Chapter 38: The Enemy Is Closing in on the Goddess Step by Step—Does Anyone Else Understand How I Feel?

"What's wrong?" Ji's father asked only after his wife hung up the phone.

"...This counts as bullying, doesn't it?" After explaining the situation, Ji's mother gave her assessment with a grim expression. She usually kept a low profile, not acting like a district mayor's wife, which was a façade she maintained to support her husband's career. But that didn't mean she lacked a temper. Her child was her Achilles' heel. She wouldn't mind if classmates had minor petty grievances, but she could not tolerate her son being bullied like this.

"That's going too far!" Ji's father frowned and thought for a moment. "You know your son. He was the one who drove a sports car right into school, which sparked this whole series of troubles. This conflict was likely started by him, and he just got hit back. Perhaps this is for the best. It will stop him from being so arrogant, thinking he can skip his studies just because he has some talent for racing. If not for the advantages his family background provided—creating barriers that most people can't overcome—what would his racing talent even amount to? It's only the beginning of his senior year. If this setback can make him wake up and start working hard, it's better than failing his exams, repeating a year, or ending up completely ruined, right?"

"..." Ji's mother was speechless. She knew her husband prided himself on his success after repeating a year following his own failed entrance exams. Now that their son had suffered a setback, in his father's eyes, he had somehow started on the path to his own success. But he didn't stop to think: could today's children be compared to the past? If her son couldn't pull himself together, what would happen if he fell into despair?

When her son was dropped off by his cousin, she immediately went to ask him with concern. Ji Yangyang gave a perfunctory response and pushed open the door to his bedroom. He had truly been shocked tonight. The pain of having one's dreams invalidated by reality—how could anyone understand?

The world does not revolve around individual will.

The next day.

The second half of the placement exams proceeded as usual. By the time they finished the science portion in the afternoon, the whole school began to buzz with activity. Some students were checking answers, some were joking around, and others were focused on gossip.

Huang Zhitao approached He Chen, who was preparing to leave school on time, unwilling to attend the evening study session. After hesitating, she finally asked, "He Chen, could you please not make Ji Yangyang go on stage and say that?"

"Sure!" He Chen looked at Huang Zhitao, smiled, and nodded. Leaving her stunned, he walked out of the campus.

"What did he say?" Qiao Yingzi walked over and hugged her bewildered best friend. "Did he refuse?"

The incident between Ji Yangyang and He Chen regarding the car race had spread the night before, but everyone had been busy with the exams, so the gossip was only just starting to ferment.

"He agreed without a word..." Huang Zhitao still couldn't believe it.

"He's smooth!" Qiao Yingzi was also taken aback. After thinking for a moment, she praised him: "A verbal agreement like this has no binding power; whether one keeps their word depends on their personal integrity. Even if He Chen agreed, if Ji Yangyang can't get past his own psychological hurdle, it would be better to just go on stage and admit defeat. That's a hard hurdle for the prideful Ji Yangyang to overcome. Plus, he just did you a favor. If Fang Yifan finds out, he'll probably feel uneasy and start overthinking again."

"It's not that serious, is it?" Huang Zhitao was startled. "Couldn't it just be that he's not that petty?"

Qiao Yingzi simply laughed, leaving Huang Zhitao speechless.

Just then, Fang Yifan popped out from nowhere as usual, greeting them with a cheeky grin as if the previous conflicts and unpleasantness had never happened. The two girls immediately dropped the subject, teased Fang Yifan about his thick skin, and asked how he did on the exam, worried that he might fall behind and not be in the same class as them.

"I feel like I did great this time." Fang Yifan patted his chest confidently. "Don't believe me? Think about it—the last multiple-choice question in math was so hard, neither of you got it right, but I did. Doesn't that prove something?"

"That was just a blind cat finding a dead mouse." Although Qiao Yingzi and her friend mocked him, they still hoped their childhood friend had truly performed exceptionally well so they could remain in the same class as always.

"Just you wait and see!" Fang Yifan said, full of confidence.

The results were graded quickly through overtime and posted in the school lobby. Everyone crowded around to check their scores. The most eye-catching section was, of course, the top thirty students listed in the first row.

"First place! My cousin Lei'er is amazing!" Fang Yifan spotted his cousin Lin Lei'er ranked first in the elite class and immediately shouted.

The crowd looked on with envy and surprise. In their student days, high-scoring academic prodigies were still quite charming. It turned out that the transfer student was a genius, even surpassing Qian Sanyi, the former district top scorer, who was relegated to second place. Qiao Yingzi and the others were pushed further down the list.

But that wasn't the most shocking part.

When Ruan Liuzheng walked over, she first found her name in the elite class and counted that she was 21st. Just as she was filled with joy, her desk-mate Xia Xue reminded her to look further down. Seeing He Chen's name in third-to-last place, she was struck dumb.

Even though it was third-to-last, this was the elite class—meaning he was 28th in the entire grade! For He Chen, who had always been a "solid middle-of-the-pack" student in the end-of-term exams last year, this improvement was incredibly exaggerated. The key was that she had worked herself to death and only reached 21st, while He Chen hadn't even studied all summer, skipped evening study sessions, and slept early and rose early, yet he had suddenly soared to within a few spots of her.

Would he surpass her in the next exam?

What happened to "you focus on being beautiful, and I'll focus on earning money to support the family"?

Ruan Liuzheng's mood became incredibly complicated as she stared fixedly at He Chen's name in the elite class.

"Impossible! How is this possible!" Fang Yifan and the others had snapped out of their shock over Lin Lei'er's sudden first-place finish, but they absolutely could not accept He Chen's rapid progress.

Fang Yifan began to push to the side, checking class by class. His name wasn't in any of the parallel classes. By the time they reached the final basic classes, Qiao Yingzi and Huang Zhitao, who had followed him, spotted his name at a glance.

"Dead last? Fang Yifan, didn't you say you did well?"

Fang Yifan stopped talking and started chewing on his fingernails. Seeing Ji Yangyang ranked just above him and hearing his childhood friend Qiao Yingzi tease them about being "partners in crime" destined to fly away together, he felt even more dejected.

Under normal circumstances, he would have brushed it off with a joke. But now, with He Chen's completely unreasonable ranking as a contrast, he felt terrible. What was worse was that with this ranking, he would definitely have to report to the basic class, while He Chen had become a classmate of his goddess. The feeling of an enemy moving closer to his goddess step by step—how could anyone understand?