Chapter Twenty-Six: Hesitation Will...

The third period passed quickly, and after class, no one bothered to compare answers—after all, this wasn’t any official exam.

Zhou Shu felt pretty good about it, but he couldn’t be certain; he was well aware of the divide between top and bottom students. In other subjects, he was a top student, but when it came to English, he was a true underachiever.

Still, today… maybe he had a shot at turning things around.

During the fourth period, the teacher stood at the front going through the answers while the students marked their own papers. Ticking and crossing answers as they pleased—so long as the final score added up, no one cared.

In the past, Zhou Shu’s grading routine was pretty simple: two strokes to make an “X.” Today, it was mostly just one motion.

“Correct.”

“Correct.”

“Correct~”

“Correct.”

Goodness gracious!

Once the teacher finished, everyone tallied up their scores, and the wailing began.

“Sigh, I really have no talent for learning English…”

“So annoying. Why do we have to study English anyway?”

“Still failing. I’m so proud~”

“How did you do this time?”

“Not too bad, I guess.”

“Ugh, I’m doomed!”

“I thought I did well this time, but my score is even worse than before, what the heck…”

“I didn’t expect much, but my accuracy is still 90%…”

Listening to the chatter around him, Zhou Shu’s lips curled up ever so slightly.

Excluding the listening and short essay sections, his accuracy on this paper had reached 95%. And that was just from being a bit rusty—if he practiced a few more papers, connecting what was in his head to the exam, 99% accuracy wasn’t out of reach.

He had thought earlier that once his speaking skills improved, the English paper would be about as hard as the Chinese paper. In reality, the English paper was much easier.

After all, in Great Qin, everyone spoke Chinese, so learning Chinese meant not just reading and speaking, but also delving into deeper understanding—naturally, the questions were harder.

But for English, most students only needed to learn reading and writing—no deep research necessary—so the exam mainly tested vocabulary and the ability to form correct sentences.

You could see the difference just by looking at the writing requirements for each. The Chinese essay had to be at least 800 characters long, requiring discussion, argument, and reflection. The English essay, on the other hand, demanded only about a hundred words, usually something like “Suppose you are Li Hua; how would you invite your foreign friend Tony to your home?”

Compared to that, it was about the level of a first-grade Chinese language exam.

With a 95% accuracy rate on the main sections, and knowing that listening comprehension would be no trouble for him, plus the trivial matter of a one-hundred-word essay, Zhou Shu was very likely to score 140 out of 150 on this paper.

Amazing—he could hardly believe it himself!

His other subjects were already strong, and now that his English weakness was patched up, he was sure to soar in the college entrance exam.

Once admitted to Imperial University of Science and Technology—even though he’d be studying industrial design—nothing stopped him from attending lectures in other fields. Add to that the advanced technology in the virtual battleground, and his dream of becoming a super scientist seemed within reach!

Though his other attributes hadn’t changed—he was reluctant to use up his precious source energy—the results of the projects he had invested in were already obvious.

This progress made his fingers itch every time he looked at the plus sign on his attribute panel.

But seeing the number next to [Source], he felt nothing but pain.

“Sigh…”

“What’s up, Zhou? Didn’t do well again… uh…”

His desk mate, Wang Ping, noticed his sigh and glanced at Zhou Shu’s paper, but halfway through his sentence, he stopped short.

“No way, Zhou—you… did you get the answers in advance?”

“What answers? The words and sentences are all in my head; just write whatever comes to mind,” Zhou Shu replied with a hint of melancholy.

Wang Ping was speechless.

“Zhou, can you be serious for a moment? Let’s talk properly.”

“Alright,” Zhou Shu nodded. He opened his glasses case, took out the cleaning cloth, removed his glasses, and breathed on them before gently wiping them clean.

When he was done, he held them up to the sunlight and continued, “Actually, I’ve always been a genius. The fact that we’re in the same dorm is just fate. I used to purposely do poorly to avoid making you guys feel inferior.”

“But now, with the college entrance exam coming up, I won’t pretend anymore. If I’ve hurt you, I’m sorry.”

“But you guys are just too weak.”

Wang Ping stared in disbelief.

“That’s it. Zhou’s lost his mind.”

The day passed quickly. Because he often experienced intermittent headaches, Zhou Shu didn’t dwell on any unnecessary thoughts and simply attended his classes as usual.

By the end of the day, his mind felt fully restored.

As the final bell rang, it wasn’t their homeroom teacher who entered, but the head teacher from Class 167 next door—their history teacher.

“Don’t look at me, your homeroom teacher really is sick, so he asked me to pass on some important reminders.”

“This afternoon, the District Police and Security came by. There’s been a homicide over in the old city in the past couple of days; the killer hasn’t been caught yet, and there are indications the suspect might have moved into our area. So when you go home or if you’re staying in, be extra careful—if you see anything suspicious, report it immediately. Don’t go looking for excitement…”

At first, the students were startled, but soon dismissed it. After all, such misfortune was unlikely to befall them.

Great Qin was a peaceful place, after all.

Zhou Shu felt the same, and with his mind on other things, paid it little attention.

After school, he stood at the bus stop by the school gate, hesitated for a moment, then took out his phone and called his grandmother.

“Hello, Grandma—”

“Yeah, I’m not coming back to the village this weekend. I’m planning to stay at Hundred Flowers Community. With the college entrance exam coming up, I’ve arranged to study with my classmates.”

“All boys, Grandma… Oh, you want me to study with girls? I’ll try my best. Alright, next time for sure.”

“What? Huahua isn’t coming home either? Ah, well, it is spring… But she’s already an old cat—still so energetic?”

“Well, let her be. She’s the toughest creature in the village; not even the dogs dare mess with her, and the big geese make way for her, too. She’ll come home in a few days. You and Grandpa take care of yourselves, I’ll definitely come back next week.”

“Don’t worry, Grandma, I’ll take good care of myself. I’m almost in college now.”

After hanging up, Zhou Shu let out a sigh of relief.

“Lying to Grandma and teasing idiots are really two different feelings.”

Because his parents worked out of town, Zhou Shu usually spent his weekends with his grandparents in the countryside.

But now, with a little secret of his own, he needed some space, so he lied and planned to return to Hundred Flowers Community in the Western District.

There were many bus stops outside Dongyuan No. 1 High School, and the transportation was convenient. Zhou Shu waited with his backpack, but after looking in the direction of his neighborhood, he suddenly decided to walk home instead.

Today, he wanted to walk—and ponder some philosophical questions along the way.

The ever-growing demand for attribute points versus the scarcity of source energy.

Humans were getting lazier—always choosing to ride rather than walk, yet yearning for strong, healthy bodies. It was a contradictory mindset.

Zhou Shu was a bit like that. He trained in virtual battlegrounds, but in the real world, he could make his body strong instantly just by spending some source energy.

Still, he was reluctant; he wanted to save his source energy for more important things.

What those might be, he wasn’t yet sure.

Maybe, when the crucial moment came, he’d make the best choice, using his limited energy to climb step by step to the peak of life, maybe even to the top of the world.

Or perhaps he’d end up like Socrates’ disciples in the story of the wheat field—always hoping for a bigger, better ear of wheat ahead, only to leave the field at the end with nothing but a random stalk.

The classic case of “hesitate and lose.”

That’s exactly where Zhou Shu found himself now—caught in hesitation.