Chapter 12: Majestic Feast (Part 2)

around 7:30 when Zeng Ke finally got through.When prompted to enter the admission ticket number, mother's hand holding the piece of paper trembled from excessive nervousness.She reported the admissio...Chapter Twelve: Dignified Dinner Gathering (Part 2)

肖飛's tone shifted, and he said with a worried expression, "Hmm, the Third High School isn't really suitable for your development... How about it Are you interested in applying to First High"

It was then that Xiao Yunyun spoke up, saying, "Apply for admission! Several classes at First High are quite excellent!" Xiao Yunyun wasn't shy by nature and spoke confidently. She had just returned from sizing up Su Can and felt a bit bashful as she said this.

Su Can nodded, replying, "I'll do my best. But my grades aren’t as good as yours; I don't know if I can make it."

The elder uncle drank silently from his cup beside them and remained silent. Perhaps Zeng Na hadn't expected that the usually strong-willed Su Can would suddenly undergo such a transformation today, finding it quite surprising.

Xiao Yunyun was taken aback for a moment, probably not expecting Su Can to honestly admit he couldn’t keep up with her in terms of grades. She quickly said, "It’s fine; just work hard."

In contrast, Su Can's straightforward and sincere response, without any pretense, set him apart from Xiao Fei's strong irony. This made it difficult for Xiao Fei to continue provoking Cen Quanming through Su Can.

Moreover, Uncle Zeng (Zeng Zhao Ding) noticed the awkward atmosphere and immediately stood up with his wine glass in hand, saying a lot of nice words to Xiao Fei, which slightly eased the tension.

Xiao Fei gave a cold snort, glaring at Cen Quanming. He thought inwardly that even your own brother is more capable than you!

As he was about to leave with his daughter, Xiao Fei glanced at Su Can and said sinisterly, "You should really focus on studying! Don't end up failing the Third High School entrance exam!"

The gathering wasn't very cheerful as the family was preoccupied with their respective concerns. Su Cen had his high school entrance exam, Zeng Yuan had her final exams coming up soon, and Zeng Na would be entering her senior year of high school, where she had been hovering around twentieth place in her class and was worried about how to break into the top twenty to get into a decent university. Everyone had their minds elsewhere, so when Xiao Fei caused some commotion, they quickly dispersed.

When Su Cen got home, his mother Zeng Ke had already started talking, "Your uncle said that if you can enter the third high school, he'll buy you a bicycle. Son, work hard! It would be so great to ride into class on your new bike from Uncle."

Su Cen nodded and smiled. Under his mother's proud gaze, he returned to his room and spread out his physics practice test. Beside him were English, Chinese, and Math textbooks that he had already reviewed thoroughly over the past night and today morning. Although it looked impressive with six volumes for each subject in middle school, compared to the large financial investment books they would encounter later, these seemed insignificant.

Moreover, Su Cen had a solid foundation across all subjects, making him feel more relaxed as he reviewed them. The greatest challenge was memorization, but he was confident in his essay and reading comprehension skills. With an advanced mindset of the future, he believed that writing essays with a modern perspective might impress contemporary examiners.

Physics had always been Su Cen's strong suit since childhood; he recalled how naturally gifted he felt when studying this subject closely tied to life in middle school. Now looking back at it, everything seemed clear as day. It was like opening up a computer and explaining each component: motherboard, CPU, memory card slots... Three years of middle school physics presented no challenge for Su Cen; within two hours, his detailed answers filled the test paper.

During this same period, even top students couldn't match Su Cen's speed or comprehensive grasp. Dong Qingyun looked at her internal practice tests with a sense of admiration and frustration, while Tang Wu was buried in books solving complex calculations under the afternoon sun, still finding it difficult to believe that there were only two days left before the high school entrance exam.

After thoroughly reviewing Chinese, Math, English, and Physics, Su Cen came out. The living room, with many old furniture pieces from years ago, was homey. At this time, VCDs were still a rare luxury, priced around one or two thousand per unit, and rental shops for video tapes could be found outside most workplaces. After work, adults often rented the latest TV series to relax at home.

Today being her day off, Zeng Ke was in the kitchen preparing dinner. Su Cen poured himself a glass of water and sat down in front of the old 21-inch Changhong color television set, switched it on, and relaxed by watching news and programs from eleven years ago.

Zeng Ke first stared blankly when she saw her son sitting on the sofa watching TV. Although Su Cen was only sixteen, something about his demeanor while watching TV made her feel that he was different from before; focused yet contemplative. It softened Zeng Ke's heart to criticize him as usually, before exams or after school, Su Cen would be scolded for spending time on the television. Now, she felt like her son had matured so much overnight...

In the afternoon, when his father returned home and heard about Su Cen’s progress in reviewing, he was quite pleased. The dinner that evening was filled with warmth; Zeng Ke looked especially happy, while her husband praised their son for his diligent efforts before exams, expressing concerns only to avoid overexertion.

Su Can felt a myriad of emotions when he saw his parents who looked eleven years younger. His future parents had aged due to their worries for him, and now that he was back as a favored child blessed by heaven, he couldn’t let them worry about him again and hasten their aging. He wanted them to maintain their current youthfulness.

After dinner, the sky gradually darkened, prompting Su Can to think about his remaining subjects for review: Chinese, math, English, and biology. These four subjects were already sufficient for him to pass the exams confidently. The next focus would be on physics, chemistry, history, geography, and politics—subjects that required more in-depth study.

Su Can knew himself well; his biggest weakness was memorization. It was somewhat redundant to mention this since who could remember historical events like Nurhaci's coronation date when they had traveled back eleven years ago Thus, history and politics were likely areas of weakness for him. However, reviewing these subjects at this point would be cramming, which Su Can did not plan on doing extensively. He only intended to briefly review them before the exam.

The next day's focus was still on physics and chemistry; if he could master these critical subjects, he was confident in securing a spot at the top high school.

As the night fell, someone knocked on the door. Su’s father opened it, and his mother called out to Su Can, “Su Can, Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui are looking for you!” Then came her voice from outside, "What The day after tomorrow is the middle school exam; are you all still going out to play"

Xue Yiyang scratched his head. "Yeah, we’re just asking him to come out and have some fun. After all, it’s important to balance work and rest..."

As Su Can stepped out of his room, he felt somewhat disoriented. Liu Rui was one of the childhood friends they had grown up with together, engaging in activities like shooting pigeons from neighboring houses, breaking glass windows, and removing bike inner tubes. Despite going their separate ways when they entered university, these old friends occasionally reunited. Seeing Liu Rui now brought back memories of their carefree days together, evoking a sense of warmth.

It was rare for Su’s father to agree so readily: "Okay! Work and rest should be balanced. You’re grown up now, know what you want, go out and have some fun, but come back early!"

Su Can had rejected Xue Yiyang's invitation the day before because he remembered that during their middle school exams, they had partied so much that everyone performed poorly. To prevent a repeat of that unfortunate outcome, he turned down yesterday’s invitation to go out.

Now, however, Su Can was confident about the exams and needed some rest after his intense revision over the past couple days. Recalling old childhood friends brought back feelings he hadn't experienced since his rebirth.

As soon as they stepped out of the residential building, Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui were filled with righteous indignation. "Su Cen, this time we’ve really hit a big bump! The people who came over today were too arrogant. They made some outrageous claims which left both me and Liu Rui speechless! We have to get even!"

It turned out that Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui had gone to the video game room they often visited in the afternoon. Back then, computer games hadn’t yet become popular, so the most popular ones at disc-rooms were Konami’s Kcet team’s Pro Evolution Soccer series. At the time, it was just as popular as Red Alert later became when it came out for computers and as famous as StarCraft, which remained a hit for over ten years.

Back then, there wasn’t such a thing as local area network battles between players; they would compete within their own circles at the game room. Su Cen, Xue Yiyang, and Liu Rui thought of themselves as top-notch in this circle. Even some middle-aged workers who came by after work to play football games were very impressed with them.

They naturally did whatever they wanted without worrying about others. Who knew that today afternoon when Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui encountered a group of players, there was a male-female pair carrying their own game controllers, like a team which was still new back then, coming into the disc room.

Everyone initially thought it would be an amicable competition, but who knew that the others boasted they’d pay for everyone to play if anyone beat them.

This wasn’t clearly showing how little they valued their circle Many people challenged them out of spite, only to lose one by one. Later Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui couldn’t hold back anymore and finally stepped forward; many people also hoped that they could defeat those arrogant opponents since even though the others in this circle weren’t so convinced about the three of them usually, a lot of people had to admit their skills were best here now under such a strong external threat. They all pinned their hopes on them.

Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui indeed managed to level up with two opponents, thus maintaining some face for their circle, but who knew that the others then challenged someone else, only to be directly defeated by Liu Rui; he then had a draw against Xue Yiyang. Xue Yiyang was struggling to deal with them.

The most powerful young man of this group also got itching at seeing Xue Yiyang’s skills and personally stepped up. This resulted in Xue Yiyang getting completely trounced by him. They both played for the whole afternoon, and when it was time to go home for dinner, they still couldn’t bear defeat, so they made another appointment to fight again; the other side readily agreed, also showing a very condescending attitude.

These three were originally together anyway, and Xue Yiyang invited Liu Rui to come over after dinner. Now that Xue Yiyang and Liu Rui took it upon themselves as a matter of honor for their group, they dragged Su Cen along with them to go challenge the other side!e smartest student I've ever seen;嘖嘖 (tsk tsk), and she's also very pretty... She really resembles one of my former classmates when I was in school..." The speaker was an English teacher newly hired b...