Linjiang City is a very suitable place for living in the south. The air is fresh, and the environment is elegant.
Linjiang No. 1 Middle School, a key school in Linjiang City.
Outside the school, near a flower pond, a crowd had gathered, with some of them jeering. A boy in school uniform clambered out of the pond, his clothes soaked halfway up his body, looking extremely embarrassed, with some aquatic plants tangled around him. He was being observed like a monkey by onlookers.
A boy was sucking on a cigarette, his hair permed. Perched on his nose was a pair of Tyrannosaurus sunglasses.
"Xiao Han, just crawl under my crotch, and I'll let you off this time," Liao Zhijie said while holding a cigarette, looking at the wet boy with a face full of mockery.
"Crawl under, crawl under!" the crowd chanted in unison, with a 'lackey' behind Liao Zhijie.
Liao Zhijie was the school bully of No. 1 Middle School. Normally, with academic performance like Liao Zhijie's, he wouldn't have been able to get into No. 1 Middle School at all, but he had a tycoon father. Having donated two hundred thousand yuan for the school fund, he was exceptionally admitted by the school. As for all the misdeeds Liao Zhijie committed at school, they simply turned a blind eye as long as it wasn't too outrageous. Two hundred thousand yuan in exchange for three years of "custody" was a good deal for the school, wasn't it?
Xiao Han was a student at No. 1 Middle School with an ordinary family background.
During the middle school examination, he was admitted to No. 1 Middle School with the top score from Wangjiang Middle School, but in the first year of high school, his family suffered a tragedy as his father died in a car accident. The event hit Xiao Han hard. His academic performance plunged, and his self-esteem suffered even more. By the second year, he could no longer keep up with his studies, and by the third year, he had completely become the bottom scorer in his class. Moreover, Xiao Han was a quiet and reticent person, so he was often overlooked.
Early this morning, Xiao Han rushed to school and, accustomed to walking with his head down, he accidentally knocked Liao Zhijie over.
Liao Zhijie was only about one meter sixty-five tall, whereas Xiao Han was nearly one meter eighty. With such a collision, Liao Zhijie naturally went tumbling over. Incensed, he called his lackeys and gave Xiao Han a thorough beating, before throwing him into the school's flower pond.
Xiao Han, tall and strong, was nevertheless timid and meek. His face was burning with restrained embarrassment, blushing deeply.
Faced with so many people, he didn't dare to fight back, yet he couldn't bring himself to crawl under the other boy's crotch.
"Damn it, you're asking for it," Liao Zhijie said, seeing that Xiao Han remained silent. He picked up a baton, ready to beat someone.
"Stop!"
Suddenly, a voice as clear as a bell rang out.
"Wow, it's Chen Zihan!" someone in the crowd exclaimed.
Immediately, a path was made through the crowd. Everyone turned to look at the girl outside the crowd. She wore a long pink dress with a ponytail. Her face was a perfect classical oval, appearing only slightly larger than an adult male's palm, as if she had stepped right out of the most standard beautiful woman comic; unlike ordinary beauties with large eyes, her eyes were large and expressive, seemingly containing ripples of water, as if she was always silently expressing something; her nose was firm and straight, possessing a feminine charm with a touch of masculine vigor; her slightly thin, soft lips had a nearly transparent gemstone-like redness, always moist and so enticing that just one look could intoxicate someone; her hair, dark as water and soft as silk, flowed down like a waterfall, perfectly draping over her slender shoulders...
Her figure was perky from regular exercise, a perfect example of a well-developed teenage girl; a long-legged and slim-waisted shape, paired with a stature of about one meter sixty-seven, perfect to the degree that any more would be too much, any less too little.
When people saw her, their eyes nearly lit up.
"Chen Zihan?" Liao Zhijie paused.
"Liao Zhijie, are you bullying your classmate again?" Chen Zihan asked with furrowed brows, walking over and positioning herself in front of Xiao Han.
"This guy knocked me over," Liao Zhijie pointed at Xiao Han and cursed, "I just wanted him to admit his mistake."
"Is that how you humiliate people?" Chen Zihan glared at Liao Zhijie, "It was an accident that he bumped into you. Why can't you just accept an apology? Why force him to crawl under your crotch? We're all classmates, we have to see each other at school every day. How do you expect him to face people after that?"
"So, you're saying you'll protect him?" Liao Zhijie asked.
"Yes!" Chen Zihan nodded.
"Fine," Liao Zhijie seemed to have no way to handle Chen Zihan, he snorted coldly, "Xiao Han, you wait for me. This isn't over. Let's go!"
After speaking, Liao Zhijie left with his group of lackeys.
The school entrance quickly returned to normal. Chen Zihan turned to look at Xiao Han and asked, "Xiao Han, are you okay?"
"I... I'm fine," Xiao Han said through clenched teeth, full of shame, "Thank you, Chen Zihan."
"Don't mention it," Chen Zihan smiled. Her smile was naturally beautiful, enough to make fish sink and birds alight, the moon hide in shame and flowers bow down in her presence. Xiao Han was immediately mesmerized. Chen Zihan was recognized as the school beauty of Linjiang No.1 Middle School, her beauty made all the girls at school fade in comparison and made all the boys willingly join her 'Flower Guarding Squad'. Seeing Xiao Han staring blankly at her, Chen Zihan seemed accustomed to such gazes. She said with an easy grace, "Hurry up, or we'll be late."
Xiao Han liked Chen Zihan, but his inner sense of inferiority stopped him from even daring to look up at her. Not only was Chen Zihan beautiful, but her family was also extremely wealthy.
Xiao Han and Chen Zihan were classmates, both in the third year class three. Chen Zihan sat in the fourth row, while Xiao Han, because of his poor grades, could only sit at the very back. When he returned to the classroom, Xiao Han felt a severe headache, he covered his head with his hands, the throbbing pain making him miserable. Thinking back, it must have been because he hit his head on a rockery when he fell into the flower bed earlier. It didn't hurt at first, but now it was excruciating.
Before long, Xiao Han dozed off in a confused state.
Bang!
Just as Xiao Han was deeply asleep, suddenly, he felt something slam hard against the back of his head. He woke with a start, scared, he fell to the ground on his butt.
"Xiao Han!" behind him, the homeroom teacher, with her left hand on her hip and her right hand clutching a thick book, glared at Xiao Han furiously.
"Teacher... Teacher Liu!" Xiao Han shivered, nearly tumbling off his chair.
Teacher Liu, the homeroom teacher of the third year class three, was also the math teacher. Standing at 1.7 meters, with a stocky build, and wearing a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Her mouth gaping wide as if she was ready to swallow Xiao Han alive, she berated him, "You useless thing, you only scored three hundred points on this practice test. You're at the bottom of the class, what use are you?..."
Spittle flew as she cursed him without repeating a single word.
Classmates whispered among themselves, looking at Xiao Han with sympathetic eyes. There was no help for it, underachievers were scorned everywhere. In school, those with poor grades would always face discrimination and humiliation. And Xiao Han had become the underachiever in everyone's eyes.
Teacher Liu threw Xiao Han's test paper onto the desk and sneered, "This is your math test, copy all the wrong answers a hundred times, did you hear me clearly?"
"Yes, yes!" Xiao Han nodded, meek and compliant.
Teacher Liu patted her chest and walked back to the lectern, satisfied.
Xiao Han opened his test paper with a pained expression. Since becoming disinterested in studies in his first year, his grades had plummeted, by his third year, he was barely keeping up with the coursework. His approach to exams was mostly guessing mixed with the odd moment of understanding.
However, when Xiao Han opened the test paper, he was dumbfounded.
The first question focused on trigonometric functions, and the solution naturally started from there. How could he have gotten it wrong? Xiao Han was puzzled. The fifth question was about probability, wasn't it? It could be easily solved within minutes using the permutation formula.
At this point, Xiao Han hastily scanned the rest of the paper.
My God!
He was stunned. For some reason, he could instantly understand the key points of the questions he had gotten wrong just by glancing at them, and the solutions came to him in a flash. For some of the simpler questions, he could even directly come up with the answers.
As for the last bonus question, it was very difficult for any high school student because it required the use of calculus, a concept only taught in college mathematics. A single calculus formula was sufficient for an easy solution. If one used only high school-level functions and probability formulas, the process was very complex and prone to mistakes.
And Xiao Han had just happened to have seen this calculus formula. He had read a book on basic calculus formulas in his first year, which included some fundamental knowledge of calculus. The books he had read back in his first year now seemed vivid in his mind, the content displaying itself clearly in his brain.
Whoosh...
After that, Xiao Han hurriedly took out paper and pen and began to work on the final bonus question. In three minutes, he had the answer, and it matched the solution that Teacher Liu had on the blackboard exactly.
At that moment, Xiao Han was flabbergasted.
He couldn't understand how he had become so enlightened all of a sudden.
"Xiao Han!" Suddenly, Teacher Liu from the lectern shouted at him.
"Ah?!" Xiao Han quickly stood up.
"Come here and solve this problem for me," Teacher Liu said sarcastically, looking at Xiao Han.
She knew Xiao Han couldn't possibly solve the final bonus question on the test paper. Because that bonus question could only be solved with college-level calculus. If one wanted to solve it with high school mathematics, it was not impossible, but it would require a powerful brain and flexible problem-solving skills. Relying on Xiao Han's tail-end ability, it was impossible for him to do so. Teacher Liu was merely trying to humiliate him thoroughly.