I Don’t Want to Win Lying Down - Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Midterm Exams

It was the day, the long awaited city-wide midterm joint exam. The exams were led by the Municipal Education Bureau, and it was held twice every year for the Year 3 students. The purpose was to strengthen inter school relationships, discover any other weaknesses in exam preparations, and develop a better strategy for the next stage of their studies.

The test questions were compiled and made by the Municipal Education Bureau by contacting all the ace teachers within and out of the province, and compiled together with the ace teachers within the city. All of it was made to be at the same level of the university entrance exams, and it was possibly even harder than those exams.

Of course, the top few names in the joint exams were also highly anticipated. Ning District was known for being academically strong, and every joint exam was guaranteed to produce some of the top placing students. They had been doing so without exception consistently.

In the last two exams, there were six guarantees, and these lucky students had been all sent to well-known local universities to study.

Xu Mang started his day as usual, taking the bus that would head towards his school, getting off one stop earlier to buy buns. This time he bought a chinese cabbage bun. The cabbage and bean curd together gave a fragrant smell, and added on a little spicy sauce, it was like a party of flavor on his taste buds.

Although the bun was perfect, it didn’t do anything to ease the sorrow in Xu Mang’s heart, because he didn’t get any new quest in regards to the midterm exams.

This was fate!

At this time, he bumped into Yang Xiaoman at the school gates.

“Hmph!”

Seeing Xu Mang eating a bun, Yang Xiaoman couldn’t help but feel angry. The first time she had stepped foot into this school, she hadn’t even managed to put one foot in and she had to return home because of this guy’s meat bun.

When she thought about it, she was so angry. He caused her to have to wash her hair for almost an hour to get it off, and she had lost quite a few strands of hair from that.

“Want one? Cabbage bun.” Xu Mang said, waving the plastic bag in front of Yang Xiaoman.

“No!”

Yang Xiaoman shot him a venomous glare before walking into the school alone.

Don’t want to eat, then fine la! Why you gotta get all worked up?

Xu Mang watched Yang Xiaoman’s back, taking a big violent bite of his bun. When he finally finished the four buns in his bag, he walked towards the student council member who was checking the student cards, and stretched out his hand.

The student council member was a startled expression, and his hands reached out to automatically take what was given to him, and realized that he was holding an empty plastic bag.

“Help me throw it away.”

Saying that, Xu Mang then walked into school.

Motherfucker!

Don’t you have your own two feet!?

The student council wanted to kill Xu Mang.

***

Most of the Year 3 teachers and others were out of the school, being proctors for the other school exams. The ones that were left in the school were mostly the class teachers, of course, teachers from other schools had also arrived at One High.

There was still an hour before the start of the exam, and students were frantically trying to get in their last minute revisions. Only Xu Mang and Yang Xiaoman were doing nothing, one was lying down on the table in a daze, while the other was scrolling through Weibo.

The former was due to being an arrogant salted fish, while the latter was due to being a king with no worries.

“You’re always scrolling Weibo everyday, what are you looking at?” Xu Mang asked, peeking over her shoulder at her Weibo, and realized that she was browsing the entertainment news. Some news on random new songs from new singers, no mixing on it, some celebrity was becoming a bride, and some domestic violence news.

“You browse these when you’re bored?” Xu Mang asked again.

“What else can I browse?” Yang Xiaoman said, giving him a half hearted glare, “Weibo was originally geared towards entertainment, so I can only browse entertainment news.”

“True that. Why not follow me then?” Xu Mang smiled as he took out his phone “My user name is ‘People who spit on me, their whole family will burn’.”

“…”

This was the first time Yang Xiaoman heard of such a name for a username, but if you think about it, it suits this moronic idiot’s character, he’s probably also a troll or a keyboard warrior on the internet.

“Of all the names to be used.” Yang Xiaoman said, as she searched for him and pressed ‘follow’.

“Ugh…” Xu Mang said, as he tap to place her under the special follower category in his Weibo, and let out a great sigh, “Can’t be helped, there are too many people online that’s out to get me. You don’t know how scary all these rice heads are in their circles nowadays, I just casually made a comment on their love for beans. As a result, a large group of people started PM-ing me and all of it was just scolding and insults.”

“You say things you’re not supposed to, and touch what you’re not supposed to!” Yang Xiaoman snorted, not sympathizing with Xu Mang’s situation at all. In her opinion, he reaped what he sowed.

“Ah? You’ll be ranking with me tonight right?” Xu Mang begged, “I’m almost Gold, just carry me for a bit.”

“Just for normal games.” Yang Xiaoman said as she nodded her head, “You’re not high enough level for ranked games.”

“Fine with me! What position do you play?”

“Mid or Jungler.”

“Oh…”

Xu Mang felt conflicted, because that was the two positions that he played too.

There was still forty minutes, and Lin Yishan came into the classroom and called Xu Mang out.

“Mr Lin? What’s up?” Xu Mang asked.

“Make sure you do the exams properly, you hear me?” Lin Yishan warned, a dark look on his face, “I heard that the difficulty in the exams this round isn’t that great, especially the maths paper. Make sure to give it your 120%!”

Xu Mang shrunk backwards at the overwhelming aura given out by Lin Yishan, and nodded his head, “Got it.”

“Also! You better not sleep during the exams this time.” Lin Yishan instructed, “The proctors are teachers from other schools, it will be bad for our school’s image.”

“Oh…”

Lin Yishan stared at Xu Mang, he always felt Xu Mang’s responses of ‘oh’ was too casual, it was obvious that this guy didn’t take to heart all the things he had said. Poking at the place where Xu Mang’s heart is supposed to be, he said seriously, “Take my words to heart, you got it!?”

“Ouchie! Mr Lin…you pierce me!” Xu Mang said, rubbing the spot as he scowled.

You…

You’re just giving me trouble no matter when right?

Lin Yishan was hard pressed not to go crazy, and he turned away to leave, and suddenly stopped not two steps later, giving Xu Mang another order, “You better not hand in blank papers!”

Seeing Lin Yishan’s back as he left, Xu Mang let out another heavy sigh, and went back to his own seat.

“What did Mr Lin want to see you for?” Yang Xiaoman asked, curious.

“A warning. He warned me to be more honest.” Xu Mang said, indifferently, “I think I’m plenty honest, I don’t have any fight against the world…”

“Get out! Tell me the details.” Yang Xiaoman huffed.

Xu Mang lowered his voice as he said, “He asked me to do the exam properly, don’t make trouble or mess up, and if I do I’ll get it.”

“What are you planning to do?”

“I’ll think about it once I get the paper.”

***

For the Chinese test, the proctor was two teachers that were from Third High. Naturally, after Xu Mang got the paper, he had the intention to sleep first, but then he remembered Lin Yishan’s words.

‘System, how many points do I need to get a perfect score on this paper?’

[System has detected, to get full marks on this Chinese paper will require: 1,999 (Chinese Skill)]

Hehe…

He glanced at his own skill points available.

Chinese Skill = 2,010

This didn’t upset him at all!

Xu Mang had accepted this cruel fate, when you are full of confidence, reality will always come crashing down and teach you how to be humble. At this time, you can either be brave and move on forward or you could grovel on your knees.

Xu Mang chose to be the latter.

He is a pragmatic person, although the joint exams were important, it wasn’t as important as the university entrance exam. Although he could already imagine what kind of disaster was awaiting him after such an encounter, for example Mr Lin’s livid rage, but this was life!

There was the sour, the sweet, the bitter, and the salty…

Xu Mang let out a weary sigh, and quietly wrote his own name, school, class and student number.

Giving up was also an option, after all.