Chapter 6: The Path of Competition

The wind swirled through the desolate playground of No. 2 High School, carrying with it the irritating fuzz of plane tree seeds that clung to the windows of the elite class like stubborn adhesive plasters. The classroom was unnervingly silent, punctuated only by the rustle of turning pages, the scratching of pen tips against paper, and the occasional heavy sigh from a student. For these top-tier seeds of No. 2 High, the formulas and theorems in their textbooks were already etched into their brains until they were worn smooth. Yet, every time the monthly test scores were posted, a few unlucky souls would inevitably tumble from the top ten due to a careless oversight in a fill-in-the-blank question or an incomplete step in a major problem. Knowing the material was one thing; holding onto those points steadily in the heat of an exam was entirely another.

In the small county of Duoshui, educational competition was as fierce as war. Every year, when the college entrance exam results were released, the front pages of local newspapers were always dominated by the triumphant reports of the elite key high schools, blindingly bright. And No. 2 High? It was like an old textbook forgotten on the bottom shelf of a bookcase—faded cover, yellowing pages, recording year after year of mediocre results. The honor roll at the school gate boasted its most glorious achievement as a student who had made it into a standard university a decade ago, their name nearly weathered away by time and rain.

That was until Li Yifei stepped through the gates of No. 2 High, cloaked in the aura of the "City’s Top Entrance Exam Scorer." This brought a spark of life to the stagnant pool that was No. 2 High.

"The first one in years! The first city top scorer!" the principal roared, slapping the podium until it echoed throughout the faculty meeting. "Comrades, this is our chance to turn things around! As long as this kid, Li Yifei, stays sharp and gets into Tsinghua or Peking University, we can finally hold our heads high in this county!"

From then on, the desk by the window where Li Yifei sat became a "treasure trove." Mysterious study materials, specially approved by the administration and unavailable anywhere else, would periodically "sprout" inside his desk. Even Mr. Wang, their homeroom teacher—a man who usually wore a stern, unyielding face—would wander over during the ten-minute breaks to pretend to flip through Li’s error notebook, only to pat his shoulder and say, "Yifei, study hard. The hope of the entire school rests on you." His tone was so heavy it felt as if Li were shouldering the retirement pensions of the entire faculty.

A few days later, notifications for the high school mathematics and physics competitions were posted on the old wooden board in the school hallway. When the news reached the teachers' office, the atmosphere turned subtle. The grade-level head, a middle-aged man with hair so meticulously combed that a fly would likely slip if it landed on it, adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses, his voice laced with inescapable resignation: "Sending our students to compete? What kind of international joke is this? We can barely keep up with the basic problems their key school students handle; sending our kids out is just asking for them to be cannon fodder, serving as stepping stones for others."

The buzzing discussion in the office died down. The principal remained silent, slowly stroking his prized thermos, his gaze fixed on the desk where Li Yifei's last monthly test score lay—a brilliant, eye-piercing 748. After a long silence, he tapped the lid against the rim of the cup with a crisp "ding." "This matter... it’s no use us arguing here. How about... we ask the student himself what he thinks? Let’s see if the kid has the guts for it." His eyes flickered with the cunning of an old fox.

The result of the inquiry came as no surprise to anyone. During lunch break, Li Yifei was leaning against the cold railing of the corridor, lost in thought. A few boys from the next class were chatting by the window, their voices drifting into his ears on the breeze: "Competitions? That stuff is three times harder than the college entrance exam! We’re already struggling to finish three sets of papers a day; who has the time for that?" "Exactly! I heard those monsters at No. 1 High have been training for it like their lives depend on it since freshman year. We’re just starting now—isn't that just asking to be humiliated and made a laughingstock?"

These words hit Li Yifei like a hammer wrapped in gravel, striking his heart with every blow. Memories of his past life—the sour, sweat-drenched scent of struggle—surged forward: the version of himself who had also fought on the single-plank bridge of the college entrance exam, only to slip and fall. Li Yifei closed his eyes, clearly recalling the day he first arrived at No. 2 High, standing before that modest gate, looking up at the red scrolling characters on the electronic screen: "Warmly Welcome City Top Scorer Li Yifei." At that moment, a shiver like an electric current running down his spine told him: the script of fate could be rewritten this time.

Li Yifei opened his eyes sharply, clutching the crumpled competition registration form in his pocket. He turned with such force that his uniform skirted the half-dead pothos plant in the hallway, its drooping leaves swaying as if cheering him on.

"Mr. Wang," Li Yifei stood at the door of the homeroom teacher's office, his voice quiet but incredibly clear, "I want to sign up for the math and physics competitions."

Inside, Mr. Wang was hunched over grading papers. At the sound, his hand jerked, and his fountain pen gouged a long, dark line across the page, the ink bleeding into the paper—a dark omen of his current state of mind.

"What did you say?" Mr. Wang looked up, his glasses sliding to the tip of his nose, his face a mask of disbelief ("Are you running a fever?") and deep concern ("Child, don't throw your future away"). "Li Yifei! Competitions are not child's play! Do you realize how much study time this will consume? If you end up failing both..." He didn't finish, but the anxiety was written all over his face.

The news grew wings and flew straight to the principal's office. Amidst the swirling smoke, the department heads circled Li Yifei's score sheet, arguing like a pot of boiling porridge.

"Absurd! This is gambling with the college entrance exam! Are competitions that easy to handle?" Director Liu of the Academic Affairs Office slammed the table, spitting as he spoke, wishing he could shatter Li Yifei’s score sheet. "The few we sent last year didn't even pass the preliminary round! We wasted a whole month! Is that lesson not enough?"

"But this child is a city top scorer, he has a sharp mind, maybe..." the young Academic Affairs Deputy Director, Mr. Zhang Tianyu, tried to argue, his voice weak against the roar of Director Liu.

"So what if he's a top scorer? Does that give him three heads and six arms? A weak foundation leads to a collapse! Competitions are a completely different system! It’s a cliff!" Director Liu would not budge, the veins on his neck bulging.

"Enough!" The principal, who had been silent, finally spoke. He took a deep drag of his cigarette, his eyes narrowing behind the smoke. "Arguing is useless. Here is what we'll do: Director Zhang, arrange a separate assessment for Li Yifei using the backup paper from last month’s exam—the difficulty is identical." He paused, flicking the ash. "If his score doesn't drop, or if it rises, let him go! If it drops, that’s the end of it!" Director Zhang Tianyu nodded firmly, as if accepting a military order: "Understood! Principal, I will arrange it!"

On the day of the test, the classroom was exceptionally empty, save for Li Yifei. He sat at his familiar desk, pen in hand. The "scratching" of his pen against the paper was amplified in the dead silence, as clear as his own heartbeat. He wrote rapidly, his thoughts flowing like a broken dam. When he reached the final, notoriously tricky calculus problem, he even took the time to explore three different methods of solving it, as if challenging his own limits.

When the graded paper was placed by Director Zhang Tianyu on the principal's desk, that brilliant, unchanging 748, with a small "+" added in red ink, left the entire office in stunned silence. Director Liu forgot his rebuttal, his mouth hanging slightly open, staring at the number as if he could burn a hole through it to see if the answers were hidden inside.

The days of preparation were like being put on triple-speed fast-forward, blurring the boundaries between day and night. At five in the morning, while it was still pitch black, only the "Competition Preparation Room" at the end of the hallway was lit. Li Yifei, wrapped in a thick coat, curled up on a cold chair, his brow furrowed as he pored over the thick *Compendium of Difficult Problems in Combinatorial Mathematics*.

At eleven at night, when other dorms were filled with the sound of snoring, he would hide under his quilt, leaving only his head and his writing hand exposed. The light from his lamp illuminated the international math olympiad problem sets spread across his bed. The edges of the pages were frayed from constant flipping, looking like exploded squid tentacles.

Once, he got stuck on a complex physics mechanics problem, wrestling with springs, pulleys, and inclined planes until after two in the morning. When the dorm warden did her rounds and pushed open the door, her flashlight beam revealed him asleep on a desk piled high with scrap paper. Half his face was pressed against an unfinished force analysis diagram, and dense lines and formulas crawled across the scattered manuscripts like an abstract code encrypted by aliens. The warden shook her head, gently draped a coat over him, and muttered, "This child, he's obsessed..."

The school’s attitude also began to change quietly. From initial hesitation and doubt, it shifted to tacit approval and eventually to full-fledged support. The corner of the library that had long been a dumping ground for old, musty magazines was cleared out and hung with a crude "Competition Zone" sign. Although the books inside were the same as before, it was a start.

Physics teacher and Deputy Director Zhang Tianyu even dug out his own prized possessions: several competition notebooks with yellowing pages, worn edges, and filled with dense notes and insights. He handed them to Li Yifei, patting his shoulder with a weightiness as if entrusting a family heirloom: "Kid, I've given you everything I have! Use it wisely, and don't let me lose face in the city!" His eyes held a resolute, all-or-nothing determination.

Once, when Li Yifei was completely stumped by an electromagnetism problem involving Maxwell's equations and felt his brain was about to boil, Mr. Zhang noticed. Without a word, he sacrificed his rare weekend rest (reportedly canceling a blind date) to take Li on three different buses, traveling for over two hours to a neighboring city to visit a retired competition coach from a provincial key school. In the old man’s study, filled with the scent of old paper and ink, he spent the afternoon using the simplest language and diagrams to help Li Yifei clear the fog. On the way back, Li Yifei fell asleep against the window. Mr. Zhang looked at his tired profile and the faint dark circles under his eyes, sighing silently: *This kid... he is truly giving his life for this.*

The day of the preliminary round finally arrived. The sky was as gloomy as a soaked rag, with irritating drizzles of rain—light, yet enough to dampen hair and seep into collars, bringing a bone-chilling cold. At the school gate, Mr. Zhang Tianyu stuffed a thermos of piping hot ginger tea into Li Yifei’s bag like a fretful mother, repeatedly urging, "Check your admission ticket, ID, pens... do you have everything? Hold onto your thermos. If... if you get nervous, just stop, take a few deep breaths, don't panic! Just think of it... think of it as a field trip to No. 1 High!" Li Yifei nodded, shouldered his bag, and boarded the bus to the county's No. 1 High School.

The bus traveled down the rain-slicked main road. The windshield wipers swayed rhythmically, emitting a monotonous squeak. Li Yifei looked at the plane trees outside, washed exceptionally clean by the rain. Those gray, dusty fragments of his past life surged again: the incorrectly filled-out college application, the numbness of day after day on the factory assembly line, the powerlessness of staring blankly at old textbooks in the middle of the night...

"Mr. Zhang," he suddenly turned to look at the silent Mr. Zhang, smiling with a calm and complexity that transcended his age, "to me, this competition is not just about winning a prize. It’s more like... well, it’s my chance to live my life over again. I have to seize it, like a drowning man grabbing a straw." His voice was very soft, but it struck Mr. Zhang’s heart.

Looking at the unusual, almost stubborn determination in the boy’s eyes, Mr. Zhang felt a tremor in his chest. He simply patted his arm firmly, his throat bobbing, saying nothing. Everything was understood.

No. 1 High’s grand, ornate iron gate looked especially stern in the rain. A massive electronic screen scrolled with golden characters: "Warmly Welcome Competition Elites from All Schools," exuding the arrogance of a key high school. The gate was packed with candidates from all over the county and parents hoping for their children's success. Some gathered in small groups, clutching thick materials for a final "death struggle," whispering debates over formulas; but most, like Li Yifei, stood in silence, backs laden with bags, their faces showing either nerves or forced composure. The damp, cold air was thick with a tension that felt almost physical.

Mr. Zhang accompanied Li Yifei inside, walking past the curious or scrutinizing gazes of the No. 1 High students. As they passed the massive glass bulletin board in front of the teaching building, Li Yifei’s gaze was involuntarily drawn to it—it was last year's list of winners. Rainwater trickled down the glass, blurring some of the text, but the golden "Provincial First Prize" label next to the name at the top stubbornly emitted a faint, piercing light in the dim weather, silently asserting the disparity in rank.

How many times in a lifetime does one get the chance to go all out like this? Standing in the hallway with its polished tile floors, looking at the confident faces in their key-school uniforms, a fire mixed with resentment and the stifled frustration of his past life ignited in his chest. The school had taken a risk on him, Mr. Zhang had sacrificed his time to accompany him, and there was the version of himself from his past life who had looked up at the stars from the dust only to fall... This time, no matter what, he would win this fight for No. 2 High and for that unwilling version of himself!

The regrets and frustrations of his past life must be filled in this time with a resounding score! He would use this test paper to strike back at all those light, hidden, or overt glares of contempt! Let this rain wash away the "cannon fodder" label of No. 2 High!

"Ring—"

The crisp, sharp bell for the exam rang out suddenly, like a cold pair of scissors cutting through the suffocating silence of the hallway. Li Yifei sat at his desk and slowly unfolded the test paper. The snowy white pages spread out before him, the black lead characters arrayed like soldiers waiting for the charge. He gripped the pen that had accompanied him through countless sleepless nights, his tip hovering above the paper, pausing for a moment.

At the very instant it touched the page, time seemed to freeze. The roar of the machines on the factory assembly line from his past life, the rustling of old book pages, the dull pain of his spirit being worn down by reality—all these sounds and images rapidly faded.

The pen tip touched the paper with a faint but incredibly clear sound. This was no longer the past life where he could only watch opportunities slip away. He stood on a starting line washed clean by the rain. The massive, long-dormant engine within him roared to life. All the accumulation, struggle, and unwillingness since his rebirth were transformed into the firm lines flowing from his pen.

He wasn't here to visit; he was here to conquer. This preliminary exam in the rain was merely the first note of the prelude to rewriting his fate.