Zhao Youyue had placed Su Li on "special attention," ensuring that the moment the shameless group owner appeared in the chat, her phone would buzz with a notification.
When she saw the message Su Li had sent, she pressed her lips together and chuckled quietly, the light from her screen reflecting in her dark eyes. Inwardly, she thought that Su Li was quite talented at passing the blame. Even though the woman's claim was technically the truth—since Zhao Youyue had been the one driving Xu Jing's actions—who would actually believe such a ridiculous excuse?
In any case, Zhao Youyue was definitely not going to step forward and take responsibility for that narrative mess.
It was Monday night, and the final exams were scheduled to begin the very next morning. Despite the looming pressure, she could play on her phone without the slightest hint of guilt. During the day at school, she had already spent every available second completely immersed in her studies.
Whether it was the rhythmic chanting of the morning reading session or the chaotic breaks between classes, she had remained anchored to her desk, quietly reviewing her lecture notes. She hadn't even reached for her phone a single time.
In fact, before major exams like finals, the atmosphere among the students often became strangely relaxed rather than more serious. The tension usually peaked a week prior and then gave way to a sort of resigned exhaustion.
That Monday had been filled with nothing but self-study periods. If it had been the old Zhao Youyue, managing to review seriously for even one full class period would have been a significant achievement. After all, she had already pushed herself through three intense evening study sessions over the weekend. Naturally, her usual self would have become overconfident, convinced that she was already fully prepared.
Final exams? She would have told herself they were nothing special.
With her recent progress, she would have assumed that entering the top ten of the class this time would be an effortless feat.
With that relaxed mindset, she would normally have spent the entire school day happily scrolling through her phone under the cover of her desk.
However, when Zhao Youyue was in the "Xu Jing possession" state, she felt the exact opposite. Her borrowed consciousness believed that her review time was still woefully insufficient and that many small gaps in her knowledge remained. She felt a compulsive need to fill those gaps to prevent a situation where she might freeze during the exam, especially on a problem the teacher had already explained. She couldn't stand the thought of losing points to her own carelessness.
She wanted to eliminate every possible accident and bring out her full potential.
Xu Jing wasn't a natural genius; her raw intelligence was simply within the average range. However, she worked far harder than most people and was incredibly meticulous.
If Zhao Youyue took the exam while utilizing Xu Jing's possession state, she would never have to worry about the frustration of careless mistakes.
Even those notoriously difficult questions that usually made her head ache—the kind of complex problems she normally avoided entirely—she would now patiently analyze one step at a time. Even if she couldn't fully solve the final, most difficult part of a multi-step math problem, she could still flawlessly answer the earlier sub-problems to secure partial credit.
After all, the final questions in mathematics exams usually contained several components. The initial parts were rarely impossible if one remained calm.
The ordinary Zhao Youyue, on the other hand, would feel a surge of nervous adrenaline the moment she saw those large, intimidating questions. She would often lose her confidence before her pen even touched the paper. Rather than spending time struggling with the hardest problems, she would prefer to double-check the easy ones instead. She was only good at beating opponents she perceived as easy.
Because of this shift in her capabilities, once she obtained Xu Jing's classic character card, she no longer felt any underlying anxiety about her academic performance. As a result, whenever she wasn't activating Xu Jing's abilities, she actually became even more playful than she had been in the past.
She played harder because she knew the work was already being handled. She enjoyed her leisure time with a clear conscience.
When it was time to study, she could work harder than anyone else in the building. When it was time to relax, she could also have more fun than anyone else.
Her behavior throughout the day had shocked several people who thought they knew her.
For instance, her deskmate Jiang Qing had originally assumed Zhao Youyue would ask her to keep a lookout for the teacher while she secretly played on her phone. Instead, Jiang Qing watched in surprise as Zhao Youyue never even pulled the device out of her bag the entire day.
During one break, the boy sitting in front of her, Wang Yang, wanted to turn around and chat about a new web novel he had recently discovered. However, when he saw her still buried in her lecture notes, surrounded by the intense, unapproachable aura of a top student, he felt too embarrassed to interrupt her flow.
Most importantly, it wasn't just a short burst of academic seriousness. She had maintained that terrifying level of focus for the entire eight hours of the school day.
Wang Yang, who spent a lot of time reading transmigration web novels, couldn't help but wonder if a different soul had taken over her body. Of course, that was only a passing, humorous thought. He didn't actually believe in such fantasies. The only logical explanation he could come up with was that the final exam was tomorrow, so Zhao Youyue must be desperately cramming at the last possible second.
Jiang Qing shared that conclusion. Inspired by Zhao Youyue's sudden and relentless diligence, she also found herself reviewing seriously for once. Otherwise, she would have spent the entire day slacking off. In truth, Jiang Qing loved having fun and wasn't a very disciplined student either.
Zhao Youyue's former deskmate, Zhou Fang, also noticed how serious the girl had become.
However, Zhou Fang felt nothing but a trace of pity and sympathy.
In her opinion, Zhao Youyue's frantic efforts were largely pointless. Studying this hard the day before the exam was already too late to make a real difference. Zhou Fang believed that real effort should be invested consistently during daily study, not in a desperate scramble at the last moment.
Although Zhou Fang liked Zhao Youyue's personality and thought she was easy to talk to, she quietly looked down on her when it came to academics.
She had never shown that dismissive attitude openly, but deep inside, she felt a strong sense of intellectual superiority.
Throughout the entire first semester—every monthly exam and the midterm—she had always scored significantly higher than Zhao Youyue. Most of the time, she ranked within the elite top ten of the class. Once, because the math exam had been exceptionally difficult and she had let her nerves get the better of her, she had slipped to sixteenth place.
That night, she had secretly cried under her blanket, believing that dropping out of the top ten was a massive humiliation.
Meanwhile, Zhao Youyue's best result during that same period had only been a tied nineteenth place. Most of the time, she ranked somewhere between twentieth and thirtieth.
Zhou Fang viewed Zhao Youyue as someone pitiful. Judging by her own high standards, she believed that Zhao Youyue must constantly feel a sense of shame regarding her grades.
As for this final exam, Zhou Fang didn't expect any surprises. She planned to push herself into the top five of the class, strengthening her position as an excellent student. Then, she would continue observing Zhao Youyue with that same sense of superiority while privately pitying her for living in a state of constant academic embarrassment.
Still, despite her judgment, she couldn't help wishing she could become Zhao Youyue's deskmate again.
Her new deskmate, Tang Yan, had a much more grating personality. She was petty and loud. Tang Yan wasn't particularly attractive, yet she was somehow filled with an unearned confidence. She talked endlessly about trivial matters and had a reputation for being a big-mouthed gossip.
Her grades were terrible as well, usually hovering around forty or fifty in the class rankings.
Worse still, she often tried to secretly copy Zhou Fang's homework whenever Zhou Fang was away at chemistry competition training during the evening study sessions. Once Zhou Fang discovered this, she immediately began carrying her completed homework to the chemistry lab with her.
In her mind, Tang Yan wasn't worthy of referencing her work.
If anyone was allowed to use her homework as a guide, it would only be someone like Zhao Youyue.
Unfortunately, Zhao Youyue usually finished her assignments at home. Whenever she encountered a question she didn't know, she simply searched for the answer online. That left Zhou Fang with no opportunity to share her homework or show off her knowledge, which felt rather frustrating.
If Zhou Fang felt sympathy for Zhao Youyue, then she completely despised Tang Yan.
She was also somewhat displeased with Zhao Youyue's current deskmate, Jiang Qing. The two of them seemed to laugh and chat together quite often.
It wasn't that she was jealous. She simply believed that Jiang Qing looked unreliable and flighty. Jiang Qing's chest was quite large as well, which added to Zhou Fang's perception of her as someone who lacked focus. Even though Jiang Qing was the class arts representative and technically a class officer, her grades were mediocre, ranking in the thirties or forties.
Zhou Fang didn't respect that level of performance at all.
She even worried that Jiang Qing might be a negative influence on Zhao Youyue's grades. If that happened, she thought Zhao Youyue would become even more pitiful than before. Clearly, in Zhou Fang's mind, the only suitable deskmate for Zhao Youyue was Zhou Fang herself.
After studying for the entire day, Zhao Youyue returned home and decisively deactivated the "Xu Jing possession" state.
In an instant, she returned to being the carefree young lady of the Zhao family, with a natural laziness embedded deep within her bones. Her obsession with studying immediately transformed back into an obsession with her phone. She slumped onto her bed, her fingers flying across the screen.
Soon, she saw the notification for Su Li's message—the one where she apologized while simultaneously shifting all the blame onto a fictional character.
Naturally, the fans in the group exploded in a fresh wave of anger.
"I have never seen someone so shameless!"