Chapter 25

A good night's sleep, and on Sunday morning Li Lan, Xing Xiaozhen and Zhang Qinxin — who also hadn't gone home — got up and washed in silence.

After breakfast Li Lan went to the room being used for the exam. Maths had the most entrants, so maths was first. It was only an internal selection, but it followed the format of the provincial first round: eight in the morning to twenty past nine, eighty minutes.

Looking at who was sitting in front of her, Li Lan guessed the seats had been arranged by class.

Xing Xiaozhen turned round to face her, being directly in front. "Lanlan, the Olympiad isn't an important competition, I know, but it is an exam — so even though we share a room, I'm not going to let you see my paper."

She said it at no small volume, and the students nearby turned to look at Li Lan oddly. She hadn't said it outright, but they were all students; the implication took no unpacking.

Cast as the girl planning to cheat off her room-mate, Li Lan laughed once. "In that case let's swap seats. I'll sit in front of you and you won't have to worry about me copying. And since we barely know each other, kindly use my name. Thank you."

And without waiting for an answer she picked up her things and walked to the back of the room instead.

"That isn't what I meant. Where are you going?" Xing Xiaozhen said to her back.

Li Lan ignored the injured expression and took an empty seat at the back.

Shortly afterwards the invigilator came in with a stack of papers and began handing them out. He saw the empty seat in front of Xing Xiaozhen and assumed an absentee, and thought nothing of it — until he reached the back and found somebody sitting on her own. "Is this your seat?" This wasn't even in the exam area.

Li Lan looked entirely innocent. "No, sir. The student in front of me is worried I'll copy her paper, so to avoid any suspicion I wondered whether I might sit here." Delivered with great sweetness.

Faced with that as a reason, his expression darkened. "No. What do you mean, sit here — this isn't part of the exam area. Back to your own seat."

Li Lan looked put out. "But sir, what happens if somebody says I cheated?" Anyone can act. It only takes a thick skin.

The young invigilator was at a loss. "Don't worry. With me here you couldn't copy if you tried. Now go and sit down." Teachers coaxing students, these days?

Having got what she wanted, Li Lan quit while she was ahead. "All right, sir. If you say so."

The performance had every eye in the room following her, and as she walked back and sat down, those eyes travelled naturally to Xing Xiaozhen in front of her. They'd all heard it clearly: this girl had only moved to the back because she was afraid of being accused. Though she was extremely bold, doing that in an exam.

Had Li Lan known what they were thinking she'd have marvelled at how young they were. Compared with a real exam, today was a filter, and in an actual exam she'd never have tried it.

Xing Xiaozhen, in front, felt the appraising glances and went white at the thought of what Li Lan had said in front of everyone, trembling very slightly. How dare she.

She had only meant to give a kind warning. And it wasn't as though she didn't know — Li Lan had done one week of Olympiad problems, across four subjects, so how much could she have learned? Xing Xiaozhen happened to be sitting directly in front of her, and who was to say Li Lan wouldn't copy to get into the Olympiad class? What was wrong with mentioning it? Surely that was perfectly normal.

She'd barely sat down before the bell went. The invigilator read out the rules and started the exam.

Li Lan put everything else aside and looked at the paper.

Internal selection or not, the questions were set to the standard of the provincial first round: fill-in-the-blanks and long answers, a hundred and twenty marks in total. Eight blanks at eight marks each; three long questions, one worth sixteen and two worth twenty.

A quick read through and she relaxed. The difficulty was what she'd expected — high school fundamentals plus some university-level calculus.

That, she knew, was only the first round. By the second, and certainly at international level, the difficulty went up by more than one step; only six questions then, but the exam ran over two days, three questions per half day, four and a half hours at a time.

She gathered herself, picked up her pen and started. The room filled with the sound of pens.

At nine exactly she rolled her neck. An hour of hard concentration had left her stiff, but she'd finished. She put her pen down, checked it over, found nothing badly wrong and got up to hand it in. That was the pleasure of maths: either you can do it or you can't.

She'd known that in the abstract before, while belonging to the group who couldn't, which is why maths had always seemed impossible. Now she understood the truth of it — especially having joined the group who could, when solving problems became genuinely hard to stop doing.

The invigilator recognised the girl who had been worried about being accused of cheating an hour earlier. "You're handing it in?"

"Yes. We can hand in early, can't we?"

He took it. "You can, but you can't leave the room. You'll have to wait until the end."

She went back to her seat to wait. With only one day for everything, the schedule was packed — especially for someone doing four subjects, who had to run from one to the next.

Biology followed maths, and ran longer: two hours. By the rules it covered theory and practical work. The theory gave her no trouble; for the practical she could only do her best.

Fortunately, as with maths, the first-round practical was an extension of the school biology curriculum and involved nothing very advanced.

Physics and chemistry in the afternoon finished exactly as evening study began, and some students went straight to their classrooms without eating.

When Li Lan reached Class 3 the maths teacher was already at the front going through problems with someone. Two other students arrived with her, and knowing they'd just come from the exam he let all three in without comment.

She'd barely sat down before Wang Jing put down her pen and leant over. "Why did it finish so late? How did it go?"

Li Lan opened her book. "All right."

Relieved, and not wanting to add pressure, Wang Jing changed the subject. "Good. Although — when I got back today I saw Xing Xiaozhen in the room next door, doing the whole somebody's-been-cruel-to-me thing again. What's the matter with her?"

Ever since her deskmate turned out to be a girl from the room next door, Xing Xiaozhen had apparently found her people, and was in there every other day; after a fortnight she was thoroughly at home. So seeing her there was no surprise.

"No idea. Never mind her. The exams are over for now — what about your study plan?" Li Lan said nothing about the morning. It was done and she hadn't come off worse, and she turned it to Wang Jing instead.

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The next few days went as before: lessons, problems, and some time set aside to study with Wang Jing.

Then on Thursday, just as evening study started, Jiao Wenfu called several of them out.

In the office he addressed the five — Li Lan, Xing Xiaozhen and Zhang Qinxin among them. "The results are in. You five passed last week's Olympiad exam from this class. If you're committing to October, you're now part of the competition class — you'll be preparing for October on top of your normal lessons."

The competition classes were what Yu No. 1 ran for the city Olympiad. As far as Li Lan knew there were only four or five in the school: maths sometimes had two because of the numbers, and everything else had one.

He took some sheets out of a drawer and gave them one each. "Your timetables. So as not to disturb normal lessons, the Olympiad coaching is in evening study and at weekends."

Li Lan looked at hers. Unlike the others' one or two subjects, hers had four, and a good many clashes.

He looked at her. "Those of you with two or more will have to choose between clashing sessions yourselves. If you can't manage, you may drop one — don't try to be a hero. Normal lessons matter most."

Li Lan knew that was aimed at her, and had no intention of dropping anything for now.

Getting no reaction, he looked away, exasperated. "Competition classes start tomorrow. Go straight there during evening study — I've spoken to your other teachers, so you don't need to ask leave separately.

"Also," he added, "the Olympiad matters, but don't forget the first monthly exam is next week. I don't want it costing you your studies."

He wasn't scaremongering. Every year students hoped to be recommended to university through the Olympiad, some abandoning their other subjects entirely in the second year — and recommendation is not easily won. Plenty of them damaged their studies over it, spent far more effort in the final year, and if it went badly, missed the university they wanted and had to repeat.

Seeing them nod, he let them go.

On the way back Zhang Qinxin started a conversation, and Li Lan learned she'd passed both her subjects and would be doing two courses — though physics and maths didn't clash, so she didn't have to choose.

As for Xing Xiaozhen, she'd entered only maths, and being there meant she'd passed it. Say this for her: her head might have something wrong with it, but she did have some ability where studying was concerned. If only it averaged out better.