Chapter 2: The Teachers Are Dumbfounded!

“Principal, Ji Bai is in my class.”

Li Mei, Class Seven’s homeroom teacher, replied within a second. A stream of complaints followed immediately.

“What happened, Principal? Has Ji Bai caused trouble again? I knew it! That boy never takes anything seriously!”

“He handed in a blank paper in last month’s mock exam. Covered the back in drawings of turtles and labeled them with the names of every teacher who teaches him!”

“And the last time he was late, he said he’d been helping an old lady cross the road. Somehow he ‘helped’ her stay on the bus for three stops past hers. The poor woman ended up in tears!”

“Just tell me. Did he hit someone this time, or smash a school window? I’ll call his parents right—oh, right. He doesn’t have any. I’ll give him a talking-to immediately!”

The other teachers began chiming in.

“Ji Bai? Oh, I know him. He’s never once been awake in my math class!”

“Exactly! He spends every Chinese class drawing little figures under his desk!”

“That boy has plenty of energy for everything except studying…”

Principal Wang read the screenful of complaints. His brow furrowed deeply enough to crush a fly.

“Ms. Li! You’ve been teaching for over a decade. How can you label a student so carelessly?”

“You call Ji Bai’s behavior mischievous? I call it an active mind! Thinking outside the box!”

“What’s wrong with drawing turtles? That’s artistic talent! What’s wrong with helping an old lady past her stop? That’s a kind heart!”

“And sleeping in class? He already knew the material! He was confident in his knowledge!”

“What have I always told you? Look for the good in your students! Don’t judge them through a lens of prejudice!”

“Ji Bai is such a promising young talent. He’s simply too modest, and not one of you noticed!”

The homeroom teachers’ group chat fell silent.

Everyone was baffled.

???

Had Principal Wang taken the wrong medication today?

Ji Bai? A promising young talent?

Li Mei sat frozen in the office before hurriedly typing, “Principal, then you’re looking for Ji Bai because…?”

“Ms. Li, the gaokao results are in. Ji Bai scored 716!”

“Fucheng’s top-scoring science-track candidate. Sixth in the province.”

Li Mei: “??????”

“Principal, is that a typo? 716? Ji Bai???”

“You mean 316, right???”

The math teacher: “Am I hallucinating? Our school? Produced the city’s top scorer???”

“I’ve taught here for twenty years. Our record was 420 last year, barely over the cutoff for a second-tier undergraduate program!”

The Chinese teacher: “Ji Bai? The Ji Bai who sleeps through class every day and can’t even recite the poems they teach in primary school???”

The chemistry teacher: “716?”

The physics teacher: “Sixth in the province?”

The group chat exploded.

Every teacher was lost in the same surreal fog of Who am I? Where am I? This cannot be real.

Imagine coaching the national football team for three years and conceding five goals every single match.

Then one day FIFA called to tell you one of your players had won the Ballon d’Or.

Ridiculous.

Fucking ridiculous.

“Principal, are you sure it isn’t someone with the same name?”

“Confirmed. It’s the boy in your class. Even the exam admission number has been checked.”

“Ms. Li, let Ji Bai know the good news as soon as possible. And ask him to come to school tomorrow if he has time. I’d like to speak with him personally.”

Meanwhile, on the third floor of Wanda Plaza in the city center, at Micun Bibimbap.

Ji Bai was shoveling down food, his cheeks bulging.

Grilled beef bibimbap, sizzling tofu, sizzling squid, and a bowl of soybean paste soup covered the table. Beside them sat his freshly refilled second bowl of rice.

Delicious. So goddamn delicious!

Three years!

For three whole years, he hadn’t eaten a single meal that cost more than fifteen yuan!

Usually he bought two yuan’s worth of steamed buns to eat with pickles, or boiled plain noodles in water. He couldn’t even bear to add an egg.

Second Uncle and Second Aunt had extorted all his family’s money. He scraped together his living expenses doing odd jobs at an internet café, stretching every cent as far as it would go.

The moment today’s ten thousand arrived, he had rushed to Wanda and ordered every dish he had stared at countless times but never been willing to buy.

The sizzling squid smelled of char and cumin. Sauce-soaked grilled beef mingled with the rice. One mouthful nearly brought tears to his eyes.

Now this was living!

He had just picked up his third piece of tofu when his phone rang. “Homeroom Teacher Li Mei” flashed on the screen.

Still chewing, he answered indistinctly, “Hello, Ms. Li?”

“JI BAI!”

Li Mei’s voice cracked down the line. She sounded excited enough to cry.

“Ji Bai! The gaokao results are in! Do you know what you scored?”

He froze, forgetting to chew the rice in his mouth.

“Huh? They’re out? I thought the official release was tomorrow?”

“We got them early! Through an internal channel! Ji Bai, you scored 716!”

“You’re the city’s top-scoring science-track candidate!”

“Sixth in the entire province!”

Now Ji Bai was staring blankly at his phone too.

He had known something like this was coming, but hearing the number 716 still sent his heart racing.

Holy shit. System, you really were his daddy!

It had turned a score in the three hundreds into one in the seven hundreds!

That was fucking incredible!

“Ji Bai? Say something! Have you gone stupid?” Li Mei called from the other end.

He snapped back to himself. Fighting down a grin, he made his voice casual. “Ah. Right. Not bad, I guess. About what I expected.”

“About what you expected!”

Li Mei couldn’t stop smiling. “Oh, which university did you put as your first choice again?”

“Peking University,” he said offhandedly.

“Peking University! Wonderful! Wonderful!”

She slapped the desk in excitement. “No. 99! Thirty years since the school was founded! And our first Peking University student is going to come from Class Seven!”

“Ji Bai, make sure you come to school tomorrow if you’re free! Principal Wang asked for you personally!”

“Got it, Ms. Li!”

After hanging up, Ji Bai found his grin harder to keep down than that certain morning problem when his bladder was full.

Top scorer!

Heh-heh!

People could post all the ‘education is useless’ nonsense they liked online. In real life, who didn’t want to be the top scorer?

Just then, a string of notifications rang out in his head.

[Ding! Shock from homeroom teacher Li Mei: +1]

[Ding! Shock from Principal Wang: +2]

[Ding! Shock from the Chinese teacher: +1]

[Ding! Shock from the math teacher: +1]

Huh?

“System, what’s this shock stuff?”

[Shock Points can be used to upgrade the system and unlock the 100-Yuan Choices, 1,000-Yuan Choices, and 10,000-Yuan Choices tiers! Reward values increase exponentially with each tier! A hidden Shop and special privileges also await discovery by the Host!]

A panel appeared before him.

[Host: Ji Bai]

[Level: Lv1 (Daily 10-Yuan Choices)]

[Shock Points: 8/1,000,000]

[Shop: Locked]

“Holy shit!”

Ji Bai shot out of his chair.

There were 100-Yuan Choices? 1,000-Yuan Choices?

Ten yuan had already made him the city’s top scorer. Wouldn’t a hundred send him straight into orbit?

Upgrade. He had to upgrade!