Chapter One Hundred and One: Frustration [Please Support!!]

Mo Sinan had never imagined that Class Twenty-One would have so many boys, and that they would look so unfriendly. No wonder Old Liu had not really approved of his transfer into that class. But because he knew Zhang Wenhao was in there, he had chosen it without hesitation, not even giving Old Liu a chance to object.

Now that he had finally arrived, he could see the class’s true atmosphere, and a trace of retreat began to creep into his heart. But then he thought better of it. The only reason he had come to Class Twenty-One was Zhang Wenhao. Why should he care about anything else? Before the college entrance exam, there were only two things he had to do: take back the humiliation he had suffered at Zhang Wenhao’s hands, and drive Zhang Wenhao away from Su Ruoran’s side. As long as he accomplished those two things, he would have achieved his goal.

Song Yanni could also see that the class had some resistance toward this new student, Mo Sinan. But she understood her students well. They were all much more sensible now, and they knew how to conduct themselves. Even if they seemed unfriendly on the surface, they would not do anything too outrageous, so there was nothing for her to worry about. As for this suddenly assigned new student, she did not pay him much mind either; it was simply an arrangement from above, and she had no choice but to accept it.

She placed Mo Sinan in an empty seat in the last row. Once he sat down, Song Yanni shifted the topic entirely away from him and announced brightly, "Students, the results of last weekend’s mock exam are out for every high school in the city. The Education Bureau has already finished ranking them on Sunday. Our school has taken both the first and second places in the humanities stream citywide, and the top scorer is in our class! Guess who it is."

The class had grown somewhat numb to news like this. Li Nan let out a bored laugh and said, "Teacher Song, there’s no need to keep us in suspense. Everyone knows it has to be Wenhao. Who else could it be?"

The others quickly agreed. In their eyes, only Zhang Wenhao had the ability to take first place in the city. There was no suspense in it at all, so what was there to guess?

Song Yanni smiled awkwardly. "It seems everyone has a great deal of confidence in Zhang Wenhao. That’s right. Wenhao indeed won first place in the city this time, with an astonishing total score of 740."

The number 740 finally stunned them for real. To everyone present, Zhang Wenhao’s last score of 736 had already seemed almost godlike. And now he had reached 740? The full score was 750, which meant he had lost only ten points. What kind of mind could achieve such terrifying accuracy?

In truth, Zhang Wenhao had already had a rough sense of it during the exam. He was basically certain he had full marks in math and the comprehensive humanities paper. As for the English essay and the Chinese essay, those depended on the scorer’s standards and mood.

Some English graders were extremely rigid. When judging essays, they measured everything strictly against textbook knowledge points and vocabulary. If a student used grammar or words that went beyond the textbook, it might even annoy the teacher, so Zhang Wenhao had not dared to be certain of full marks in English. Still, even if he could not be sure of perfection, he should not have missed by much.

Sure enough, Song Yanni then announced his subject scores: Chinese, 144; English, 146; Math, 150, full marks; humanities comprehensive, 300, full marks.

This result shocked not only Class Twenty-One, but the entire Jiangcheng Education Bureau as well. Every year they organized a citywide mock exam like this one, and they also set the difficulty of the papers themselves. In all these years, no one had ever come so close to a perfect score as Zhang Wenhao. Almost the instant the scores were released, the bureau chief called the principal of Jiangcheng No. 1 High School.

The Education Bureau attached extraordinary importance to this suddenly emerged Zhang Wenhao. When the bureau chief called the principal, the first thing he said was, "I think this year’s provincial college entrance top scorer may very well come from your school."

The principal had not yet received the first-hand information and did not know what kind of result one of his students had produced. He immediately asked, "Old leader, how are our school’s mock exam results this time?"

"More than just decent!" the bureau chief said with a hearty laugh. "A student from your school named Zhang Wenhao actually scored 740, fifteen points ahead of the runner-up. That kind of result is absolutely top-tier even across the entire province. If he can go on to become the provincial top scorer in the college entrance exam, then your years at No. 1 High will finally have paid off."

The principal cried out in shock. No matter what, he had never expected Zhang Wenhao to achieve such an astounding 740. One must know that there were only two provincial top scorers each year, one in humanities and one in science. With so many high schools across the province, the honor could go to any one of them.

The provincial top scorer was not the exclusive property of elite schools. Schools like Jiangcheng No. 1 High, which stood at the very top in the province, might have the highest overall university admission rates and top-university admission rates, but those were average figures, depending on the school’s strong student base and educational standards. The person who actually became the provincial top scorer was usually some extraordinary outlier, someone who might come from a superb high school, or might just as easily come from a mountain town school or a poor county school with broken window glass. The odds of that falling onto No. 1 High were simply far too small.

Although Jiangcheng No. 1 High had produced a citywide top scorer every two or three years, the last provincial top scorer it had sent out was almost ten years ago. Back then, he himself had only been an ordinary homeroom teacher, and his old leader, who was now the chief of the Municipal Education Bureau, had been the principal of No. 1 High. That provincial top scorer had become a major political achievement for his old leader and given him a stepping stone toward his later post in the bureau.

Over the past five years, all provincial top scorers had come from cities outside the provincial capital, and no one from the entire city of Jiangcheng had won the title again. If one truly emerged under his watch this year, then the significance to him would be immense.

Thinking back to his old leader’s final words, could it be that he was truly about to make his mark at No. 1 High? Perhaps after the college entrance exam, the old leader would have a proper reason to bring him into the Education Bureau. And once he got there, he would certainly become one of the old leader’s trusted men. Then his own path to rapid promotion would open at last.

The principal immediately cast aside all his previous dissatisfaction with Zhang Wenhao and all the times Zhang Wenhao had defied him. From this point on, Zhang Wenhao was his greatest hope for the year. He even thought that if Zhang Wenhao truly became the provincial top scorer, then even if the boy spat in his face, he would still count him as a benefactor.

Mo Sinan, who had just arrived in Class Twenty-One and had not even had time to familiarize himself with this new environment, was stunned by Song Yanni’s announcement. He knew Su Ruoran’s grades were excellent, top-tier even in Yanjing, and yet he had never expected that after coming to a small place like Jiangcheng, she would still be no match for that Zhang Wenhao.

Even though he was idle and undisciplined, he still understood exam scores. What kind of freak could take a paper worth 750 points and score 740? Was Zhang Wenhao really that impressive?

He still clearly remembered the night Zhang Wenhao drove his Ferrari 599 GTB out with a smoking launch, spun the rear end in place, and drifted cleanly into a corner at top speed. He had originally thought Zhang Wenhao might just be some rich second-generation kid from Jiangcheng, but he had never expected the boy’s grades to be this good as well.

The jealousy in Mo Sinan’s heart deepened a little more. He feared nothing more than being eclipsed by others. At any time, no matter whom he faced, he could always find a place where the other person fell short of him. He had thought he was already quite remarkable himself: handsome, distinctive, young, rich, and excellent behind the wheel. He had even trained in sanda for seven years. Although he looked delicate and somewhat feminine, among the rich young masters in Yanjing, no one had ever been able to beat him in a fight.

What made him especially unhappy was that, after seeing Zhang Wenhao only twice, he had already been defeated by him in every respect that mattered: with women, with driving, and with grades. In a place like this, being outshone by some unknown boy was enough to make anyone feel utterly stifled.

Mo Sinan had originally intended that the first thing he would do in Class Twenty-One was find a way to recover his dignity. But right now, after racking his brains, he could not figure out how to do that. He had come to suppress Zhang Wenhao, to make Su Ruoran understand that a man from a small place simply did not deserve her, not to play the supporting role and make Zhang Wenhao look good.

He felt somewhat frustrated, and the people around him seemed equally uninterested in him. That left him feeling even more unbalanced. He had assumed, almost by instinct, that as a wealthy young master from Yanjing who had come to a place like Jiangcheng, he should be surrounded at the center of everyone’s attention. Yet he had not expected these people from a second- or third-tier city to be so unwilling to pay him any mind, not even giving him a second look.

All morning, Mo Sinan sat at his desk fiddling with his phone while thinking about how to establish himself in the class and make the people around him look at him differently.

After much thought, he concluded that the thing most capable of inspiring awe in them was money. He had plenty of it. Even though he had been exiled to Jiangcheng, there was still more money in his bank card than he could ever spend. Since these people were so indifferent toward him, fine. He would simply overwhelm them with money and bind them to him with money.

"Hey, brother," Mo Sinan asked the boy next to him before school let out, "who’s the class monitor in our class?"

The boy glanced at him coldly and said, "Wenhao. In all of Class Twenty-One, who else besides Wenhao would even be qualified to be class monitor?"

"Zhang Wenhao? Forget it," Mo Sinan muttered gloomily, then said no more.

When the last class ended and the substitute teacher had just left the classroom, Mo Sinan went straight to the podium and said with a smile, "Hello, everyone. I’m new here, and I’ll be relying on all of you in Class Twenty-One from now on. How about this: let’s get together tonight at Jiangcheng Grand Hotel. Dinner’s on me."

Most of the students were busy packing their bags and no one really paid attention to what he was saying. That made Mo Sinan feel even more stifled, but he kept a faint smile on his face, raised his voice a little, and repeated himself.

"Jiangcheng Grand Hotel? You’re pretty generous," Li Nan teased.

Mo Sinan waved a hand as if it were nothing. "As long as everyone’s happy, spending a little money is nothing. What do you all think? Are you free tonight?"

The students were not interested in his invitation, which puzzled Mo Sinan. Based on his usual experience, whenever he offered to treat people to a meal, the invitees should have been overjoyed. Why were the people in Jiangcheng so difficult to deal with?

For the students of Class Twenty-One, Mo Sinan’s gesture not only failed to increase their goodwill toward him; instead, it made him seem even more like an effeminate show-off who was already annoying from the start and had now arrived with even more swagger. It was genuinely off-putting.

Mo Sinan did not realize that he had backfired on himself. Seeing that none of them reacted and that everyone was busy packing up, he found himself in an awkward position. His face went red, then pale, and in the end he looked at Zhang Wenhao and said, "Brother Wenhao, we’ve known each other for two days now, and you’re the class monitor. Why don’t you say something?"

Zhang Wenhao had no fondness for Mo Sinan at all. But a man with connections and background who had come to Jiangcheng No. 1 High and gone nowhere else, insisting on transferring specifically into Class Twenty-One, could not possibly have done so by coincidence. Since that was the case, his purpose and motives in coming here were highly suspect. Now, after only half a day, he was already inviting everyone to dinner. His intentions were clearly not pure. Zhang Wenhao, who found Mo Sinan’s manner extremely flashy, immediately guessed that he was probably trying to establish authority in the class with money.

A thought flickered in Zhang Wenhao’s mind. He stood up and said, "Since Student Mo is being so enthusiastic, I think we should not snub his kindness. Everyone, how about it? Tonight, Jiangcheng Grand Hotel. Let’s take the chance to have a good gathering."

The moment Zhang Wenhao spoke, the class broke into cheers and agreed readily. Mo Sinan watched in disbelief as Zhang Wenhao wielded such influence in Class Twenty-One. He had spoken twice and not a single person had responded to him, yet Zhang Wenhao said one sentence and everyone answered at once. And the one paying for dinner was him. The one taking out the money was him. Why did it feel as though everyone was doing Zhang Wenhao a favor instead?

The enormous contrast between the two situations left him furious and frustrated, and the feeling of humiliation grew even stronger.

Still, the one consolation was that Zhang Wenhao had spoken up. These uncultured people had all agreed so readily, and Mo Sinan thought to himself: as long as you agree, that makes things easy. Tonight I’ll throw a proper extravaganza and let you see what it means to spend money like water. I still don’t believe that money can’t buy me authority.

To be continued.