Chapter 2

It seemed like he had a good sleep, one he hadn't had in a long time.

His body felt warm, the sensation of sunlight on his skin.

"Sunlight? What time is it now?"

Xue Dao's consciousness suddenly became clear, but strangely, his body didn't seem to respond to his commands. His brain repeatedly sent signals, and after many attempts, his hands and legs finally felt connected to his brain. The feeling was strange but very real.

"Hmm?" What position am I in?

Did I fall asleep sitting on the sofa? Did Sang Xiu help me to the bed? No, why do I feel like I'm lying on a table.

Open my eyes! Open my eyes! Why can't I open my eyes?

There were sounds.

Very noisy, coming from far away and getting closer, the sound of a group of people climbing the stairs, the sound of a door opening, the sound of chairs and tables bumping, and indistinct voices... After the door opened, everything suddenly became quiet, as if it were a well-rehearsed performance.

Xue Dao continued to try hard to control his body; he was really curious about where he was.

A middle-aged woman's voice reached Xue Dao's ears.

"Classmates, class is starting! Everyone, open the 23rd set of practice questions, Huanggang Simulation (3)..."

The sound of pages flipping filled the air. Someone behind him whispered, "Hey, did you do it? I didn't, tell me the answers later."

"Smack" Someone on his right patted Xue Dao's shoulder, "Wake up, class is starting."

The middle-aged woman's voice sounded again, "Starting from the first question, Xu Bing, you start, and then go around the room." She paused and then emphasized, "Those who are still lying down, please get up quickly."

The person on his right pushed Xue Dao again, and he suddenly felt like his acupoints were unblocked, and he sat up abruptly.

In front of him was a familiar yet unfamiliar classroom. The woman standing on the podium should be Ms. Chen, yes, Ms. Chen, who taught geography.

The person who patted him, Guo Dong!

How did I end up here? Am I dreaming? Xue Dao pinched himself hard, it hurt! He pinched himself again, it still hurt!

Guo Dong looked at Xue Dao as if he were a fool and asked, "What's wrong with you? Did you stay up all night at Big Eyes?"

Big Eyes? Xue Dao remembered it was the name of a cybercafé he often went to in his senior year of high school.

Is this my senior year of high school?

Xue Dao suddenly noticed that on the left top corner of the blackboard, there were a few prominent words: "48 days until the college entrance exam!!"

The students in the class stood up one by one, holding their papers and reading out questions and answers about monsoons, ocean currents, and the Northern Hemisphere...

Xue Dao sat there in a daze, his geography book open randomly, and he sat there until lunchtime.

The classroom gradually emptied, and finally, only Xue Dao was left. He picked up a small mirror that a female classmate had left on the desk. The person in the mirror was indeed him, just much younger. He rolled up his left sleeve and saw no scar on his wrist where he had burned himself while learning to cook after getting married.

The physical sensations and the clarity of his thoughts were unmistakable. Xue Dao was certain he wasn't dreaming. If he wasn't dreaming, then there could only be one explanation: his soul had returned to 2001, his senior year of high school, 48 days before the college entrance exam.

Oh no! There are only 48 days until the exam. It would have been better if it were two months earlier or later. How can I take the exam now? What can I use to take the exam? What if I don't do well?

I should go home for lunch first.

Xue Dao walked to the bicycle shed and suddenly felt puzzled. He found the key in his pocket but couldn't remember what his bicycle looked like. Fortunately, many students had already left. By the fourth bike, he found his own.

Xue Dao's home was a single-story house with its own yard, about 140 square meters, with a small vegetable garden in front. Because both his parents were laid off, he remembered that a few months after he started university, the family sold the house and moved into a 40-square-meter apartment, using the money from the sale to pay for his education.

The Xue Dao of that time didn't know that he would never return to this house after his first year of university. There were a few times when he was drunk that he truly missed the days he spent in this house.

Pushing open the gate and parking his bicycle, Xue Dao suddenly felt a sense of nostalgia.

"Mom, Dad, I'm back."

His parents didn't notice anything unusual about Xue Dao. Seeing their much younger faces, Xue Dao didn't dare to say much, just buried his head in his food, afraid of saying something that didn't match.

After lunch, Xue Dao, following his old habit, lay down in his room for 30 minutes. Lying on the hard single bed, looking at the posters of celebrities he had stuck on the walls, he began to think about what to do next.

Xue Dao had already tested a few times and found that his memories were all from before his rebirth. The "yesterday" he now remembered was the day he worked the night shift, reviewed manuscripts, and encountered a car accident on his way home, not the "yesterday" of 2001. He could recall some news headlines from the Songjiang Daily on August 13, 2014, but had no idea what the teachers had reviewed the day before.

Chinese, math, English, politics, history, geography—48 days later, the knowledge to be tested in the college entrance exam was completely blank in Xue Dao's mind.

Oh no!

Wait, wait, don't panic. I have advantages.

Xue Dao sat up and found a clean diary, starting to list his advantages one by one.

First, he knew the college entrance exam admission scores for his province: 511 for the first tier of liberal arts and 454 for the second tier.

Second, he knew his seat number for the exam, the fourth desk from the left wall, and in front of him was Zhou Hang, one of the top three students in his class.

What else? The exam questions... Yes, the exam questions.

2001 was the first year of the "3+X" exam format. In Xue Dao's memory, many classmates struggled with the "X" comprehensive test.

There were two reasons: first, it was the first year of this format, and both teachers and students lacked experience; second, the liberal arts comprehensive test in 2001 included a lot of content that was explicitly removed from the exam syllabus, which many students had ignored, especially the last 30-point question.

Xue Dao was lucky!

In the bookshelf at home in 2014, there were still the high school textbooks used by Xu Shangxiu. After the exam, Xu Shangxiu had marked and folded many of the exam questions in the textbooks. A few months ago, on a weekend evening, the two of them had carefully flipped through those textbooks, reminiscing about their high school days.

As a senior high school student, could there be anything more fortunate than knowing the exam questions before the exam?

In the era when college applications were made before the exam scores were released, could there be anything more fortunate than knowing the admission scores in advance?

As a Chinese person, could there be anything more fortunate than knowing that the housing prices would skyrocket in the future when they were very low in 2001?

Uh... I'm thinking too far ahead.

Xue Dao pulled himself together and tried hard to recall the memories of flipping through Xu Shangxiu's marked textbooks. The political exam points... the historical exam points... the geographical... He clearly remembered that the last few major questions in the liberal arts comprehensive test were interdisciplinary, combining African independence, soil erosion, rural and agricultural issues, and possibly the technological revolution and industrial structure.

Xue Dao also knew the college entrance exam Chinese essay topic, which was about "integrity," and the English essay was to write a letter to a foreign friend.

Xue Dao scribbled a few lines and quickly searched the desk, but couldn't find the textbooks he was looking for. He shouted, "I'm going to school," and rushed out of the house on his bicycle.

For the entire afternoon, Xue Dao was like a man possessed, flipping through one book after another, occasionally marking something. He didn't move from his seat during breaks and didn't look up during class, regardless of which subject the teacher was teaching. In the middle of the class, the math teacher called on Xue Dao to answer a multiple-choice question. His desk mate, Guo Dong, saw Xue Dao, who was flipping through a history book, stand up calmly and confidently answer, "A."

When did this guy become so sharp?

Guo Dong asked Xue Dao several times what he was doing, but Xue Dao just hummed a few times, gesturing for him to look at the teacher on the podium, meaning it was class time, and not to talk. Guo Dong felt a bit bored, pouted, and thought to himself, "What's so great about flipping through books, as if you know the exam questions." He would never know that this afternoon, Xue Dao was marking the exact questions that would appear on the national college entrance exam in 40 days.

At 5:10 PM, it was time for a break again. The classroom was sparsely populated. Xue Dao stood up, stretched, and looked at the crowded, messy, yet warm senior high school classroom. Then he leaned back in his chair, looking out the window on the third floor at the treetops and the red clouds in the sky, lost in thought.

Unlike the rebirth novels that became popular online a few years later, Xue Dao, in 2001, had no girlfriend and no crush during his entire senior year. He had once organized his memories and was curious about what he had been thinking about besides classes.

At this time, Xue Dao wasn't ugly, but he wasn't handsome either. His academic performance was average, and apart from a good physique, he had nothing that would attract girls. Besides, in 2001, how many high school girls in a small northern city knew how to appreciate a guy's physique?

Not sure which period of Xue Dao's biological clock this body was using, but he was very energetic. The first class in the evening was self-study. Some students were frantically memorizing, while others were not interested in studying, whispering in pairs.

He had marked all the questions he could remember, but most were for the "X" part of the "3+X" liberal arts comprehensive test.

For the main subjects—math, English, and Chinese—there were very few marks. This couldn't be blamed on Xu Shangxiu; even after taking the exam, no one could mark all the questions, as these subjects required flexible application.

Chinese was manageable, as Xue Dao had been working with words since he graduated from university and joined the newspaper.

English was a bit challenging, but over the years, Xue Dao had watched countless American TV shows and movies during his night shifts, from "Friends" to "House," "24," "Prison Break," "The Big Bang Theory," "Lost," "The Walking Dead," and more. His vocabulary, listening skills, and English sense were probably better than when he was in high school. Now, he just needed to reinforce some common grammatical traps in the exam.

The hardest part was math. Xue Dao had forgotten all the formulas after 13 or 14 years. Trying to relearn math in the remaining 40 days would be a daunting task, even for a genius, let alone for Xue Dao, who was a complete math low-achiever.

Knowing the time was limited and his capabilities, Xue Dao quickly clarified his review strategy: focus on the big picture, prioritize the liberal arts, and abandon math.

As a 33-year-old man and a person who had worked for nearly 10 years, Xue Dao told himself that he couldn't be rigid, couldn't wait to die, and had to find a way.

His gaze wandered around the classroom and finally settled on Zhou Hang.

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