Chapter 101: Chapter 100: So Calculating, Even in Love
Saturday, June 20th.
Jiang Xia had stayed up half the night drawing. When he woke up, he saw it was already past ten o’clock.
He frowned slightly. He vaguely remembered having something important to do today, but for the life of him, he couldn’t recall what it was.
The living room was empty. ’Mom must have gone out for groceries,’ he thought. He walked into the bathroom and started to wash up.
As he did, Jiang Xia kept racking his brain, trying to figure out what he’d forgotten. ’Her birthday? Our anniversary? No, that’s not today.’
The door suddenly opened. He walked out, toothbrush still in his mouth, and saw Xia Shanshan returning with a pile of groceries and a huge watermelon tucked under her arm.
"Oh, you’re up, Xiaxia! Come help me, quick. Careful, careful, this thing is killing me."
He hurried over to take it, the toothbrush still clamped in his teeth. The watermelon felt heavy in his hands; he roughly estimated it had to be a good twenty or thirty jin.
"Mom, why’d you buy such a huge watermelon?" he asked, his words muffled.
There were only three people in the family, and his dad wasn’t even home during the day. Unless he and his mom ate watermelon for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, there was no way they could finish it.
"To eat, of course. It’s getting hot out, what else would we eat besides watermelon? Oh, right, I bought you some buns. Hurry up and eat."
Xia Shanshan put the groceries on the table. She was so hot that she quickly poured a glass of water and drank it down, finally feeling a bit better.
"Have you checked your scores yet? What did you get? Let me tell you right now, if you did poorly, you can only watch your dad and me eat this watermelon. You won’t get any."
Jiang Xia froze. ’Crap,’ he thought, ’I remember now. The college entrance exam results are out today! No wonder I felt like I’d forgotten something important.’
"Not yet, I just woke up. Give me a second."
With that, he immediately went to the sink, took a mouthful of water, and GULPED and SWISHED until he had spat out all the toothpaste foam.
He went back to his room, found his exam admission ticket, and used his phone to dial the inquiry number listed on it. For a moment, both mother and son held their breath.
Even though Jiang Xia was mentally prepared and didn’t think he could have done poorly, he still felt a little nervous checking his scores. But after a few seconds, all he got was a busy signal.
"Mom, there must be a ton of people checking their scores right now. How about I try again later?"
"Less talk, more dialing! Hurry up!"
Xia Shanshan was an impatient person, especially when it came to something as crucial as her son’s future. She wished she could know the results immediately.
"Alright, alright, don’t rush me. I’ll try again."
Resigned, Jiang Xia tried dialing more than ten times in a row, but each time he was met with: "The number of users currently checking is too high. Please try again later."
"See? Haste makes waste. It’ll probably work if we wait until noon to call."
"What’s the number? I’ll call myself." Xia Shanshan refused to give up. She snatched the admission ticket from her son’s hand, sat on the sofa, and began dialing the inquiry number over and over.
Jiang Xia shrugged. ’Fine, let her try,’ he thought. He wasn’t worried anyway.
He ate his bun while pulling out his phone, opening QQ, and sending a message to his girlfriend.
[Jiang Hanhan]: Baobao, have you checked your scores? How’d you do?
[Lin Baobao]: Too many people are checking, the line’s busy. I’ll check again later.
[Jiang Hanhan]: Same here. But my mom refuses to give up. She’s on the phone right now, trying to fight everyone else for a spot in the queue.
Jiang Xia chuckled and clicked into the Qitian Animation Company group chat, only to see the other two members were also complaining about the education system’s terrible servers.
In comparison, the system in his later life—where you just entered your phone number during registration and received your results via text message—was worlds more efficient.
"Son, hurry, it’s going through! It’s going through!" Xia Shanshan suddenly exclaimed in excitement.
She put the phone on speaker. Hearing the automated prompt from the other end, Jiang Xia immediately leaned closer.
"Please enter the candidate’s admission ticket number, followed by the pound key."
Xia Shanshan held her breath and carefully entered the numbers from the admission ticket, then pressed the pound key. She held a pen in her other hand, ready to jot down the scores for each subject.
"Candidate Number: 09500101110467"
"Name: Jiang Xia"
"Chinese Language Score: 127"
Listening to the robotic voice announce the scores, Xia Shanshan tightened her grip on the pen, her breathing slowing unconsciously. But when she heard the Chinese score was 127, her brow furrowed slightly.
She turned to glance at Jiang Xia, her look clearly saying, ’You call a Chinese score that low performing as usual, you brat?’
Jiang Xia’s heart skipped a beat. ’No way,’ he thought, ’did I actually do badly?’
Mother and son continued to listen as the robotic voice on the other end continued its steady, unhurried report.
"Mathematics Score: 134"
"Foreign Language Score: 132"
"Comprehensive Studies Score: 255"
"Total Undergraduate Score: 648"
"Overall Rank: 29"
Hearing this result, Jiang Xia finally let out a long sigh of relief. Xia Shanshan had also finished writing down all the subject scores.
"A total of 648 out of 750, ranked 29th in the city. Not bad, right?" Jiang Xia raised an eyebrow. Compared to his college entrance exam score from his past life, he suddenly felt a sense of vindication.
’Now I can definitely eat half that big watermelon, right?’
’Eating it slice by slice is too petty. I’m gonna grab a spoon and dig right in!’
A smile appeared on Xia Shanshan’s face. "You did do well, but can you tell me why your Chinese score is only 127? You managed to pull up your math score, which has always been a headache for you, yet you got the lowest score in Chinese, your best subject? You’ve got some nerve."
Jiang Xia’s face stiffened. ’Can a mom be this good at finding fault?’ he thought. ’Who looks at individual subject scores when applying to college? Isn’t it all about the total score?’
However, the one who ruled the roost at home was his mother, a Chinese teacher, so naturally, she had always cared most about his Chinese scores.
Doing poorly in other subjects was one thing, but if his Chinese score was worse than the others, he was guaranteed to get a beating.
"It was probably the essay," Jiang Xia said, scratching his head. "It wasn’t off-topic, but the ideas might have been a bit ahead of their time. It’s possible the grading teacher couldn’t quite accept it and gave me a low score."
"What did you write about for your essay?" his mom demanded, her brow hardening.
"It was a thematic essay, so the topic was assigned. But the content... well, it might read like a love letter. Otherwise, my total score probably would’ve been even higher," Jiang Xia said meekly.
"???"
Xia Shanshan cracked her knuckles, the sound echoing with a sharp KRAK KRAK. She took a few deep breaths, forcibly suppressing the urge to give him a good spanking.
’Doesn’t he know the college entrance exam is a single-plank bridge? A single point can be the downfall of countless heroes!’
’Damn it all, has dating made him stupid? Can your girlfriend even see the love letter you wrote in your college entrance exam essay? If you’re so amazing, why didn’t you just use the school’s PA system to confess your love during the test?’
She was about to die from anger at her foolish son. There were so many other places to show off, yet he chose the college entrance exam of all things.
"You should be glad the grading teacher wasn’t me, or I would’ve given you a big fat zero."
Who would’ve thought that Jiang Xia would just chuckle and say, "Mom, you can’t fool me. It’s not that easy to get a zero on an essay. My handwriting was neat, I met the word count, my vocabulary was elegant, my sentences were coherent, and I wasn’t off-topic. The only issue is that the content might have been inappropriate for a student, hinting at puppy love. But overall, it was still an excellent piece of writing. At worst, it just wouldn’t get top marks."
Hearing this, Xia Shanshan was suddenly stunned.
’He calculated every aspect so clearly... so that’s why the little brat dared to pull a stunt like this?’
’To be so calculating even when it comes to romance... you really think you’re hot stuff, don’t you?’
...
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