CHAPTER 499: CHANGE DESTINY

Chunzhou First Middle School started winter break early because of the winter camp.

But this didn’t apply to the third-year students preparing for their college entrance exams.

The third-year teaching building was located in the northwest corner of the campus, separated by a stadium and a playground, with its own gate—completely isolated from the outside world.

The Third-Year Class A+ was the only repeaters’ class in the entire school, and it was also the best repeaters’ class in Chunzhou.

As the best public school in Chunzhou, the establishment of a repeaters’ class at Chunzhou First Middle School meant that the selection process for students was extremely rigorous. The first criterion was their college entrance exam scores; anything below 650 points was simply not considered. The primary goal for the repeaters was to aim for the pinnacle of the pyramids represented by the two prestigious universities in Dejing, or at the very least, a 985 or 211 institution.

Thus, in this class teeming with academic elites, there was never any laughter, nor would you hear students whispering to each other. Each one seemed like a learning machine, with pairs of young eyes hiding fiery ambition—a yearning for success in the exams and an anticipation of a bright future.

During the lunch break, the classroom was silent, with only the faint rustling of pens on paper.

On the blackboard, several large words written in chalk proclaimed: "165 days left until the college entrance exam."

The number 165 was highlighted in bold with colored chalk.

If drowsiness crept into their minds, a single glance at that number was enough to reinvigorate them, igniting a fighting spirit deep in their chests.

Having failed once already, they had no path of retreat; the only choice was to press forward with all they had.

The classroom was like a battlefield, with no one slacking off. They wielded their pens as weapons, battling fiercely against time.

Qi Baotan finished another practice exam and raised her hand to rub her temples, looking slightly fatigued.

"Baotan, could you lend me your test paper to have a look?" her deskmate asked in a soft voice.

Her deskmate was a somewhat plain-looking girl named Xue Hongyan. She was introverted and didn’t talk much, usually burying her head in her studies.

Qi Baotan had a decent impression of her, so she pushed her test paper to the edge of Xue Hongyan’s arm.

The girl’s eyes lit up. "Thank you."

She treated the test paper as if it were a treasure and began comparing her answers one by one.

She treated Qi Baotan’s answers as the standard, and soon enough, a few crosses appeared on her own test paper. The girl’s expression turned slightly crestfallen.

For the final large question, she stared at Qi Baotan’s solution process for a long time. The more she thought about it, the more excited she became. "So that’s how it’s done! Why didn’t I think of that...?"

She murmured to herself, suddenly lifting her head to look at Qi Baotan. "You used the tangent point to find the tangent line, then calculated the equation using the slope-point formula. Baotan, you’re brilliant!"

The surrounding students, having overheard Xue Hongyan, instinctively turned their attention to the two, their gazes at Qi Baotan tinged with a subtle mix of complexity and discontent.

Qi Baotan rubbed her nose, feeling rather self-conscious. "The teacher covered this in class. I just have a better memory, that’s all."

Xue Hongyan shook her head. "I have a good memory too, but I still didn’t think of this. The teacher said that in math, you can’t rely on rigid formulas or rote learning—you need flexible thinking and meticulous logic, and more importantly, the ability to draw analogies. No wonder you’ve improved so much—it’s because you’re inherently intelligent."

Qi Baotan grew increasingly uncomfortable. Intelligent? That was far from the truth—it was because she had a "secret manual."

"Fake. Who knows what dirty tricks you’ve been using in private. Why keep pretending to be some genius here?"

A sharp, cutting voice suddenly rang out, starkly clear in the otherwise silent classroom.

The voice came from Qi Baotan’s back left.

Everyone turned to look at the speaker—Zhu Xing. The classroom instantly fell into a chilling silence.

When Qi Baotan first joined the class, she scored the lowest in the initial placement exam.

And it wasn’t just a minor deficit—she only scored 452 points, over a hundred points behind the second-to-last student.

That was nowhere near the standard of the repeaters’ class.

Back then, many suspected she had gotten in through some backdoor connection, leading to considerable resentment toward her.

Later, when the film *Laughing in the Martial World* revealed its main creative team, Qi Baotan, as the new "Cen actress," gained a bit of fame. Everyone in the class was focused on diligently preparing for Dejing, while she, on the other hand, seemed to be using acting as a stepping stone to polish her reputation.

During that period, Qi Baotan became quite well-known around the school, but there were also plenty of people who resented her. Some students even anonymously reported to the school administration that Qi Baotan shouldn’t be in the repeaters’ class because her presence was a distraction, and someone scoring in the 400s wasn’t on the same level as the rest of the class—she didn’t deserve to be there at all.

The school didn’t take any action.

Then, the miracle happened during the next exam.

Qi Baotan’s scores skyrocketed, stunning everyone with an unbelievable turnaround.

In just a few months, her grades had soared, and in the most recent exam, she ranked among the top ten in the class.