Ten days!
A full ten days!
Zhu Yaya had finally welcomed the long-awaited final exams.
When her hand touched the snow-white exam paper, she felt tears welling up in her eyes. A blazing fire ignited in her heart as she picked up her pen and started writing without hesitation, her hand moving swiftly across the page.
Was she writing just an ordinary exam paper?
No, she was writing her ticket to freedom!
Because the students had been having too much fun in the latter half of the year, the teachers had deliberately increased the difficulty of this final exam. Not a single student in the room wasn't frowning with worry, hesitant to put pen to paper.
Yet, among them was an outlier—Zhu Yaya. Her pen kept scratching away, never seeming to pause for thought, her eyes gleaming with the word "excitement." This terrified the examinee next to her, who mistakenly thought the questions were simple and that their own ability was lacking, nearly shattering their exam mentality.
Zhu Yaya even turned in her paper early, which sent waves of panic through the other students in the exam hall.
The two- or three-day exam period came to a close. While everyone else was sighing and lamenting, Zhu Yaya alone wore an exceptionally bright smile.
Scotch Advanced High School was always quick with grading. The day after exams ended, report cards were distributed in the morning, and winter vacation began in the afternoon.
As expected, Zhu Yaya and Yan Heng once again dominated the top spots for first-year and second-year students respectively. No matter how much the teachers increased the difficulty, their scores remained largely unchanged, holding steady at that impressive height.
Xu Baoying shot a jealous glance at Zhu Yaya's report card, then looked at the shocking numbers on her own, wishing she could snatch Zhu Yaya's and replace the name with her own.
In a mournful voice, Xu Baoying said, "The latest Chanel bag is gone, the newest Armani lipstick is gone, my New Year's money is all gone!"
Zhu Yaya comforted her, "Don't be sad. Look, I have so many points, but I don't have Chanel or Armani either."
"That... makes some sense." Xu Baoying instantly perked up and began excitedly discussing her winter vacation fun plans with Zhu Yaya.
As she listened, Zhu Yaya felt her own heart stir. She wanted to go out and have fun too.
But then, the system's icy voice rang out: "Please focus on completing your tasks."
These words were like a bucket of cold water, dousing the small flame that had ignited in Zhu Yaya's heart, leaving her feeling chilled to the core.
Truth be told, while being pestered by Duan Zong, she had almost forgotten about the tasks. Although she still joined Xu Chun, Murong Beichen, and Yan Heng every afternoon after school, she had stopped going upstairs to look for Yan Heng as often to avoid Duan Zong.
The system's sudden announcement now scared Zhu Yaya, making her think she had missed some important plot point, failing to trigger a gossip task. She thought about it; it seemed "The Domineering Him, The Pure Love" did have plotlines related to winter vacation later on.
At noon dismissal, she hurried home with a rushed expression, rummaged in her wardrobe for the copy of "The Domineering Him, The Pure Love" that only she could see, and without even bothering to put down her backpack, sat on the bed and started reading.
Zhu Yaya quickly flipped to the part about the New Year's Eve party and scanned the pages at lightning speed. Then, she breathed a sigh of relief. After the New Year's Eve party, nothing significant happened between Murong Beichen and Xu Chun. The plot jumped straight from after New Year's to Xu Chun working at a milk tea shop during winter vacation, with Murong Beichen going there to bother her.
So, her wonderful holiday plans were ruined!
Zhu Yaya felt like crying. But then she thought about the rich rewards after completing the tasks... fine, fine, she'd go along with it.
But, where exactly was Xu Chun working? There were countless milk tea shops in the imperial capital; the area around Scotch Advanced High School alone had over ten. Which one would she go to?
Zhu Yaya wanted to continue reading the upcoming plot, but she was shocked to discover that the black text in the book "The Domineering Him, The Pure Love" she was holding was slowly fading.
Wh-what was happening?
Zhu Yaya rubbed her eyes with both hands. She thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, but even after rubbing them, the text in the book continued to fade until finally, the book became completely blank—no, not completely. Some of the earlier plot remained, but parts had turned into rows of ellipses. However, all the subsequent plot was gone.
How could this be?
Zhu Yaya was dumbfounded.
Then how would she know where Xu Chun was working? And what about the upcoming tasks?
Because she had the book, she had developed a dependency and hadn't bothered to properly memorize the later plot, only having vague impressions and remembering some key points. Plus, the book's timeline was somewhat fuzzy and jumped around a lot, making her even more impatient to commit it to memory.
She slumped dejectedly on the bed, her eyes filled with confusion. So, what should she do now?
Zhu Yaya desperately called out to the system in her mind, but this darn system stubbornly remained silent.
The money from task rewards could be earned back if lost, but what about her lifespan?
Earlier, to cover Yan's mother's medical bills, she had exchanged all her task-rewarded lifespan for money. When she first transmigrated into the book, the system had said that without the lifespan rewarded from tasks, she would die in an accident three years later, right after the college entrance exams. She now only had nine years of life left!
But, what should she do now?
Based on her intuition, there would definitely be tasks during Xu Chun's winter vacation work period. But now she had no idea where Xu Chun was working! Was she supposed to stake out the west district every single morning? Or search every milk tea shop in the imperial capital?
That was way too troublesome!
Zhu Yaya thought for a moment, then sprang up from the bed and ran to her desk. While she still had some impression of the key later plot points, she quickly wrote them down. After finishing, afraid that Zhao Jing and Zhu Jianjun might discover it, she locked the paper in the small drawer of her desk, placing it at the very bottom.
The book no longer contained the upcoming plot, but since the future events hadn't happened yet, could she perhaps... guide things slightly?
Or even create plotlines.
Such an idea suddenly popped into Zhu Yaya's mind. She was somewhat startled by her own bold thought.
She took a sip of water from her thermos. This thermos was bought from Pinduoduo for ten yuan, perfectly embodying the old saying "you get what you pay for." The hot water from this morning had turned cold by noon. However, the icy water helped cool her down and think more clearly.
Winter vacation had just begun; Xu Chun definitely wouldn't have found a milk tea shop job that quickly. So, if she found a shop in advance and guided Xu Chun to work there, then she could simply stake out that one shop. She wouldn't have to follow Xu Chun every morning or search other shops.
But then another problem arose: how could she guide Xu Chun to the shop she chose and not some other one?
She and Xu Chun were not close at all. Xu Chun seemed to know of Zhu Yaya; sometimes they would bump into each other when Zhu Yaya went upstairs to look for Yan Heng. Zhu Yaya noticed that every time Xu Chun saw her, Xu Chun's expression would become very strange.
If I went directly to find Xu Chun, she might become suspicious of Zhu Yaya.
Zhu Yaya sank into deep thought.
