Chapter 0001: Fatty, What Other Reason Do You Have to Give Up?

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“Something terrible has happened!”

“What happened?”

“The Mercedes up ahead knocked over a student taking the exam on a bicycle. The student looks badly hurt. His trousers are torn, and blood is pouring out.”

“That’s awful. Looks like that student will have to repeat his final year and take the exam again next year.”

“Exactly! The real question is whether the poor kid can withstand such a blow. Sigh…”

…

Lin Yi stared blankly at the people surrounding him. Why were so many of them pointing and whispering about him?

Suddenly, pain shot through his thigh, and memories he had buried deep within himself—memories he had never wanted to recall—surged into his mind.

This was the scene of the accident on the day of the national college entrance examination!

On the very first day of the exam, Lin Yi had suffered a disastrous start. He had been involved in a car accident, and by the time he hurried to the examination center, he had been told that he was not allowed to enter.

He had completely broken down then.

He had worked hard for three years for the college entrance examination. He had never dared slack off in the slightest, spending every available moment studying.

And in the end, this was what it had all come to!

At the time, he had felt as though the entire sky had collapsed on him.

“Right—the exam!” Lin Yi suddenly remembered what was at stake and struggled to get up from the ground.

The owner of the Mercedes, Zhao Xin, saw this and hurried over, her high heels clicking sharply against the pavement.

“I’ll take you to the hospital. Your wound could become infected if it isn’t treated promptly.” Zhao Xin supported Lin Yi by the arm and spoke seriously.

“No. Take me to Bright Virtue High School. I still have to sit the exam,” Lin Yi replied, panting heavily.

At that moment, his eyes were bloodshot, his face deathly pale, and his forehead covered in beads of sweat. Blood had seeped through his white trousers, making him look as though he were barely alive.

Although the pain in his thigh was excruciating, all Lin Yi could think about was getting to the examination center as quickly as possible.

He did not want the college entrance examination to become another indelible regret in his heart.

“But in your condition…” Zhao Xin frowned as she looked at the wound on his thigh, worry flickering in her eyes.

“I’m not afraid! Take me to Bright Virtue High School!” Lin Yi said with unwavering determination.

Yet the pallor of his face made that determination seem somewhat uncertain.

In his current state, it was difficult to believe that he could hold on.

“Hurry!” Lin Yi lowered his head and glanced at his watch, which was stained with dust and blood. Swallowing hard, he gasped, “If we don’t leave now, it’ll be too late.”

He looked at Zhao Xin, his eyes filled with pleading and hope.

“Take me to Bright Virtue High School.”

At present, the only person who could help him was the driver responsible for the accident.

Most of the other bystanders were merely there to watch the spectacle—and to avoid getting dragged into trouble.

He understood.

That was precisely why he had fixed his gaze on the beautiful woman who had hit him.

She had struck him.

There were so many witnesses around.

Therefore…

She would not simply ignore his request.

As Lin Yi’s gaze shifted, the eyes of the spectators shifted with it.

Everyone’s attention fell upon Zhao Xin alone.

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The pressure on her suddenly multiplied.

“If I take him to the exam, what will happen to his wound? But if I take him to the hospital, how will he sit the exam?” Zhao Xin felt a headache coming on. If she had known something like this would happen, she would never have answered her father’s call, not for anything.

It had happened in an instant.

In that single instant.

Before she had even had time to react, the two of them had collided.

What terrible luck!

She must have been cursed for eighteen generations!

Seeing the hesitation and struggle in Zhao Xin’s eyes, Lin Yi gritted his teeth and said, “Take me to the exam. If anything happens, I’ll take full responsibility myself. All right? I really don’t want three years of hard work to go to waste.”

Compared with wasting three years of effort, what Lin Yi cared about even more was that he absolutely did not want to repeat his final year.

Zhao Xin stared at Lin Yi for a while. After more than ten seconds, she stamped her foot.

“All right! I’ll take you to Bright Virtue High School!”

She carefully helped Lin Yi into the car, and her Mercedes sped down the road like a streak of smoke.

Not long after they left, the traffic police officer responsible for patrols arrived at the scene.

“Where are they?” Cheng Wu looked at the pool of blood on the ground and the bicycle lying nearby, its front wheel twisted from the impact. He turned toward the spectators who had not yet left.

“They’re gone.”

“Gone?”

“Yes. They left to take the college entrance examination.”

“They went to take the exam?” Cheng Wu’s brows knitted tightly.

According to the information he had received, an accident had occurred on Education Road. A small car had struck a student taking the college entrance examination, and the student was said to be seriously injured.

The pool of blood on the ground,

along with the bicycle lying askew nearby,

strongly suggested that the report was almost certainly true.

He was that badly injured?

And he still went to take the exam?

Was he out of his mind?

Did he have no regard for his life?

“Who took him to the exam?” Anger emanated faintly from between Cheng Wu’s brows.

A person had only one life!

The college entrance examination could be taken many times!

Did they have no sense of which mattered more?

Had they never heard the news? A fifty-nine-year-old man had reportedly taken the college entrance examination twenty-four times. His highest score was said to have been 391 out of 759. Unsatisfied with his results, he had redoubled his efforts and taken the exam another twenty-three times.

It was said that he was taking it again this year!

“It was the person who hit him.”

“Hm?!” Cheng Wu’s eyelid twitched. He stared at the citizen who had answered him in disbelief.

“It’s true!” Seeing Cheng Wu’s gaze, Mr. Zhang, a model citizen, hunched his head and pointed toward Mr. Ye, another citizen who was preparing to slip away. “If you don’t believe me, ask him.”

What the hell?

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What does this have to do with me?

He asked you, not me. How did I get dragged into this?

After viciously cursing the bespectacled man in his mind, Mr. Ye replied with a smile, “Yes, everything he said is true. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”

He casually pointed toward another citizen.

Mr. Zhang: “…”

Cheng Wu: “…”

The innocent citizen: “…”

Bright Virtue High School.

A motorcycle pulled up in front of the school.

As soon as it stopped, the traffic officer riding on it explained the situation to the security guards. Together, they helped the injured Lin Yi from the vehicle and escorted him to the examination hall.

A cordon had been established around the school, and vehicles were forbidden from entering. Zhao Xin had been stopped more than a mile from the school.

After a brief exchange, discussion, and argument,

the final decision was for the traffic officer patrolling the cordon to escort Lin Yi to the examination hall.

When Lin Yi arrived, the eyes of every candidate and invigilator turned toward him.

It was not because Lin Yi was particularly handsome.

On the contrary, it was because he looked so miserable: his face was pale, his body weak, and bright-red blood ran down his thigh.

After the teacher in charge conferred with the invigilators for more than ten seconds and Lin Yi underwent the necessary inspection procedures, he was finally allowed to take his seat in the examination hall.

His restless heart settled the moment he sat down.

A fat student beside him had been biting his teeth and racking his brains over the questions. When he saw Lin Yi’s battered yet unyielding appearance, his whole body trembled.

Look at him!

He hadn’t given up yet!

Fatty, what reason did you have to give up?

Come on. You can do this!

The fat student swept away his earlier dejection and began concentrating wholeheartedly on the Chinese examination paper.

Several minutes passed.

“What is all this?”

“I understand each individual word, so why can’t I understand them when they’re put together?”

“And what emotion is the author trying to express? How am I supposed to know what emotion he wants to express? I’m not him. Isn’t this just tormenting me, Fatty?”

“This is so difficult!”

…

Fatty collapsed onto his desk in despair and stared up at the ceiling.

A thought surfaced in his mind:

The most shocking thing about taking an exam was, first, realizing that he was a hopeless student, and second, seeing the earth-shattering score he received—a score that seemed even more astonishingly appalling in front of his family.