Study Monster Cultivation System

Chapter 175 - 174 Unsolved Mysteries

He immediately closed his eyes to inspect again.

[Physics: 182???]

Ah...

I hadn’t even looked at any textbooks.

Just venting by doing problems, how had I improved so much?

Not good, not good, this won’t do.

Improving too quickly, I will end up like in chemistry, unable to find difficult problems.

I can’t keep going like this, slower, slower, please.

Time, time, slow down, don’t make me stronger anymore.

In a daze, Li Zheng rubbed his chin again.

He felt the stubble.

Shi Yang couldn’t stand it anymore and dragged Li Zheng in front of the bathroom mirror, "Look at what you’ve become!"

"Ah," Li Zheng stared at the slight stubble and naturally disheveled hair of his literary and artistic self in the mirror, slightly unable to recognize himself, "Has it been so long? It feels like just a moment."

"It’s been two days," Shi Yang said, rubbing his hands and raising his eyebrows, "Guess what, Zhou Chenghuan was just bluffing. He recommended me last night, haha!"

"Congratulations, congratulations," Li Zheng said, grabbing Shi Yang’s shoulders, "So, we can pretty much go home, right?"

"What are you talking about, the closing ceremony is tomorrow," Shi Yang shrugged off Li Zheng, not planning to get too close, "Hurry up, the second-floor auditorium, sign to get your score report, and check the rankings."

"Okay." Li Zheng quickly washed his face and tidied up, "Let’s finish this quickly, I need to go back to school, I want to study physics."

"Huh?" Shi Yang slapped Li Zheng, "Little brother, you’re thinking too much. If you rank high, day after tomorrow you’ll start national team training immediately—no leaving, just pure closed training here."

"???" Li Zheng’s entire demeanor melted, "No... no... I’ve had enough, I don’t want to touch chemistry anymore..."

"Hahaha, how wonderful is chemistry!" Shi Yang grabbed Li Zheng, his face breaking into a demonic grin, "Weren’t we supposed to synthesize stink capsules together?"

"..."

...

The second-floor auditorium was bustling, overrun with people.

It was divided into two main areas.

In the first area, three tables were set up where students were lining up to sign and collect their score reports.

The line wasn’t very long, with perhaps a few dozen people.

In the other area, three large boards were set up showing the nation’s first, second, and third-level awards (gold, silver, bronze) scores.

This area was lively, with most people clustered around the gold award board, searching for their own names over and over.

If they couldn’t find it there, they would reluctantly check the silver award.

And if not there, they had no choice but to check the bronze award.

Upon entering and seeing this scene, Li Zheng got a bit irritable.

"Too many people, I’ll go run a couple of laps and come back."

"Hey, you’re already here," Shi Yang didn’t care about that, pulling Li Zheng toward the most crowded area around the gold award.

Amazingly, when these two arrived, the people around them actually made some space and even wore expressions of awe.

Following Shi Yang, Li Zheng made his way to the front of the gold rankings board, and looked up.

Very unexpectedly,

He found his name right away.

[1st Place: Li Zheng, Lake Ying Middle School, Jijing City.]

[Combined Score: 96.5]

[Theoretical Score: 99.5, Rank: 1.]

[Experimental Score: 89, Rank: 4]

Although Li Zheng knew he had done very well,

he still stared at the lines of text, speechless for a few seconds.

Feeling a tiny bit of surprise,

and a bit of disbelief.

How... had he actually... become number one in the nation...

Feeling a bit sorry for those who truly loved chemistry...

All I did was chew through all the market-available chemistry textbooks,

and solved seven or eight thousand problems, that’s all.

This came a bit too easily,

The road for the strong is supposed to be full of hardships, to grow amidst adversity.

But when thinking about it, the first 17 years were probably the rough times.

Yeah, hard work should pay off eventually, no problem with that.

The only little doubt was.

Where did that 0.5 point go in the theory question?

Could it be...

The fingers in "The Sleeping Pose" weren’t drawn naturally enough?

Anyway, I’ll ask later.

Li Zheng soon calmed his slightly excited emotions and continued looking down the rankings.

[2nd place, Liao Yuhao, Chengdu No.7 Middle School]

[Total score: 94]

[Theory score: 95.5, ranking: 2.]

[Experimental score: 91, ranking: 3]

[3rd place, Wei Dongyang, Xiangnan Normal University Affiliate High School]

[Total score: 92]

[Theory score: 92, ranking: 3.]

[Experimental score: 93, ranking: 2]

[4th place, Shi Yang, City First School of Jijing]

[Total score: 89.5]

[Theory score: 85, ranking: 9.]

[Experimental score: 100, ranking: 1]

Seeing Shi Yang in fourth place finally put Li Zheng at ease.

If he had messed it up, he really would’ve turned into Zhu Zaizai.

But his theory score really tanked, even though he had a perfect score of 99 in the preliminary contest, the national first place—it’s hard to imagine losing 15 points on such questions.

Fortunately, his experiment was outrageously good.

Looking further below, dozens of names were from those nationally famous sinister schools.

Huazhong Normal University First Affiliate High, Changsha City First School, Huanan University Affiliated High, Guangrao No.1 Middle, and so on.

It wasn’t until the 35th spot that another teammate appeared, Zhang Yiran from No. 18 Middle School.

Shortly after, Ou Xingzhuo and Wu Shu were right next to each other, securing ranks 52 and 53.

After scanning through, at the very end of the gold medal table, the 102nd spot, another teammate from Jijing No. 12 Middle School was spotted.

In total, this session’s 13 members bagged 6 gold medals, meeting the goals and then some.

"Damn... to think I could still make fourth..." Shi Yang was also very surprised, "I thought I wouldn’t even make the top 20 with how the theory went..."

As soon as he said this, the respect from those around him turned into resentment.

"Yeah.," Li Zheng tapped Shi Yang on the head, "That’s what you get for not sleeping. I almost had a perfect score, you could have at least gotten 99."

The resentment from the people around them deepened a bit.

Resentment aside, everyone was still a part of the academic circle, where scores mean skill, and rankings equal status. Facing these two troublemakers, the proper courtesies were still extended.

"Not bad, Cobalt God."

"Your damn experiment got 100, are you insane?"

"Jijing took first place, it’s your treat!"

"Did anyone notice that the top 52 are all the same gender?"

"Your Ren Da Fu is not up to the mark, haha."

"Boss, what’s the deal with Lake Ying?"

"So far, has Cheng Huan not yet signed Beauty God?"

While enjoying a harmonious time, Li Zheng and Shi Yang greeted everyone with clasped hands and squeezed out to line up for signing and collecting their score reports.

Crew cut guys surrounding them naturally came over to strike up conversations.

No way to avoid it, they were the center of attention this time.

Along with the congratulatory admiration, similar questions were also raised—

Where did that 0.5 point go?

Of course, Li Zheng wanted to know too.

This was probably the biggest unsolved mystery in this year’s Chem Competitions.

As they chatted, suddenly a tall glasses-wearing crew cut man barreled through.

Yu Zhiqiang jogged over, pushing through the crowd, and motioned to Li Zheng and Shi Yang, "You two, come out here, quick."