When Qing Ye heard Fang Lei's plan to apply for Xiamen University, she was quite surprised. After knowing her for so long, Fang Lei had been just like most of the slackers at Anzhong High—casual about school, never turning in an assignment without copying, and scoring just over 300 points in total. To raise that to around 600 in just a few months? Honestly, Qing Ye thought it was nearly impossible.
But Fang Lei looked straight at her, the clear moonlight reflecting in her determined eyes. Qing Ye couldn’t avoid her gaze, nor could she bluntly tell her to give up.
Hesitantly, she said, "It’s really hard."
Fang Lei, however, burst with unprecedented conviction: "I know."
"It’ll be exhausting."
"I’m not afraid."
"You’ll have to sacrifice sleep, scrolling on your phone, hanging out, even time for meals and bathroom breaks. You might even go crazy from the pressure."
Suddenly, Fang Lei slapped Qing Ye’s shoulder firmly and said with fierce resolve, "If I can’t see Wei Dong anymore in the future, that’s what would drive me crazy. Qing Ye, just tell me what to do. I won’t back down."
Qing Ye glanced at her sideways and suddenly laughed, as if infected by Fang Lei’s late-night burst of passion. She lifted her head to gaze at the night sky and sighed deeply. "Let me think about it."
It seemed only after Qing Ye agreed to help that Fang Lei rediscovered her direction in life. Her rock-bottom despair transformed into motivation, and the two finally returned to their tent to sleep.
Before drifting off, Qing Ye noticed Fang Lei’s eyes wide and shining like copper bells, brimming with fighting spirit.
The next morning, after everyone had breakfast, the school teachers organized the trip to the competition venue—the Jin Zhong sports field, temporarily converted for the event. The David Cup was held here almost every year.
It was only upon arrival that Qing Ye learned the David Cup had two rounds. The first round lasted 45 minutes, with questions as difficult as the final problems on their regular exams. It was scored out of 100, and anyone below 90 was eliminated. Those who scored 90 or above advanced to the second round—a ninety-minute test filled with extremely challenging questions. Without some Olympiad-level thinking, it was generally hard to stand out.
After finding her seat and name, Qing Ye scanned the surroundings. About a hundred seats were spaced apart, and the competition rules were strict: proctors were stationed every few students, with cameras recording the entire process, making cheating virtually impossible.
Xing Wu was seated far from her, near the back by the edge. She glanced back at him and saw him spinning his pen idly. Sensing her gaze, he looked up and briefly met her eyes. Not far from him, Pang Hu immediately waved at her with a grin. Qing Ye smiled slightly, withdrew her gaze, and took a deep breath to steady herself.
The first round was relatively easy for her. At most, one or two questions were trickier than the usual practice problems, but they posed no real challenge. Besides, she knew that for the sake of fairness, Xing Wu had taken risks to tamper with the server beforehand. If she didn’t give it her all, wouldn’t she be letting down his efforts?
So today, Qing Ye focused intensely, carefully reviewing each question after finishing. As a result, she advanced to the second round with a perfect score.
Four others also scored perfectly: besides Ye Yingjian, the other three were all from Jin Zhong. One of them Qing Ye recognized—Wei Dong, Fang Lei’s crush. It seemed he really had some skill.To Qing Ye's surprise, Wang Yang, who had been beaten up by Xing Wu that day, actually scored full marks as well. Truly, one shouldn't judge a book by its cover.
At An Zhong, only Qing Ye achieved a perfect score. Including her, only six people advanced to the second round, with the other five barely scraping through with scores in the nineties.
The students participating in the Winter Camp varied greatly in academic level, so there was an elimination round that cut out a large number of participants.
Pang Hu excitedly gestured "82" to Qing Ye from afar, indicating his score. Although he didn't make it to the second round, this result represented remarkable progress for him. Qing Ye gave him a thumbs-up, which delighted Pang Hu immensely.
Xing Wu walked to the stage to retrieve his backpack. As he left, he adjusted the strap. Qing Ye knew the backpack contained a computer, though she didn't understand why he had brought it. Soon, people began filing out of the competition venue.
The large competition hall suddenly contained only twenty-nine remaining participants. Besides the six from An Zhong, the other twenty-three were all from Jin Zhong. The atmosphere grew peculiarly tense, especially among the five who had scored perfect in the first round, who couldn't help sizing each other up.
Qing Ye was wearing Jin Zhong's school uniform—An Zhong's sole top contender dressed in the rival school's colors. To unaware observers, it looked like defection, which was rather frustrating.
Ye Yingjian glanced back at Qing Ye and mouthed "good luck" to her. Confidently smiling back, Qing Ye responded: "Already full."
Turning her gaze, she noticed Tian Wei looking back at her. Qing Ye hadn't paid attention to her that morning and was surprised she had advanced to the second round. Tian Wei's cheeks were still bright red, making Qing Ye wonder if she had been too rough the previous night. Shamelessly, Qing Ye flashed Tian Wei a sweet, exaggerated smile that infuriated her, causing Tian Wei to grip her pen tightly and tremble with anger.
As the second round began, Qing Ye's delicate eyebrows furrowed upon seeing the questions. Indeed, compared to this, the first round seemed like just a warm-up.
Also out of 100 points, the first section consisted of fill-in-the-blank questions requiring direct answers. Qing Ye thought that if she were Xing Wu, she would tamper with this section—since there were no calculation steps, even designated contestants who noticed something wrong couldn't use formulas to derive answers, making rote memorization the most likely approach for this part.
However, she couldn't afford to dwell on that now. She had already considered before coming that even if designated contestants scored perfectly, as long as she also achieved full marks, An Zhong wouldn't just be there for show.
But the further she progressed through the test, the less confident she felt about scoring perfectly.
No one submitted their paper early before the one-and-a-half-hour time limit. The entire venue remained silent until the end, when all participants stayed seated as specialized teachers collected the papers. County education department staff sealed the name tags on site before inviting waiting students back into the venue.
Teachers from An Zhong and Jin Zhong graded the papers live based on answer keys, supervised by education department staff. The entire grading process was projected onto a large screen. After all twenty-nine papers were graded, education department staff uniformly unsealed the name tags and announced the winners of the David Cup.
The process was quite thrilling. Without leaked questions, the competition system appeared rigorous and fair. Even Qing Ye felt excited. The returning students took their original seats.This time, the grading was jointly conducted by Director Sun Guangquan of Jin Zhong and Teacher Zhu Fen from An Zhong, using answer sheets unsealed on-site. Accompanying them were Teacher Hu and another math teacher from Jin Zhong for verification.
Qing Ye saw Old Zhu holding an answer sheet, occasionally gesturing animatedly at Director Sun. She couldn’t tell what was happening, but the two had already erupted into a heated argument while grading just the first paper, with tension thick enough to cut with a knife.
Not only were the students below stunned, but even the surrounding teachers were dumbfounded. Old Zhu pointed directly at the answer and declared, "This question is definitely wrong. If you don’t believe me, calculate it yourselves."
Teacher Hu and several other teachers gathered around, and a lively discussion ensued among the group of educators. The students below erupted into murmurs, and Qing Ye instantly understood what was happening!
She abruptly turned to look for Xing Wu, only to find his seat empty. She had no idea where he had gone—he hadn’t returned.
Nervously, Qing Ye glanced back at the stage. Sure enough, Xing Wu had thought the same as her. He must have tampered with the first section of the exam, causing discrepancies between the pre-prepared answers from Jin Zhong and the actual questions. Normally, for fill-in-the-blank questions like these, teachers would grade directly based on the answer key. Yet Old Zhu had detected the mismatch while grading the very first paper, proving he hadn’t blindly relied on the answer sheet. Impressive!
This was the first time Qing Ye had viewed this irritable middle-aged man in a new light. Now, all she could do was wait for the final decision from the teachers on stage.
She paid special attention to Director Sun’s expression—he remained stern-faced, stubbornly arguing his point. Of course, after several math teachers recalculated, the provided answer was indeed incorrect.
Old Zhu decisively crossed out the answer on the paper, wrote the correct one beside it, and urged Director Sun to stop arguing and continue grading without wasting time.
Thus, the grading resumed, though unexpectedly, Old Zhu—perhaps due to lingering doubts—reworked every single problem himself. As a result, he discovered three more incorrect answers on the answer key in quick succession. Enraged, Old Zhu slammed the answer sheet on the table and demanded an explanation from Sun Guangquan.
Qing Ye guessed that Director Sun had by then realized something was wrong with the questions, but given the circumstances, he had no choice but to grit his teeth and carry on. His face alternated between shades of red and black.
With the entire student body seated below, Old Zhu couldn’t fully vent his anger. Had there been fewer people, he would surely have cursed, "You fool! As a teacher, you can’t even get the answers right—you’re leading students astray!"
In the end, Old Zhu, fuming, took it upon himself to correct the answers. Several other math teachers gathered around to double-check, and no one dared use that answer sheet again.
The second round of the exam was challenging, so the teachers spent considerable time discussing and finalizing the standard answers, causing some delays. However, the subsequent papers were graded much more quickly.
As the graded papers were returned, most scores fell in the 70s, with not a single one exceeding 85. Qing Ye kept her eyes fixed ahead, waiting anxiously for her own paper.
Around the thirteenth paper, a score of 88 suddenly appeared, causing an uproar in the venue. Pang Hu nearly leaped from his seat to call out to Qing Ye, but she didn’t hear him. Only when several people from An Zhong called her name simultaneously did she turn around. Many excitedly asked her, "Is that you? Is it you?"
Qing Ye shook her head, and everyone sat back down in disappointment, continuing to wait.When she withdrew her gaze, it happened to meet Ye Yingjian's proud expression, and she immediately understood—this 88-point test paper was his. Acceptable.
Most of the papers had been reviewed, yet Qing Ye still hadn't seen her own. The Anzhong students grew increasingly anxious, asking her with almost every graded paper: "Is this yours?"
Yet Qing Ye remained calmly seated. Based on the teachers' grading patterns, she had already calculated her score and felt no panic.
Just then, she suddenly caught Old Zhu's gaze. He was holding a pen between his teeth like a cigarette, looking up at Qing Ye with a faint, knowing smile. Though many students sat below, Qing Ye was almost certain the next paper would be hers—Old Zhu recognized her handwriting.
Sure enough, as the page turned, her neat and elegant writing appeared on the screen. Qing Ye's lips curved slightly as she nodded to the Anzhong students behind her.
Everyone erupted as if injected with adrenaline, leaping to their feet with roaring excitement. Even the teachers grading at the front looked up, bewildered by the sudden outburst.
Throughout the entire grading process, Qing Ye remained perfectly still while the others fidgeted nervously, rubbing their hands—far more tense than she was.
When the final question was reviewed, Old Zhu revealed a gratified smile. 96 points—exactly as Qing Ye had calculated, with only two minor errors.
Not only were the Anzhong students electrified, but even the Jinzhong students erupted at the score. Ye Yingjian was so jealous his eyes nearly bulged out, his face filled with resentment. Yet the results proved that in such a high-difficulty competition, Qing Ye had surpassed him by eight full points—the gap between them was substantial.
Unexpectedly, immediately after Qing Ye's paper, another high score of 92 appeared, causing another wave of astonishment throughout the venue as everyone speculated about its owner. No other high scores emerged after all papers were graded.
The outcome was decided. Anzhong erupted in celebration, and even Old Zhu stood up, leisurely capping his pen and patting Sun Guangquan's shoulder as they waited for the education department officials to unseal the results.
But just then, the test content displayed on the large screen suddenly went black.
No one paid it much mind, assuming a teacher had turned it off. However, the darkened screen soon lit up again, instantly drawing everyone's attention back to it.
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