A woman's intuition is always unbelievably accurate. The school started offering an Olympiad math tutoring class, held every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday, and it was almost semi-mandatory. Every student in the class whom the teachers “had their eye on” was required to attend.

“Zoe, are you going?” Claire Daniels spat the rib bone onto the table.

Zoe Young was no longer the clueless little first grader she once was. She knew exactly how much of this tutoring class was just following the trend, and how much was for making money... She understood it all. However, when Mr. Hughes noticed that the list reported by the class monitor didn’t include Zoe Young and Fiona James, she still called these two former pillars of the class into the office.

Zoe Young stood quietly by the wall, staring at the tea leaves floating up and down in Mr. Hughes’s glass cup.

“You still think this is like before? Do you know how many parents have begged me to let their kids join the school’s Olympiad class? I didn’t give them a spot, but I gave you one, and you don’t appreciate it. Do you think I have nothing better to do?”

Fiona James lowered his head and said softly, “Mr. Hughes, there are always things going on with the national student union, I’m afraid...”

“That so-called student union of yours, I’ve been meaning to say, it’s all a scam. You have a bit of fame, so they let you put your name there, but do you really think you can rely on that for life? Wake up! You’re about to start middle school, what’s past is past, no matter how glorious, it’s over. Your grades now are barely enough for our class, let alone middle school. Do you think you can keep up? Hmm? Your parents are short-sighted and don’t think for you, but should I, as your teacher, just let you mess around?”

Zoe Young still kept her head down in silence, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw tears glimmering at the corner of Swallow’s eyes.

“The school is running this class for your own good, so why don’t any of you appreciate it? Don’t mind if I sound harsh, but middle school is nothing like elementary. No one cares if you can sing, dance, or recite poetry. Let me tell you, girls are born dumb, the higher the grade, the harder it is to keep up. Girls just aren’t as smart as boys, so if you don’t work harder, are you planning to just scrape by in middle school? When it comes to high school entrance exams, they don’t test for hosting or cello, so tell me, aren’t you two being silly? Hmm?”

Zoe Young’s heart skipped a beat, but on the surface she still wore a Alan Carter-like expression—she thought she looked calm and collected, but to the teacher, she was just being stubborn.

“And also, Zoe Young, there’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with your mother, but since we’re talking now, I’ll tell you first. The system for moving from elementary to middle school has changed. Only half the students from University Elementary School have a chance to move up to University High School, the other half have to go to Riverside High School. But you originally came in through school choice, and your household registration is still in the district before your family relocated, so for middle school you’ll have to go back to the district where your household is registered. The only way is to take the entrance exams for good schools like University High School and Riverside High School. If you pass, you might be admitted as an exception. The exam content is, of course, Olympiad math and English. Only truly outstanding kids have a chance—just so you know, they don’t care if you were a city-level model student, what grade you passed in cello, or if you can recite poetry. They don’t care about any of that, so you’d better think it over.”

Mr. Hughes’s tone was a hundred times colder than before. The so-called “talents” she used to praise Zoe Young for, stroking her hair, instantly became worthless tricks, while Daniel Hughes, who used to get scolded all the time, suddenly became the class favorite.

After school, Zoe Young swept the floor while watching Mr. Hughes patting Daniel Hughes on the back of the head, beaming as she said to Daniel Hughes’s father, “I just love little boys, they’re smart and full of spirit. You should have Daniel Hughes spend more time with my son. My son is naughty too, very naughty, but naughty kids are always smart. Look at your Daniel Hughes, he’s mischievous but so clever.”

Zoe Young swept the same spot three times, then impatiently pushed away the little boy who kept tugging at her skirt—the homeroom teacher’s precious son, six years old this year. Whether he was smart was yet to be seen, but he was certainly astonishingly naughty.

“If you dare push me, I’ll tell my mom and have her scold you!” The little boy stomped hard on Zoe Young’s white canvas shoes.

Suppressing her anger, Zoe Young instead broke into a bright smile. She pointed to the vice principal, who was standing near the back door talking to the student on duty, and whispered, “Kicking me isn’t impressive. If you’re so tough, go kick him.”

The little boy stuck out his neck, nostrils flaring, and ran out. From behind, he stuck out his foot and kicked the vice principal in the back of the knee, causing the vice principal to fall straight to his knees.

There was a chorus of screams outside the classroom. Zoe Young stood with her hands behind her back, the broom bouncing in her hand like a little sparrow’s tail.

She watched with a smile as the homeroom teacher hurriedly apologized to the principal, then turned around and smacked her son hard on the back of the head. The little boy burst into tears, and chaos erupted outside.

She lifted her face to look at the lush green outside the window. She didn’t know when it started, but early summer had already covered the northern town. The small joy Zoe Young got from the noisy commotion outside the classroom grew with difficulty amid her tangled, sour thoughts, that dark sense of revenge climbing like ivy—before she knew it, it had filled her heart.

But she still went. On Wednesday night, she kept her head down and slipped into the school’s Olympiad math tutoring class. Teachers skilled in math from grades five and six took turns teaching. Zoe Young huddled in the corner, busy taking notes. That was all she could do—because she couldn’t understand a thing.

Eventually, Zoe Young just gave up—the teacher had barely started writing on the blackboard, not even two lines in, when a student would shout out the answer, adding, “We’ve done this problem hundreds of times already, it’s such an old type. So boring.”

Yeah, if life is so unoriginal for you, you might as well die. Zoe Young thought to herself as she twirled her pen—their constant interruptions made the teacher’s questions harder and harder, and every time, before she could even finish copying the problem, the answer would already be out. The teacher would immediately stop writing, looking delighted as if thinking “what a teachable child,” and stand there playing with the chalk, listening to the genius kids below eagerly offering all sorts of solutions and approaches to the same problem.

Half an hour passed, and Zoe Young’s notebook was filled with the first halves of various Olympiad math problems. She could guess the beginning, but never the ending.

“Teacher, let’s do something interesting, something harder, or a new type. These have all been covered hundreds of times in Mr. Goodman of Agricultural University’s class.” Zoe Young perked up her ears—the one speaking was Andrew Lane.

That Mr. Goodman’s Olympiad class had been mentioned to Zoe Young by Claire Daniels before—a huge classroom that could hold over three hundred people, with seats assigned strictly by monthly exam scores. Even so, there were still countless people trying every connection they had to get their kids in.

The teacher smiled awkwardly, “Just because you few can do these problems doesn’t mean everyone else can. I can’t just teach you, I have to take care of most of the class too.”

Andrew Lane’s voice was laced with laughter, “Come on, who can’t do such easy problems?” If you can’t, you’re an idiot. Zoe Young understood the implication, lowered her head, and doodled a little figure on a blank sheet, writing “Andrew Lane” next to it, then stabbed his head twice with her mechanical pencil.

“You don’t believe me? Fine, let’s see.” The teacher’s words made Zoe Young’s heart sink. She didn’t have time to put away her mechanical pencil before she saw the teacher look down at the attendance list and say in surprise, “Oh, the famous Zoe Young is here too? Come, come, do a problem on the board!”

Zoe Young felt as if time had stopped. When she stood up, the sound of the chair legs scraping against the cement floor was long and piercing, as if it would never end.

Walking up to the podium under everyone’s gaze, Zoe Young couldn’t remember how many times she’d stood on stage before—she’d never been nervous, even in front of thousands. But now, with only a few dozen people in the classroom, their eyes seemed blindingly bright, and the way they looked at her, like people at the zoo watching a monkey, made her want to run away for the first time.

The teacher wrote two problems on the blackboard—Zoe Young finally saw two complete, original problems, not just half-finished ones, but at this moment she would have preferred to sit in the corner and see all the problems cut short.

First problem: There are chickens and rabbits in the same cage, with 100 heads and 316 feet in total. How many chickens and how many rabbits are there? Zoe Young was at a loss—couldn’t you just look it up? Isn’t it pointless to calculate it like this?

Second problem: There are three water pipes, A, B, and C, filling a swimming pool. If only pipe A is open, it takes 20 hours to fill the pool; pipes A and B together take 8 hours; pipes B and C together take 6 hours. How many hours would it take to fill the pool if only pipe C is open?