CTF 0031

After the Shangyuan Festival¹The Lantern festival, celebrated on the fifteenth day after CNY., Xu Yin returned to school carrying a bag full of neatly prepared clothes.

By this point, most of the teachers and students in the school already learned about her final exam results. Regardless of whether they had known her before this, they all certainly knew who she was now. They’d all smile and greet her whenever they saw her. 

Her more outgoing classmates greeted her warmly, and those who were familiar with her before this approached to ask how they could quickly improve their performance in the sciences.

Xu Yin felt exhausted. She was eventually persuaded by the school principal and teachers to share her insights on stage. 

But what insights did she have? 

She got a perfect score in the three subjects she was already good at even before she started transmigrating. Should she suggest that everyone transmigrate into books that they’d read to improve their scores?

Ah… She was losing her mind now.

In the end, she provided a generic piece of advice: more practice. 

For science subjects, practising problems was the easiest way to boost one’s scores. 

Of course, it had to be targeted practice based on understanding. They would be able to better understand the problems if they practised more types of them.

As a result, a craze for practising problems swept through the No. 6 High School. Teachers worked hard to create new practice questions, and students went all out to practise them. It started with the science subjects and then expanded to languages, history, and politics.

The printing room was busier than ever.

Initially, there had been a bit of rivalry between classes due to the competitive atmosphere. But now, they formed alliances. 

Since each class had different subject teachers and different sets of practice questions, they decided to exchange and practise each other’s materials to save time.

The school’s administration even established a grade-level problem-solving points leaderboard. They rewarded students who practised the most problems and achieved high accuracy with prizes at midterms and finals.

Xu Yin: …

This was something she had never anticipated.

However, this had surprisingly good effects.

Perhaps because there were fewer educational materials available at the time, practising problems hadn’t become as widespread as they would in the future. 

The benefits of practice were apparent, and it coincided with the upcoming college entrance exam. After several rounds of practice and mock exams, the average scores at No. 6 High School kept rising. 

This delighted the school’s principal and teachers, who celebrated every day as if the New Year happened daily. They continued to work tirelessly to create and distribute more practice materials.

The students had mixed feelings about this. Practising problems required significant time and effort. Needless to say, they were all exhausted.

However, they also saw improvements in their results. It didn’t matter if they were tired, as long as their grades improved.

Xu Yin herself also joined a practice group, diligently practising day and night. It was tiring, but she saw progress, and that made it all worthwhile.

Then, in mid-March, the admission notice from Tsinghua arrived. Professor An had indeed secured a guaranteed admission spot for her, albeit for a specific program—the physics department.

Xu Yin: “…”

This seemed to confirm that the system’s tasks and rewards were indeed linked to her current status in this world. In her previous life as a farmer, the system had issued a series of farming tasks, unlocking related skills and rewards. Ultimately, she became a landlord, estate owner, and workshop owner.

In this life, the rewards from cycling tasks allowed her to become a student in Tsinghua’s physics department. To the teachers, this was simply an incredible stroke of luck.

They had no idea that she had helped Professor An solve a challenging problem. They believed that it was a fortunate coincidence that Mrs Yang, who went to inform the Xu family of her success, had found Professor An there; upon seeing her perfect scores in maths and physics, he decided to apply for the guaranteed admission on her behalf.

Later, the principal even asked Xu Yin if she had known Professor An before that day. Xu Yin shook her head. She said that Professor An was the professor of her cousin’s lecturer whom she’d only met that day.

So, everyone assumed that she had simply been very lucky.

While her classmates were still memorising, practising problems, and preparing for the college entrance exam in their classrooms, Xu Yin packed up her school bag, shouldered her load, and went home to wait for the start of the university term in September.

Her guaranteed admission was special. 

This was a privilege that had only been restored a few years ago after the college entrance exam had undergone significant changes. The country was in a phase of rapid development and desperately needed talents. As long as someone made a special contribution, they didn’t need to take the exam; they could go directly to Tsinghua when the time came.

Mother Xu was overjoyed when she found out. She insisted on hosting a few grand feasts and, the next day, dragged her husband to the market outside the meat processing plant before dawn.

After the spring opened that year, the pork market had finally been deregulated, and meat buyers no longer needed to provide meat coupons when they wanted to buy meat. As a result, more people were buying meat.

At 4:30 in the morning, Mother Xu arrived at the market and managed to secure five pounds of pork belly and five pounds of premium pork. She prepared three feasts. 

The guests that she invited were relatives and neighbours she usually interacted with. They also took the opportunity to stock up on nutrients for the upcoming spring planting season.

They were going to plant rice this spring. The paddy fields, which had been cultivated all winter, needed to be tilled first. This time, without hesitation, they asked Xu Yin to operate the village’s tractor. The person who requested her was the old village party secretary.

“Jianjun is attending night school, and the other young folks aren’t as skilled as you are. You’re faster and better. So, we all asked me to come and see if you have the time to help plough the fields for each household. You don’t need to draw lots; you’ll be the first to plough, and the sooner we finish, the sooner we can start planting the rice.”

“Sure.”

Xu Yin readily agreed. She had wanted to volunteer to drive the tractor for the village to the fields. Since the last autumn harvest, she hadn’t had the opportunity to operate a tractor, and her driving skills were still at the intermediate level. She had yet to unlock the advanced level.

She hoped to achieve the advanced-level reward after the spring planting.

Xu Jianjun had taken two days off from night school for the planting season but returned to find that someone had already done his work, and done it quickly and efficiently.

“…”

Who the hell took his job!?

How unfair!

This was so frustrating!

When he discovered that it was Xu Yin, though, all his frustration dissipated immediately. 

His lecturer hadn’t been able to figure out what was wrong with the electric bicycle that they assembled. Meanwhile, this little girl successfully assembled it in an incredibly short time and managed to get a recommendation from Tsinghua. She was… utterly impressive.

“Yinyin, what’s your secret? You’ve ploughed an acre so quickly, and it’s very deep.”

After Xu Yin finished ploughing another acre, Xu Jianjun hurried over with a jug of water, offering it and even a cigarette, which he quickly replaced with a piece of fruit candy when he remembered she was a girl.

Xu Yin took off her straw hat and fanned herself. “You can keep the candy; I’ll just have some water.”

“Do you not like this candy? Next time, I’ll bring you White Rabbit Creamy Candy,” Xu Jianjun said. He patted his pants pocket, but instead of more candy, he pulled out a letter.

“Oh, I almost forgot. It’s a letter from your brother.” He handed the letter to Xu Yin. “I met the mailman at the village entrance, and he was about to go to two more villages, so I figured I’d help him by bringing it instead.”

“Thank you!”

In the letter, her brother mentioned that his application to have his family join him had been approved. He had received his housing allocation, but he was about to embark on an assignment. After the mission, he would come to pick up his wife and child.

Xu Yin quickly read the letter and then put it away, satisfied.

The plot seemed to be taking a significant turn now, right? 

Her sister-in-law had given birth to a healthy nephew, and they were both in great health. Soon, she would be joining him to live in the military housing. 

It appeared that the family of four would live in Tongcheng from now on, with little chance of ever crossing paths with the original female protagonist.

Great!

With her spirits lifted, Xu Yin ploughed even faster. 

In one afternoon, she finished ploughing the majority of the land that had initially been estimated to take more than half a day. If someone else had done the ploughing, it might have taken three to five days to complete.

Now, the villagers were completely convinced of her skills. They all gave Xu Yin a thumbs-up when they saw her.