He Lele replied guiltily, "Then hit me, I know you wouldn't hit me easily."
Hearing this, Wang Muman stared at her, "Are you serious, you didn't write it out then? He Lele, if you really fail, I will enact the plan." Wang Muman wanted to appear fierce, but in He Lele's eyes, she looked adorably fierce. He Lele wanted to laugh but was also afraid of failing math, so she held it back, fearing Wang Muman would truly get angry.
Just before the evening study session was about to begin, Yan Cheng and Zhou Mingyu returned, holding test papers. He Lele's eyes were glued to them. Teacher Xu also walked in from behind. After Yan Cheng finished distributing the papers, he said, "For this math exam, all the questions were ones we've been doing. Students who didn't pass, please come see me tomorrow at noon. I also want to commend the few students who got perfect scores, namely Yan Cheng, Li Shishi, Wang Muman... five of you. Achieving a perfect score requires meticulousness, and it's very good!" Teacher Xu smiled and looked at each of them in turn. "Today's homework is to correct the test papers. If you don't understand something, you don't understand it. For questions you got wrong due to carelessness, correct them, and then collect them to hand in to me." Teacher Xu then left the classroom.
As the papers were handed out, Wang Muman wasn't looking at her own paper, but at He Lele's. Seeing He Lele had just barely passed, she chuckled quietly at the score. Wang Muman directly pinched her flesh, then carefully examined her incorrect answers. After finishing, she expressionlessly returned the paper to He Lele and started writing other assignments. He Lele observed her expression and sensed trouble. Looking at her own test paper, she saw that several mistakes were on questions Wang Muman had explained. He Lele immediately began correcting the errors, hoping to gain forgiveness.
Wang Muman, suppressing a smile, looked at He Lele's quickly corrected paper and nodded slightly, returning it to He Lele. "That's more like it!" Wang Muman had always been serious about academics and wanted her friends to study well too.
In the following days, He Lele became numb to the test papers handed out. Except for math, her other grades were acceptable, considered average. However, sitting next to three prodigies, her own performance was like the difference between clouds and mud.
Since the midterm exams only lasted two days, and the teachers were quick, the results were out soon. On Friday, Teacher Xu gave Shi Kai a ranking list and told everyone they could look at it from the class monitor if they wished, but not to go to his office. The ranking list included class and overall rankings. He Lele had the good fortune to see it once during a comprehensive practice class.
"Can you three please act like humans? How am I supposed to survive among you?" He Lele whispered, looking at Yan Cheng ranked third in the grade, Wang Muman tenth, Li Wei eighteenth, and herself at two hundred and ninety-first. She felt the pressure ahead was immense. Wang Muman took the ranking list and sighed quietly, noticing how much her geography score had pulled her down.
"Manman, don't sigh. I'll be perfectly content if I can get into the top one hundred in my life," He Lele also sighed, feeling a bit down.
Wang Muman continued to look at the list and found that the scores of the top three were very close, with no significant gaps. She glanced at the back of Yan Cheng's head, thinking what a well-rounded person he was. She then heard He Lele muttering softly, "I'm so bad." She wrote a note to her: "You're not that bad. At least my help is very useful. If I keep teaching you like this, you'll definitely achieve your lifelong wish," adding a smiley face.