Free Web NovelChapter 49: Chapter 46: These Academic Aces Are So Strong
Jiangcheng Seventh Middle School, Monday morning.
The atmosphere in the senior Class 2 classroom was a little odd.
The entire class was watching the figure with his head down, packing his textbooks and test papers into his schoolbag one by one.
Just a few minutes ago, Old Yang had made an announcement from the podium.
"For some personal family reasons, Li Dong will be transferring schools. For the time being, he won’t be in our class anymore."
’Family reasons?’
The students in the class weren’t the type to spend their weekends cooped up at home grinding practice problems. Of course they went online to browse videos and social media.
The recent "Dominating the Competition" incident in Jiangcheng that had caused such a stir, and the subsequent news of Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School’s official website jumping in to "land a finishing blow," had long since spread through every class group chat.
Everyone knew perfectly well that this time, Li Dong had pulled off a flex so huge it shook the entire city.
’Is he just ’transferring’?’
He was poached by Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School.
In the hallway outside, Dean of Instruction Zheng Hua stood shoulder to shoulder with Old Yang, his face livid.
"Those guys from Sixth Middle, their methods are disgusting! Absolutely shameless!"
"The moment they see a promising student, they’ll do anything to snatch them away!"
Of course, his anger wasn’t directed at Li Dong.
Putting himself in Li Dong’s shoes, if Sixth Middle extended an olive branch and asked him, Zheng Hua, to be their dean of instruction, he’d probably run over there even faster than Li Dong.
Old Yang consoled him from the side.
"Alright, Old Zheng, stop complaining."
"Li Dong promised us he’ll still compete in the Huaxuan Cup finals as a student of Jiangcheng Seventh Middle School. He’ll only formally transfer his records after the competition is over and the title is secured."
"For now, he’s just attending on a temporary basis, in name only."
Zheng Hua let out a long sigh.
"Sigh... Principal Wang is in his office right now, smashing cups again."
Old Yang was secretly amused.
’Last time, when Second Middle School ’stole’ the credit for Li Dong’s first-place finish in the preliminaries, Principal Wang was smashing cups.’
’This time, Li Dong himself was ’stolen’ by Sixth Middle School, and Principal Wang is still smashing cups.’
’It seems our dear Principal Wang has no other way to vent his frustration besides smashing cups.’
...
In the classroom, Liu Liang walked to Li Dong’s desk.
"Dongzi..." Liu Liang had a very complicated expression on his face. After a long pause, he finally managed to squeeze out a sentence.
"I hear you’re going to Sixth Middle, right?"
Li Dong nodded.
"Yeah, to Sixth Middle."
Liu Liang felt a little bitter inside.
’He wasn’t even sure what he was feeling right now.’ By all rights, he and Li Dong were best friends.
When Li Dong’s grades had suddenly skyrocketed, he’d been motivated too, forcing himself to quit gaming.
Over the past half-month, his grades had indeed improved dramatically. He went from someone who could only hope for a regular Tier 2 university to the point where even Old Yang said he had a shot at a Tier 1 school.
He had thought that if he just gritted his teeth and tried to keep up with Li Dong, even if he couldn’t catch him, he could at least slowly close the gap.
But who could have imagined...
But despite the bitterness in his heart, theirs was ultimately the pure, simple friendship of youth.
Liu Liang patted Li Dong’s shoulder.
"Dongzi, go for it!"
Li Dong looked at him and gave him a light punch on the chest.
"You too. Getting into a Tier 1 university will be a piece of cake."
So, who in Class 2 was happiest about Li Dong leaving?
That was definitely Jiang Yizhou, sitting in the second row.
Jiang Yizhou had completely given up any thought of competing with Li Dong.
’Compete? Compete my ass!’
’The guy’s studying Taylor series and matrix operations now—stuff I can’t even begin to understand.’
’Since we’re not even the same species, what’s the point of comparing?’
Still, with Li Dong gone, he and Misha would once again be the class’s most dazzling "twin academic stars."
Besides, Jiang Yizhou was a sharp one.
Seeing that Li Dong was almost done packing, he immediately sidled up to him.
"Li Dong, congratulations! Going to Sixth Middle is a huge opportunity!"
Li Dong was taken aback.
’Are we that close?’
"So, here’s the thing..." Jiang Yizhou lowered his voice.
"I heard the curriculum at Sixth Middle is really fast-paced. They finish the standard national textbooks by the end of sophomore year, and in senior year, they use all custom school-developed materials."
"You won’t have any use for these old textbooks over there, so... how about you sell them to me? I’ll pay top dollar!"
Jiang Yizhou held up one finger.
"One hundred yuan a piece. How about it?"
Li Dong had no idea what textbooks Sixth Middle used, but his mind raced.
’In any case, I’ve already memorized these textbooks. They’re basically waste paper to me now.’
"Sure!" Li Dong agreed readily, though he picked out the Chinese, English, and Biology textbooks.
"Not these. I haven’t completely mastered them yet. I can only give you the Physics and Math books."
"No problem, no problem!"
Jiang Yizhou said hurriedly.
’I only wanted your perfect-score Physics and Math books anyway!’ he grumbled to himself. ’As for your Chinese and English? Forget it. My scores are higher than yours in those!’
Jiang Yizhou readily scanned the code to pay the 200 yuan, then returned to his seat and eagerly flipped open the textbooks, wanting to get a glimpse into Li Dong’s thought process.
However...
The notes in the front of the book were all just what the teacher had covered in class. There was nothing of Li Dong’s own problem-solving methods.
And the notes in the back...
What notes?!
For the practice problems at the end of the Chapters, even when there were answers, it was just a damn "A" or "C," without a single step of the solution shown!
Jiang Yizhou’s mind went blank.
As Li Dong walked out the back door of the classroom, Misha, who was sitting in the front row, stopped writing.
She turned and gave his departing figure a long look before turning her gaze back to the complex Calculus problem in front of her.
’Instead of worrying about useless things, I should focus on becoming even better.’
...
Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School, the Aptitude Class.
The class size was kept at around 30 students year-round.
To be precise, today there were only 29 people.
That was because one student was currently away, preparing with the national training team.
Every student seated here had at least one provincial-level competition award to their name.
Furthermore, the class operated on a brutal elimination system: after every major joint examination, new students would come in, and the lowest-ranked would be forced to leave.
When Liu Limin led Li Dong to the classroom door, a biology teacher with glasses was in the middle of a lecture.
The biology teacher saw Director Liu arrive with a new face, but he simply nodded, unfazed, without even breaking the rhythm of his lecture.
"Li Dong, go on in and find an empty seat for now. Just listen in."
"I’ll come back after class to get your paperwork sorted out."
Liu Limin said to Li Dong.
Li Dong nodded, slipped in through the back door, and took a seat in the last row.
The students around him merely shot him a glance from the corner of their eyes before immediately refocusing on the blackboard.
After sitting down, Li Dong looked up at the blackboard.
"Let’s look at this typical question from a past BBO paper."
The biology teacher was drawing an inheritance diagram on the blackboard.
"Regarding cytoplasmic male sterility in plants, you must remember the core logic of the ’three-line system’! That is: the sterile line, the maintainer line, and the restorer line."
"The reason Dr. Yuan’s hybrid rice could be produced on a massive scale was due to the genotypic pairing of these three lines."
"The interaction between the nuclear genes (R/r) and the cytoplasmic genes (S/N) determines pollen fertility."
"Male sterility is expressed if, and only if, the cytoplasm is S and the nucleus is rr (S-rr)..."
The teacher at the front of the room was speaking quickly.
Li Dong sat in his seat, completely and utterly lost.
He looked around, only to see the Sixth Middle students listening very attentively, nodding from time to time.
’So this is what a real academic ace looks like! Holy crap, am I getting completely left in the dust?’
His knowledge of biology was limited to what he had crammed through rote memorization from the required high school textbooks.
CMS? Nucleocytoplasmic interaction? He hadn’t even begun to touch upon these topics, which were all far beyond the standard high school biology curriculum.
But Li Dong wasn’t one to give up. He forced himself to connect the "three-line system" the teacher was explaining to the "laws of inheritance" he remembered from his high school textbook.
’The sterile line is S-rr... the maintainer line is N-rr... if you cross them, the offspring gets the S cytoplasm and rr nuclear genes, so it’s still a sterile line. That’s how you propagate the sterile line...’
Soon, relying on his terrifyingly high Basic Attributes, he managed to brute-force a rough framework for this complex biological logic.
’Looks like biology is a major weak point for me. It took me half the class just to barely keep up, and a lot of the details are still just my own speculation.’
’I need to find a way to leech some knowledge off the biology experts in the group chat.’
What he didn’t know, however, was that the framework he had pieced together on his own in half a class period was something it had taken the teacher half a month to drill into these top students from Sixth Middle.
BRRRING...
The bell for the end of class finally rang.
The biology teacher walked out of the classroom without a moment’s delay.
Li Dong was still processing the genetic deductions he had just memorized when someone suddenly tapped him on the shoulder.
"Big shot! You really transferred to our Sixth Middle!"
Li Dong turned his head and saw a familiar face leaning over.
"Migo?" Li Dong was taken aback.
"Aren’t you a freshman? What are you doing in this class?"
Migo grinned, pulling a chair over to sit next to Li Dong.
"Big shot, this Aptitude Class of ours isn’t divided by grade level! We’re all mixed together based on ability and our competition specialties."
Migo pointed to the other students in the class.
"See that guy with the glasses? He’s a sophomore, training for the BBO. His goal is an undergrad program in the UK.
The girl on the left is prepping for the AMC 12, aiming for the Ivy League.
As for me, I’m just tagging along with the seniors to do the Physics Bowl and get some practice."
’BBO? AMC 12? Physics Bowl?’
’Back at Seventh Middle School, I’d never even heard of these competitions!’
’The students at Seventh Middle only thought about passing the Gaokao cutoff score, with a Tier 2 university as their safety net.’
’Old Yang was right. The world outside is teeming with experts.’
