mc-med Chapter 8 is exactly one point more than you.
Chapter 8 is exactly one point more than you.
Lin Yu, ranked first in the entire school, with a total score of 699.
Second in the entire school: Li Hao, with a total score of 698.
Su Qingwan's fingers gripped the metal frame of the bulletin board tightly.
699 vs 698.
Exactly one point more.
The students around him were still noisily discussing their rankings. No one noticed that the top two students in the whole school were only one point apart.
But Su Qingwan noticed it.
The words Lin Yu had said in the classroom three days ago kept echoing in her ears.
"It will be exactly one point higher than yours. Not much, not little."
Su Qingwan's hands began to tremble.
Difference, 1 point.
Su Qingwan's fingernails dug into her palm.
Just then, a commotion arose behind us.
"Make way! Make way!"
Li Hao pushed through the crowd and strode to the front of the red list.
His gaze was immediately fixed on the first place position.
Three seconds of silence.
Li Hao's face went from red to white, and then from white to green.
His lips trembled violently twice.
"impossible."
Li Hao's voice was forced out through clenched teeth, hoarse and shrill, "How could he possibly score 278 in the combined science exam?"
He turned abruptly and scanned the crowd.
On the steps of the teaching building, Lin Yu leaned against the railing.
He was twirling the black ballpoint pen in his hand.
He wasn't looking at the honor roll. He was watching the physical education students running on the distant playground, looking extremely bored.
Lin Yu felt the gaze upon him.
He turned his head and met Li Hao's gaze.
There was no smugness, no mockery, not even laughter.
Those eyes were as calm as a stagnant pool.
It's as if getting first place in the whole school is just a math problem that's already been solved, and you don't even bother to look at the result.
Li Hao's rationality cracked at this moment.
"I want to check the test papers."
Li Hao turned to his homeroom teacher, Wang the Bald, who had rushed over after hearing the commotion, his voice almost a roar, "He couldn't possibly have scored 278 on the combined science exam! He only got 220 on the last mock exam! He improved by 58 points in a month? I don't believe it! He must have cheated! I want to check his combined science exam paper! Every single question! Every single step!"
Wang the Bald stood at the edge of the crowd, his face displaying an extremely interesting expression.
His gaze darted back and forth between Lin Yu (699) and Li Hao (698) on the red list.
The muscles at the corners of his mouth twitched uncontrollably three times.
"check."
Baldy Wang spat out a single word.
He turned to look at Lin Yu on the steps.
The boy was still leaning against the railing, his school uniform open, his posture casual.
It seemed as if there was nothing in this world that was worth taking seriously.
Wang the Bald man's Adam's apple bobbed.
He had an absurd intuition that the results after checking the papers might be even more suffocating than the scores on the honor roll.
The application to review the case file was written by Li Hao himself.
The paper was A4 size, written in pen, with precise wording, quoting Article 17 of the "Jiangcheng City Middle School Examination Management Regulations" regarding the review of exam results. A red fingerprint was affixed to the signature area at the end.
Wang the Bald stood at the entrance of the Academic Affairs Office with the paper in his hand and knocked three times.
Old Zhou, the director of the Academic Affairs Office, took off his reading glasses, read the application, and then looked at Wang the Bald's expression.
"Whose case are you investigating?"
"Lin Yu. Class 7, Grade 12. Science major."
Old Zhou placed the application on the table and leaned back in his chair.
"Teacher Wang, the marking of the ten-school joint exam is done through cross-blind review. Provincial education researchers supervise the entire process. Are you sure you want to go through this procedure?"
Wang the Bald was silent for two seconds.
"Li Hao's parents also called."
Old Zhou's expression changed slightly. Li Hao's father was the vice president of the Jiangcheng Chamber of Commerce. This kind of thing couldn't be delayed.
"Okay. During the third period this afternoon, call the relevant students to the marking room. I'll have someone retrieve the original exam papers."
The news spread during lunchtime.
The WeChat group for Class 7 exploded.
"The papers are going to be checked! This afternoon!"
"Is Lin Yu finished? What if he was just guessing?"
"A score of 278 in the combined science exam is indeed outrageous. He only got 220 last time."
"It's hard to say, what if they really do get it..."
"Can someone's 'enlightenment' be accurate enough to score one point higher than Li Hao? Do you believe it?"
Su Qingwan sat by the window in the cafeteria, her phone screen scrolling with messages. She stirred the seaweed and egg drop soup in her bowl with a spoon, but didn't drink a drop.
Li Hao sat opposite him and ate very quickly.
"Everything will be clear after the papers are checked this afternoon."
Li Hao wiped his mouth. "I need to check his science exam paper question by question."
Su Qingwan nodded.
Her gaze passed over Li Hao's shoulder and landed on Lin Yu, who was eating alone in a corner on the other side of the cafeteria.
A plain white T-shirt, school uniform draped over the back of a chair. In front of him is the cheapest meal—rice, stir-fried shredded potatoes, and a fried egg.
He ate very slowly. The way he picked up rice with his chopsticks even had a certain rhythm, like he was performing a repetitive calculation that didn't require any thought.
Su Qingwan looked away.
The third period in the afternoon.
The marking room next to the Academic Affairs Office.
The room was small, with a long table and a few folding chairs. On the table were two answer sheets for the science exam, taken out of sealed bags.
Those present: Zhou, the director of the Academic Affairs Office; Liu, the head of the senior grade group; three teachers from the science comprehensive exam marking team, who were in charge of physics, chemistry, and biology respectively; and Wang the bald, the homeroom teacher.
Students: Li Hao, Lin Yu.
Su Qingwan hadn't been notified, but she stood outside the corridor window. The glass window was slightly ajar, enough to hear what was happening inside.
Lin Yu was the last to enter the marking room. He pulled out the chair closest to the door, sat down, leaned back slightly, and put his hands in his school uniform pockets.
Li Hao was already seated opposite him. He sat upright, chin slightly raised, fingers interlaced on the table, like a plaintiff awaiting the judge's verdict.
"Let me briefly explain the procedure."
Old Zhou cleared his throat. "Li Hao has submitted a review application for Lin Yu's combined science score. According to regulations, we will now retrieve the original answer sheet for the examiners to review and grade on the spot. If there is any misjudgment, it will be corrected on the spot."
"Let's begin."
Li Hao's voice was very tense.
The physics examiner, surnamed Chen, was in his fifties and wore gold-rimmed glasses. He opened Lin Yu's answer sheet and checked it one by one, starting with the multiple-choice questions.
"Multiple choice questions: all 21 questions were answered correctly, 0 points deducted."
Teacher Chen turned the page.
"wrong."
Li Hao interrupted, "Question eleven."
Teacher Chen stopped and looked at question eleven again.
"Question 11, correct answer C. Lin Yu filled in B. Deduct 6 points. There is no problem with the scoring of this question."
Li Hao frowned.
"Did he get one multiple-choice question wrong?"
"Yes. Only the eleventh question was wrong. The rest were all correct."
Li Hao's brows furrowed even more. He had thought Lin Yu would get a lot of the multiple-choice questions wrong, relying on the process points from the essay questions to make up for the total score. But in the end, Lin Yu only got 1 out of 21 multiple-choice questions wrong.