novelslam Chapter 98 Collapse
Chapter 98 Collapse
After the morning meeting ended, Gao Zhe and the others surrounded Lu Yuan as if he were a star, and escorted him back to the classroom. Their words were full of praise, and they clearly regarded him as the absolute leader of this small group.
Faced with everyone's enthusiastic praise, Lu Yuan could only smile in response, feeling somewhat overwhelmed.
During the first class, the homeroom teacher, Wang Zhishu, walked into the classroom with his lesson plan and officially announced the class's second mock exam scores.
The overall average score of Class 5 did not decline significantly this time; on the contrary, it rose steadily due to the outstanding performance of several students.
Among them, Lu Yuan's progress is still the most astonishing.
Wang Zhishu pushed up his glasses and read out the score that shocked the whole class: "Lu Yuan, Chinese 121, Math 115, English 150, Science 268, Total 654. Ranked fourth in the class and 46th in the entire grade for science."
When the score of "654 points" was announced, the classroom fell into a deathly silence.
Then came a gasp of surprise.
654 points—what does that mean? If it were the National College Entrance Examination (Gaokao), this score would be enough for him to freely choose from many of the top universities in the country, and his future would be limitless.
"Brother Yuan is awesome!"
Gao Zhe broke the silence first, applauding Lu Yuan vigorously.
Then, scattered applause broke out, but most students were in low spirits, either clapping perfunctorily or simply sitting still with complicated expressions.
Zheng Jiarui's face was particularly grim.
Her total score in the second mock exam was only 615 points, a significant drop compared to the first mock exam.
Although it is an objective fact that the second mock exam was more difficult and most people experienced some degree of decline, even if she performed normally, she would only score around 640 points at most.
In other words, before the college entrance examination even arrived, she had already become Lu Yuan's defeated opponent.
She couldn't help but ask herself: What kind of monster is Lu Yuan?
Could it be that Lu Yuan's previous image as a poor student was all an act?
His goal was to stage a stunning underdog comeback just before the college entrance exam, leaving a lasting impression on everyone.
Thinking about this, Zheng Jiarui dared not think any further, only feeling a chill run down her spine.
She felt as if she were being watched by countless eyes hidden in the shadows, those eyes whispering and mocking her overestimation of her abilities, completely negating all her efforts over the years.
From elementary school onwards, she dared not slack off in the slightest. While others were playing during winter and summer vacations, she was making the most of every minute to catch up on her studies.
She admits that she may not have exceptional talent, but she firmly believes that hard work can make up for any shortcomings.
She used to think that she was hardworking enough and not much worse than others, and that the gap could be bridged through hard work.
But now, Lu Yuan has dealt her a heavy blow.
It turns out that in the face of absolute talent, hard work seems utterly worthless.
Lu Yuan wasted his entire high school years in a daze, and only took things seriously for a short period of time in the last two months, which easily crushed her twelve years of hard work.
That's ridiculous, it's absolutely outrageous.
The more Zheng Jiarui thought about it, the more choked up she felt. Her eyes involuntarily welled up with tears, and finally she simply lay down on the table, buried her head in her arms, and secretly cried.
During the break, everyone chatted in small groups. Even if someone noticed Zheng Jiarui, they just assumed she was too tired and taking a nap, and did not disturb her.
The first two periods were self-study and review classes, and quite a few students were resting with their heads down. It wasn't until the English teacher walked into the classroom in the third period that everyone sat up straight.
After praising Lu Yuan highly, the English teacher prepared to lead everyone in reviewing, only to find that Zheng Jiarui, usually the most diligent student in the class, was still lying on the desk, motionless.
The teacher frowned unhappily, and everyone's eyes followed her.
Her deskmate quickly nudged her and whispered, "Jiarui, get up, class is starting."
No response.
Everyone sensed something was wrong and looked at each other in bewilderment.
The English teacher stepped down from the podium, her tone softening: "Zheng Jiarui, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell? If so, please tell me."
Just as everyone was wondering what was going on, Zheng Jiarui suddenly stood up, didn't even look up, and rushed out of the classroom as if fleeing.
The English teacher and the students around her were all startled.
"What's wrong with her?"
"It looks like you've been crying?"
"Who bullied her?"
"Have you run into some trouble?"
Everyone was completely baffled. Zheng Jiarui was perfectly fine yesterday, so how could he suddenly turn out like this? It was all without warning.
"Li Xian, Zheng Jiarui usually talks to you the most. Tell me, did you bully her?" Gao Zhe teased, half-jokingly, as if he didn't want the world to be in chaos.
Li Xian rolled his eyes: "Don't slander me. How did I bully her? I even gave her a lot of snacks last night, and she was quite happy then."
"Yeah, Jiarui seemed to be in a pretty good mood this morning," the girl sitting next to him chimed in.
The English teacher sighed and instructed Li Xian and Zheng Jiarui's deskmate, "Go and find her quickly, see what happened, and I'll report to the homeroom teacher."
He paused, then glanced at the back row. "Lu Yuan, Gao Zhe, you two come along too."
……
After searching halfway around the campus, the group finally found Zheng Jiarui curled up in an inconspicuous corner of the playground, sobbing softly.
Her deskmate quickly ran over and squatted down, gently asking, "Jiarui, what's wrong? What happened?"
"Leave me alone..." Zheng Jiarui cried even harder, her shoulders trembling violently.
The group looked at each other, at a loss for what to do.
His deskmate tried to persuade him for a long time, but to no avail. In the end, he could only place his hopes on Li Xian.
Li Xian and Zheng Jiarui have a good relationship, and Zheng Jiarui usually listens to what he says.
But Li Xian's emotional intelligence is truly appalling; he has absolutely no idea how to coax girls.
After hesitating for a while, he finally managed to say, "Zheng Jiarui, do you think you're too ugly? It's okay, even if you're not as pretty as Xu Lingjing, everyone is still willing to be your friend."
"Awesome!"
In front of Li Xian, Gao Zhe felt like he was a master of emotional intelligence.
Several people covered their faces, speechless, and gave Li Xian a thumbs up, thinking to themselves that it would be incredibly lucky for him to find a partner in the future.
Wow~
Zheng Jiarui seemed to have been hit hard, and her crying instantly escalated into a wail, causing the scene to spiral out of control.
Soon, the homeroom teacher Wang Zhishu and the dean of studies Zhang Dabiao rushed over upon hearing the news, but faced with Zheng Jiarui crying her eyes out, the two teachers were completely bewildered and had no way to help her.
Lu Yuan looked at Zheng Jiarui quietly, and a sudden realization flashed through his mind.
He stepped forward and said in a calm tone, "If you have something on your mind, talk it out here."
Hearing Lu Yuan's voice, Zheng Jiarui looked up through her teary eyes. Although her vision was blurry, she recognized the figure as Lu Yuan at a glance.
Her crying stopped abruptly, followed by a hysterical roar: "Why? Lu Yuan, why?! You clearly didn't work as hard as me, so why did you get a higher score than me in just a few months? Tell me, did you cheat? You cheated to get such a high score, didn't you?!"
Upon hearing this, everyone instantly understood the crux of the problem.
Everyone looked at Lu Yuan, presumably because Lu Yuan's rocket-like progress had directly shattered Zheng Jiarui's Dao Heart.
This kind of thing had happened before, and it was extremely difficult to deal with. Both Wang Zhishu and Zhang Dabiao looked troubled.
Faced with Zheng Jiarui's frantic questioning, Lu Yuan remained calm and unaffected, even looking at her coldly without showing any pity.
He calmly countered, "Would you be happy if I said I cheated to get a high score?"
Zheng Jiarui was stunned, seemingly stumped by the question.
Whether Lu Yuan cheated or not, everyone knows the truth.
If Zheng Jiarui truly believed that Lu Yuan had gotten his position through cheating, she wouldn't have needed to break down or doubt herself.
The problem is that she knows very well in her heart that Lu Yuan defeated her with his real talent and skills, and acknowledging this result is the root cause of her breakdown.
Lu Yuan didn't give her a chance to catch her breath and continued, "You can't accept your failure, so you're trying to find an excuse to comfort yourself. If you can fool your own heart, then I can be generous and make up a few plausible excuses for you. Do you need them?"
Zheng Jiarui glared at him, feeling insulted by Lu Yuan's words: "Lu Yuan, you bastard! Get away from me, I don't want to see you!"
"Unless you drop out of school, you'll see me for a long time to come."
"You..." Zheng Jiarui was speechless, his hatred intensifying.
"Lu Yuan, are you even human?" Li Xian couldn't stand it anymore and couldn't help but accuse him, "She's already like this, and we're classmates, can't you at least show some mercy with your words?"
"Don't speak yet, wait until I finish speaking before you speak."
Lu Yuan gave Li Xian an unquestionable look.
Li Xian wanted to talk back, but when he met Lu Yuan's seemingly tangible and imposing gaze, he inexplicably felt a pang of guilt, as if he were seeing his stern father, and immediately cowered.
Lu Yuan looked at Zheng Jiarui again, his expression cold, yet carrying an inviolable air of authority.