The tactics of the two valedictorians from HSAU stunned everyone.

Even the teachers sitting in the wait area were equally stunned.

“Teacher Guo, that’s a great strategy. Who came up with that?” Some of teachers next to the teacher of HSAU and asked with regret.

More teachers came over and chimed in. “Yeah, these two students worked so well together. They have had trained a lot before this competition.”

Being asked by the other teachers around, Teacher Kao smiled with a guilty conscience: That really wasn’t a tactic that the teachers had come up with. He was as surprised as everyone else there, alright?

Lin Anxin became nervous all of a sudden.

Everyone’s attention was focused on the competition right now. But, as soon as the competition was over, everyone would know that she was lying. No way. She could not apologize to Gu Xi openly.

As she thought about that, Lin Anxin gritted her teeth and ran out of the wait area.

The two girls who were sitting next to her frowned deeply.

“Where’s Lin Anxin going?”

“Where do you think she’s going? She went to pick on Lin… Gu Xi purposefully earlier and ended up being faceslapped. Would she wait around now to be faceslapped again?”

“Now cut over to the surveillance video,” said Gu Shao to the technicians in the office suddenly.

“Okay.” With Gu Shao’s order, the two technicians switched the surveillance feed over to the wait and rest areas with alacrity.

Within the wait area, the audiences noticed that the live progresses of the schools that they had been watching had been compressed and fit into one screen and, the screen on the right was now displaying the surveillance video.

“This is the live surveillance video view!” Someone shouted out.

A grid of 30 pictures appeared on the large screen. They were the cameras from all four corners overlooking the entire venue and 26 individual ones panned onto each of the 26 students above their seat.

“I know one of the two on the HSAU team is Sheng Xiuyan. Who is the other person?” Someone asked.

The person next to them frowned and thought about it long and hard and finally shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know them.”

“But both of them are fast.”

On the screen, under the HSAU row, both numbers 1 and 2, regardless of whether they were going from top down or bottom up were very fast.

“Even Snake [in the video game] wouldn’t go that fast.” Someone grumbled.

“Speaking of, I have heard of the famous Sheng Xiuyan. Since when did HSAU have another mighty valedictorian like that?”

The time-limited section started and both Gu Xi and Sheng Xiuyan entered into their quiet answering state. One of them started from top down, the other one bottom up. Neither one of them distracted each other.

At the same time, inside the wait area and rest area, the display on the two large screens switched into two columns.

The team number of the 26 participating schools appeared on the left-hand side followed by the numbers “1” and “2”.

“What are those?” Many were curious about them.

“Every single school is on there. Are they scores going to be displayed live?” The competition had been switched to paperless now. Scoring would be much faster.

The final round. Per the rules, each school would only be sending two persons to compete.

Gu Xi and Sheng Xiuyan would be representing HSAU. The others would be waiting in the wait area till the round was over and the award ceremony that followed.

Many in the wait area discovered, to their surprises, the two new huge screens on the wall. Displayed on one of them was the name of the competition and on the other, a countdown to the final found and some other data.

“Wow, this wait area was really hopped up overnight,” lamented someone.

“No kidding.”

“What’s that?” Someone pointed at the data on the lower part of the screen on the left-hand side.

Over in a reception room in the experimental teaching area.

Gu Shao, who had just received the text pulled his phone out and glanced at it. A tenderness flashed past his eyes. He thought about it some and replied with a “Good job.”

“Carry on.” Gu Shao looked at the individuals in front of him after he put his phone away.

Sitting across from Gu Shao was the host of the Joint Science Competition.

“Our paperless testing model is a huge success. The system is stable right now and the competitors, once they had gotten used to it, gave very positive feedbacks……” said Boss Zhou, the responsible party for the joint competition. His attitude toward Gu Shao was respectful.

After her first day of competition, Gu Xi could sit relaxingly in the rest area and be an audience on the second day.

What was surprising to her was that Lin Anxin did not participate in any of the 4 competitions over both days.

In addition to Lin Anxin, the other freshman from Liming did not participate in any competition either.

Calling her a passerby would be an understatement.

Thought Gu Xi to herself.

As the principal of Liming had described their practice: The main force for the competition comprised sophomores and juniors. The freshmen were the seeds for the future and were straightly there to observe.

The first round of competition today was mathematics. It so happened that the ones competing would be Gu Xi, Gu Chenyi, and Sheng Xiuyan.

“Did you bring scratch paper and pen with you?” Worried, Gu Xi asked Gu Chenyi again immediately before they boarded the car.

“Yes, I did.”

Except how worried was Xixi about him?

Thought Gu Chenyi – it was all his fault for being too sloppy on their second meeting.

Gu Xi couldn't help but smiled when she saw the look on Gu Chenyi. She patted him on his shoulder and said, “Good luck.”

Looking at the way that Gu Xi was acting, Gu Chenyi, next to her, had to try very hard not to bust out laughing. Xixi’s unreasonable-don’t-need-reason-what-I-said-is-the-reasonstance could almost match that of their grandfather’s.

“In addition, you wanted to say that I am not competent and that Liming lost last year because I didn’t do well and that I will be dragging HSAU down this year, right?

“Well, pardon me then. I’m afraid the truth just might disappoint you. If we have anyone other than Gao Zifan last year, oh, even if it was you, we would not have ended up in third place.” They would be in second place at the very minimum.

“You are lying!” Lin Anxin shouted loudly. She stared at Gu Xi and said, “Nobody knew what the actual scores were. You can say whatever you want now.

Gao Zifan was already a legend-like existence at Liming. He was from a good family, handsome, and had good grades. Nevertheless, all of those became insignificant when compared to Sheng Xiuyan.

This was the first time that Gao Zifan was able to talk to this legend face-to-face. Sheng Xiuyan had a relaxed look on him but others could feel his pressing aura.

“So you are saying that someone dragged the team down, causing you to lose to HSAU?” Sheng Xiuyan continued to ask.

The others from HSAU nearby didn’t care for what Sheng Xiuyan had just said: We earned first place fair and square, alright?

Gao Zifan became more nervous with Sheng Xiuyan’s questioning.

Gao Zifan wasn’t the only one chastised. Gu Xi, too, was chastised with him. The reason being poor team work.

After the fact, it was such an embarrassing issue that the school didn’t want to bring it up again nor did the teacher mentioned anything about the two’s scores.

As such, not very many knew about this and those who knew anything at all would not think that Gao Zifan was the one who dragged Gu Xi down with him.

As for Lin Anxin, she heard the story from Gao Zifan.

She was over at Gao Zifan’s place at the time and they started talking about the competition. Gao Zifan was in a bad mood at the time and said that it was Gu Xi’s fault.

Lin Anxin wanted those from Liming to feel that Gu Xi had betrayed them while shaking up Gu Xi’s relationship with those from HSAU?

Gu Xi found that comical. Did Lin Anxin think that a competition like this was like playing house?

Sure enough, as soon as Lin Anxin finished talking, even though the students from both schools looked at Gu Xi with surprise in their eyes but those from HSAU quickly returned to their normal self.

“Senior Gu Xi transferred to our school. Of course she will be representing HSAU. Why would she still be representing Liming?” said Yang Mengmeng as she rolled her eyes at Lin Anxin.

Gu Xi’s words made Lin Anxin turn pale bit by bit. And her look went from its original aggressiveness to fear.

She hadn’t expected that Gu Xi would share what had happened between her mother and father. How dare she! Was she not worried that others would look down upon her if she shared those details?

Looking at how calm Gu Xi was, Lin Anxin was intimidated. She couldn’t let Gu Xi share those stories, or how they were related with each other. That would otherwise bring problems for her.

Backed into a corner, Lin Anxin grabbed a cup in front of her and threw it onto the floor.

KADONG!

The loud noises startled everyone there.

Lin Anxin’s delicate voice came from not too far away. “Eating at a different spot is a nice change of scenery. Besides, doesn’t that window up front looks like it will give a better view? And we can see when our bus arrives as well.”

The others didn’t really agree with her. All of the others had the competition in mind right now and just couldn’t care less about where to sit to have breakfast and how good the view was.

At this very moment, however, a male’s voice rang, “Okay, let’s go over there then.”

With the boy’s buy in, the others no longer object to it.

And that was how the “run in” happened.

“Eh? Isn’t that Lin Xi from our school before?” shouted Lin Anxin as she pointed in Gu Xi’s direction.

Having heard that Liming was also staying at this hotel, Gu Xi wasn’t surprised to run into Liming’s students here.

Gu Xi wasn’t sure whether Gu Shao has said something to the principal that day that he went with her for her transferring process, but she heard that Liming’s school forum had been closed down for rectifications after their departure.

And the rumors about her had disappeared completely along with the other malicious speculations.

As such, even though Gu Xi would still be a little nervous when she ran into someone from Liming, it was just a slight nervousness.

After walking past the other two, Gu Xi could still hear them talking from not too far behind her.

That night, after Gu Xi had settled in and was just about to start studying, a message popped up on her phone.

It was from Gu Chenyi with just four words: [Come to your door.] He even added a you-know­-whatemoji at the end of it.

Gu Xi was baffled but she still walked over to the door with her cellphone on hand.

“What is it?” asked Gu Xi with her brows raised as she looked at Gu Chenyi who looked like he had just returned from the outside.

“Take you to good food.” Gu Chenyi dragged Gu Xi downstairs with him when he was done talking.

Gu Chenyi retrieved bags of snacks that he had stored at the front desk and handed them all over to Gu Xi.

“What?” Gu Chenyi was taken aback a little after he saw the message from Gu Yanxiao before he figured out what he was saying.

“Oh shoot! It’s all over!” He had shared in the wrong chat group!

He meant to send to the [One Happy Family], the one without his Second Uncle, but his hand slipped and clicked on [Big Happy Family], the one with Gu Shao.

In addition, there were also [Making the Family Happy] and [Big Happy Clan], which excluded his Big Uncle and his father, respectively. Old Mr. Gu was the one who named all of them.

Gu Chenyi couldn’t figure out why his grandfather must make the names so similar! Was he not worried that he would share to the wrong group when he badmouthed a certain son of his?!

Gu Xi left her house and went back to school.

Her car pulled over closed to the meeting spot and, as soon as Gu Xi got out of the car and before she could even stand still, Gu Chenyi popped out of nowhere.

“Oh hey, what a coincidence.” Walking in front of Gu Xi, he gave her the I-just-happened-to-walk-past-and-saw-youlook.

Gu Xi: Hoho, alright. I’ll just play along and not call you out on it.

“It is surely a coincidence,” said Gu Xi as she raised the corners of her lips expressionlessly.

On the other end, the chauffeur had already pulled Gu Xi’s luggage out from the trunk and, before Gu Xi could walk over there, Gu Chenyi had already beaten her to it and stretched his arm out at the chauffeur.

After she returned home that night, Gu Xi told Gu Shao about the joint competition.

“……, as such, I will be gone for three days.”

Having heard that, Gu Shao nodded and said, “Alright.”

Gu Shao had already learned about Gu Xi being in the competition – Director Zhou from school had already given him a call that afternoon, when he was in a meeting, and informed him of it.

Gu Xi was dazed. She looked at Gu Shao: Was that it? There was nothing else that he wanted to say?

Over on this side, Gu Shao looked up from a document and saw that Gu Xi was still standing there, her head lowered, looking troubled. It seemed there was even a hint of disappointment in her eyes?