Chapter 21: The Value of a Test Paper

When Li Ye and Wen Leyu began "setting and explaining problems for each other," many students in Class One were simply waiting to see a joke.

"Li Ye actually has the nerve to explain math problems to Wen Leyu? What were his test scores again?"

Although they didn't ridicule him as openly as the troublemaker He Weiguo, there were plenty of students secretly laughing at him. However, after the two had spent five or six consecutive days non-stop setting and explaining problems, someone finally sensed that something was off.

This era was not the later generation where one could be "sick of doing practice papers." There were no study guides available on the market; teachers had to rack their brains for days just to cobble together a set of questions that were slightly fresh and different from previous ones.

Students these days had very limited access to knowledge. If they wanted to practice, they could only rely on reviewing old exam questions provided by their teachers or problems discussed during class. Occasionally, if a student managed to get a set of questions from another middle school, everyone would excitedly copy them down to study and discuss them fervently.

The students in the repeat class were desperate for practice material. They had already learned everything they could, and the ways to improve their scores were limited. Every new set of questions was precious to them. They couldn't even imagine what it meant to be "sick of doing problems"—if they could, they would have considered it a luxury.

So, when the students in Class One noticed that Li Ye and Wen Leyu had been at it for five or six days, they began to stir. They wondered what kind of impossible problems could stump these two academic underachievers for so long. Why not let me have a try?

"Brother, what kind of problems are you doing? Can I take a look?" Li Dayong craned his neck to watch his brother for two days before finally giving in and "interrupting Li Ye's good thing."

Li Ye casually tossed him a math notebook and said, "Here, ask me if there’s anything you don’t understand, and I’ll explain it to you."

"You got it, brother!" Li Dayong didn't pay much mind to the offer. He knew exactly what level his brother was at. But once he opened the notebook, he was quickly bewildered.

There were over a dozen pages filled with dense practice problems. Only a tiny fraction were types Li Dayong had seen before; the rest were entirely new.

"Hiss, where did my brother get these?" Li Dayong was like a cat that had fallen into a mouse hole—excited, biting at one, pouncing on another, desperate to devour them all. But after a short while, his brow knit tightly together. The earlier problems were fine, but many of the later ones, even those he had attempted, left him completely lost. He tried covering the solution process and looking only at the original questions, only to find himself utterly baffled.

"Hiss..." Li Dayong gasped, looking at Li Ye and Wen Leyu not far away with disbelief, wondering which one of them was the real academic genius. Based on his observations over the past few days, it seemed like Li Ye spent more time explaining to Wen Leyu, though Wen Leyu would occasionally lean in to whisper lessons to Li Ye.

"Dayong, Dayong, let me copy them!" his deskmate, Fu Yingjie, leaned over and pleaded flatteringly. He had been staring for a long time, and the problems in that notebook were like the legendary ginseng fruit—they made his mouth water.

Li Dayong didn't agree immediately; he checked with Li Ye first. Upon receiving a "do as you please" response, he handed it to Fu Yingjie. Once he agreed, the surrounding students swarmed over, using the dim light to start copying the questions.

Li Dayong had a sudden inspiration: "Why don't you try copying just the questions without the answers and see how many you can solve?"

"Alright, let's try, let's try." The crowd accepted the challenge and buried their heads in copying, growing more surprised and excited with every line. By the time they finished, they were almost dancing with joy. It was like a martial arts fanatic who thought himself a prodigy suddenly getting their hands on a secret manual—even if they hadn't understood it yet, they could already foresee their own improvement.

But just half an hour later, these "prodigies" were doused with a bucket of cold water.

"Are they... really this hard?"
"How many did you solve?"
"Eight... maybe six. And you?"
"I... let's not talk about it. It’s embarrassing."

Li Dayong squinted and said pretentiously, "Who was making fun of my brother a few days ago? Know your place now, eh?"

"Hehehe, yes, yes, brother Yong, master Yong, let us copy the answers!"

"You can copy the answers, but don't follow certain people in making a scene again, and don't share these with those who like to take advantage of others while acting innocent."

"Yes, yes, yes."

Li Dayong’s sarcasm drew the resentment of a few people in the front row. They were part of the little circle around Xia Yue, the former class monitor, along with the class study committee member, Jin Shengli. Previously, they had relied on their good grades and "literary sophistication" to alienate Li Dayong, Li Ye's best friend. Now that Xia Yue had lost her position as monitor because of Li Ye, the two sides were bitter enemies. The mockery from the last few days had mostly come from Xia Yue's clique, which had made Li Dayong quite frustrated. How could he not take the chance to get a few jabs in now?

Jin Shengli had been about to stand up to copy the questions, but upon hearing Li Dayong, he sat back down in shame. He had been among those mocking Li Ye, too.

Xia Yue, who also had a sharp temper, said indignantly, "Hmph, just a few pathetic problems, what's so special about them? A bottom-tier student is a bottom-tier student; even if you gave some people a mountain of problems, they still wouldn't pass the exam."

Li Dayong retorted immediately, "We've all been to the exam hall; it's not like you've passed yours yet."

Xia Yue stood up abruptly, ready for a verbal sparring match. Compared to her grades, her tongue was even sharper.

*Tap, tap, tap.*

Li Ye tapped his desk with one hand, his fountain pen not stopping in the other. Li Dayong immediately ceased his bickering, dragged his stool over to Li Ye, and said fawningly, "Brother, got a minute? Could you explain these few problems to me?"

Li Ye looked at the burly, bear-like Li Dayong and couldn't help but feel a chill.

...

The impact of the problems Li Ye set spread much faster than he had anticipated. By the following afternoon, their homeroom teacher, Mr. Luo, came to find him.

"Li Ye, where did you get those test questions?" Li Ye looked at Mr. Luo, not understanding why he was in such a hurry.

In truth, Li Ye had underestimated the value of the problems he was setting. Mr. Luo taught physics, and that morning, some students had brought a few of the problems to him for guidance, immediately capturing his interest. He had never seen such problem types before, and they were "very interesting" to solve.

As the saying goes, "Different professions are like different mountains." Only someone like Mr. Luo, who racked his brains daily to create test questions, could truly understand the value of these problems. As the head teacher of the repeat class, he wouldn't let any opportunity to improve the class's performance slip by; asking a student for questions wasn't embarrassing at all.

Li Ye thought for a moment and said, "Some were found for me by my family, and a few sets were set for me by Teacher Ke."

"Teacher Ke? Fine, I'll go find her." Mr. Luo immediately believed Li Ye. After all, he could never have imagined that the questions Li Ye was setting could "amaze" a teacher like him, or even nearly stump him.

However, as Mr. Luo turned to leave, he casually "borrowed" Li Ye's practice notebook. What Li Ye didn't know was that when Teacher Ke later received the notebook, she, too, was nearly left wearing a look of utter bewilderment.