Chapter 8: As Long as You Don't Think About It, It Won't Be Sad

The school hunk Qi Yi, as the teachers would put it, was "well-rounded in morals, intelligence, physical ability, aesthetics, and labor", whereas the students would say that looks were the only standard for judging a school hunk.

If most of the students at Wenzhou High School could be described as "someone else's child", then Qi Yi would qualify as an "alien's child".

It was hard for classmates to find fault with Qi Yi; only Yan Yan knew how full of anxieties he was.

High school students dating usually face opposition from parents and teachers, but Qi Yi and Yan Yan's relationship had actually been facilitated by their homeroom teacher, Teacher Ge.

Once Yan Yan's parents heard the "rumors" from the homeroom teacher, they were quite pleased.

Indeed, Yan Yan's parents weren't particularly open-minded; the only reason they didn't oppose their daughter's early romance was because her boyfriend was Qi Yi.

Yan Yan herself wasn't fond of studying; it was purely due to an exceptional performance during the middle school exams that she barely made it into Wenzhou High School.

The year Yan Yan took the exams, Wenzhou High School enrolled a total of 383 students, with Yan Yan ranking 382nd.

Such a ranking for Yan Yan did not mean there was another person worse than her, as this 382 was shared by two students with a tie.

The other student who tied with her had a surname that came before Yan Yan's in the order of strokes.

Therefore, in the school's publicly announced list, Yan Yan's name appeared last, inescapably the very last one.

In contrast, positioned diagonally across the list from Yan Yan, and ranked first in terms of enrollment, was Qi Yi.

Qi Yi had been top of the school since his admission, and he never let that number one rank slip in any of the tests throughout the first year of high school.

The middle school Yan Yan attended was so mediocre that not even one student might manage to get into Wenzhou High School based on their grades in an entire year.

In her own middle school, Yan Yan's results had always been at the top.

Even so, Yan Yan still needed to perform exceptionally well just to scrape into Wenzhou High School by the narrowest of margins.

Yan Yan had a knack for attracting negativity. In her middle school, where few studied well, the high-performing Yan Yan was always targeted by her classmates.

Yan Yan always told herself it's better to be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond.

Yan Yan had never hoped to perform exceptionally in the middle school exams.

Originally, Yan Yan had wanted to just normally make it into Second High, becoming an untargeted "pillar amongst her peers".

Not being targeted had been Yan Yan's "dream" since she was little.

So, even being "a big fish" wasn't the ideal Yan Yan had wanted.

This last-place "small fish" entry ranking made Yan Yan full of worries.

She felt that in a high school like Wenzhou High School, where everyone studied seriously, poor grades would surely not exempt her from being targeted.

Anxious Yan Yan, during the summer break after graduating from junior high, while her classmates played without a care, pushed herself as if she was about to take the college entrance exam.

Yan Yan had never studied so earnestly before.

This time, Yan Yan's efforts paid off just right.

The once last-placed Yan Yan, after the first diagnostic test in high school, rose 232 places to rank 150th in her year.

It wasn't a particularly good ranking, but it certainly aligned with Yan Yan's life goal of being a "pillar amongst her peers".

Moreover, at a prestigious school like Wenzhou High School, if one was willing to be flexible with their major, a rank of 150 was already enough to get into Zhejiang University.

Yan Yan felt that she had never been so happy before. Her ordinary grades were no longer special and no longer targeted.

In her first year of high school, Yan Yan had close classmates for the first time and understood for the first time what "harmonious relationships with classmates" meant in teacher comments.

There were no prestigious universities in Wenzhou, but Wenzhou High School, established in 1902, was the most prestigious school in the city. Getting into Wenzhou High School was almost equivalent to getting into a top university.

Although Wenzhou High School had produced valedictorians in the liberal arts, it was more famous for its science discipline, especially for producing mathematicians. It was known as the "cradle of mathematicians."

As early as 1915, it nurtured the internationally renowned mathematician Su Buqing, and since then, it has produced hundreds of mathematicians.

There were over twenty current leaders of top mathematics departments and research institutes both domestically and internationally who came from this school.

Zhejiang University is ranked third nationwide and being among the top 150 in the class could secure a spot at Zhejiang University, even if majors were subject to adjustments—a very impressive statistic.

Hidden behind this statistic was regional advantage. Zhejiang University's enrollment plans within the province were much larger than those of other prestigious 985 universities, usually amounting to one-fifth of its total admissions.

However, this regional advantage was trivial compared to cities like Shanghai and Beijing, bustling with prestigious schools.

Each year, the college entrance examination cut-off scores for Zhejiang were among the highest.

Zhejiang University was not difficult to enter, but to ensure a spot at Peking University or Qinghua, one had to be within the top ten of their class.

To get into schools like Fudan and Ren Da, which enrolled fewer students from Zhejiang, one needed to be at least within the top thirty of their class.

Yan Yan studied hard, initially just not wanting to be at the very bottom, and now she had become a "pillar," realizing her life's aspirations.

Full of joy and self-complacency, Yan Yan remained around the 150th rank in her class from the first baseline test to the end of her first year in high school, without any significant change.

To say she was self-complacent, however, wasn't entirely true; although Yan Yan didn't work very hard, she wasn't completely neglectful either.

Moving up from the bottom to rank 150 in the academic pyramid was relatively easy, but climbing further became increasingly difficult.

Effort alone was not enough; exceptional intelligence was needed as well.

They say a woman in love has zero IQ, but after Yan Yan began her "early love," her grades skyrocketed. By the second semester of her second year, her rank had risen to the top thirty of her class.

Such results still had a considerable gap compared to Qi Yi but were among the highest achieved by the female students in her class.

In other words, by that time, Yan Yan could easily apply to any university other than Peking University or Qinghua.

With such a "precocious romance," Yan Yan's parents really had no reason to object.

Her class teacher encouraged it, and her parents didn't oppose it.

Qi Yi never understood why Yan Yan, out of the blue, said she was tired of him.

After the breakup, Yan Yan got along well with everyone else but wouldn't say a single word to him.

Qi Yi would never have guessed the two of them, who could have happily carried on their early romance, had broken up because of his mother's meddling.

Even after reading the "Tombstone Inscription" Yan Yan wrote three years ago and knowing the truth, Qi Yi still found Yan Yan's actions incomprehensible.

Qi Yi never insisted on going to Peking University, so why didn't Yan Yan even ask for his opinion before decisively breaking up on her own?

The breakup five years ago was heart-wrenchingly painful.

If it wasn't for this piece of "past" suddenly coming into his view, Qi Yi would not have thought of Yan Yan for a long time.

Some people, some things, they don't make you sad as long as you don't think about them.