My IQ Increases Year by Year

"Who cares what the weather’s like? As long as we can go check out the Bund after the exam, I’m good."

Li Nanbai chewed on the ice cubes, CRUNCH, CRUNCH.

"I heard the questions this time were written by the coaching staff for the high school Olympiad national team."

Zhou Kai watched the ants on the ground.

"They’ll probably be a notch harder than last year’s."

Chen Zhuo turned his head and glanced at Zhou Kai, then stretched out a foot and gently nudged Zhou Kai’s shoe.

Chen Zhuo was chewing on his popsicle, his voice languid.

"Don’t burn yourself out ahead of time. It doesn’t matter who wrote the questions. When you get the test, you just do what you can."

He watched the leaves stirring in the wind in the distance.

"If you really can’t write anything, just flip the paper over, draw a turtle on the back, and turn it in."

Lin Yi, sitting beside them, let out a snort of laughter.

Zhang Bai laughed along, and the tension that had gripped him at the mention of the coaching staff finally loosened.

They sat on the steps, watching their popsicles slowly melt.

Listening to the rustle of the wind in the leaves.

No one mentioned math again, and no one thought about the complex formulas.

They just sat there, eating their popsicles and soaking in the last bit of free time before the exam.

...

That afternoon, at the guesthouse of the Provincial Experimental Middle School.

Chen Zhuo was in his room, packing his things.

He hadn’t brought much luggage, just a few changes of clothes and his black backpack.

He folded his clothes and placed them in his suitcase.

On the table lay the thick copy of Abstract Algebra.

Chen Zhuo walked over and picked up the book.

He had already wiped the dust from the cover, and its edges were faintly creased from being read so often.

"I’m heading to the library,"

Chen Zhuo said to Zhou Kai, who was organizing his notebook of corrected problems.

Zhou Kai grunted in acknowledgment without looking up.

Chen Zhuo pushed the door open and left.

The campus was quiet in the afternoon.

The sunlight slanted down, stretching shadows long across the ground.

Chen Zhuo walked into the library.

A few people were reading newspapers in the first-floor reading room. He took the stairs up to the third floor.

The third floor was still deserted, its tall metal bookshelves standing silently in the dim light.

Chen Zhuo walked to the corner where he read every day.

He found its original spot and slid the heavy book in his hands back into the gap.

The paper scraped against the metal shelf, making a barely audible SHUSH.

The spine lined up perfectly with the other books.

Chen Zhuo let go. He looked at the row of shelves, then, without lingering or any other unnecessary movements,

he turned and walked back down the stairs.

Sunlight streamed through the stairwell window, landing on his shoulders.

’His days of cramming were over. He’d already packed everything he needed into his brain.’

...

June 30th.

6:00 PM.

Provincial City International Airport.

The departure hall was bustling with people, and the PA system broadcast a constant loop of flight information and boarding calls.

Coach Xu stood by the gate area, holding a thick, clear document pouch containing the boarding passes and IDs for all seven of them.

He had his head down, double-checking the flight number and gate with Zhou Kai.

Zhou Kai examined it carefully, pointed to a string of numbers on a boarding pass, and nodded.

Lin Yi was sitting in a nearby row of seats. She had a pair of white earbuds in, the wire connected to a CD player in her pocket.

With her eyes closed, her head bobbed, suggesting she hadn’t slept well the night before.

Zhang Bai and Li Nanbai were standing together.

They were holding a complimentary newspaper they’d picked up at the airport entrance, flipping through the sports section.

They occasionally exchanged a few words in low voices, but the surrounding din quickly swallowed their conversation.

Mo Xiaoyu, wearing a pink backpack, stood next to Lin Yi, staring blankly at the security checkpoint in the distance.

Chen Zhuo stood before a floor-to-ceiling window, holding a bottle of mineral water.

Outside the window was a sprawling tarmac where several white passenger jets were parked at their jet bridges. Ground crew zipped back and forth below in baggage carts.

On a distant runway, a plane was accelerating. Its nose lifted, and with a tremendous ROAR, it surged toward the clouds.

"Chen Zhuo, let’s go. Time for security."

Coach Xu put away the document pouch and called out to him.

Chen Zhuo turned and caught up with the group.

Everything went smoothly.

The air conditioning in the cabin was blasting, making the air feel cool against their skin.

They found their seats. Chen Zhuo was by the window, with Zhou Kai beside him.

Flight attendants walked up and down the aisle, reminding passengers to fasten their seatbelts and put their tray tables up.

The plane began to slowly push back, then taxied toward the runway.

The sound of the engines grew, turning into a low, deep vibration.

A powerful force pressed them back into their seats as the world outside the window began to blur in reverse.

Chen Zhuo leaned back against his seat and gazed out the window.

The buildings and roads of the Provincial City slowly shrank, once again becoming a grid of gray blocks and fine lines.

The plane entered the clouds, and their surroundings turned into a vast expanse of white mist.

After breaking through the cloud layer, harsh sunlight flooded the cabin. Below them was a thick sea of clouds.

Zhou Kai took a thin booklet out of his bag—a summary of mathematical formulas.

He opened it to the first page, ready to review it one more time.

Chen Zhuo reached over and closed the booklet.

"Stop looking at that," Chen Zhuo said casually, looking at Zhou Kai.

Zhou Kai froze for a moment. He looked at Chen Zhuo, then back at the booklet in his hand.

In the end, he shoved it back into his bag.

Chen Zhuo turned his head and went back to watching the clouds. The drone of the cabin’s engines faded into monotonous white noise.

...

A short while later, the plane landed.

Hongqiao Airport, Shanghai.

They exited the cabin and walked down the jet bridge.

Even through the airport’s glass walls, they could tell the sky outside was overcast.

After retrieving their checked luggage, the group headed out of the arrivals hall.

The automatic glass doors slid open.

A thick, humid gust of wind hit them in the face.

It was completely different from the dry, stuffy heat of the Provincial City.

The air, heavy and seemingly saturated with water, clung to their skin, making it hard to breathe. Within two minutes, their clothes began to feel sticky.

This was the plum rain season Zhang Bai had been talking about.

The sky was a hazy gray. It wasn’t raining, but the air was so humid you could practically wring water from it.

Rows of taxis and shuttle buses were parked along the curb. The sound of passing vehicles was muffled by the damp air.

Coach Xu led them to the shuttle bus arranged by the organizing committee and they loaded their luggage into the compartment underneath.

They boarded the bus.

The bus started up, left the airport, and entered the city on an elevated expressway.

Shanghai, 2002.

The skyscrapers on both sides of the road were far denser than in the Provincial City, and giant billboards hung from the exterior walls of many buildings.

A light drizzle began to fall outside the window.

Threads of rain spattered the glass, quickly merging into sheets of water. The bus’s wipers swiped back and forth across the windshield.

The sky gradually darkened.

The streetlights and the neon signs on the buildings flickered to life.

Halos of red, blue, and yellow light diffused through the humid air, reflecting in colorful streaks on the puddled asphalt.

Traffic lights blinked as cars crawled forward. The occasional honk of a horn pierced the curtain of rain and reached them inside the bus.

This was a metropolis in the midst of explosive growth.

With a clamor and humidity all its own.

The bus turned at an intersection and pulled up in front of a hotel.

They grabbed their luggage and got off.

The lobby was brightly lit, its marble floors polished to a shine.

Coach Xu went to the front desk to check them in.

He returned with a stack of key cards.

"One person per room. We’ll meet for breakfast tomorrow at seven a.m. in the first-floor restaurant."

He swiped his card and pushed the door open.

The room wasn’t very large.

There was a large bed, a desk by the window, and a television mounted on the wall.

Chen Zhuo tossed his backpack on the bed and grabbed a clean towel.

Chen Zhuo went into the bathroom and closed the door. The sound of running water, SPLASH, SPLASH, could be heard from inside.

About ten minutes later, the water stopped.

Chen Zhuo emerged wearing a loose-fitting T-shirt and shorts, towel in hand, drying his still-dripping hair.

He walked to the window.

The room was on a relatively high floor, and the window was cracked open.

The rain outside had stopped, and a cool breeze carrying the scent of Shanghai drifted in through the gap.

Chen Zhuo stood by the window, taking in the night view.

In the distance, the lights on both banks of the Huangpu River sparkled brilliantly. The spheres of the Oriental Pearl Tower glowed red in the night, and occasionally, a lit-up boat would glide slowly across the water.

The traffic on the elevated expressway was a flowing river of light, winding its way into the depths of the city.

Chen Zhuo leaned against the window frame, yawned, and reached out to close the gap in the window.