Chapter 28

Chapter 28

At this moment, the Xu family was in complete chaos. Meanwhile, Xu Meng was about to face the announcement of her first mock exam results.

Aside from the top scorers, most of the upper-middle ranks were occupied by Xu Jia's cheating ring. They had collaborated extensively and shared answers with remarkable efficiency—next-level cheating, really—and as a result, Xu Jia had hogged all the glory.

Fresh out of the head teacher’s office, Xu Jia was feeling smug after receiving special attention from the teacher.

She had cheated so many times that she could no longer tell what her real abilities were.

“Did you hear?” her friend Xiao Jia came over, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Someone in our grade scored a perfect 100 in English this time. Guess who?”

Xu Jia knew she had done well. Her group had strong-armed several top students into leaking answers for them, so she blurted out, “It couldn’t be me, right?”

No way. She had written the English essay herself, and given her level, she was bound to lose some points.

Xiao Jia let out a mocking laugh. “Wrong guess. It’s your sister, Xu Meng. Now the whole school knows she scored full marks in English. Word is, her essay was fire—you should’ve seen it. Xu Meng stole the spotlight this time.”

Xu Meng?

Xu Jia paused mid-pack. It was actually her?

This mock exam was reportedly a citywide unified test with high difficulty. How could Xu Meng have scored a perfect 100?

Xu Meng’s English had been taught by Feng Yanwen from the start. While others were still reciting “Goose, Goose, Goose” (a famous Chinese nursery rhyme), Xu Meng had already started memorizing vocabulary. Xu Jia knew her English was good, but not *this* good. On previous tests, Xu Meng would always lose a few points in listening and writing. Still, her English scores had consistently ranked near the top of the grade.

“You must have heard wrong. No one could get a perfect score.”

“It really was full marks. Xu Meng’s essay was copied and posted on the school bulletin board as an exemplar. It was genuinely excellent,” Xiao Jia said enviously. “Foreign language scores can really pull up your average. Do you think she can ease up on English now and focus more on other subjects? I heard her total score across all subjects was pretty good too. Rumor has it her mom started a cram school, and everyone’s interested in trying it out.”

What? Feng Yanwen was running a tutoring center now?

Xu Jia couldn’t reconcile the image of her pushover of an aunt with the current Feng Yanwen, now a businesswoman running her own cram school.

Why did Xu Meng always have to show up when she was feeling proud? She was such a buzzkill.

This doubt wasn’t just among students—teachers shared it too.

A perfect score! The school hadn’t seen a full-mark essay in years, yet it appeared in this mock exam. To ensure fairness, the school organized a cross-grading review where all high school English teachers examined it together. Their unanimous verdict? Outstanding!

The logic, the elegance of the language, and the vocabulary beyond the syllabus—all were impressive.

It showcased advanced skills while maintaining literary flair, something even teachers might struggle to produce.

Xu Meng, once unremarkable, instantly became the center of attention, with many students seeking her advice.

And Xu Meng? She stayed down-to-earth, answering questions honestly, which quickly won everyone over.

Just then, Xu Jia brushed past two girls from her grade—

“I always heard Xu Jia was the top student, but who knew Xu Meng was this good?”

“Some people are late bloomers. Like my older cousin—she only hit her stride in senior year and still got into a first-tier university. Who knows? Maybe Xu Meng will surpass her in the end.”

The “her” here, of course, referred to Xu Jia.

When Xu Jia first entered high school, her grades had been decent, and she’d felt quite superior.

But soon, she hit a wall in math, physics, and chemistry. In middle school, she had breezed through these subjects with perfect scores. Now, suddenly unable to grasp them, she realized she might be stuck—both humanities and STEM paths might be dead ends for her. And she knew exactly what that meant: her family would make her life miserable.

At this time, Xu Meng's grades began to rise.

To make her own life easier and satisfy her vanity, Xu Jia started cheating.

Having tasted the benefits and sweetness of good grades, how could she easily give it up? Once she cheated the first time, the second followed naturally. Eventually, she became a seasoned member—even a leader—of the cheating group. The advantages brought by her good grades were obvious. Even her grandmother, who favored boys over girls, treated her better as a "soon-to-be college student."

The two didn't seem to notice and continued their discussion—

"I heard Xu Meng's English was tutored by her mom. Is her mom an English teacher?"

"She used to be, but she quit for some reason. Now she runs a tutoring center. I heard from Wei Xiang before that her mom teaches English there."

"Too bad we’re in senior year with no time to spare. I’d really want to get some tutoring from her mom."

"Right? I’ll mention it to my mom later and see if she can get my younger sister some help. Maybe I won’t make it, but my sister might."

"You’re something."

Xu Jia was seething with anger inside.

Not long ago, she had seen Feng Yanwen selling maps at the train station, and now she was starting a tutoring business. How do they manage all this?

What upset her even more was that after leaving this family, Xu Meng was actually doing so well—quietly making some good money selling watermelons and now running a tutoring business. Sounds like she’s doing really well.

Xu Jia had never liked Xu Meng.

Xu Meng always drew attention. Ever since kids started understanding beauty, Xu Meng had been the talk of the neighborhood.

Not only that, but people also said Xu Meng’s birth parents would come back for her someday.

In the eyes of her peers, Xu Meng was a real-life fairy-tale girl.

Xu Meng this, Xu Meng that—why is it always Xu Meng!

Xu Jia returned to the classroom and found many classmates discussing the perfect score on the English exam. Those who used to follow her around were now interested in Xu Meng, and it made her sick. She never wanted to see Xu Meng succeed in her life.

"Hey, Xiao Jia, get over here," Xu Jia called out in a commanding tone.

————

Xu Meng had just returned when she was swarmed.

She wasn’t used to this kind of attention and smiled shyly, but patiently answered her classmates' questions.

"I had no idea Xu Meng was this good, or did it finally click for you in senior year?" one girl teased. "School’s such a crapshoot. Some people keep bragging about how great they were in elementary or middle school, but I say what matters is what you do in high school. Ten years of effort can’t beat one year of grinding."

Everyone laughed. Sitting at the next table, Wei Xiang jumped in: "You have no idea how hard Xu Meng usually studies. I’ve never seen her go out during breaks—she’s always grinding through practice sets."

Truthfully, everyone had noticed. As an ordinary high school, No. 19 had a mixed bag of students—some studied during breaks, others played basketball, chatted, or read novels. But with all kinds of people around, no one really noticed Xu Meng before.

Previously, people only knew Xu Meng was pretty, and that’s all anyone said about her.

Xu Meng answered some questions, but the topic soon shifted to Feng Yanwen’s tutoring center.

It turned out the real purpose of today’s crowd wasn’t to ask about her study methods.

Xu Meng shared what she could, but when it came to any "secret" to her English skills, she had nothing to say. She had been exposed to English from a very young age—memorizing words, training her ears—her foundation was rock-solid.

Xu Meng wasn’t trying to show off. She just mentioned offhand that she started learning English early, but her nosy classmates dug deeper and eventually unearthed the details of her mother’s profession. By their final year of high school, no one really had time for outside tutoring anyway. Xu Meng simply wanted to say that she was just an ordinary person—her slightly better English was only because she started earlier.

She didn’t mean anything by it, but others took it seriously.

The students cozying up to Xu Meng today were all from families with younger siblings, hoping to get information about tutoring centers for their brothers and sisters.

Xu Meng had a sudden idea and simply gave out the address of her mother’s tutoring center…

————

In the teachers’ office,

As soon as Xu Meng’s results came out, even the teachers couldn’t help discussing the topic.

Her English teacher was a woman surnamed Zhang.

Teacher Zhang belonged to the “Three Graduating Classes” generation. She reached college-entrance age just during the “Down to the Countryside” movement, spending years in the countryside before finally taking the first national college entrance exam after its reinstatement. When she entered university, she was older than most students at the time. Her options were limited when being assigned to a school, and she ended up at this mediocre high school.

Even so, Teacher Zhang taught every student with dedication. When she heard there was a perfect score on the practice test, she instinctively thought of Xu Meng.

And it really was Xu Meng.

Listening to her colleagues talk about Xu Meng, Teacher Zhang swelled with pride. In all her years of teaching, she had never encountered a student with such a rock-solid foundation as Xu Meng.

“Teacher Zhang, is this score real?” another teacher asked.

Teacher Zhang smiled. “Her English has always been strong—consistently top one or two in class. She works very hard.”

Yang Ruohua found Teacher Zhang’s smile irritating.

He was the grade leader, yet his class had been outperformed by Teacher Zhang’s, which hit him right in the pride. On top of that, this Xu Meng girl had been hogging all the attention lately, and everything about her seemed to get under his skin.

“Teacher Zhang,” Yang Ruohua said in a snide tone, “how come we’ve never heard of this Xu Meng before? English isn’t like other subjects. It doesn’t make sense that someone would suddenly improve so dramatically. And I’ve heard she’s been flaunting herself in class recently, even advertising her mother’s tutoring center. This student is getting too big for her britches. One good score doesn’t guarantee anything.”

His words were downright nasty.

Teacher Zhang, though usually even-tempered after years of experience, was angered by Yang Ruohua’s insinuations. “What exactly are you implying, Teacher Yang? If Xu Meng has the ability to score well, should she hold back just to save face for someone else?”

She shut him down cold, refusing to engage further.

Yang Ruohua’s grip on his teacup trembled with barely contained rage.

Later, he complained to others about Teacher Zhang: “She just hides behind her seniority. I didn’t want to confront her outright, but her words were too much. I was trying to be polite, but she really crosses the line.”

…These were all things said afterward. But when it came to this year’s teacher evaluations, the school leadership clearly favored Teacher Zhang.

And that made Yang Ruohua even angrier!