Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
The weekend.
Ms. Wang, Wang Xue, was busy marking the tests from yesterday. She taught three Senior 3 classes Chinese, but due to some scheduling issues, only two classes had taken the test yesterday.
She started off by marking Class 2’s papers, and after finishing up, she decided that they had performed fairly well. Those at the top of the class had managed to maintain their position, those in the middle of the bell curve still found themselves in the middle, and those that were doomed to a life of tragedy could only succumb to their fates.
Of course, there weren’t that many bad students in Class 2, only two or three among the fifty or so students. Most importantly, these few students hadn’t given up on Chinese yet, unlike their other subjects… Wang Xue shuddered just thinking about it.
“It’s time for Class 1.” Wang Xue sighed. She had a bad feeling about the class, and it all stemmed from one particular student.
“I’ll just take that kid’s paper out and set it aside to mark it last… just so I can make it through the rest of the class.”
Wang Xue fished out Xu Mang’s paper, giving it a quick scan over. The paper was still decently neat, there weren’t much blank spaces left, every empty spot or line was filled with an ‘answer’. As a language teacher, Wang Xue was pleased with his performance, after all, she was the one who had taught Xu Mang this tactic.
Wang Xue had experience grading for the National Exam, and what a horrible experience it was. Sometimes, she would get students with neat handwriting and her day would be made, and other times… their handwriting would be so messy, so indecipherable, that she had contemplated ending it all on multiple occasions.
However, after skimming through Xu Mang’s answer sheet, suicidal thoughts once again flooded Wang Xue’s mind.
This… This kid had just copied the question again!
Wang Xue quickly composed herself, clenching the test sheet hard between her fists before setting it aside to get on with her work.
Escaping from that nightmare, Wang Xue once again found new meaning in life. Taking in a deep breath, she started grading Class 1’s papers. The process went fairly smoothly seeing as no one’s answers left her quite as aggravated as Xu Mang’s.
However, there was also a surprise.
That being the new transfer student, Yang Xiaoman.
She had scored 149 over 150, and Wang Xue was left wondering if she had done it on purpose or not, because Yang Xiaoman had gotten a question that everyone else had gotten correct, wrong. Of course, the error she made wasn’t too great, only getting 1 mark deducted from her total.
“It was on purpose! She must’ve done it on purpose!”
Wang Xue had reason to believe that her student, Yang Xiaoman, had intentionally made a mistake. Although she couldn’t pinpoint the reason as to why she did so, she now knew that Yang Xiaoman was indeed quite the exceptional student!
“Sigh… What should I do?”
“It’s time to grade Xu Mang’s paper, I guess.” Wang Xue looked at the paper with scorn, suddenly feeling a chill run down the length of her spine. Maybe she could just say she lost it?
In the end, Wang Xue had to uphold her integrity as an educator, and at the risk of her blood pressure spiking, she started to grade Xu Mang’s test.
0 marks!
0 marks!
0 marks!
Throughout this treacherous journey, Wang Xue’s determination was in absolute shambles, due to the fact that for the ‘Finish the poem’ sections, almost all of Xu Mang’s answers were just copies of the question… they were the easiest questions in the entire paper!
After countless trials and tribulations, Wang Xue finally reached the last essay question. Xu Mang had scored a total of thirty-ish points in the previous sections, and according to Wang Xue’s past experiences with him, he could probably get around twenty points for his essay, making the total stay in line with his previous performance.
“Past, Present, and Future.”
“Um…”
“The title hits the topic of ‘time’ pretty straight on.” Wang Xue looked at Xu Mang’s title and started to get uneasy. With his personality, she was scared that he would start writing in song lyrics at some point.
That’s right! This was Xu Mang’s writing style. Starting a topic through an analogy of a video game, she didn’t even have to read it to know… the rest of the essay was going to be strategies on how to beat the game.
Wait a minute!
That didn’t seem to be the case this time!
Wang Xue hadn’t had much hope for Xu Mang’s essay, originally planning on giving it a few brief glances before giving him a twenty and calling it a day, but in actuality… she felt as though she had opened Pandora’s Box.
***
Monday.
Wang Xue came into the teacher’s office bright and early, making a beeline for Class 1’s homeroom teacher, Lin Yishang.
“Mr. Lin! I’d like to talk to you about something regarding Xu Mang,” Wang Xue said with a serious expression on her face.
“What’s the matter, Ms. Wang? Has the trouble-maker been acting up in class again?” Lin Yishan said with an exasperated sigh. “I can’t do anything about it either, his father is close friends with our headmaster, there’s no way we could expel him.”
“No, that’s not it!”
“I think… Xu Mang hides within him some unlimited potential,” Wang Xue said. “If we can guide that potential onto the correct path, there’s just no telling what miracles that boy could create, I guarantee it!”
“…”
“Ms. Wang?” Lin Yishang asked quizzically. “Are you feeling well? Why are you saying such nonsense?”
Hearing Lin Yishan’s words, Wang Xue indeed felt that she might have fallen ill, quite ill in fact, but… the essay that she had read last night, it was… marvelous.
“No!”
“Mr. Lin, please hear me out,” Wang Xue said. “Last Saturday, I gave Class 1 and 2 a test.”
“Okay.” Lin Yishang nodded. “And were there any problems?”
“There were! There were problems of astronomical proportions!” Wang Xue exclaimed. “I realized Yang Xiaoman is a genius!”
“Everybody knows that.” Lin Yishan laughed. “Yang Xiaoman has already been scouted by most of the famous high schools and even certain universities, all of them giving her a full-ride scholarship. She doesn’t actually need to come to class, it’s just that she gets bored spending all day at home.”
“And I’ve made another discovery!” Wang Xue said mysteriously. “In this test, there were three students who got full marks on their essays, one from Class 2, and two from your class… can you guess which two?”
Full marks?
On an essay?
Lin Yishan mulled the question over, quietly saying, “Yang Xiaoman?”
“Indeed, she is one of the two.”
“Um… Li Hua?”
“No!”
“Wang Liang?”
“It’s not him either!”
Lin Yishan listed the top ten students in their class, but all were met with a defiant “no” from Wang Xue.
“You can’t figure it out, can you?” Wang Xue laughed. “It was Xu Mang!”
“…”
“Ms. Wang, have you been overexerting yourself lately?” Lin Yishan sighed. “Please, take care of your own health. Even though you’re a teacher who’s lifeblood is educating others, you have to take into account whether or not a student wants to learn, kids like Xu Mang…”
“Mr. Lin, don’t underestimate your own students!” Wang Xue continued, “Xu Mang received full marks on an essay under my markings!”
Lin Yishan’s expression hardened, sternly scolding, “Ms. Wang, you can’t do that. That is such an irresponsible action for you to take as a teacher. We teacher’s pride ourselves on fairness and the truth, we can’t just simply grade our students!”
Finally, Wang Xue handed Xu Mang’s essay, “Past, Present, and Future”, to Lin Yishan. Some things had to be witnessed firsthand for one to believe it, especially things like Xu Mang getting full marks on an essay.
A moment passed…
“This… this was written by that kid Xu Mang!?” Lin Yishan taught Politics, but he was still the homeroom teacher of a liberal arts class, so he quickly understood all the intricacies of Xu Mang’s “Past, Present, and Future”.
The essay’s narrative was written using a flashback, with video game addiction acting as the introduction, the loss of control as the rising action, falling into the rabbit hole as the essay’s climax, before ending the essay with the discovery of the game.
The essay only used 800 words, but it perfectly showed the fall of a young teen into the dark abyss of addiction, it was revolutionary.
“He couldn’t have copied it, could he?” Lin Yishan muttered under his breath. After all, the image of a lazy and rowdy student was still stuck in his mind.
“Impossible! I spent three hours combing through the internet to find this essay, I even created VIP accounts on multiple educational websites that required payment to access it and still couldn’t find any essays even remotely resembling this one,” Wang Xue said confidently, “This is an original work!”
Lin Yishan didn’t speak, re-reading Xu Mang’s essay again. This essay truly deserved full marks… No, this essay exceeded this simple marking system, it was worthy of achieving the top three in a nation-wide essay competition.
Had the kid finally changed his ways?
More than shock, Lin Yishan felt a sense of relief. Never in a million years would he have expected Xu Mang to make such a comeback!
The two teachers chatted briefly before Lin Yishan called in Xu Mang, who was busy trying to snack on some Lay’s potato chips in class. On his way to the teacher’s office, Xu Mang felt a sense of dread hanging heavily over him.
This was it… He had been caught red-handed.
Xu Mang could already imagine the scolding he was in for, and yet… peeking at Lin Yishan through the office window, his teacher was beaming. It was obvious that he had recently heard some spectacular news, Xu Mang was confused to say the least.
“Mr. Lin?”
“Has the missus gotten pregnant again?” Xu Mang asked curiously. “Not bad, Mr. Lin. It was only last year that they got rid of the one-child policy thing, good on you for responding to the national policy that quickly.”
…