combined didn't even reach 20 points… which led to the chemistry and physics teachers eventually giving up on him.
After the exam, Xu Nuo asked anxiously, "You better not have screwed me over. I copied your answers for everything; we better not both end up having to call our parents."
Ren He calmly replied, "Don't worry, it's all good, just as long as you didn't copy everything."
After saying that, Ren He suddenly saw Little Fatty Xu Nuo's face turn ashen white, and he was shocked, "You didn't copy everything, did you?"
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Xu Nuo nodded with difficulty....
"You're done!" Ren He said cheerfully, "What do you think the teacher would think if our scores were the same?"
"It should... be fine, right?"
"Maybe it would have been fine before, but this time, we might both get pretty high scores, and that makes us a bigger target. Think about it, two bottom-of-the-class students suddenly get high scores, and the results are the same... You know what I mean."
Indeed, the next day the class teacher called both Ren He and Xu Nuo straight to the office, "Spill it, how are you going to explain these scores?"
Xu Nuo glanced at the spread of test papers on the class teacher's desk, math 94, English 97... He gasped in surprise, he never expected the scores to be that high, no wonder the class teacher called them over!
The class teacher knocked on the desk, "I used to just think you were poor students, but I didn't expect you to have poor character too. Do you think you can cheat your way into college? Into high school? Is this how you fool yourself?"
Ren He nodded and said, "The teacher is right! Right, Little Fatty?"
The class teacher was just about to continue the lecture, but was choked by this response, completely unprepared for the quick admission of error! Later, when the class teacher remembered the rumors about Ren He's father that had spread from the Academic Affairs Office, he sighed and waved them away, "Go on, get out."
He knew that whatever came out of Liu's mouth was generally reliable. He really couldn't afford to mess with him.
However, as Ren He was leaving, he said, "Teacher, look at those people sitting around us, whose grades are higher than ours? If we were to copy, there must be someone to copy from."
Basically, those who could sit in the back row with them didn't perform well either...
The class teacher thought about it, hiss, that's true!
Back in class, Xu Nuo asked, "Is that it then?"
Ren He shrugged, "What else could it be?"
In the afternoon, they began rearranging seats according to the monthly exam results, a custom in many schools: students with good exam results get to pick their seats first, to encourage everyone to strive forward and motivate those with poor grades to improve.
Ren He and Xu Nuo, who had always sat in the last row, were suddenly arranged by the class teacher to pick their seats first. There were only a handful of people who had better scores than them, including Duan Xiaolou and Yang Xi, who remained seated together.
This immediately sparked discussion throughout the class, wondering what was going on with these two usual underperformers, and how they managed to do so well this time. Had they had an epiphany? Or cheated?
When it was Ren He and Xu Nuo's turn to pick their seats, Ren He pulled Xu Nuo directly to the seats behind Duan Xiaolou and Yang Xi. Duan Xiaolou looked at Ren He in surprise, "How did you guys do so well this time?"
"Just outdid ourselves," Ren He said cheerfully, while speaking, he watched Yang Xi's profile from the corner of his eye.
The sunlight streamed in through the classroom window, casting a glow on Yang Xi's face. Ren He gazed at her long eyelashes fluttering and her skin, smooth as porcelain. He liked this girl, truly liked her, perhaps it was love at first sight the moment he flew across the teaching building, even though they couldn't see each other clearly at the time.
It was as if that mutual glance with Yang Xi planted a seed in his heart, and it was about to take root and sprout.
After a moment of thought, Ren He cheerfully said, "Duan Xiaolou, Yang Xi, isn't Jiang Siyao's concert starting soon? I'm inviting you to the concert, let's take Xu Nuo too, the four of us, and get the tickets for the very front row."