The bell signaling the end of the exam echoed across the campus.
Following invigilation protocol, Lin Wanxing walked to each student’s seat to collect their exam papers.
When she reached Wen Chengye’s desk, she picked up his paper and took a deliberate look at his answer sheet.
Wen Chengye’s handwriting was neat, his answers were cleanly written, and there were almost no corrections.
Lin Wanxing skimmed through a few lines of his responses. Though she hadn’t seen the official answer key, based on the questions she had casually glanced at while patrolling earlier, she thought Wen Chengye’s answers were of a very high standard.
A good student like Wen Chengye wanting to play football? No wonder his mother disapproved.
The students temporarily left the exam hall. Lin Wanxing was responsible for stapling the papers, delivering them to the academic affairs office, and only then heading to the cafeteria.
The high school campus was livelier than usual after the exam.
Along the way, Lin Wanxing heard students eagerly comparing answers.
Some loudly debated multiple-choice answers, while others lamented how they couldn’t recall the last line of a classical poem they were supposed to memorize. Cheerful "whoops" and frustrated "whimpers" filled the air.
After last night’s autumn rain, the campus was filled with the rich fragrance of osmanthus blossoms, and the ground was carpeted with tiny orange-red petals resembling grains of rice.
Lin Wanxing stepped on the damp leaves, breathing in the aroma of rice as she approached the cafeteria entrance. But when she looked up, she froze.
She saw a banner.
The banner was bright red, tied between two camphor trees, perfectly blocking the notice board in front of Hongjing No. 8 Middle School’s cafeteria, making it impossible to miss.
Lin Wanxing stood at the cafeteria entrance for at least half a minute, staring at the words on the banner.
— "Warmly Celebrating Hongjing No. 8 Middle School’s Campus Football Team’s Victory Over Yuzhou Silver Elephant!!!"
The banner was hung haphazardly, with three exclamation marks emphasizing the excitement—clearly not the work of the school’s sports department.
The only possibility was that the students had secretly put up the banner to celebrate their first Group Stage win.
This also finally explained to Lin Wanxing where their excitement about returning to school for exams had come from.
They weren’t looking forward to coming back to school—they were looking forward to putting up a banner to celebrate themselves!
Standing in front of the notice board, Lin Wanxing felt a bit dizzy as the massive, flamboyant banner swayed with a camphor tree branch draped over it.
"Teacher, you’re here!"
Boisterous voices called out from behind her.
Lin Wanxing turned to see Yu Ming and Zheng Feiyang dart out from a corner, waving excitedly at her.
The rest of the football team emerged from various spots around the cafeteria, gathering around the banner, beaming with pride.
Lin Wanxing looked up and carefully read the words on the banner again, sighing helplessly. "How did you come up with this?"
"We wanted to surprise you!"
"Isn’t it awesome? Is this spot prominent enough?"
"It’s huge, right? We specially ordered the biggest one!" Lin Lu exclaimed.
Hearing this, Lin Wanxing narrowed her eyes and surveyed the surroundings.
The cafeteria entrance during mealtime was bustling with activity—second only to the flag-raising ceremony as the busiest spot in all of Hongjing No. 8 Middle School.
However, most students here were in a hurry. Everyone was rushing to eat, and few paused to look at the notice board.
Most only glanced at the banner, not even paying attention to what was written on it. And even fewer cared about the football team’s affairs.
But the boys didn’t mind.
They just wanted to flaunt it loudly—they had defeated Yuzhou Silver Elephant!“Isn’t this a bit too flashy, teacher?” Fu Xinshu asked, seeming a little embarrassed when she didn’t respond right away. “They insisted that since we won, why should we be afraid of people knowing? We should promote it ourselves.”
“Cool!” Lin Wanxing turned and exclaimed in admiration.
Fu Xinshu froze for a moment, not quite processing her reaction.
But the other boys were thrilled and immediately ran with it.
“Right?!”
“Why were you even worried she’d criticize us? She’s not exactly the low-key type!”
“What do you mean I’m not low-key?” Lin Wanxing protested.
The boys just gave her a look that said, “No explanation needed.”
Lin Wanxing: “I was just about to say, next time remind me—pulling our own banner after winning a match is a bit too showy. We should let the school do it for us.”
“But we didn’t win the championship. Would the school even celebrate for us?” Qin Ao asked.
“Does the school only celebrate if we win the championship?” Lin Wanxing shot back.
“I’m not a teacher, how should I know?” Qin Ao retorted.
“Oh, well, let’s take it step by step then. How about we start by replacing ‘Yuzhou Silver Elephant’ on the banner with ‘Shen Cheng Hai Bo’?” Lin Wanxing said with a laugh.
“Of course!”
“Obviously!”
“Absolutely!”
The boys’ enthusiastic shouts drew even more attention than the banner itself.
Lin Wanxing stayed with them for a while, and during that time, a freshman who knew about the Chinese Super League came over to ask, “Did you really beat that Yuzhou Silver Elephant team?”
The students answered with immense pride: “Of course!”
The freshman was utterly amazed by the seniors’ achievement.
Not only did he listen to the football team’s seniors boast for quite some time, but they also exchanged contact information.
Lin Wanxing promised the freshman that if there was an opportunity to watch a match offline, she would invite him along.
Lin Wanxing stayed with the students at the cafeteria entrance for almost half the noon break, under the guise of a “football promotion event,” but really, she was worried school administrators might come and take down the banner.
Fortunately, at a glance, the banner looked fairly official and legitimate, so they managed to avoid any trouble for the time being.
By the time the students finally couldn’t stand their hunger and headed into the cafeteria, the lunch rush was over, and very little food was left.
Lin Wanxing generously pulled out her meal card and told the students to use it.
The boys were shocked again. Yu Ming jumped back dramatically and said, “Who are you? You can’t be Lin Wanxing. Lin Wanxing would never be this generous.”
After supervising exams all morning and standing with the boys for so long, Lin Wanxing was already dizzy with hunger.
She snapped irritably, “Didn’t you hint that I’ve never treated you after winning a match?”
“Treating us to school cafeteria food?” Qin Ao said disdainfully.
“Oh, still so stingy—you really are Lin Wanxing!” Zheng Feiyang commented.
Chen Jianghe, however, was straightforward. He snatched the meal card from her hand and headed straight for the cafeteria serving window.
The remaining students, seeing this, immediately followed, pushing and shoving as they crowded around her meal card to get their food.
All eleven of them occupied a long table by the cafeteria’s floor-to-ceiling windows.
The table was laden with food, and each of them had a bowl of seaweed and egg drop soup.
Afternoon sunlight streamed into the cafeteria as the students raised their chicken legs in celebration of their rare free meal.
Of course, Qi Liang would never join in such a “ridiculous” activity.
The air was filled with the familiar smell of cafeteria food. This was the first time in Lin Wanxing’s memory that she had shared a lunch with her students in the school cafeteria.
The students were “carefree.” Looking at their smiling faces, Lin Wanxing hesitated, as if she wanted to say something but held back.But in the end, like all parents who wanted to hold back but couldn’t resist, she still asked the students how their Chinese language exam had gone that morning.
"Don’t worry, teacher, we finished everything," Yu Ming said.
"Me too," Chen Jianghe replied.
Lin Wanxing took a sip of soup and nodded.
"Stop showing off. What did you write for the line before 'The long river's setting sun is round'?" Qin Ao retorted.
"The lonely smoke rises straight in the vast desert," Chen Jianghe answered.
"Right," Yu Ming nodded.
"Boss, don’t tell me you didn’t know?" Lin Lu shot back.
Qin Ao’s eyes widened, filled with the indignation of someone who thought they were all in this together as underachievers, only to find the others had been secretly studying. "How do all of you know this?"
"I didn’t know either, I just wrote it down."
"Maybe it’s just really famous, so it’s normal to write it?" Lin Lu added.
"Don’t say that, you’ll hurt your boss’s pride," Qi Liang said slowly, chewing his vegetables with deliberate calm.
"Damn it!" Qin Ao angrily bit into a chicken leg, trying to salvage his dignity. After thinking for a moment, he asked, "Then what about that question on Li Bai’s ‘The Road to Shu Is Hard’—which two lines describe how difficult it was to travel between Qin and Shu in ancient times? What did you write?"
"I wrote ‘I don’t know,’" Lin Lu declared confidently. "Teacher Lin said we just need to finish the exam."
"And you just wrote ‘I don’t know’?" Qin Ao’s eyes nearly popped out.
"Yep."
"Then I’ll do the same next time," Qin Ao finally felt relieved.
For Lin Wanxing, she believed the students’ current exam goal was to patiently read through the questions and answer based on their own understanding.
They shouldn’t treat the exam as an exam, nor worry about their scores or whether they had enough time. Instead, they should approach it as a regular reading and writing assignment.
The students chatted intermittently about that day’s test paper. There were very few questions they felt truly confident about, but they had seriously completed every question, including the essay.
From their conversation, Lin Wanxing could confirm this.
"Teacher Lin, were you supervising Wen Chengye’s exam today?" Lin Wanxing was eating when she suddenly heard Lin Lu ask her.
Lin Wanxing paused for a moment before replying, "Yes, why?"
"Nothing, I just passed by your exam room and saw him there too," Lin Lu chewed on a bite of lettuce and asked, "Did he do really well?"
The image of Wen Chengye answering questions surfaced in her mind. Just as Lin Wanxing was about to respond, Qin Ao smacked Lin Lu’s head and interrupted irritably, "We’re eating, why bring up that unlucky guy?"
"Is Wen Chengye’s academic performance very good?" Lin Wanxing thought for a moment and instead asked this.
As soon as she finished speaking, someone stopped beside their table.
"Is this seat taken?" A clear, pleasant male voice came from above. Lin Wanxing looked up and was surprised to see Jin Ziyang holding a tray.
"Teacher Jin?"
Lin Wanxing glanced at the seat opposite her. It was empty, but the table was cluttered with two empty trays the boys had just cleared, so she could also truthfully say it wasn’t exactly "free"…
While she hesitated,
Qin Ao, biting his chopsticks, said grumpily, "There are so many seats around, why do you have to squeeze in with us?"
"Who are you?" Yu Ming chimed in."I'm your 12th-grade physics teacher, surnamed Jin." Jin Ziyang said very politely, "I'm looking for your Teacher Lin to chat a bit about work."
Hearing he was a teacher, the boys instantly became timid. And when Jin Ziyang mentioned work, the boys had even less to say.
Fu Xinshu moved two meal trays aside, and Jin Ziyang naturally took the empty seat opposite Lin Wanxing.
Lin Wanxing: "Is there something you need, Teacher Jin?"
"Nothing really, I just finished organizing exam papers at the academic affairs office." Jin Ziyang asked while eating, "I just wanted to ask how Teacher Lin felt about proctoring for the first time?"
"Pretty good." Lin Wanxing looked at Jin Ziyang with confusion.
"Didn't encounter any problems?"
"No."
After these two questions, Jin Ziyang made an acknowledging sound and continued eating with his head down. As if he had simply sat opposite her because he knew her.
During this brief silence, all the football team students at the table were making faces at her.
Lin Wanxing spread her hands in a bear-like gesture, indicating she knew nothing.
"Teacher Lin is in the physical education department?" Suddenly, Jin Ziying looked up again.
"Ah? Yes." Lin Wanxing immediately put her hands down, pretended to take a few bites of food, then said as if nothing was wrong, "I'm in charge of the equipment in the sports storage room. If you want to borrow anything, come find me.After she said this, all the boys at the table cast disdainful looks at her.
Jin Ziyang's gaze shifted slightly, looking at the students occupying the entire long table.
Lin Wanxing understood what he wanted to ask and directly answered: "They're from our school's football team, and they're also under my supervision."
"Oh, no wonder." Jin Ziyang nodded. He thought for a moment, then looked through the floor-to-ceiling window at the bulletin board outside the cafeteria. "The banner outside?"
"It's celebrating our team's recent good performance, winning against a very strong team." Lin Wanxing said.
"That's impressive."Jin Ziyang probably didn't even know what 'Yuzhou Silver Elephant' was, casually brushed it off, then continued eating."
He ate very quickly, said "I need to go first, I have afternoon proctoring duties. Thanks for your hard work, Teacher Lin," and just like that, came and went in a hurry, picking up his meal tray and leaving.
"What's with that guy?" Chen Jianghe was the first to ask, watching Jin Ziyang's slender retreating figure.
"I don't know?" Lin Wanxing was also puzzled, "Could it be he's coveting my beauty?"
"That male teacher probably isn't blind." Qi Liang even paused deliberately, making it seem like the sentence had been carefully considered.
"If you can talk properly then talk, if not then finish eating and get lost!" Lin Wanxing patted the table warningly.
Qin Ao hadn't spoken from beginning to end, but hearing this, he suddenly stood up.
The boy's face was serious, and Lin Wanxing didn't understand why.
Qin Ao: "You can't betray our coach!"
Lin Wanxing: "???"
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