Study Monster Cultivation System

Chapter 72 - 072 Master, you’re here again?

But by then, Li Zheng’s perspective had completely changed.

Although he was still a bit confused about English grammar, such as fixed phrases and complements, once he knew all the words, he could easily make sense of the meaning—

"Mountain Star’s latest product is called Note7. Unfortunately, it was discontinued 38 days into manufacturing due to ____ consumption."

The last sentence was a bit tricky, as English often has inexplicably inverted structures.

According to Chinese convention, it should be—

"It was discontinued only 38 days after ____ consumption."

After confirming this, a quick glance at the four answers allowed him to confidently choose D based on his intuition.

D. available, which means obtainable and also implies "available for purchase."

Moreover, ’available for’ is a set phrase that directly translates to ’available for,’ followed by consumption, meaning available for consumption.

All in all, students with a good sense of language and a large vocabulary could easily make the right choice.

Those who had memorized the phrase ’available for’ could mindlessly select the correct answer.

Li Zheng then flipped through the answers, and sure enough, the correct answer was D.

He shook his head.

It was simply too easy, so easy that it was dull.

English learning really is all about building vocabulary.

Others might not care.

But I, for one, will never need to memorize another word in my life.

"Ha..." Li Zheng laughed unconsciously again.

"Yikes!" Zhang Xiaoke shuddered with a scare, looking at Li Zheng with some concern, "Master, are you at it again?"

"It’s okay, it’s okay, I just thought of something happy," Li Zheng waved his hand and put the problem set back.

"To think of something happy from looking at English..." Zhang Xiaoke suddenly remembered something, "Right, I am going to challenge English today."

"Oh?" Li Zheng raised his eyebrows.

"Humph, I won’t let you off just because you finished the basketball game with a nosebleed," Zhang Xiaoke chuckled, "If you are too tired, just admit I win, and spare yourself the agony of taking the English test."

"Xiaoke, let me tell you seriously," Li Zheng nodded earnestly, "You better save the English challenge for last."

"Why?"

"I’m afraid you’ll despair."

"Haha!"

As they were speaking, the bell rang.

The classmates immersed in the basketball game had no choice but to return to their seats.

Zhang Xiaoke took the opportunity to pull out her schedule: "Luckily, we have two consecutive English periods this afternoon, and we’ll likely do the papers continuously, so there’s no need to set aside separate time to compete with you."

With that, she pressed her hands together, took a deep breath, and closed her eyes to pray.

"Do the papers ... do the papers ... do the papers ..."

The people nearby, seeing her devout manner, couldn’t help but be somewhat alarmed.

The lively Zhang Xiaoke from the previous week, how had she changed so much.

What on earth had Li Zheng done to her?

Soon, English Teacher Zhao walked into the classroom with a stack of papers.

"Yay..." Zhang Xiaoke secretly clenched her fists in approval.

The people around her, however, glared fiercely.

Dammit, how come this person is now behaving just like Li Zheng.

Zhao Yinghua was a veteran female teacher, around fifty, her half-grey hair bunned up at the back of her head, moving leisurely—complete opposite of Hu Chunmei.

But rumor had it, she was Hu Chunmei’s mentor who used to be even tougher than Hu Chunmei herself.

Until she met the notorious "worst class ever."

That year, she was utterly defeated; her blood pressure skyrocketed, and under school pressure, she was allowed to stop being the homeroom teacher.

Since then, she embarked on a journey of health preservation, only teaching English, without caring whether students listened or not.

This also made the English class the second most popular class to sleep in after biological science.

As for the double period on Monday afternoons, they indeed mostly spent it doing papers, and Zhang Xiaoke had timed it just right.

As Zhao Yinghua distributed the papers while massaging them, she said in her calm voice, "Two cloze tests, two readings, 60 minutes to finish, rest for 10 minutes, peer-review with your desk mate, then review the paper."

Accompanied by her Buddha-like tone, the students, initially quite excited, gradually grew sleepy.

Only Zhang Xiaoke was fiercely determined.

She chuckled secretly and glanced at Li Zheng, who was about to change his soaked towel.

Humph.

No matter who you are, you’re about to collapse from exhaustion now, right?

I won’t miss this rare chance to pass English in one go.

She eagerly took the two test papers and, after briefly reviewing them, said, "20 cloze questions, each worth 3 points, and 8 reading comprehension questions, each worth 5 points, adding up to 100 points exactly. Let’s get started, Master."

"Xiaoke, I really don’t want to do this," Li Zheng said weakly as he took the papers, "How about we call it a day and tomorrow you can start by challenging me in Chinese?"

Zhang Xiaoke shrugged and smiled.

Li Zheng, oh Li Zheng, you also have days like this?

Then don’t blame me for taking advantage of someone in trouble.

Zhang Xiaoke said with a cold laugh, "Hehe, today Her Majesty is in the mood. You have to compete whether you like it or not."

"Alas," Li Zheng sighed and uncapped his pen.

What followed was the tedious task of doing the test papers.

Without the deterrence of Lin Yujing, and truly worn out from the basketball game, Liu Xin immediately fell asleep.

In the classroom, his snoring set the main melody

Accompanied by a frequent chorus of yawns.

This then was the afternoon symphony of Lake Ying Middle School.

Even Li Zheng was made drowsy by them.

Of course, the cloze and reading comprehension were indeed boring.

For him, who knew forty thousand words, it felt like he was reading instructional materials intended for a 5-year-old.

Topics like wildlife protection, the benefits of rising early.

There were also those roundabout inverted sentences, appositives.

Foreigners reading these would probably feel the same as we do reading classical Chinese texts.

Yet, even with his vocabulary of forty thousand words, Li Zheng’s answers were still not perfect.

His grammar and language sense still had much to improve.

This required building up reading volume.

Reading English novels and journals, he had tried before, but due to limited vocabulary, it was painful, always having to check the dictionary and compare translations, which was inefficient.

But now, that problem no longer existed, although reading would still be somewhat slower than Chinese, but after about a hundred or so pieces, he believed he would quickly get the hang of it.

Well, why not check out some English science fiction magazines?

They’re interesting and can increase knowledge and improve English skills.

Thinking this, Li Zheng widened his eyes.

Wasn’t this what Lin Yujing used to do?

During class, Lin Yujing often looked through foreign magazines under her desk.

He used to think she was just posing.

Now, it seemed she was actually studying.

Ah, she had been exposed even back then.

And yet, he thought she was only posing.

Truly short-sighted.

My imagination was limited by my vocabulary.

Following that, Li Zheng took a full two minutes to finish the English questions.

He initially wanted to do some extensive reading, but the intense drowsiness struck again.

Overloading the body definitely had its costs.

He tried to resist at first.

But the sleepy atmosphere during the English class was just too good.

Li Zheng could no longer hold out and fell asleep headfirst.

Zhang Xiaoke, seeing this, was overjoyed.

Haha, you also have days like this!

Hey, this is being served to me on a silver platter.

It’s time for you to witness the true power of the 1479th ranked student at Ren University Affiliated High School!