Chapter 44 (1/2)

The bell rang, signaling the start of the first class.

Old Man Tang walked up to the podium in his leather shoes, holding a thermos in his hand. As usual, he glanced around the classroom and caught Xiaoxiao shoving snacks into her mouth. Under his intense stare, Xiaoxiao swallowed the snacks at once, almost choking on her food.

“Okay. Since everyone’s here, I have something to say. I believe most of you have heard about it last week that we are going to have a combined mock exam tomorrow. Not only will all the schools in our city take part in the exam, but a total of 36 schools from other cities will join us too. In total, more than 50,000 grade 12 students from 48 schools will sit for this exam.

“Hence, this is likely to be the largest mock exam you will experience before the Gaokao. The first test will be tomorrow and the exams will last for two days. The assessment arrangement will be exactly the same as the Gaokao. So this time, do put in your best effort and unleash your true power!”

Starting from a week before, there had been rumors spreading around the school that there was an upcoming large-scale mock exam. Now that Old Man Tang had officially announced the news, the rumor had been proven true.

However, what was unexpected was that the exam was going to take place the next day. The students only had one day of revision time, which made the remaining time even more precious!

“Today will be one full day of self-study. All subject teachers are in their offices, so feel free to go and clear some last-minute doubts if you have any,” Old Man Tang said. After that, he looked at Cheng Nuo and said in an indifferent tone, “Cheng Nuo, come.”

Cheng Nuo followed Old Man Tang to his office. He was used to this.

Since two weeks ago, Old Man Tang had been summoning him to the office almost every single day.

Sometimes it was to give Cheng Nuo some additional practice, like a few sets of difficult tests.

But other times, it was for something else…

A male teacher with glasses called out to Cheng Nuo as soon as he had entered the office. “Hey, Cheng Nuo, glad that you came. Come here. Can you help me see whether this problem has an easier solution? The equations alone can fill up two blackboards. That’s way too tedious.”

A bald-headed male teacher grinned and said, “No, come here first, Cheng Nuo. I managed to get a Gaokao problem last week, but I haven’t figured out how to do it. Come and take a look!”

“Cheng Nuo, come here…”

“Cheng Nuo, come here!”

Indeed, other than the days when Old Man Tang gave him extra problems, he occasionally had to provide help for these math teachers too.

After all, math teachers were humans. They would encounter problems that they couldn’t solve on their own too. In the past, they sought help from online math forums when they ran into difficult problems.

But now, the first person they would look for was Cheng Nuo. Who had asked him to be such a genius? In the beginning, they had had low expectations of him. But to their surprise, it took Cheng Nuo only a simple glimpse at the problem and a few minutes of easily understandable steps to tackle all the tricky problems. Moreover, he had never used any concept that was beyond the syllabus.

As a result, the math department prized Cheng Nuo as a precious gem.

It was also since then that Cheng Nuo had started to become a shared resource for the entire department, and not Old Man Tang’s personal possession.

“You guys really remind me of starved monsters,” Old Man Tang scolded his colleagues jokingly. “Give us a second. I have something to discuss with Cheng Nuo. He can help you afterwards.”

Then Old Man Tang invited Cheng Nuo to sit down in front of him. He crossed his fingers to support his chin and said in a serious tone, “Cheng Nuo, the mock exam is going to start tomorrow. Do you have anything to say?”

“Anything to say?” Cheng Nuo was confused. After a long silence, he answered, “No. Nothing!”

“Er!” Old Man Tang was taken aback. “Calm down. Don’t be angry with him,” he told himself.

“Breath in, breathe out, in, out…”

Old Man Tang explained, “Cheng Nuo, I heard that the Ministry of Education invited him to make the problems.”

“Who?”

“Mr. Ge. Ge Jun[1]!” Old Man Tang said. His face grew grave as he uttered his name.