Of all the heavens above, Heaven should surely look with favor upon the kind-hearted.

After the grade results were announced, the top ten students each received a certificate of merit.

In later generations, these were handed out to almost everyone, but in this era, they were the "real deal"—the kind of prized possessions that could make a mother beam with joy for a long time.

Then came handing out test papers, reviewing problems, and the start of vacation. Aside from the repeat-student classes, all the other students could go home to help their parents with the year-end preparations. Even the students in the repeat classes were not required to attend; the sessions mainly consisted of teacher tutoring, and students could come and go as they pleased. After all, high school students in this era were considered half-laborers for their families; they even got time off during the summer and autumn harvests to go back and do farm work!

After a flurry of chaos, it was already four o'clock in the afternoon. Seeing Li Ye and the others heading out of the classroom, Jiang Xiaoyan quickly packed her things, lowered her head, and followed them.

She had noticed Li Ye's grim expression, and since she hadn't gotten a chance to explain herself all afternoon, her heart was fluttering with anxiety.

She had only intended to place tenth; how on earth did she end up first?

How did she manage to get first place?

However, before Jiang Xiaoyan even reached the door, she was intercepted by Jin Shengli.

"Jiang Xiaoyan, stay a moment. Let me go over these problems with you. Even though you got first, there are some questions we solved that you didn't. Teaching and learning go hand in hand, you know..."

Jiang Xiaoyan instinctively stepped back, maintaining a distance from the smiling Jin Shengli, as if she were wary of some toxic sludge that might stain her trousers.

Jin Shengli's smile faltered slightly. With a trace of awkwardness, he said, "Jiang Xiaoyan, what are you... Actually, if you hang out with those underachievers like Li Ye, it's going to ruin your prospects. The top ten of us have decided to form a study group. From now on, we can help each other and make progress together. We're all classmates, after all..."

"I... I still have to cook!"

Dodgeing around Jin Shengli, Jiang Xiaoyan bolted, flying down the corridor and disappearing in a flash.

Go over problems with you? Go to hell!

You got two out of three major questions wrong—if you didn't know how to do them, why did you write them down on the test paper? You made me write down two extra answers, and now who knows how much yelling I'm going to get subjected to tonight!

Mutual help? We're all classmates?

When I was struggling before, why didn't any of you treat me like a classmate?

Peh, do you take me for a fool?

Jiang Xiaoyan hurried all the way to catch up with Li Ye. Once inside the small warehouse of the No. 2 Grain Store, she lowered her head and immediately started chopping vegetables and cooking.

Today's dish was pickled cabbage fish. Having eaten it twice in the past few days, Jiang Xiaoyan had already mastered the steps and no longer needed Li Ye standing by to direct her.

However, just as Jiang Xiaoyan finished scaling the fish, Li Ye walked over.

"You go start the stove first. I'll slice the fish."

The pickled cabbage fish recipe Li Ye taught Jiang Xiaoyan was a style from a small northern town in later times. The ingredients included grass carp, bean sprouts, pickled cabbage, and so on—generous in portion, incredibly filling, and full of flavor.

Hesitantly, Jiang Xiaoyan handed the knife to Li Ye and silently went to light the stove and prepare the bean sprouts.

She was afraid—afraid that Li Ye would despise her as dead weight.

Upon learning that she had scored 345 points, Jiang Xiaoyan had only felt happy for a fleeting second. That was because if she added the questions she had intentionally left off her test paper, she actually would have scored over 390 points. In past years, that was a score that could safely secure a junior college spot and brush against the edges of an undergraduate degree.

Yet immediately afterward, overwhelming panic had set in.

You were supposed to get tenth, but you got first—just had to show off, didn't you?

First place—did you not know how glaringly conspicuous that is?

Look, the grades had barely been posted before Jin Shengli locked onto her.

How long had she enjoyed a shred of peace? Why was she stirring up trouble again already?

Hanging her head, Jiang Xiaoyan rinsed the bean sprouts. After a long silence, she finally choked out an apology: "I'm sorry... I'm sorry, Li Ye... I've let everyone down."

Swinging the kitchen knife, Li Ye skillfully peeled away the fish fillets and began slicing them. "There's nothing to apologize for. This is something none of us expected, or rather, something that's hard to control."

"Since you're the only one who made it into the top ten this time, we can just brush it off with the excuse of 'guessing the answers right.' But there is a bit of trouble that you'll have to handle yourself."

Jiang Xiaoyan quickly looked up and said, "Okay, whatever trouble it is, I can handle it."

Li Ye said, "People are definitely going to come and pump you for information or ask you to tutor them. You need to learn how to refuse."

"Refuse?"

With her timid nature, Jiang Xiaoyan truly wasn't good at turning people down.

Li Ye glanced at her and said, "I'll teach you a trick. From now on, whenever outsiders ask you to explain a problem, you lead them down the garden path and explain it completely wrong."

"Huh?" Not only was Jiang Xiaoyan bewildered, but the others looked confused as well.

Li Ye explained, "When you're explaining a problem to someone else, use nine fakes and one truth—give them nine wrong explanations out of ten problems. It won't take many times before a fool would still want to ask you for help."

"........."

"Hahahahaha~"

The classmates all burst out laughing. Meanwhile, Jiang Xiaoyan bit her lip awkwardly, her eyes growing misty.

"Sometimes I wonder... Li Ye... why are you helping me like this... I have nothing... I can only say thank you..."

".........."

Hu Man and the others, who had been laughing just a moment ago, fell completely silent.

Before this, when they studied alongside Li Ye, they only had a good feeling about it. They felt their studies improving, felt as if they were... step by step, marching toward university.

But in the end, that was just an expectation, a guess, an estimate.

Now, however, the hard facts were right before their eyes.

Jiang Xiaoyan had surpassed Xia Yue and Jin Shengli, taking first place in the final exams. Yet the true top scorer wasn't even Jiang Xiaoyan—it was Hu Man, whose actual score had exceeded 400 points.

It all felt like a dream.

After all, just a month ago, Hu Man and the others had been completely lost regarding their future. Even in their wildest fantasies, they wouldn't have dared to dream of a score of 400.

Their original dream was just to score 350, to graze the threshold of a junior college. If worst came to worst, they'd go to a vocational secondary school, which would still grant them cadre status upon graduation.

But now... what vocational school?

Not even a dog would go!

Everyone had concealed scores amounting to dozens of points this time. Calculated properly, every single one of them had touched the threshold of a junior college.

Everyone—including Wen Leyu—crowded around Li Ye, making him feel... a bit flustered.

The quiet, lingering gazes of the girls were one thing, but what was with the burning, glowing stares coming from grown men like Li Dayong, Fu Yingjie, and Yan Jinbu?

Wasn't it a bit gross?

"You're asking me why I'm helping you?"

Li Ye asked himself mentally, and then turned to Hu Man: "Then why did you help me back when I had a conflict with He Weiguo?"

Hu Man was stunned for a moment. "I was the class monitor of Class Two back then; of course I had to speak impartially. He Weiguo is just a punk, everyone knows what he's like."

Li Ye nodded, then asked the others: "Then when I had conflicts with Xia Yue, Jin Shengli, and the others, why did you stand on my side, arguing and fighting with them?"

Han Xia, Fu Yingjie, and the others exchanged glances and spoke the honest truth: "Because... we benefited from you! You gave us problems and tutored us!"

Li Ye followed up immediately: "But I also gave problems and tutored other people in the class, didn't I?"

Yan Jinbu, who was usually reticent and quiet, spoke up: "Because they were selfish. They only knew how to take without knowing how to be grateful. When we argued with them... we were arguing for reason, for justice... for a conscience."

"Ah, well said," Li Ye looked at Yan Jinbu in surprise. "I usually see you sitting there half a day without uttering a word, but you've got some real substance inside!"

Embarrassed, Yan Jinbu scratched the back of his head and fell silent again.

With a solemn expression, Li Ye said, "It's about conscience. I believe that people with a conscience deserve heaven's favor far more than those heartless clever folks who only know how to scheme and take shortcuts."

"If only one person can get into university, it shouldn't be the one with the highest grades who goes; it should be the one with the truest conscience."

"Because only such a person... will remember their roots in the future, will remember the ordinary people who gave them birth and raised them, instead of having a mind full of scrambling for promotions and fortunes, caring only for their own interests while ignoring the life and death of others."

This was one of Li Ye's original intentions in helping Hu Man and the others: to let kind-hearted people get into better universities, and let the likes of Xia Yue go play in traffic!

"Li Ye, you... spoke so well."

Tears welled up in the corners of the young girls' eyes. With their innocent minds, the way they looked at Li Ye right now had subtly changed.

Wen Leyu cast a cold glance over and said indifferently, "Isn't that pot burning?"

".........."

"Oh dear, it really is burning! Quick, quick, add water!"

"Hahahahaha~"

The atmosphere in the small warehouse quickly grew lively again. The pickled cabbage and bean sprouts brewed a rich fragrance, served up in a large aluminum basin.

Li Ye placed the sliced fish fillets on top of the large aluminum basin, sprinkled them with various seasonings, heated up some peppercorn oil, and ladled it sizzling over the top.

Grass carp in this era was completely natural, quite large, and very cheap.

Mainly because there was no cooking oil! Fish without oil was simply too fishy.

Don't talk to people about steamed fish; people whose bellies lacked grease couldn't stomach such delicate fare.

The tender fish met the boiling hot oil, curling up and releasing a rich aroma.

The hot oil trickled down through the bean sprouts beneath the fish, blending a variety of pungent scents that made Hu Man and the others salivate profusely as they gathered around.

Holding their enamel mugs, they crowded the large aluminum basin, waiting solely for Li Ye's whistle to dig in.

A month of meat-filled dinners had made them accustomed to this scene, looking as cute as a litter of puppies swarming around a feeding bowl.

"Woof woof woof~~"

The large yellow dog at the door suddenly barked furiously.

Startled, Li Ye waved a hand.

Li Dayong and the others moved swiftly, carrying the small blackboard and scattered test papers into the inner room before closing and locking the door.

Meanwhile, Li Ye picked up a few fish heads and headed toward the door, casually tossing them to the wary large yellow dog.

The dog let out a couple of whimpering sounds, lowered its head, and began crunching away at the fish heads, its fluffy tail wagging in desperate flattery.

It was no longer the same large yellow dog it had been a month ago.

Li Ye gave away far too much; its self-respect had long since been corrupted by sugar-coated cannon shells (bones and leftover scraps). In an era where people couldn't even get enough to eat, having oily, meaty meals every single day was something no dog could resist.

Opening the courtyard door, Li Ye discovered that the visitor outside was none other than Teacher Luo.

Teacher Luo was twitching his nose, swallowing hard as he fought back saliva.

"What kind of food are you cooking? It smells so good!"

Perhaps realizing how unseemly he sounded after speaking, he quickly handed a parcel he was holding over to Li Ye.

"Here, your mail. It's mailed from Qingdao. Could it be that your novel has been published?"

Taking the parcel, Li Ye tore it open. Inside was indeed a brand-new novel.

[Sigh, in my past life I was a failed web novelist, but in this life... I'm finally a real author.]