Chapter 102
“Y OU BOYS ARE GOING to the university entrance exam, right?” the driver asked.
“Yes,” Jiang Cheng replied.
“From Fourth High?”
“Mm-hm,” said Gu Fei.
“Best of luck! Don’t stress out. It’s just an exam, eh? Nothing to get all worked up about. You can only do well if you’re nice and relaxed,” the driver told them. “I graduated from Fourth High myself, but I didn’t do well because I was too nervous.”
Jiang Cheng responded with a smile. “Ah.”
“Really, trust me.” The driver glanced at them through the rearview mirror. “You two probably don’t get very good grades normally, do you? You have even less reason to be nervous, then. If you try to go into it with a relaxed mind, maybe you can manage to outperform yourself.”
“Oh.” Gu Fei started laughing, squeezing Jiang Cheng’s hand.
“Uh-huh, then I’ll try to relax and see if I can outperform myself , ” Jiang Cheng said, laughing too.
When they arrived at the testing center, the driver refused to take their money. “This here is a Compassionate Exam Fleet,” he said. “We’ve been giving free rides to all the examinees today! Hurry up and go in!”
There was still ample time before they were due to go in, but a crowd had already gathered outside. A multitude of people and cars were here to see the students off, and there were several police cars and ambulances waiting on standby, with free exam shuttle buses parked beside them.
Anyone who hadn’t been nervous already would become nervous at the sight of this spectacle.
“Here! Over here!” Lao-Xu started waving as soon as he spotted them. His voice already sounded hoarse.
The two of them walked over and picked up their admission cards from him. Quite a few students and parents were huddled around Lao-Xu, all of them wearing solemn expressions on their faces—especially the parents, who seemed a lot more solemn than their kids.
“How did you sleep?” Lao-Xu asked.
“Pretty well,” said Jiang Cheng.
“Try to relax, and I’m sure you won’t have any problems. Don’t drink too much water during the exam.” Lao-Xu pointed to one side. “Remember to go to the bathroom first.”
“Mm-hm.” Gu Fei smiled. “You should save your voice for later. If you wear yourself out now, how are you supposed to carry on yelling?”
“I have lozenges,” Lao-Xu croaked, taking one from his pocket and popping it in his mouth.
Since it wasn’t yet time to enter the halls, they found a spot away from the crowd where they could wait.
Gu Fei crouched off to the side with a cigarette in his mouth while Jiang Cheng stood beside him, staring at the top of his head and spacing out.
For some reason, he was getting a little nervous now.
Not about the impending exams, but about not being able to pull Gu Fei into his arms in broad daylight.
…Of course, the reason he wanted to hug Gu Fei in the first place was probably still the exam nerves.
Get a grip, Cheng-ge. You already threw down the gauntlet. You said you would be able to prove yourself no matter what, Contestant Jiang Cheng.
“Hey.” Jiang Cheng glanced at the time; there were still more than ten minutes to go. He gave Gu Fei a little kick. “Let’s go to the bathroom.”
Gu Fei stood up and looked at him with a smile. “Do you really need to go, or are you just nervous?”
“Just in case.” Jiang Cheng turned and started heading toward the bathroom. After a few steps, he turned around again. “But to be honest, I am nervous. Holy shit, I’m so fucking nervous that I feel like bouncing around right now. What’s wrong with me?”
“So you overachievers get nervous too.” Gu Fei laughed as he ran to catch up to Jiang Cheng so they could walk side by side. “But it’s the University Entrance Exam—try finding anybody who isn’t nervous.”
“Are you nervous?” Jiang Cheng asked.
“Of course,” Gu Fei said. “No matter how much I mess up, I can’t let myself fail, so I’m nervous too.”
Miraculously, there was no one else in the bathroom.
Jiang Cheng backed up a step to peek outside and saw that the people behind them were still a good distance away.
He dashed quickly into the bathroom behind Gu Fei, who was standing at the urinal about to pee, and wrapped his arms tightly around him, trapping Gu Fei’s arms against his body.
“Ah! Fuck!” Gu Fei jumped in surprise, then turned slightly and said in a hushed voice, “I was just pulling it out. You almost made me strangle it!”
Jiang Cheng burst out laughing with Gu Fei in his arms. He didn’t let go and step away until the voices outside started getting close.
When they walked out of the bathroom, Gu Fei reached out and rubbed Jiang Cheng’s back. “Hey, Cheng-ge.”
“Hm?” Jiang Cheng looked at him.
“You da best—!” Gu Fei said.
Jiang Cheng cracked up again. “Mwah-mwah—!”
Before long it was time to enter the exam hall.
Everyone fell silent as they began to file in, the word “nervous” plastered across each and every face.
Jiang Cheng, however, suddenly felt a sense of calm wash over him.
It was often like this for him—once the issue was actually in front of him, his nerves disappeared and he stopped stressing over it.
He hadn’t skimped on quizzes and tests over the past year or so, and most of them had been pretty high on the difficulty scale. He had come all this way, and he had never once gotten a particularly low score.
Even when he was little, Jiang Cheng had never had the experience of performing severely below expectations.
There were only a handful of times when he’d bombed his tests, and even then, it was only because he hadn’t prepared properly.
Not to mention, the so-called “bombing” was only where his parents’ expectations were concerned.
By Pan Zhi’s standards, it would’ve been overperforming.
After passing through the security checkpoint, Jiang Cheng sat in his designated seat and laid out his things at the corner of the desk according to regulations. He looked around, but didn’t see anyone he recognized.
He leaned back in the chair, closed his eyes, and took in a deep breath before releasing it in one long exhale.
All right. Let’s do this.
The second the proctor began to recite the exam hall rules, Jiang Cheng sealed himself off in his own little bubble.
The teacher’s voice quickly faded away, and so did the minute sounds of papers rustling, the quiet clattering against the desks when everyone picked up their pencils, the light dragging of chairs against the floor, the low coughs… All of it vanished from his ears.
With the paper spread out in front of him, he picked up his pencil, twirled it once in his hand, and started to skim through the questions.
The person sitting in the seat in front of him was wearing a yellow top.
Glowing brightly in Jiang Cheng’s peripheral vision, it was almost like the yellow light bulb that illuminated his nightly study sessions at his desk.
The familiar state of mind he’d been cultivating for most of the past year returned in an instant.
There would be a stack of books to his right, all kinds of worksheets and notes on his left, and—most of the time—to the left of that, at the corner of the desk, would be his boyfriend.
The boyfriend sometimes rested his head on one hand as he leaned there, playing on his phone with the other.
And sometimes he was folded over the corner of the desk, watching Jiang Cheng.
Whenever Jiang Cheng said “quiz me,” his boyfriend would immediately pick up a book and flip it open.
***
Once he’d finished reading the essay section, Jiang Cheng flipped back to the first page and started answering the questions.
The essay wasn’t particularly difficult.
He hadn’t worked with a prompt like this before, but he was able to quickly narrow down a theme and, when he searched his memories, he found similar content he had written that could be adapted for this.
If he could finish the essay in the amount of time he allotted himself, that gave him plenty of leeway to answer the rest of the questions.