CTF 0004

“Dad, Mom, I’m going to school now!”

The next morning, Xu Yin ate her breakfast. Then, she picked up her heavy school bag.

Besides her two books, which she only brought for show, the bag was filled with homemade dishes and a week’s worth of food that Mother Xu had prepared for her. 

Xu Yin hung her school bag on the handlebars of her bicycle. She then turned around and reminded her parents, “Dad, Mom, take care of yourselves. When it gets hot, don’t drink unboiled water to cool down. Either brew some herbal tea or drink boiled water that has cooled down. Mom, please look after Sister-in-law and her work on my behalf. Also, just sew during the day. Don’t strain your eyes under the lamp—it also wastes kerosene anyway.

“And don’t let Doudou play by the stream or the river alone. Doudou doesn’t know how to swim yet. Moreover, since the water is cold, he might get cramps. Even if he knows how to swim, it won’t help if he’s got a cramp. If anything goes wrong, it’ll be too late…”

“I know, I know. Do you still need to remind us about these things?” Mother Xu waved her hand. She felt that her daughter had become as nagging as she was nowadays.

Little Douding squatted under the eaves of the house. He played with a paper frog as he watched his aunt push her bicycle out.

His aunt used to always pinch and scold him whenever she was at home. As such, Little Douding would secretly enjoy the moments when she would leave for school. He’d even begin to wish that she would go and never come back. 

However, his aunt now treated him very well.

His friends in the village wouldn’t even believe it if he told them!

His aunt not only gave him orange-flavoured gummies, which tasted both sweet and sour but also told him stories and made paper frogs for him.

Although the paper frog couldn’t make a sound, it could jump.

When he put the frog on the ground and pressed its tail with his hand, it’d lurch forward! It’d go even farther than a tin frog, just like it was a living frog. 

After squatting on the ground and playing for some time, Little Douding squeezed his paper frog and ran to Xu Yin’s side. He looked up at her and said, “Auntie, don’t go.”

“Does Doudou not want Auntie to go?” Xu Yin smiled and rubbed his head.

“It’s alright. Auntie will be back in a few days, and I’ll even bring you delicious treats when I come back.”

When he heard about the treats, Little Doudou instantly gave up making her stay.

Xu Yin couldn’t help chuckling. What a pragmatic little guy!

Mother Xu laughed, before pointing at him and scolding him, “When did he learn how to ask for food from his aunt? Go play by yourself!”

She then said to Xu Yin, “It’s not easy for you to save up some money, why spend it on him? Buy some snacks for yourself.”

Xu Yin was speechless. Her living expenses were made up of the salary that her older brother—Doudou’s father, sent home.

After she said goodbye to her grandparents, Xu Yin mounted her bicycle and rode towards her school. 

It had been a while since she had ridden a bike, so her riding skills were a bit rusty. She wobbled for a while before gradually managing to ride more smoothly.

The high school which Xu Yin attended was Hongqi High School or No. 6 High School in Mingyang County. It’d been established soon after the resumption of the national college entrance examination¹ The national college entrance examination—or gaokao—stopped being held in 1966, during the Cultural Revolution, and was resumed in 1977. It’s something that haunts my nightmares /jk..

The students enrolled didn’t all come from the county. They also came from other towns and villages.

The good students would usually go to No. 1 High School. However, if they couldn’t—usually because of the distance or more convenient transportation, or the lack thereof—they’d enrol in No. 6 High School, which was Hongqi.

As a result, the quality of students in Hongqi varied greatly.

Some had excellent grades and enrolled because they wanted to go on to take the college entrance examination.

Some came from wealthy families, who sent their children here to ‘polish their resumes’, so they could easily find employment after they graduated.

The original host was in neither of these groups. She didn’t come from a wealthy family, and although she did well in her studies, her grades weren’t that great. She also had the support of her parents, who loved her and couldn’t bear to let her farm and marry so early in her life.

They decided to send her to school because they thought that with her older brother holding a stable government job, they’d be able to save enough money to pay for her education.

She’d gone from middle school into high school, and even if she couldn’t get into a university, they hoped that she’d be able to become a salaried worker.

If all else failed, her older brother would be able to help her get a job when there was a vacancy in the military art and culture troupe. That way, both of them would have secure jobs²Fun fact! The Chinese phrase used here, 铁饭碗, can be literally translated into ‘iron rice bowl’. It refers to a secure job with guaranteed employment, job stability, and benefits. .

When Xu Yin arrived at the gate of the school, she heard a string of electric current sounds in her mind.

She knew that this was the prelude to the Life Support System coming online.

It seemed that every time she transmigrated, this crappy system would always appear a few days late.

[You have cycled for 15 kilometres. Your reward: 20 energy points. Would you like to keep it or exchange it?]

A dialogue box popped up in the system interface. 

Huh? So it was cycling this time. It had been farming in the last story world. 

It didn’t matter, though. She could handle cycling.

After considering it, Xu Yin chose to keep the points. She took a look at her balance in the personal information panel. 

As expected, the energy points she had accumulated when she was a peasant woman in the chaotic world had been completely erased. 

It was one more confirmation that the energy points accumulated in each story world could only be used in that particular world and couldn’t be carried over to the next time and space. 

Fortunately, she had exchanged most of her energy points for skills or universal materials. She had left only a small amount to verify whether her guess was true. She would have suffered a big loss otherwise. 

Now, what could these twenty energy points be used for?

Xu Yin browsed the system store. She realised that while in the last world, she could exchange twenty energy points for five buckets of rice and two chickens, she could only exchange them for two corn buns in this world. 

“…”

What a greedy system!

It inflated even faster than the currency!

Xu Yin gave the system store a resentful glance, then and decisively exited it.

After she arrived at school, she went to the homeroom teacher to explain why she returned to school two days late. 

She said that she had been unwell, and the homeroom teacher didn’t say much. Her homeroom teacher just asked her a few questions before letting her go back to class.

“Xu Yin, why are you just coming now?”

Tong Guihua, her deskmate and roommate, blocked her face with an open textbook and whispered to her.

“I was delayed by something. Where did we leave off?”

“Page 28. By the way, there’s a quiz next class. Are you prepared?”

“…”

Could she say that she was not prepared at all?

It was too late to cram for it now.

Nevermind. If she did poorly in the exam, she’d just say that she’d gotten too exhausted during the cropping season break and didn’t study for the quiz. 

It wasn’t like the original host had particularly impressive grades anyway. No matter how bad it was, it couldn’t be much worse than what the original host used to get, right? 

Unexpectedly, when the test paper came down, it turned out to be in Russian.

“…”

What… was going on…

She was dumbfounded.

“Well, it looks like you didn’t study either. I was hoping to rely on you…”

The moment Tong Guihua saw Xu Yin’s reaction to the test paper, she knew it was over for her. She hunched over her test paper and began to honestly answer the questions.

Xu Yin wanted to peek and copy from her.

However, Tong Guihua’s handwriting was horrible! It was as crooked as an earthworm. There was no way Xu Yin could copy her. 

Eventually, she just handed in a blank paper. 

Xu Yin, a Fashion and Apparel Design graduate student at Tsinghua University who had repeatedly won scholarships before: “…”

This was her personal Waterloo—what a catastrophic defeat!     

Except for the students who came from the city and didn’t have fields to tend to, none of the students had brought their Russian books with them when they went home for the cropping season break. Since the quiz greeted them as soon as they came back, their results were imaginable. 

However, although the teacher had mentally prepared himself for the horrible results that’d naturally come out of this quiz, nothing could’ve prepared him for the blank paper Xu Yin submitted. 

Xu Yin: To be honest, I didn’t expect it either…

When they were handed out, the papers were sorted in the order of worst to best grades.

“Report your name and come up to get the test paper. Xu Yin!”

“Present!”

“…” The teacher was so angry that he glared at Xu Yin and gritted his teeth. “Zero points!”

“Hahahaha!”

A lot of laughter erupted from behind her.

Xu Yin blushed as she received her test paper. 

Tong Guihua expressed considerable confusion at her blank paper. “Xu Yin, you got a 75 on the quiz last month. What happened this time? I answered all of the questions. There’s no way you couldn’t answer any of it!”

“I hit my head on a tree and became stupid,” Xu Yin said with a serious tone.

“…Really?”

“…” What do you think?