Chapter 2

September 2nd, the first day of school.

Second Year, Class One.

The morning wind brought a slightly cool breeze that blew from the curtains. Just after a quarter past seven, most of the students in the classroom were already seated in place.

Tao Zhi was sitting in the second to last row by the wall. A stack of test papers were spreaded out on the left side of her table, answers densely written on them, and on the right side were the same set of identical papers. The only difference was that the test papers on the right were blank.

At this moment, the girl was holding a black pen in her hand as she bit onto the cap, quickly copying the answers onto her own papers.

Her dark eyes swept over to the left, and the pen in her right hand scribbled another row of words with almost no hesitation. Her movements were as smooth as a recently lubricated engine, proving to be very skillful and fast.

After copying one page, she flipped over the page and kicked the chair leg of the boy in the front row.

With a soft ‘pa’, the boy’s chair sitting in front of her scraped forward against the floor as he shifted, before quickly turning his head back carefully.

Tao Zhi was still struggling to finish copying the homework, so she did not lift her head. With a pen cap in her mouth, she asked vaguely, “Were you in Mr Wang’s class last time?”

The boy nodded, replying to her question with a ‘yeah’.

“When does he usually tend to collect the homework?”

In Experimental First High School, there were two different courses for second-year students— twelve science classes and seven liberal arts classes. The homeroom teacher and the teachers of the other subjects would also be reassigned.

Tao Zhi had never attended Mr Wang’s class before and she only knew that he was a Physics teacher. He was very fierce, as his voice could be heard in the hallways even when he was lecturing other students from the office.

With a new semester and the new atmosphere’s arrival, she had to at least begin the year by handing in the vacation homework without a hitch. She was different from Ji Fan in this aspect— she was a rebellious girl who had a positive outlook on life.

She had a very bright character.

The fact remains even if she could only copy a bit of the homework. If she really couldn’t finish copying, then so be it.

At least she did try.

The scores can be low, but there must be sincerity in place.

Ji Fan didn’t know about it, after all.

Tao Zhi came to school early to finish copying her vacation homework with the mindset of ‘if I can finish one, then it counts as one’. She quickly wrote to fill in the blanks as the boy in front of her said, “Mr Wang usually barely arrives on time, but sometimes he would arrive early for some self-study or something, and the homework will be collected before class commences,” After a pause, the boy added, “The first class today is Physics.”

Tao Zhi’s pen strokes halted as she raised her head, before she frowned and looked at him with an exasperated ‘ah’.

Li Shuangjiang was slightly surprised.

She was quite infamous in school as she was rich and good-looking. Plus, she was good at fighting, a fierce ‘ancestor'(1) who caused some troubles around the school.

(T/L note: ancestor here is used in a somewhat respectable manner. Because she was good at fighting and can hold her own, he respects her for that. Can commonly be used in derogatory means as well though)

But at this moment, the ancestor was sitting in the row behind him and she was holding his Chinese papers as she frantically copied his answers. She frowned, looking at him with slight distress, worrying about the problem that high school students all over the world would worry about, “What should I do? There’s way too many, I definitely can’t finish copying.”

“Or, I’ll copy Physics first and give Mr Wang the respect he deserves,” Tao Zhi said while sweeping the Chinese papers aside, “Front deskmate, can you let me copy your Physics homework?”