Tan You thought for a moment and wrote two formulas on a blank piece of paper. Teacher Shi shook her head and wrote another two lines below Tan You's formulas. Tan You looked at it for a few seconds before smiling. "I get it now."
"As long as you understand. You're very smart; I knew you could do it." Teacher Shi was happy too. Watching a student go from barely passing math to now being able to tackle difficult problems, she was bursting with a sense of accomplishment.
Tan You pursed her lips and smiled. "I'll head back to the classroom then. Thank you, Teacher Shi."
Teacher Shi patted Tan You's head. "Okay. Make sure to get plenty of rest."
Tan You just smiled. "I will. Goodbye, Teacher."
After Tan You left the office, a few teachers began to talk about her. "This student is truly astonishing; her progress has been so fast. You've also been very patient, Donglan, explaining the problems to her over and over."
Teacher Shi deflected the praise. "She's the one who works very hard. There isn't much I can do to help."
The head of the math department smiled. "It's like something just clicked for her. She really wasn't doing well before, so she must be a late bloomer. But I think her aptitude for the sciences is limited. I estimate she'll most likely choose the humanities track."
"The humanities aren't bad either," the Chinese language teacher from the next class over also smiled. "Her Chinese and English are both excellent. If she pursues the humanities, her college entrance exam scores will definitely be good."
Tan You, of course, had no idea the teachers were discussing her in the office. Her top priority right now was studying. Was studying hard? Of course it was.
But the moment she thought of her Intelligence Value, Tan You couldn't bring herself to slack off in the slightest. For the sake of her Intelligence Value, Tan You was determined to give it her all.
Evening self-study for the eighth graders ended at 8:40. By the time Tan You got back to her dorm room with her backpack, it was nearly nine o'clock. There was no point in going back too early, because everyone would be fighting over the bathroom at that time.
It happened to be her turn to clean today, but the other girl on duty had a stomachache and had taken leave to go home early in the afternoon. So tonight, Tan You was busy cleaning all by herself, and she was happy for the peace and quiet.
Although cleaning a classroom alone was a bit tiring, Tan You didn't feel all that exhausted because of the quiet.
A girl in charge of locking up the classroom helped Tan You flip the chairs onto the desks. She was on good terms with Tan You, and they would exchange a few words on a normal day. She was a boarding student, unlike Tan You who lived off-campus.
Once all the cleaning was done, Tan You waited for the girl to lock the classroom door, and then they walked down the stairs together. The two parted ways at the road. Tan You, of course, went to her boarding house, while the girl went to the dormitory building across the street.
By the time she got to the dorm room, most of the girls had already washed up and were sitting on their beds. Seeing Tan You come in, no one bothered to lower their voices. Tan You didn't greet them either, because they really had nothing to talk about.
The original Han Tingting had been quite sociable, but Tan You was not. Strangely enough, from the time Tan You started school until she finished her high school entrance exams, she had almost no friends in her class and couldn't get along with her roommates or classmates.
Of course, Tan You didn't particularly care about having roommates or friends anyway. In fact, she quite liked the state of doing her own thing by herself. Now that she had come to this world, Tan You had brought her habits with her.
After all, they were all just students. Even if Tan You's and Han Tingting's behaviors were completely different, no one would think anything strange of it.
The washroom was empty now. Tan You carried her basin of hot water to the bathroom to wash up. When she came out again, the girls were still just as they were before, chatting and laughing amongst themselves.
Some of them were holding colorful books, the kind you could tell were popular with young girls just by their titles. Tan You was a little tempted, but when she thought about Han Tingting's current situation, she stopped in her tracks.
No longer looking at the novels in the other girls' hands, Tan You lay down on her stomach by her bed and continued to do her homework. She had already finished the homework assigned by the teachers during the evening self-study session; this was extra practice Tan You was giving herself.
At 10:10, Cao Xia and Zhou Wen returned. After handing the chemistry textbook and notes to Tan You, Zhou Wen rushed to the bathroom to wash up.
If they waited until after they finished studying to wash up, they would disturb everyone else's rest.
Taking Zhou Wen's chemistry notes, Tan You stopped wrestling with math and started copying them down. Since chemistry was a new subject that had just been introduced in the first semester of ninth grade, there weren't many notes to copy.
When the two of them came out, Tan You pointed downstairs, and the three of them quietly went downstairs.
"Tingting, you're amazing! You knew how to solve the chemistry problem just by glancing at it?" Cao Xia hugged Tan You's arm, her voice several notches louder with excitement.
She had just tentatively asked Tan You a chemistry question. Who would have thought she'd know the answer just by looking at it? And it was exactly the same as the one in the answer key!
'I just went through the high school entrance exams,' Tan You thought to herself. 'If I can't even solve a basic problem like this, I'd be letting down the title of a recent exam-taker.' But she knew she wasn't actually good at chemistry.
"I just saw it written in your notes," Tan You said with a smile. "My memory is pretty good. I just happened to see it and remembered."
"Your memory is seriously amazing," Zhou Wen exclaimed. "If I had a memory like that, memorizing vocabulary wouldn't be so painful. This is great! Tingting, if you know chemistry, we can discuss it together from now on."
Tan You wasn't used to being praised. "Hehe..."
Seeing her laugh like that, Cao Xia pinched her cheek. "You should smile more often. You look so pretty when you smile, you know?"
It was the first time someone had called her pretty. Tan You froze for a second. 'Even though they're praising Han Tingting's appearance, I still feel happy,' she thought. 'After all, right now, I *am* Han Tingting.'
The three girls' study group continued all the way until the final exams. By then, it was the dead of winter. She had been in this world for nearly two months, and so far, no one had noticed anything unusual about Han Tingting.
After the eighth-grade final exams ended, the students all went home, but the ninth graders had to stay at school for supplementary classes. As Tan You was packing her things to leave, Cao Xia and Zhou Wen were incredibly reluctant to see her go. "Tingting, we're really going to miss you."
"Once you go back, it'll just be me and Cao Xia studying together."
"And there'll be no one to explain problems to us or point out the key topics."
Tan You said shyly, "Everything the teachers talk about is a key topic. And aren't your grades pretty good already?"
Cao Xia preened. "Of course! My grades have improved a lot recently. It just goes to show you should study with positive and motivated people."
Not to be outdone, Zhou Wen added, "Me too! I wonder what my rank will be on this final exam."
"But I know you'll definitely do great, Tingting. I heard you've been first in the grade on the last few weekly quizzes."