CH 1

The last class in the morning was PE, and Li Nanbian and a young lady were walking around the sports ground under the scorching sun. A student who was resting beside the basketball court saw a “love rival” and whistled like a rogue at them. “Comrade Nanbian is very good, he can get a date with such a shabby appearance, did he use an evil spell?” Lu Rong was sitting in the middle of the group, laughing together with everyone.

Li Nanbian glared at the trouble-making students, awkwardly reminding Jin Menglu, “Lil’ sis, hurry up and make a decision! Or else everyone will think we are dating!”

Jin Menglu bashfully turned red.

She heard from a friend that people could copy Li Nanbian’s homework, so she looked for him.

Chengnan High was located in the center of S City; it was a key high school in S City, the rate of graduation from the undergraduate course reached 99%, the school atmosphere was good, and it had nurtured no small amount of talented people during the school’s long history of more than 100 years.

However, after the students were admitted into Chengnan High, they realized this famous school… was only so-so.

A few years ago, the whole nation tried implementing an exam-oriented education program, while Chengnan High leisurely used the same quality-oriented education as before and introduced many policies that benefited their students but angered the parents. Examples included “students can skip class for the next semester if you score an A+ in any subject on your final exam”. Or, “on Wednesday afternoons students go to extracurricular classes, no need to attend normal classes”.

Chengnan High was quality-oriented, but other schools were all desperately completing exam papers; these past few years, Chengnan High’s rank in the city was bad—currently, it was in the lower ranks of the city’s key schools. For every entrance exam the ten schools held, the first nine were striving hard while Chengnan High steadfastly stood still, steadily placing last.

Although an undergraduate rate of 99% seemed promising, it could only deceive parents with high expectations for their children. Facing the first-rank Bi Hai High with the same 99% rate, every year they were filled with students going to Tsinghua  or Peking University as undergraduates. Chengnan High did not have any students in Tsinghua  or Peking University in the past five years; although both were key high schools, there were still some differences.

Under higher education’s strong pressure, the school leader was finally woken up from his heavenly dream: it couldn’t go on like this.

If this continued, S City’s old and prestigious Chengnan High will become a regular school!

So, when Li Nanbian and Lu Rong were admitted this past year, Chengnan had turned into a monster school; merely in the first year, up to 20 exam papers could be issued over the weekend.

The students protested, “It is too much!”

Jin Menglu was the type that was slower to adapt. From when she was young until now, she had always been an obedient girl; she always obeyed the teacher and her assignments had to be well-done. But last night, she worked on her papers until 3 o’clock, and she collapsed.

When she woke up in the morning, she not only had panda eyes, but she also had acne!

Jin Menglu secretly used her mother’s skincare product, and after arriving at school, she looked for Li Nanbian from Class 8 under the guidance of her friend.

Li Nanbian had an undistinguished appearance, and his scores were not good. During PE class, he incompetently went to play volleyball with the girls; he didn’t have the qualifications to play basketball with the boys. It could be said that he had no redeeming value; under normal circumstances, Jin Menglu wouldn’t pay attention to this type of man.

However, according to her friend, this mediocre Li Nanbian had control of the homework-copying industry for the entire grade. From him, you could buy any kind of papers’ answers; Jin Menglu was moved.

Coincidentally, the fourth class this morning was a combined PE class, so she, accompanied by her friend, found Li Nanbian, and she pulled him aside to find out more about how to buy homework.

“Let’s put it this way, we can get the answers for any papers you do.” Li Nanbian answered calmly.

Jin Menglu was not quite convinced. These test papers were not common in bookstores; they were put together by teachers using various books. They not only prepared the papers, they also helped share information with each other in other key schools, and sometimes they even used papers from a few years prior.

Of course, if you put more effort into looking for information in various books, checked materials and went online, you could find the answers for every question, but that was too strenuous.

She didn’t want to waste so much effort.

If Li Nanbian was as miraculous as he claimed to be, then she could save some more time for her precious beauty sleep.

“But… one paper for 3 yuan, it’s a little bit too expensive,” muttered Jin Menglu.

One weekend has 20 papers, that’s 60 yuan total! It’s not worth spending so much just to copy homework. Even if she never ate pork, did that mean she had never seen pigs walk?[1] When people copy homework, it was a matter of helping each other; how could he charge fees?

Li Nanbian had answered this type of question a lot, and he sighed, “Lil sister, we provide a safe, reliable, and guaranteed service. Do you think the teacher didn’t know when you copied your friend’s homework? If you buy from us, it is the only version in the entire grade!”

“Really?”　　

Li Nanbian answered, “If you want the 60-points one, we can give you the 60-points one; if you want the 90-points one, we can give you the 90-points one; the wrong answers are different from the other versions, you just need to copy it accordingly, it is truly the only version! If you intentionally make the mistakes by yourself, you still might coincide with others. From us, it is impossible to coincide with others!”

Jin Menglu, “…” She started to believe her friend’s words, their grade really had a big, grey, homework copying industry.

Li Nanbian saw Jin Menglu hesitate, so he started to recite the price list that he had memorized by heart, “ One paper bought individually is 3 yuan, the whole subject – 20 papers – is 60 in total; Lil’ Sis, you’re quite pretty, I can give you a discount. 49 yuan, you won’t be at a disadvantage or fooled; you can try buying one, and if it is good enough, you can get the 1-month package for 159, semester package for 599, much cheaper than buying papers individually.”

Jin Menglu quivered. “Cheap…”

“Time is gold, you could buy time with money, where else in the world could you find such a good thing? A weekend without exam papers—you could watch TV, play games, date with both real and virtual boyfriends and enjoy a genuinely happy youth.”

Jin Menglu had new year’s money and an allowance, and she could spend one-to-two thousand on a pair of shoes. Students that could be admitted to Chengnan High generally have quite a good family background, and after all, she was an obedient girl. Although she was annoyed by the exam papers, she couldn’t leave any of them undone.

Li Nanbian really was a veteran businessman—just from Jin Menglu’s frown, he understood her misgivings. “Lil’ Sis, doing this repetitive work doesn’t have any meaning; after you finish the papers for half of the semester you will realize that what you know is still just those few key points, and the question type is also about the same, so doing this repeatedly is just a waste of your time. Isn’t it better to save time and find out what subjects you are lacking in and make up for them?” He said smoothly, “If you are afraid of missing some of your weaknesses, you can buy a personalized question packet.”

Jin Menglu: “Ah?”

Li Nanbian: “Royal Supreme VIP private customization service! In the homework model we provide for you, it doesn’t just simply gather questions together, it also follows your own academic foundation to make a paper just for you…” 

Having said that, his phone rang, and Li Nanbian took a glance at the message sent by Yan Gou. After finally catching up, he raised his head and smiled, then said to Jin Menglu, “If Lil’ Sis is not good at trigonometry, we can deduct points from this part; when the paper results are released, even you won’t realize whether you did it yourself or not, it is worthy to be considered ‘passing off imitation as real’. Meanwhile, we make notes on trigonometry in the paper, provide the same types of questions, solve them step by step, add exercises on the problem, and accumulate the wrong ones for your use; it truly makes an efficient and systematic way of copying homework that is beneficial for your studying.”

Jin Menglu asked tremblingly, “How… how much?”

Li Nanbian slightly smiled. “5999 yuan for one semester.”

Jin Menglu wiped away the sweat on her head. Today’s sun was too hot!

Li Nanbian saw there was a chance and continued to persuade her. “Royal Supreme VIP service is not available for trial – no splits, no credit, no discounts – because we need to invest a large amount of manpower and material resources to offer the results for every subject. It is personally set up for you, keeps track of your main points, and cares more about your study results than your homeroom teacher. To be honest, Lil’ Sis, if you go find a teacher for help with one subject on your own, it will cost you more; we provide homework answers for all subjects for one semester and support for your weak points included, so 5999 yuan is not expensive at all.”

Jin Menglu meaningfully said, “Outside remedial courses are given by famous teachers.”

Li Nanbian smiled faintly. “Our courses were provided by God.”

Jin Menglu shuddered. “God…? You can’t mean… that guy?”

Li Nanbian: “Yes.”

Jin Menglu was excited. In this Chengnan High, there was only one person who was dreadfully known as “that guy” or, to make it simpler, “God”. She doesn’t know why, but nobody uses his real name; if it was he-who-must-not-be-named, then 5999 yuan is considered inexpensive, even if you added a 0 at the end, it would still be inexpensive.

Li Nanbian pulled out a diagram of the Royal Supreme VIP clients’ recent monthly test scores for her. “This is Wang Yuxia from Class 3, after she became our client, she progressed by leaps and bounds! The point is, she didn’t need to do repetitive homework, she even found a boyfriend recently! It is Fei Qing from Class 7.”

Jin Menglu: “My god!” Fei Qing’s girlfriend is Wang Yuxia from Class 3, holy shit!

Li Nanbian talked about everything from the crude education system to the students’ dull lives; from the teachers’ centralized management of students to the persecution and pressure of an exam-oriented system as he walked around the sports field with the entangled Jin Menglu.

Jin Menglu was simply unable to make a decision.

At this time, Li Nanbian received a call and answered, “What?! Royal Supreme VIP registration is full? … Wait, I still have one here! … Bro, give me a chance!” He cried.

After hanging up the phone, Li Nanbian tearfully said to Jin Menglu, “Because there isn’t enough manpower, Royal Supreme VIP is only accepting 10 people, and now the last spot has been taken by another student. But, if you pay now, I might be able to discuss it with the boss.”

Jin Menglu is a simple student who didn’t have any experience in society. When she saw this VIP-something was very popular, she became anxious, ‘limited-edition’ has an inexplicable allure for girls.

She took out her phone. “Alipay or WeChat?”

Li Nanbian said, “It is just a possibility, I am not sure if this can work or not, if it can’t work, I’ll return the money to you.” He took a small QR code from his pocket as he said that.

Jin Menglu: “Huh? This account is not yours?”

In order to transfer a large sum, you need to verify the account name; the name shown is _Rong, and the profile picture was a cute deer.

“Lu,” Li Nanbian said solemnly. “Lu Rong.”

Lu Rong was sunbathing beside the basketball court when his phone rang; the money had been delivered. He swept a glance over to Lu Nanbian at the end of the sports field, ordering Yan Gou, who was next to him, “Arrange a meeting in the afternoon.”

Yan Gou quietly sent a meeting notice to “The Whole Team Is Evil” group chat.

T/N note: [1]  even if she didn’t experience it by herself, she still had seen other people doing it.