Finished…
Before entering the exam hall, these three words kept flashing through Zhu Yun’s mind.
Finished! Finished! Finished!
People are not machines, after all. Energy has its limits. And the appeal of Marxism simply could not compete with the motion-capture system.
Poor Zhu Yun — her last impression of this subject had frozen at that afternoon’s lesson on “the characteristics of the fundamental contradictions in our society.” Not a single step of progress in the days that followed. And now, here she was, walking into the exam.
Was it an exam hall, or an execution ground?
Zhu Yun sat in the classroom, her inner monologue teetering on the edge of explosion. Her mother had always told her that when it came to academics, one had to stay focused — cramming at the last minute never led anywhere good.
She felt she had never truly understood those words until now. She had always assumed that “nowhere good” simply meant a low score. She had never imagined the particular agony of sitting in an exam hall knowing full well what was coming.
If you already know the answer is going to be garbage, why bother putting pen to paper?
Life is just full of these helpless little moments.
Hoping that Marx might suddenly possess her body seemed a bit unrealistic. Zhu Yun told herself to let go. Things had already come to this — all she could do was face it with a certain breezy indifference.
A moment later, someone sat down beside her. Zhu Yun turned her head.
Li Xun had come completely unburdened — empty-handed, nothing with him at all. After sitting down, he reached into his pocket, produced a black ballpoint pen, and set it on the desk.
By the measure of academic importance, university exams were jokingly divided by students into two categories: “packaged” and “loose.” “Packaged” referred to the important courses — mostly major-specific classes where the professor personally invigilated, having worked out a complex system of assigned seating based on student ID numbers. “Loose,” on the other hand, referred to the less critical courses: no assigned seats, everyone piling into a lecture hall and sitting wherever they liked, so long as there was one empty seat between any two students.
Fundamental Principles of Marxism was, very obviously, a “loose” exam.
Zhu Yun stared at Li Xun with a stiff expression.
What is this supposed to mean?
Are the two of us, the class’s resident Marxism underachievers, going to huddle together for warmth? The thought that just days ago she had been mocking Li Xun’s political theory grades, and now they were apparently going to sink to the same level together — Zhu Yun felt that karmic retribution truly did not waste any time. She didn’t even have it in her to say hello.
The invigilator walked in carrying the exam papers.
“Everyone settle down. Student ID cards on your left, bags on the windowsill at the back. Nothing is allowed inside your desk.”
Students shuffled to their feet in a scattered, half-hearted wave.
Zhu Yun picked up her bag and squeezed past Li Xun. The young lord had his long legs stretched out straight, arms folded across his chest, eyes closed in a restful doze.
What time had he stayed at the base last night? His under-eyes were so dark they looked like he’d put on stage makeup. Zhu Yun decided not to wake him and carefully stepped over his long legs.
The teacher began distributing the papers, and Li Xun finally stirred awake.
Zhu Yun answered what she knew and made wild guesses at the rest. This resigned, throw-caution-to-the-wind mentality gradually loosened the tension in her shoulders. Everything was already doomed — she might as well face it with flair. She wrote and paused and wrote again, occasionally stealing glances at the figure beside her.
The sight of Li Xun holding a pen felt oddly unfamiliar. In Zhu Yun’s mental image of him, his hands were always on a keyboard.
She answered questions and muttered to herself inwardly — partly because she had come to know Li Xun well enough by now to recognize that his arrogantly commanding personality made him seem like he was perpetually striking a pose.
Take right now, for instance.
Everyone else in the exam hall was hunched dutifully over their desks, heads down, scribbling away in focused silence. Only he was leaning back in his chair, as if the space were too cramped to contain him — turned slightly to one side, brow faintly furrowed, eyeing the exam paper with a look of languid disdain, like a sovereign surveying his domain.
Those legs of his were impossible to ignore, especially in black trousers. The clean, unbroken lines of them prompted an involuntary appreciation for the artistry of nature.
Zhu Yun let out a quiet internal sigh — and before she had even drawn in the next breath, Li Xun had already finished the first page of the exam. Then — he folded the paper in half, pressed it down with one finger, and gave it a single light flick across the desk.
The paper shot over to Zhu Yun’s side.
?!?!?!?!
Zhu Yun inhaled sharply.
What are you doing!!!!
Her scalp felt like it had split open.
Li Xun’s movement had been so fast, so casual, so completely unruffled, that time itself seemed to pause around him. No one had caught the terrifying exchange. Only Zhu Yun sat there with her heart hammering like a drum, her mouth dry, her entire body breaking out in cold sweat, every part of her in complete disarray.
What was this?
…Cheating?
— Cheating!!!!
Good God!
Zhu Yun had hardly ever done anything like this in her life. Whatever minor incidents she might have gotten into as a child barely counted, and nothing had ever been this direct, this brazen. She had never even witnessed anything quite like it.
A bad grade meant two miserable weeks at home at worst. But getting caught cheating — if her mother found out — that smooth, fair skin of hers would not survive the consequences.
Li Xun, I’m going to kill you…
Agony. The exam had become absolute, unrelenting agony.
The two invigilators transformed in her mind into harbingers of doom. She hunched over her paper, arms pressed down hard on top of it, heart offering frantic, scattered prayers to every deity she could think of.
A full ten minutes passed before Zhu Yun’s nerves slowly began to settle. The one advantage of a “loose” exam was that invigilation was never particularly strict. Both teachers were seated at the front podium — one was openly reading a book, the other appeared to be watching the room but was in all likelihood simply staring into the middle distance.
Zhu Yun stole a glance at Li Xun. He looked exactly as he had before — same posture, same expression — racing through the second page of the exam.
Perhaps sensing her gaze, his eyes shifted slightly and met hers.
Zhu Yun was about to glare at him to communicate her feelings, when Li Xun’s gaze dropped downward, gesturing toward the paper she had pinned under her arm — a faint, unhurried prompting in his expression — before he looked away and went back to answering his questions.