Chapter 8.2|How did you make it?

At nine in the morning, Meng Yin isolated herself from the bustling scene of waving red flags, sitting quietly in the city library. 

Sunlight streamed in through the window, casting mottled patterns on the table as well as on Yin. A faint golden halo enveloped her, exuding a lazy warmth of early autumn, reminiscent of a sunflower basking in the morning sun. Suddenly, a small paper bag blocked her drooping gaze, followed by Xu Zhiyi pulling out a chair opposite her. 

"What's this?" 

"Breakfast," Zhiyi leaned back on the chair, "a glass of soy milk, two eggs." 

Meng Yin: "... " 

Yin replied, "I remember telling you that I had already eaten breakfast." While savouring her pumpkin congee, she received a message from Zhiyi asking if she had eaten breakfast. "When I saw the message, Nanny Dong had already prepared it." 

Meng Yin: "... " 

Having visited his home several times without meeting his parents, she always encountered Nanny Dong, who looked after Xu Zhiyi. 

"Eat more," Zhiyi sat up straight, took out the soy milk from the paper bag, inserted a straw, pushed it towards Yin, and lazily continued, "Only then can you pass my test." 

Meng Yin: "... " Can we move past this joke? 

"Xu Zhiyi, how come I never noticed before that you enjoy feeding people so much?" Yin took a sip of soy milk. Except for the surprise egg cake and the NanZhaoJi on that particular day, throughout the entire month, she would occasionally receive food Xu Zhiyi had sent, sometimes from the cafeteria, sometimes from a traditional bakery, sometimes homemade by Nanny Dong. Each time she received these surprise packages, her initial reaction was always to pause for a moment, before hearing Zhiyi casually say, "Don't you like eating eggs?" or "Just happened to be passing by," or "Nanny Dong knew you transferred to our class and was thinking of you." 

Zhiyi took out a paper and said, "Haven't you experienced the class-wide feeding before? I am carrying on and practising the excellent virtues of Class 12-2." 

Meng Yin: "... "

Yin and Zhiyi immersed themselves in exercises, the rustling of pages turning and the friction with the air marking the passing of time as they delved into their studies during every weekend of their third year in middle school. 

As the sun moved overhead, Zhiyi glanced up to find Yin across from him, deep in thought with furrowed brows as she focused on a physics problem. 

With a black pen in hand, Zhiyi lightly tapped on Yin's paper above, asking, "What is the line before 'unaware of the whiteness in the east.'?" 

Perplexed, Yin looked up, her mind muddled by the mechanic's question, only to realize that Zhiyi was working on a Chinese literature assignment, testing her knowledge of classical poetry. 

Zhiyi repeated the question, "What is the line before 'unaware of the whiteness in the east'?" 

Yin responded, "'Lying together on the boat, unaware of the whiteness in the east.'" 

Zhi remarked, "Good, you're not clueless yet." 

Confused, Yin didn't understand. Zhiyi explained, "Su Shi wrote 'Lying together on the boat, unaware of the whiteness in the east,' while you're stuck on the physics problem, wasting time innocently. Weren't you the one who used to ask so many questions before? Why the sudden shyness?" 

Yin hesitated, realizing that some habits do change with the environment. She offered an excuse, "I got caught up in physics and forgot that you were sitting across from me." 

Zhiyi, visibly irked, remained silent. 

Yin continued to argue, "I have some clues now." 

Xu Zhi challenged, "Then tell me your ideas." 

Yin faltered, unable to articulate her thoughts. 

Seeing her sudden change in demeanour, Zhiyi realized she had no intention of asking him for help. This had been the case for the entire month, with him patiently waiting for her to approach him with challenging questions, a moment that never came. 

"That's a physics contest."Zhiyi glanced at the time, calmly stating, "Let's eat first, and when we return, I'll explain the problems to you."

They dined on rice noodles at a Yunnan noodle shop near the library, with a bakery on the left and a milk tea shop on the right. 

Upon exiting the noodle shop, Zhiyi pointed to the two neighbouring stores and asked, "Which one do you feel like having?" 

It had become a habit for Yin to indulge in snacks after meals without realizing when it started. 

"Bubble tea," she said. 

Zhiyi raised an eyebrow jokingly, "Are you abandoning your pastries?" 

"My grandma made them," Meng Yin replied, playfully raising her eyebrows at him, "You're in luck, my grandma sent some for you." 

"Maybe grandma wants a grandson." 

"Xu Zhiyi, I think I misspoke..."Yin squinted at him, pointing, "I shouldn't have said you should indulge, you've already quietly liberated your true nature, right?" 

"I'm just fulfilling your request on the podium, stop trying to act properly." 

Yin sighed, unable to continue the conversation, she thought.

The library didn't allow bubble tea, so Yin and Zhiyi went to the small park behind the library for a walk. 

Yin struggled with three physics questions, managing to solve only one and a half. Unfortunately, she had drawn the force in the wrong direction for the first question, rendering it incorrect. "This is a contest question, I'll explain slowly. If you don't understand, feel free to stop me anytime..." Zhiyi took the draft paper, drew the force points corresponding to the diagram in the question, and began to explain.

Half an hour later, Yin finally grasped the approach to solving the problems. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at the question she had solved, brushing away eraser crumbs from the paper with a slight smile. This was her expression when overcoming a difficult problem. Seeing her expression, Xu Zhiyi held back the words he had been holding all afternoon.

As the sun sets on the horizon, casting light upon the path where people are heading home, vendors near the subway entrance are seen selling roasted sweet potatoes from the cart. Meng Yin pointed to the vendor and asked Zhiyi, "Would you like to eat?" In her eyes, a glint of excitement shone through, almost as if she wanted to express "I really want to eat" in big bold letters on her forehead.

She selected two medium-sized sweet potatoes and had the elderly man pack them separately. They then squatted next to the stone pillar at the entrance of the subway station, contentedly nibbling on the freshly baked sweet potatoes. More precisely, Yin was joyfully savouring the piping hot sweet potatoes, her eyes almost closing to a slit from the delight. 

Zhiyi, holding the other half of a sweet potato, seemingly casually but suddenly asked, "Why did you choose science?" 

(PS: In China, students have to choose art or science direction at the high school)

Back in junior high, her grades in science subjects were inconsistent, every time he explains 

explained a question to her, she always jokingly said, "I don't have the brains for science." 

"Xu Zhiyi, we are in our final year of high school now, and you are only asking this question?" 

"I thought you had a change of heart, but now I see you are still a bit slow." 

Yin swallowed the last bite of sweet potato and told a little white lie, "My cousin persuaded me by saying that studying science would offer better job prospects. By the time I realized this was a lie, I was already in the science stream." 

Unlike her time in the first high school, the third high school was very keen on providing extra classes during holidays, so the class divisions were done during the summer break of the first year of high school. After a year of adapting to the subjects, she knew that studying science was a bit challenging for her, but she still chose it without hesitation and made up her mind. 

Zhiyi did not expose the flaw in Yin's excuse, crumpled the wrapping paper in his hand into a ball, and said, "It seems like it's not that you lack brains, but you are missing half of it." 

Yin tilted her head, "Xu Zhiyi, speak plainly." 

"When you encounter a difficult question, do you just bite your pen?" Zhiyi changed his tone and looked into Yin's bright eyes, "Who taught you that? Do you really consider me as your fierce competitor?" 

Yin paused, recalling the morning's events, and shrugged, "Why are you holding a grudge? I was just too engrossed in studying and forgot that a science genius like you was sitting opposite me." 

"But I haven't seen you ask any questions in the past month, why is that?" Zhiyi raised an eyebrow slightly before continuing, "Are there no difficult questions in our final year?" 

The air between the two young individuals was filled with confidence and a hint of insignificant tension. 

"I will figure it out myself, after all, I ranked in the top 10 of the third year three times and in the top 300 in the city-wide exam," Yin muttered softly, feeling a bit uneasy for no apparent reason. 

Amidst the noisy chatter of passersby, Zhiyi caught her muttering and asked, "How did you make that?"

"What?" 

"Being in the top 10 three times and in the top 300 of the city-wide exam, how did you achieve that?" 

The darkening evening sky made Xu Zhiyi's eyes appear dim and mysterious.

The key and regular high schools have four unified exams each year, held at the same time but with different test papers. Therefore, for each unified exam, both types of schools will have two city ranking lists: one excluding regular high schools or key high schools, and one including all students. A City has over ten regular high schools, with three or four schools on par with The Third High School. Even though transferring students to the First High School requires them to meet the criteria of being "in the top 10 three times and in the top 300 of the city-wide exam". 

It is not easy to transfer to FHS, as Zhiyi understood about Yin. 

Although he is not clear about Yin's specific grades in The Third High School over the past two years, he knows that passing the College Entrance Exam is not a problem for her. According to her previous statement about applying to study abroad based on the college entrance exam results, there is no need to transfer here during this critical time in senior year. He wants to know the real reason behind her decision, whether it is truly due to family reasons, and if so, what those reasons are. He also wants to ask whether anything significant happened during the past two years at The Third High School.

Upon hearing Zhiyi ask her such a question, Yin felt a pang of sadness and bitterness. He seemed to have no intention of giving her time to respond and continued, "Have you been studying by just doing exam drills all along?" 

Yin was stunned, unable to answer, yet answering everything at the same time. 

Meng Yin had used this tactic since middle school to cope with strengthening her knowledge in subjects she was not good at and to improve her grades correspondingly. Zhiyi was not unfamiliar with this approach, but he had never fully agreed with her way of studying. Compared to Yin's study method, Xu Zhiyi was more aware of how she had unintentionally put a shell around herself.