Fried rice cakes were indeed very tasty. When it came to finding inconspicuous yet delicious food, Jiang Cheng felt that Gu Fei's skill points were maxed out.  

After crying and acting like a hooligan... Although he couldn't think too much about it, his stomach was full, he had bought everything he needed, and when he walked out of the rice cake shop, Jiang Cheng burped and felt much more relaxed.

"Let's go back," Gu Fei looked at the time on his phone, "Don't you still need to review?"

"I'm not reviewing, but I do need to sleep," Jiang Cheng said, "I don't look at books for the two days before exams, mainly just sleep, whether it's a big or small exam."

"Oh," Gu Fei said, "For me, no matter if it's a big or small exam, the whole year before I mainly just sleep too."

Jiang Cheng couldn't help laughing. The two of them laughed wildly and he almost laughed his snot out. He quickly took out a tissue to hold his nose: "Damn."

"Go back and sleep early, don't fall asleep halfway through the exam tomorrow because of your cold." Gu Fei said.

"It won't happen," Jiang Cheng waved his hand, "I can write it with my eyes closed."

"Don't," Gu Fei said, "With your handwriting, even with your eyes open it's illegible, with eyes closed..."

"Shut your mouth." Jiang Cheng laughed again.

The two rode the bikes slowly back to the rented room. Gu Fei did not go upstairs again. He took the things off the bike and gave them to him: "If you get lost again you can call me and I'll tell you how to get back."

"...I already know how to get back." Jiang Cheng said.

"Good night." Gu Fei said with a smile.

"Goodnight." Jiang Cheng locked his bike on the railing of the stairwell, then went upstairs carrying the things.

Although when he opened the door, like at Li Baoguo's place, the room was empty, the feeling was completely different now. He no longer needed to worry about Li Baoguo's troubles, no longer needed to repay his debts again and again, no longer needed to hear his coughing and yelling, and no longer needed to worry about the door suddenly opening.

Jiang Cheng adjusted the water heater temperature to be scalding hot, and rinsed from head to toe. Here there was still hot water for showering, he didn't need to fetch hot water in buckets every day like at Li Baoguo's place... He had never even seen Li Baoguo take a shower, he probably went to the public baths.

The scalding hot water flowed down his face and neck, sliding over his body. He closed his eyes, leaning against the wall, as his whole body slowly relaxed.

But after not showering for long, he turned off the water, quickly dried himself, and walked out of the bathroom.

Although it was not surprising that he would think of Gu Fei and what he had done with Gu Fei in this situation, it was still a little awkward.

He often had impure thoughts - about some celebrity, some random sexy picture seen somewhere, some scene from a porn video... Gu Fei was the first such concrete and nearby target, and no matter what, he still felt guilty about it.

Back in the bedroom, he closed the door, and set up the new bedding and pillows he had bought today. He had originally thought the new sheets and covers should be washed before putting them on, and stood by the bed hesitating for a long time before finally deciding to skip it - real men don't fuss over these things.

He got into bed and stared wide awake for a long time after turning off the lights.

This time it wasn't because of Gu Fei, but because of the exam tomorrow.

He had been muddling along these past weeks, and although he didn't have trouble following the lessons or completing assignments, he was starting to feel a little worried now.

In the past at school, whenever he slacked off it directly affected his grades. Now in an environment like No. 4 High, where he could barely find someone who listened carefully in class, even though the exam difficulty must be lower than before, he was still a little worried about his grades.

Usually he didn't touch books before exams, but now he sat up and took out his notes to flip through.

The exam times at No. 4 High were a little different from before. There were two tests first thing in the morning tomorrow, Chinese and Politics, and he sighed - the scheduling was so packed, it was completely unlike No. 4 High's usual draggy style of postponing the basketball finals until after exams...

He didn't even know when he fell asleep. When he woke up, the book had been tossed onto the floor and he was curled up cozily in the quilt.

Jiang Cheng looked at the time. The alarm hadn't gone off yet, but it was about time. His biological clock could still be relied on at critical moments.

The breakfast options here were similar to those near Li Baoguo's place. He bought a bowl of soymilk and two fried dough sticks from a roadside stall and ate them, then rode his bike to school.

When he got to the intersection, he stopped again, wondering if he still needed to bring Gu Fei along. After hesitating for a while, he took out his phone to make the call.

Just as Gu Fei's name popped up, he heard a whistle next to him. He turned his head, somewhat surprised to find Gu Fei was right there, straddling his bike with one foot on the ground.

"Morning, study god." Gu Fei waved at him.

"Damn," Jiang Cheng looked at the time in shock, "What time did you get here?"

"Just five minutes ago," Gu Fei said. "I'm never late for exams."

"That's so amazing." Jiang Cheng smiled. Suddenly he felt very good. For some reason, when he saw Gu Fei's smile he felt very... close, perhaps because they had done some things, although neither would mention it, they were after all deskmates who had an impure relationship...

"Have you eaten?" Gu Fei asked.

"I just ate a little," Jiang Cheng said. "If you said you were coming I would've waited to eat with you."

"It's fine," Gu Fei said with a smile. "I've eaten too, I was thinking if you hadn't eaten I'd wait for you to finish eating."

It was very peaceful all the way to school, they didn't run into the zoo duo, probably because they already had a fight... No, a basketball game scheduled, so they had to maintain their last bit of composure.

After entering the classroom, Jiang Cheng noticed that even these normally lazy people showed some nervousness during the midterms.

The desks had already been separated, not far apart, but it looked like individual seating.

As soon as he sat down, Zhou Jing turned around: "Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng..."

"If you want to copy answers then look for yourself, if you dare call my name like this during the exam I'll report you for cheating right away." Jiang Cheng pointed at him.

"Oh! Okay okay okay..." Zhou Jing was stunned for a moment before laughing with a face as radiant as a garden full of flowers. "Good friend."

"Jiang Cheng." Someone called him from the left.

Jiang Cheng turned his head to find that Wang Xu was sitting in the seat to his left: "You're sitting here?"

"I sit here during exams," Wang Xu said seriously. "Don't block your answer sheet, got it?"

"Oh." Jiang Cheng acknowledged.

"Don't turn your paper over when you're done either, understand?" Wang Xu continued.

"Oh." Jiang Cheng kept acknowledging.

"You don't need to worry about Gu Fei's side, he never cheats during exams. Just watch me, I'm also responsible for passing it on." Wang Xu still looked very serious. "Got it?"

"...Got it." Jiang Cheng nodded, then turned to look at Gu Fei's side again. Gu Fei was playing on his phone. He glanced back at him with a smile but didn't say anything.

The proctor was a very dignified middle-aged female teacher from third year. After entering the classroom and putting down the exam papers, she first stared at everyone in the classroom from left to right and right to left, front and back, then cleared her throat and read through the exam rules.

The people around were unprecedentedly quiet, so quiet that Jiang Cheng felt a little uncomfortable.

After the papers were handed out, Jiang Cheng first skimmed through it and found that the difficulty of the No. 4 High School exam was quite consistent with the overall style of the school - at least this paper was very simple for him.

He also flipped to the essay question and looked.

Ji Xianlin once said: "Everyone strives for a perfect life. However, from ancient times until now, whether in China or abroad, there has never been a 100% perfect life. So I say, imperfection is life."

Based on your own understanding, combined with your experiences, determine your own meaning, choose your essay style and topic.

Jiang Cheng sighed softly. This essay prompt was so simple, especially for him now. Forget 800 words, even 8000 words would be no problem.

He flipped the paper back to the front and calmly started answering the questions.

It was still quiet around him. A classroom that usually only heard buzzing during lessons was now filled with the rustling sound of pens and paper rubbing - it felt strangely dissonant.

He glanced at Gu Fei's side again. Gu Fei hadn't started the questions yet and was engrossed in reading the modern literature section.

He didn't plan on checking Wang Xu's status on the left, because even without turning his head he could already feel Wang Xu's burning gaze and his face tilted in this direction in his peripheral vision.

The two proctor teachers were quite strict, constantly switching positions walking up and down. Based on the frequency of Zhou Jing's body twisting in front, Jiang Cheng judged that he must be very anxious right now.

By comparison, Pan Zhi was calmer, as always unhurriedly writing nonsense first before correcting everything together later...

Gu Fei finished reading the short modern literature piece, unfortunately it wasn't a story, it was about the rational spirit of architecture... didn't seem very interesting.

He flipped the paper back and planned to first write down guesses for the questions he was familiar with, then start randomly guessing, after finishing guessing he would randomly fill in the blank spaces, and finally cobble together an essay.

The essay format was not restricted, if it was done in a poetry style then it wasn't not limited by the minimum 800 characters, so he planned to exploit this loophole and write as little as possible.

He felt his plan was perfect. As he picked up the answer sheet and started writing, he felt his state was about the same as the study god next to him.

Jiang Cheng's pen never stopped. He basically looked at the question then immediately answered it. For longer questions his pauses weren't too long either. If it was hard to see Jiang Cheng's study god style during normal classes, it could clearly be seen now during the exam.

When Gu Fei finished the first round of familiar questions and started random guessing on the multiple choice, Jiang Cheng had already turned the page.

When Gu Fei started filling in blanks, Jiang Cheng began the essay.

Damn.

He looked at Jiang Cheng's profile. For a moment he felt that Jiang Cheng like this was simply so handsome it was criminal.

But compared to the study god having to write an 800 word essay, Gu Fei's loophole-exploiting poem was much faster. He casually strung together a few lines of specious sentences and that was done. With a paper like this he didn't even need to check it, and if he did check it would just be re-guessing, best of three.

Usually at this time he would have handed in his paper, but today he didn't move. Jiang Cheng next to him was still writing the essay, and he wanted to see.

Although Jiang Cheng's handwriting was horribly ugly, he wrote pretty fast, just like when he was reading self-criticism aloud - whoosh whoosh line after line going down.

Jiang Cheng had put the answer sheet and paper on the corner of the desk. Wang Xu on that side was frantically copying, but he still had to crane his neck for some fill-in-the-blank questions, looking quite pitiful. Zhou Jing was also not having an easy time - with Jiang Cheng's handwriting, even looking straight at it was illegible, looking at it upside down was like a foreign language.

But it was still much better than before, the students with decent grades all sat in front, this group in the back didn't even know who to copy.

With half an hour left before the end, study god Jiang Cheng had also finished the essay, and didn't seem to check it either. He looked around, wanting to hand in the paper directly.

Wang Xu saw this and became anxious, lowering his voice: "Don't rush!"

Jiang Cheng sighed and started spacing out at the paper.

After zoning out for a while, he turned his head. His gaze met Gu Fei's and he mouthed: "Done?"

Gu Fei nodded.

Then he held up the essay for him to see.

Jiang Cheng was stunned for a moment, then turned towards the paper and started laughing.

He laughed very awkwardly, wanting to laugh but unable to make noise, having to hold his nose with a tissue to prevent snot from coming out. Gu Fei hadn't wanted to laugh, it was purely from seeing him like this that made him unable to hold it in.

In the end Jiang Cheng laughed until he started coughing before finally stopping.

Gu Fei got up to hand in his paper and walked out of the classroom and went downstairs. There was still an exam later, he had to come out and move around first. Sitting for forty minutes in class already made him restless, enduring it for so long during an exam was unbearable.

Not long after, Jiang Cheng also came downstairs, looking a little surprised: "You handed it in?"

"Mm." Jiang Cheng nodded. "The teacher was standing right by Wang Xu, I figured he probably copied enough, so I handed it in... Was what you wrote lyrics or a poem?"

"Poem." Gu Fei said, slowly walking towards the teacher's bathroom area.

"Damn, you really have no shame." Jiang Cheng followed him, speaking softly. "If they don't limit the format you just write a poem?"

"Mm." Gu Fei smiled. "I've done it three times now. The first time when Old Xu was grading them, they even discussed how many points to give it."

"You're so talented." Jiang Cheng tsked twice. "What did you write, recite a couple lines?"

"It's too beautiful, I'm embarrassed to recite it." Gu Fei said.

When they reached the area by the bathroom with nobody around, he took out a cigarette and looked at Jiang Cheng. Jiang Cheng shook his head and he lit the cigarette and held it in his mouth.

"You have a good sense for lyrics," Jiang Cheng said. "Really won't recite a couple lines for me to hear?"

"This crappy poem was just to get by." Gu Fei said. "Later when I have time to write some new lyrics I'll show you."

"Alright," Jiang Cheng sat on the steps. "What a bashful youth."

Since there was probably no one left to copy from, Wang Xu and the others also handed in their papers early. Coming downstairs, they first looked around cautiously. After seeing Gu Fei and Jiang Cheng they all came over.

"Bin ah," Wang Xu took out fifty yuan and gave it to Lu Xiaobin. "Go buy some food and drinks, to replenish our study god's spirits."

"Got it." Lu Xiaobin immediately ran towards the school store after taking the money.

"You're sick." Jiang Cheng said.

"Very thoughtful, generous!" Wang Xu gave him a fist salute. "This time I'll definitely pass, might even be a bit higher."

"I've never tested this well before!" Zhou Jing felt very emotional. "Not to criticize, but Jiang Cheng, your handwriting... it's really an anti-cheating divine weapon. Good thing I have good vision and experience, with your chicken scratch even the teacher might deduct points for not being able to read what you wrote when grading right?"

"I always get points deducted for my handwriting being too illegible." Jiang Cheng said.

The group immediately laughed into a mess.

The classroom that hadn't finished testing yet was not far away. The proctor came out and pointed at them so they had to shuffle over by the bathroom again, sitting at the stone tables by the bathroom door.

"I've never understood," Wang Xu said, "Why put a full table and bench set by the bathroom door?"

"What's wrong with that," Jiang Cheng glanced at Lu Xiaobin who had come back with a bag of snacks and drinks. "Some people even eat at the tables by the bathroom door."

The group laughed like fools again. The proctor came out again and chased them to stand at the edge of the sports field.

Next was Politics. With ten minutes before going into the exam room, Old Xu ran over so quickly he brought a small breeze with him: "Jiang Cheng!"

"Hm?" Jiang Cheng looked at him.

"How do you feel?" Teacher Xu asked.

"Pretty good, the questions aren't hard either." Jiang Cheng said.

"What about the essay?" Teacher Xu asked again.

"With no limit on the topic it's easy to write," Jiang Cheng replied.

"I knew you'd have no issues," Teacher Xu's eyes lit up. "We'll crush Class 2 this time. It's always that girl from their class competing with Yi Jing for first place. You'll definitely get it this time!"

"Probably," Jiang Cheng had meant to say it was only the first exam so far at No. 4 High...but he could brag a little.

The politics exam was annoying. Multiple choice just required some guessing, but the short answer questions were a killer. Gu Fei couldn't write anything, just habitually tried to fill in the space. Short answers needed at least 3-4 lines...that took creativity, making high demands on his bullshitting skills.

Especially one question that was 14 points was to discuss the significance of strengthening campus cultural construction by combining No. 4 High School's various cultural activities...Gu Fei glanced at Jiang Cheng's side, this study god was still in the same state as during the Chinese exam, writing swiftly like flying, scribbling down a row of ugly characters.  

Study gods really are a wonderful kind of creature...

It was not so easy to copy in politics. After copying the multiple choice questions, Wang Xu and Zhou Jing gave up on continuing to copy the short answer questions. Compared to deciphering their handwriting, it was probably easier to flip through hidden answers in their desk drawers, sleeves, pants waists and so on.

This time Jiang Cheng handed in his paper early again. Gu Fei felt this kid was just constantly showing off. He had observed that Jiang Cheng finished writing at about the same time as Yi Jing, but when Yi Jing was still repeatedly checking and modifying her work, Jiang Cheng had already handed in his paper and left.  

As soon as he handed in his paper, Gu Fei and the rest who had either made things up haphazardly or had nothing left to copy also handed in their papers together.

At lunch, none of them went home. Wang Xu, probably still excited from all the copying he did in the morning, insisted on dragging everyone to go eat stuffed pancakes.

"We have math in the afternoon," Wang Xu said while eating a stuffed pancake. "We're counting on you, study god!"

"Mm," Jiang Cheng lit a cigarette and pushed open the window next to him a little. He often lacked appetite after taking exams.

"Da Fei, you're really not going to copy anything?" Wang Xu asked Gu Fei again. "It's just not like you to not take advantage of such a great opportunity. I've never seen such an interesting study god!"

"If you yell any louder, your mom will come make stuffed pancakes out of you," Gu Fei said.

"You're really not copying?" Wang Xu lowered his voice.

"Nah," Gu Fei said. "You guys copy and get a passing grade to put on a show, but I don't need to put on a show for anyone."

Gu Fei's words didn't faze the others, but they made Jiang Cheng suddenly feel a bit uncomfortable for some reason.

While everyone was chatting over the meal, he leaned in by Gu Fei and asked softly, "Can you pass your finals?"

Gu Fei glanced at him with a laugh. "Probably can. If not there's make-ups, our make-up questions are super easy, you could do them without thinking."

"Oh," Jiang Cheng grunted and didn't say more.

Gu Fei's attitude made him feel something was off, perhaps it was because of the different environments they grew up in. Even a slacker like Pan Zhi would grit his teeth and make a show of cramming a few days before finals. Gu Fei's complete lack of care made him inexplicably anxious.

What was there to worry about though? Gu Fei's family didn't have parents waiting to see his grades, and he didn't seem to have a reason to get good grades to get into a good university either...

"Stop worrying about me," Gu Fei's leg gently bumped his under the table. "I'm just trying to get a graduation certificate."

"No," Jiang Cheng frowned. "If you just want a graduation certificate, you might as well go to some technical school or vocational school. Wouldn't those certificates be better than this crappy normal high school?"

"It's complicated," Gu Fei smiled. "I'll slowly explain it to you some other time."

The intense midterm exams finished up in just two days. Based on Gu Fei's observations and Jiang Cheng's unabashed bragging, he could roughly guess Jiang Cheng's grades. Yi Jing was going to have one more competitor for the top of their grade.  

"Your exam questions were too simple," Jiang Cheng had said at least three times over the past two days.

But when Old Xu charged into the classroom early in the morning, the excitement on his face still surprised Jiang Cheng a bit. Gu Fei looked at Old Xu - if Jiang Cheng's grades were just similar to Yi Jing's, Old Xu wouldn't be this thrilled.  

"Students! Students!" Old Xu stood at the podium. "I have good news to tell you!"

The class lazily clapped together.

"The other teachers will probably mention it when they start class too, but I wanted to be the first to say," Old Xu waved his arms. "Our class had three perfect scores this time!"

This news really was somewhat shocking. The class immediately broke into excited discussion, and many eyes landed on Jiang Cheng.

"Oh," Jiang Cheng sighed and laid his head down on the desk, still not used to being stared at like that.

"Guess who it is? Which three subjects?" Old Xu built up the reveal excitedly, but didn't give them a chance to guess before announcing, "Student Jiang Cheng! Math! English! Geography! All full marks!"

"Holy sh*t -" The class immediately erupted.

"Fuck!" Zhou Jing whipped around banging the desk. "Jiang Cheng! So awesome! You rock!"

"Ah," Jiang Cheng grunted.

"Sit properly," Gu Fei glanced at Zhou Jing.

"So awesome!" Zhou Jing said once more before turning and sitting, then looked back again. "So awesome!"

Old Xu was still impassioned at the podium. Gu Fei leaned over. "The rankings probably came out too. Go check after?"

"No need to check," Jiang Cheng said. "Really, it was just a midterm exam, and like I said, your exam questions were too simple. I've never gotten a perfect score in geography before."

"Then I'll go check," Gu Fei said.

"Why are you so excited?" Jiang Cheng said.  

"I'm going to check very calmly," Gu Fei popped a candy into his mouth.

After class, Gu Fei immediately got up and left, following right behind Old Xu into the office.  

"Teacher Xu," he called out.

"Why are you here?" Old Xu looked at him, and grabbed a can of Red Bull from his desk to give to him. "Here, have this. Teacher Lu just gave everyone a can, it's too sweet."

"Have the rankings for the year come out yet?" Gu Fei took the Red Bull and asked.

"You still care about that? Top 100, bottom 100, you're not on either," Old Xu said.  

"First place is Jiang Cheng, right?" Gu Fei smiled and asked.

At this, Old Xu immediately perked up again. He stood up and waved Gu Fei over to the empty desk inside the office, saying, "Come take a look."

Gu Fei took out his phone as he walked over.

On the desk was a large red paper. Old Xu had nice calligraphy, and wrote out the grade rankings every year before posting them, as part of the school's "cultural development".

Gu Fei immediately saw the first name - Jiang Cheng.  

"Jiang Cheng, huh?" He quickly snapped a photo of the paper with his phone, then turned and left the office. "Continue writing, Teacher Xu."

Once out of Old Xu's office, Gu Fei immediately opened the school's forum on his phone, and posted the photo he just took with a throwaway account.

"Happened to see this when passing by the office just now..." - HandsomeBeyondTheHeavens