few ways to earn respect: first and foremost, being academically excellent. As high school students under China's education system, they still valued their teachers highly; generally speaking, top stu...Chapter 17: The First BOSS

June 17th.

Six in the morning.

Even during summer, the outside world was still half-ambiguous with dim light. The alarm clock would ring in thirty minutes as usual, but Su Can opened his eyes and couldn't fall back asleep regardless.

He had a dream about many years ago on that day when he failed his middle school entrance exam慘敗，看到母親因籌不到錢而坐在沙發上垂淚的場景。那時蘇燦第一次感受到了命運的無奈和自身的渺小無力，無數人的冷漠和冷眼落在自己身上，這就是應試教育造成的悲哀。無論怎樣，這都是蘇燦不願意回憶的噩夢。

Su Can was terrified and turned on the light, fearing that everything was just a dream. His rebirth after crossing over was like winning three hundred million yuan suddenly and repeatedly having insomnia, worrying if it was an unreal dream. He also worried that his rebirth process was merely an illusion, and his fate had never changed.

Fortunately, under the dark sky outside the window, the simple lighting on the wall cast a warm light in memory, indicating he was still at home. Touching his body, it was still as thin and weak as when he was sixteen. The clock by his side with its ringing bell and small calendar clearly showed June 17th.

It was June 17th, 1998.

The fact of穿越still remains true, and today is the day of the high school entrance exam, which is also a reality!

Around six-thirty, the door to my parents' room opened. My mother came out and started boiling eggs and milk. She turned around and saw Su Cen dressed and ready, organizing his examination materials.

"Son, do your best! Take all necessary items with you, bring two pencils for filling in answer sheets, one spare is always good. The ruler and compass are on the table. Today is when we see the results!"

After eating the eggs and milk, Su Cen felt highly motivated. In the past, he would often skip breakfast, his meal times were irregular, and under great pressure, he would feel listless throughout the day with a poor health condition. Now that he had returned to sixteen years old, although his body was thinner compared to his future self, he felt an unprecedented surge of energy surging through him, giving him boundless motivation to do many things.

"Don't worry, Mom. I'll do my best on the exam." Su Cen left with these words to reassure his mother, Zeng Ke.

In the past, when had Zeng Ke not been worried about Su Cen's exams Each time he would assure her that everything was okay, but how many times had she truly felt at ease

But now things were different. Over these two days, Su Cen diligently reviewing under the light until late into the night and his confident manner of speaking just now gave her a sense that Su Cen had grown up rapidly in such a short time. She even started to feel reassured, "Even if Su Cen can't get in, so what He understands the importance of this and has truly put effort into it. Even if he needs extra points to enter the third high school, I'll borrow money to ensure he gets the education!"

As soon as he stepped out of the door, a few colleagues from his same level were there at the unit building entrance, but none had such close relationships like with Xue Yi Yang and Liu Rui. He merely exchanged greetings before passing them by hurriedly. Just then, Xue Yi Yang and Liu Rui descended from the seventh floor and third floor.

The two of them looked extremely excited when they saw him, "Hey, those practice papers you gave us are great! Usually our reference test papers only have answers at the end, but your paper even has detailed solutions and steps written out. Amazing, who would've thought that the Third High School has such internal practice materials!"

Su Cen smiled. The solutions and steps on the test papers were all written by himself, but when photocopying, those pen-written words naturally turned into lead typesetting; thus, the two of them didn't realize that they had done the exercises themselves and thought it was material given to Su Cen by his teacher. Su Cen wasn't bothered to reveal this.

It was only after everyone got on the same bus heading to the exam venue that he asked about their progress, "So how's your revision going With these practice papers, you should feel more confident."

"How can it be so easy!" Schuyi Yang shot him a look. "Even if we have the answers, there are still many concepts to understand and internalize, right If I were to attempt that set of questions without the answers, at most I could do around ten problems. After my revision, I feel somewhat more confident now in terms of the number of problems. However, for math, there's a lot of them—over forty questions. I'm still not sure how many I can solve during the exam. As for English, it's too difficult—I think thirty is as far as I can go. For physics and chemistry, I saw over fifty problems. Anyway, since we won't be taking the exams until tomorrow, I can review more tonight."

From his seat at the front of the bus, Liu Rui turned around and said, "I'm about the same as him—I feel that the difficulty level of these questions is a bit beyond our syllabus, so it's impossible for everything to be tested. I've gone through a systematic revision, however, and now feel more confident."

Su Cen thought this was reasonable—Schuyi Yang and Liu Rui were decades younger than he in terms of experience and background, so the Junior High concepts were still challenging for them. Without his help with the practice exercises, they would likely struggle to solve even ten problems. Even if he wrote out the solution steps, it would take a while for them to digest and understand each problem one by one. Hence, being able to tackle around thirty or forty questions was impressive.

Indeed, Su Cen had gained this profound understanding through his reincarnation, which certainly counted as good fortune.

The bus stopped at the next station, and the doors slid open with a whoosh. More students boarded; however, Schuyi Yang and Liu Rui froze upon seeing someone enter.

Tang Wu walked up to the aisle of the bus, wearing a small pink backpack and an adorable hooded sports outfit that accentuated her long slender legs in blue jeans. She grasped the metal pole, saw Su Cen, hesitated for a moment, then nodded and smiled confidently: "Hello."

This particular bus was heading to the No. 1 High School exam venue, so most of the passengers were students from No. 1 and No. 2 High Schools who didn't know Tang Wu. However, by greeting Su Cen first, she had already made him the envy of everyone on board.

"Hello, it's a coincidence." Su Cen also hurriedly waved back.

The number of people getting on the vehicle was increasing. After Tang Wu greeted Su Cen, she stood there gracefully, looking out of the window without glancing elsewhere.

This move caught the silent murmuring in the hearts of a few students from No. 3 High School. At graduation, they had heard that the school's beauty, Tang Wu, and their classmate Su Cen were quite close. They never expected it to be true, as who else could recall Tang Wu ever greeting anyone first.

Regarding this, Su Cen was also a bit surprised. He didn't know that before graduation, when he would chat with Tang Wu after school and walk home together, it had actually changed her perception of him for the better, increasing her fondness towards him. To her, Su Cen represented nostalgia for their three years as classmates.

When Su Cen turned around, Liu Rui and Xue Yiyang were staring straight at him, occasionally twitching at the corners of their mouths. This kid had been surprising them lately with his gaming skills. In a trio infamous for being terrible with women, when did he start knowing such a stunning girl...

Although Tang Wu may not be as perfect as Luo Ran from the previous night in the arcade, her clear and refreshing aura, combined with the first ray of morning light shining through the window, was quite striking.

Su Cen couldn't care less about these two lovesick men. He shifted his gaze out the window, greedily taking in this city from eleven years ago, familiar streets that remained indelible in his memory. Returning at this moment, with the drumbeat of the approaching middle school exam, ignited a surge of passion within him.

Liu Rui got off at the No. 2 High School examination venue midway through the journey; there was some hustle and bustle as he disembarked. Tang Wu would occasionally glance over at Su Cen's direction out of the corner of her eye. She saw him sometimes chatting happily with Xue Yiyang, other times his eyes scanning outside, his brown eyes reflecting a bright arc from the morning light, focused yet distant; it was as if nothing inside the vehicle could be more captivating than the scenery beyond the window.

For some reason, Tang Wu felt slightly disheartened. quiet enough that one could hear the breathing of those beside them.Su Cen knew that compared to the environment inside the karaoke city, Tang Wu preferred such a place. He said, "Let's take a walk."...