After the three of them exchanged a few sighs, Xu Su put her phone down, satisfied.

After being made an example of on the morning of the first day, the second day of exams ended without incident.

That afternoon, shortly after Xu Su finished her exam and walked out of the school gates, she spotted Zhou Mochen from a distance, leaning against his car as he waited for her. The man exuded an aloof, unapproachable aura. His sharp, stern profile was gilded by the setting sun, making him seem completely out of place amid the bustling surroundings.

The moment he saw Xu Su, however, it was as if he came to life. A smile quickly spread across his face as he strode over to greet her. "All finished for good this time?"

"Yeah, I’m done." Xu Su nodded. "Now it’s time to estimate my score and decide on my college applications."

In truth, she already had a good idea of her score and had long since planned her applications. With her three-year goal finally accomplished, Xu Su’s steps felt much lighter.

Ignoring the people all around them, she wrapped her arms around her boyfriend’s waist. Her eyes crinkled into happy crescents as she looked up at him. "I’m going to school tomorrow to go over the questions and get a good score estimate."

She had made plans with Huang Feng and Qian Jia to go to school together the next day to figure out their scores and see which universities in Beijing they could get into.

Zhou Mochen nodded in agreement and opened the passenger door. "Get in. It’s crowded and hot out here."

A fine sheen of sweat had appeared on Xu Su’s forehead, and she dabbed it away with a tissue.

Zhou Mochen asked, "Do you have any plans for summer break? You’ve been studying so hard you haven’t even left Chang City. Want to go travel somewhere?"

"Right now, all I want to do is sleep for a week or two straight. I’m so exhausted. Seriously, I haven’t had a proper night’s sleep in three years."

After grumbling for a moment, Xu Su tilted her head to glance at the man behind the wheel, her eyes brightening. "I want to drive, too. Zhou Mochen, could you find a driving school for me? I’m planning to get my license this summer. I just realized driving is really cool."

’In my last life, I still didn’t know how to drive even when I was thirty. I always had a chauffeur, so there was never a need for me to drive myself.’

’Of course, I didn’t have any interest in driving back then. But now... I’ve found it’s actually really cool.’

’The way Zhou Mochen handles the steering wheel is so cool, and Xi Zirong looks pretty cool when he drives, too.’

’...And I guess Shen Chen doesn’t look half bad either.’

’So, it must be the driving itself that’s cool. It has nothing to do with the person.’

With that, Xu Su’s resolve to learn how to drive hardened. That way, she wouldn’t need Zhou Mochen to shuttle her back and forth. She was even more repulsed by the thought that she might be assigned a private driver.

"Get a driver’s license?"

Zhou Mochen raised an eyebrow. "Why go through all the trouble of taking a test? I can just get one for you. I guarantee you’ll be street legal."

"...But I need to learn how to drive first. A license is useless if I don’t know how to use it."

They stopped at a red light, and Zhou Mochen gently tapped the brakes. He turned his head and smiled at her. "I’ll teach you. I guarantee you’ll master it."

"Where are you going to find the time? Spending the last three years in Chang City was already a huge waste of your time. Won’t you be busy once you’re back in Beijing?" Xu Su didn’t want him to be her instructor and said sternly, "Don’t be so preoccupied with our relationship, you know? Have some career ambition, Zhou Mochen!"

’Back in Beijing...’

Zhou Mochen’s heart softened. ’Am I finally going to be able to lure this little lady, who I’ve had my eye on for three years, back to my den?’

The light turned green. He started the car, gave Xu Su’s hand a squeeze, and couldn’t help but chuckle. "Okay, okay, I’ll have ambition. But you don’t need to go to a driving school. I’ll arrange for an instructor to teach you. You can learn right at home."

Xu Su wasn’t sure which "home" in Beijing he meant, but learning to drive at home, without having to bake under the sun, was definitely the better option.

That night, the nerves that had been wound tight for three years finally unwound, and Xu Su slept like a log.

The next day, Xu Su, Qian Jia, and Huang Feng met up at the entrance to First High School.

At nine o’clock, a handful of students were scattered around the classroom. They had started cleaning on their own, wiping down the windows and desks.

As she was halfway through cleaning a window, Teacher Wu walked by. Seeing Xu Su, he smiled and asked, "How did the exams go? Did you perform up to your usual standard?"

Based on Xu Su’s previous grades, if she performed as expected, getting into University B was a sure thing.

Xu Su understood her teacher’s implication and replied with a beaming smile, "I think I did quite well."

Teacher Wu nodded. "That’s good to hear."

This was a student he had taught for three years. He had personally watched her grow, bit by bit over those three years, from a sixteen-year-old girl from a small county into the stunning young woman she was today.

She was self-disciplined, hardworking, and loved to learn—she had all the traits a teacher could hope for in a student, and Teacher Wu was certainly no exception.

He patted Xu Su’s shoulder, smiling at her. "Now that the exams are over, make sure you get some good rest. Three years of grinding, and you’ve finally made it."

As soon as Teacher Wu left, Qian Jia sidled up to her. "See? I told you you’re Teacher Wu’s favorite, right? The rest of us were standing right here, but he didn’t make a special effort to ask about us."

"..." Xu Su gave her an exasperated look. With her good friend, she didn’t feel the need to be modest. "I was his class representative for three years. Do you have any idea how many stacks of test papers and workbooks I’ve hauled for him? Shouldn’t he dote on me a little?"

By the time they finished cleaning, nearly everyone in the class had arrived. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

The teachers for each subject had already taken the exam themselves and made photocopies of the answer keys. The students paired up, sharing a copy between two people, and began to check their work.

Since it had been less than two days since the exam, the students remembered their own answers quite clearly. Xu Su and Qian Jia took turns going over the answer key.

After a long silence filled the classroom, it was suddenly broken by a few muffled sobs.

The sobs came from Gong Fan, who had just discovered he’d gotten several math questions in a row completely wrong. His face was pale as a few close friends surrounded him, trying to offer comfort. He forced a smile, but his eyes were rimmed with red, sweat beaded on his forehead, and his hands were shaking.

His scores were in the lower half of the honors class, but math was usually one of his stronger subjects. No one expected him to slip up this badly. Voices of pity drifted over from the other students.

Xu Su’s scalp prickled. She hated scenes like this more than anything.

Teacher Wu couldn’t stand to watch any longer. "Everyone, be quiet and just check your own papers."

Fearing Gong Fan was on the verge of a breakdown, Teacher Wu called him out of the classroom.

Xu Su had just let out a sigh of relief when she noticed Qian Jia’s face was also unnaturally pale. Her heart leaped into her throat. "Jiajia, what’s wrong?"

Qian Jia’s face was ashen. "I got the second problem wrong. My answer’s incorrect."

Xu Su quickly checked the point value for the problem and glanced at the question itself before letting out a small sigh of relief. "This one wasn’t difficult, and it isn’t worth many points. You’ll get partial credit since your solution process was right."

While that was technically true, if she had made a mistake on a relatively simple problem, what did that say about her performance on the more difficult, high-value questions to come...?

Qian Jia buried her head and continued checking her paper. Xu Su took a deep breath and didn’t interrupt.

’At a time like this,’ she thought, ’no amount of comfort is as useful as just finishing the comparison and getting a final score estimate.’

Fortunately, when it came to the next few major problems, Qian Jia seemed to have been extra cautious—perhaps because they were more difficult—and hadn’t made any mistakes.

After the two of them finished estimating their scores, they went to Class One to find Huang Feng, and the three of them chatted for a long time.

As lunchtime neared, Zhou Mochen called to say he was coming to pick her up, but Xu Su refused.

She wanted to eat in the cafeteria. The food at City No.1 High School wasn’t anything special, but she knew her opportunities to eat there were numbered.

’Was this really about the cafeteria food? No, this was about nostalgia—a feeling etched into the very soul of her youth.’