After The Honest Person Was Discovered For Simultaneously Pursuing Three People - Chapter 75

Chapter 75: Second Place

After that night, Tao Ning spent his time constantly fluctuating between recurring fever and drowsiness. His periods of lucidity were few, but whenever he opened his eyes, he could always see Zhao Jingqun’s gentle, yet strained, smile.

The man’s face had a stubble that Tao Ning had never seen before, making him look a little fierce, but his voice was extremely tender: “Be a good boy, baby. On the day we leave the hospital, your husband will tell you some good news… I’m going to wipe you down now.”

“…Mhm.” Tao Ning’s voice was barely audible through the ventilator.

For fear of infection and fever, he hadn’t touched water for a long time. Zhao Jingqun would carefully wipe his body with a towel soaked in hot water every few days. This made Tao Ning feel a little better, but not by much, because his whole body was still aching and he couldn’t muster any strength. Also, due to the prolonged fever, his thoughts were completely blocked by the heat, making it impossible to think clearly.

Occasionally, when the ventilator was removed, Tao Ning would ask blankly, “…Am I going to die?”

The man wiping his body instantly froze. Under the fluorescent light, his deep-set, somewhat roguish face shifted dramatically. Eventually, all the emotions blended together, making his entire face appear distorted. After a long moment, he resumed wiping.

It was another long pause before the man’s tone became extremely stiff: “Tao Ning, when you say things like that, it feels like you’re gouging flesh out of my heart.”

Tao Ning stared blankly: “I’m sorry, I won’t say it again.”

Although he felt that life and death were quite normal. There was probably another reason why his second and third sisters disliked him: they thought their adopted younger brother was an ungrateful, heartless wretch because he didn’t shed a single tear when their parents died. When they asked him why he wasn’t crying, little Tao Ning simply said: “People always die.”

His second and third sisters held this against him, believing he was heartless and should be sent away. Only after Tao Yuan took over his guardianship did they let it go.

His lips were kissed by the man. Tao Ning clearly felt Zhao Jingqun’s body trembling slightly. At that moment, he was no longer the omnipotent person in Tao Ning’s heart; Zhao Jingqun also felt fear. The sadness emanating from the depths of the man’s heart enveloped Tao Ning like a tide.

Only then did Tao Ning realize:

Death is a desperate thing for the living, so he absolutely had to live well.

Fortunately, heaven was on Tao Ning’s side. After running a fever continuously for over a week, his mental state finally improved. During this time, he had been receiving injections of a biological agent called “ATG.” When he was able to walk out of bed, Zhao Jingqun brought six test papers over, his constantly wrinkled brow smoothing out. “Silly baby, look what I brought?”

The six papers were laid out one by one in front of Tao Ning. They were his midterm exam papers from the last two weeks. He was a science student. Except for Chinese, where he scored 115, all other subjects were close to a perfect score. Mathematics and Physics were perfect scores.

Tao Ning was delighted, but then he remembered that Oksonte’s total score also included points for personal conduct, so his overall score would definitely be greatly reduced. Zhao Jingqun, however, smiled and said, “Silly baby, you placed second in the entire grade.”

“R-really?” Tao Ning’s eyes widened, and his beautiful face was flushed with excitement.

Zhao Jingqun couldn’t help but stroke his soft hair. “Really. I got the news a few days ago and even bought a gift to celebrate.”

Sun Old Second’s voice came from outside the door, “Hey, be gentle when you go in, don’t disturb our Young Master.” The door opened, and Tao Ning looked over. He saw two workers carefully carrying a transparent box, two meters long and half a meter wide. Looking at the meticulously packaged item inside, silver metallic luster glittered under the light, with countless complex parts assembled into a massive object.

Tao Ning’s eyes widened even more, and he exclaimed in surprise, “It’s Optimus Prime!”

Besides loving Ultraman, Tao Ning also loved all mechanical Transformers and similar toys, but at home, he would only stop briefly in front of the stationery store to look, never buying anything.

Now, suddenly receiving a massive Transformer, Tao Ning had double the joy. And that wasn’t all. After the already-assembled giant Optimus Prime was brought in, another equally tall package box was brought in. The outside of the box was covered with the “TRANSFORMERS” brand’s iconic slogans.

“The one just now was assembled,” Zhao Jingqun said, smiling as he looked at Tao Ning’s sparkling eyes. “This one needs to be assembled by the baby himself. When you’re a little better, I’ll assemble it with you, okay?”

Tao Ning eagerly went up to the two toy boxes, which were several heads taller than him. He touched and poked the boxes through the transparent packaging, unable to take his hands off them. “Mhm! Okay.”

Zhao Jingqun followed behind him, holding his shoes, and said helplessly, “Baby, put your shoes on…”

Tao Ning’s attention was completely captivated by the giant Transformer toys, and he had completely forgotten about his grades. What he didn’t know was that the grades, which ranked second in importance after Optimus Prime, had already caused a huge uproar at Oksonte.

A post titled [The person I bet on didn’t lose his shirt, who is that second-place student?] had only been up for ten minutes and already had five or six pages of replies.

One-third of the people were discussing the gossip between Tao Ning and “Second Young Master Song,” the “Grade First President” (Xu Jun), and an “Unidentified Outsider.” Another third were discussing, “Tao Ning is a transfer student from a remote area, could such high scores have been achieved by cheating?” The final third were discussing what Tao Ning looked like without glasses and attached many secretly taken photos.

Until a reply from a user named “Study Hard” said: “He definitely cheated. I was in the same exam room as him. His scratch paper for the math exam was untouched, and he was spacing out the rest of the time. It’s impossible to get such a high score. I’ve already reported him to the Academic Affairs Office. Everyone, wait for the result.”

There were replies agreeing, and of course, those who were suspicious.

UghUghUgh: “Support 129L. I heard from people in his class that Tao Ning takes sick leave every few days. How could a sick person get such high scores?”

OksonteLeadershipSucks: “His English is terrible. How did he score 148…? Hehe, wait for the result.”

LovesMilkTeaWithSnailNoodles: “I’m also waiting for the result, but seriously, doesn’t anyone know he’s already on the roster for the Olympiad class?”

SoaringEagle: “129L, if he cheated, I’ll drop out immediately. I’m Wang Peng from Class 5. If you’re lying, I’ll make sure you can’t stay in this school.”

…

Wang Peng, in his villa, was furious. Not long ago, he was still showing off under the warm inquiries of his family, just because they were surprised he scored over 400 points in this exam! Wang Peng thought he was awesome. After all, he hadn’t scored even 200 points in over ten years of schooling. Even though he had copied Tao Ning to get those 400+ points, he still thought he was amazing, and at the same time, he became more convinced that Tao Ning was a god of learning.

He was about to call Tao Ning to send him a gift, but when scrolling through the posts, he saw the comment from the ID [Study Hard]. Wang Peng was so angry that he exposed himself in the comments. Whether Tao Ning copied or not, he—who got 400+ points by copying Tao Ning—knew best. What made him want to shout “Awesome” the most was that all the multiple-choice questions he copied were actually correct!

If that wasn’t a god of learning, what was? Where did this clueless person come from, making noise in the thread?

Since posting on Oksonte was real-name authenticated, and the speaker’s identity could be traced, Wang Peng immediately contacted a friend in the Student Council, asking him to find out which class and name belonged to the person behind this ID, and also asked him to delete the post. The Student Council member replied: “The person is Liu Yuliang from Class 2. The President is already in the process of deleting the post.”

Wang Peng: “Liu Yuliang, huh? I’ve made a note of it.”

Wang Peng: “Wait, didn’t Xu Jun take a leave of absence?”

The other person: “Not yet.”

After a while, Wang Peng was puzzled. He found that the inflammatory post was still there, but all the rumors about Tao Ning and the three men were gone. Only scattered information about Tao Ning and Xu Jun remained. All other negative comments about Tao Ning had been deleted, especially the photos—not a single one was left.

Only the ID [Study Hard] and the replies below it remained. It seemed the person who deleted the post deliberately left these comments.

At the same time, in the four-person dorm room at Oksonte, Liu Yuliang was gnashing his teeth while solving several math problems and replying to private messages asking if Tao Ning’s cheating was true. He replied to all of them, confirming that it was.

“Why is it wrong? Why…” The score column on his math paper showed a glaring 100, far less than his math score at his previous school. Liu Yuliang attributed this to the fact that Oksonte’s questions were too difficult. He had only recently transferred and hadn’t adapted yet, so it was understandable.

But Liu Yuliang couldn’t accept that Tao Ning actually scored a perfect score in math! He had clearly seen with his own eyes that Tao Ning’s scratch paper was blank and he hadn’t used his pen at all, only daydreaming and spacing out. How could he get a perfect score?!

Liu Yuliang believed that Tao Ning must have obtained the answers in advance because he knew Tao Ning had connections with those wealthy, influential students and was also roommates with Xu Jun. Therefore, Tao Ning’s score must have come from cheating. When the results came out, Liu Yuliang saw that Tao Ning ranked second in the grade, while he ranked outside the top 100. Although he didn’t have to transfer schools, he was still furious and immediately went to the Academic Affairs Office to report Tao Ning for cheating that very day.

The Academic Affairs Office said they would investigate and verify and told him to wait for the results.

So when Liu Yuliang saw the inflammatory post, he didn’t hesitate to say that Tao Ning’s score was obtained by cheating. However, seeing the replies under his ID, Liu Yuliang became uneasy and frantically began to recalculate the math problems he had gotten wrong until he couldn’t be sure if the answers Tao Ning had mentioned earlier were incorrect.

Liu Yuliang asked his roommate: “Has your class started reviewing the math paper? Lend it to me to check the answers.” Their dorm was made up of transfer students from different classes. All midterm exam papers were only reviewed after the scores were released, but the progress of each class was different, and Liu Yuliang’s class hadn’t reviewed this exam yet.

His roommate handed him the paper. “Which subject?”

“…Math.”

Liu Yuliang took the paper. His heart sank when he saw the familiar answers. “Did you copy the answers wrong?” Because the few problems he was unsure about were exactly the answers Tao Ning had mentioned long ago.

The roommate didn’t like Liu Yuliang. He found him stubborn and troublesome. He said speechlessly, “If you think they’re wrong, don’t look. Give it back to me.” He pulled the paper back.

Liu Yuliang gritted his teeth: “You definitely copied them wrong. I’ll give you the correct answers tomorrow.”

Roommate: “…” How inexplicable.

The next day, as soon as Liu Yuliang woke up, he found his private messages flooded with questions about the result. This boosted Liu Yuliang’s confidence, and the uneasiness in his heart instantly subsided.

He felt that since these people were so concerned about the result, they must also believe that Tao Ning’s scores were achieved through cheating. After all, how could a transfer student from the countryside, no matter how capable, overcome the difficulty of Oksonte’s exams and place second in the grade? It must be that he cheated!

As a transfer student himself, Liu Yuliang naturally knew the difficulty of this exam, so he firmly believed that Tao Ning had obtained the answers in advance from those privileged students. He hated such dirty dealings the most. He also received a private message from the ID “SoaringEagle”, who had argued with him yesterday:

“I’ll be waiting for you at the Academic Affairs Office.”

He immediately blocked this person and posted a thread before leaving the dorm—”The result of Tao Ning’s cheating is out, everyone has waited long enough.”

It seemed many people had been waiting for the result of the cheating accusation against the second-place student. As soon as Liu Yuliang posted, there were dozens of replies.

OksonteLeadershipSucks: “I support you, brother. I’ve long been annoyed by Tao Ning’s pretentious attitude. He never even speaks a word normally, but he licks up to Xu Jun and Song Yucong like a lapdog.”

UghUghUgh: “The show’s starting. When will the result be announced?”

NoRainInTokyo: “1L you’re disgusting. He didn’t pay attention to you, and you got all defensive, didn’t you?”

InvincibleTinyBunny: “Am I the only one seriously waiting for this result?”

…

The post quickly shot to the top trending spot. Liu Yuliang’s hand, holding his phone, began to shake. Since coming to Oksonte, everywhere was filled with disdain and contempt for transfer students. His excellent grades used to make him the center of attention in his former school, but he was nothing at Oksonte.

He had experienced a huge psychological drop and hadn’t received so much attention in a long time.

Liu Yuliang’s vanity instantly swelled. He checked the route to the Academic Affairs Office and quickly replied politely: “Don’t worry, everyone. I’m about to get the result. I always believe that while fairness may be far from us, justice is never late!”

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