I was reborn without dreams

Chapter 144 "Top Scorer Economy" in Progress
Unlike the opening ceremony of the main campus of Xindongweigang Middle School in Shazhou, the opening ceremonies of Mazhou Branch School and Jianggao Branch School were much more relaxed. No low-key people would come here; at most, it was the "five major families of Chengguan Town".

So, in order to get something substantial, Zhang Da'an had forty tons of fruit and snack gift packages prepared. They ate and took some, creating quite a scene. Unlike the main campus, the students and parents here were clearly more concerned about whether they could get into a second-tier university, a first-tier university, or a top-tier university next year.

"Teacher Zhang, my child only scored high enough for a second-tier vocational college last year. Is there any hope that he can get into a university?"

"You're Xia Xiaoyu's father, right?"

"Oh my, Teacher Zhang, you remembered all that! I really didn't expect that..."

“I know all three thousand students across both campuses.”

"..."

"Don't be surprised, this is my profession, and I'm always very professional. Since 'Zhang An Education' accepts students, it's natural that they passed the interview. I've seen Xia Xiaoyu's interview materials. What I'm about to say might seem unbelievable to you, but if you diligently follow her for a whole year and strictly adhere to 'Zhang An Education's' family education guidance, then by this time next year, Xia Xiaoyu should be enrolled in a top-tier university."

"what?!"

Not only Xia Xiaoyu's father, but also the parents of the surrounding students were stunned. They all gathered around, wanting to hear what had happened.

Zhang Da'an was too lazy to explain: "This involves the students' individual talents and the core technology of 'Zhang An Education,' so I'm sorry, I won't answer your questions in detail here. I won't charge you a single extra penny."

Jumping from a second-year vocational college to a top-tier university sounds absurd, but if a high school freshman ends up getting into a top-tier university, then it seems quite plausible.

Because this is a stage that must be passed through.

So, for this student named Xia Xiaoyu, Zhang Da'an simply made him retrace his high school steps and then take the college entrance examination.

The only difference is that it took a high school freshman three years, while he took one year.

The magic here is simply a matter of time efficiency.

Of course, this is on the premise that the student is talented enough.

In fact, Xia Xiaoyu's talent is indeed quite remarkable. He has a significant lead in the game "Three Kingdoms War Chronicles". He can complete the game in less than 30 minutes with any character. If he chooses "Zhuge Liang", he can even complete the game in less than 25 minutes with one life.

Street Fighter and The King of Fighters also feature various smooth combos, and without the use of "banned moves," demonstrating a high level of skill. While not comparable to the level of "kids," it is quite impressive within a school of three thousand students.

So, a teenager who can normally get into high school and is also exceptionally good at video games has a very high probability of getting into a good university under normal circumstances.

Similarly, top scientists may have some quirks, but it is not surprising for scientists to be proficient in one or two musical instruments.

Playing music, playing board games, playing video games... it's all the same thing.

So when Zhang Da'an said that, Xia Xiaoyu's father was completely dumbfounded. He had fantasized that his son would suddenly mutate and give him a surprise, but things didn't go as planned. Except for the first year of high school, which was okay, the next two years were terrible.

Torn between self-doubt and trusting Zhang Da'an, he chose to trust Zhang Da'an.

There was no other way; if he didn't trust Zhang Da'an, he wouldn't have spent 98,000 yuan to send his child to Xindongweigang Middle School. I heard that the price will increase next year, so this year's price is considered cheap.

After all, head coach Chairman Zhang An is a three-time top scorer in the college entrance examination, which is truly impressive and awe-inspiring. Moreover, he is a perfect scorer this year, which is so outstanding that no one can say anything about him, and there is not a single thought of envy, jealousy or hatred.

Meanwhile, the three campuses of Xindongweigang Middle School have a 100% undergraduate admission rate, which is a prestigious achievement, and countless high schools in the province have continuously protested against it.

There was even a moment when people jointly petitioned to control the scale of college entrance exam retakes.

However, in the end, nothing came of it. The "right to take exams" is something you can do without, but you can't live without.

While eating watermelon and sipping grapes, Zhang Da'an could chat with every student's parent. He wasn't bragging; he genuinely knew all the students from both campuses. However, he had almost completely forgotten the students from the previous year, and they wouldn't remember them without being reminded.

Coach Zhang works quite hard to earn money.

We will never neglect the areas where we should slack off, and we will never lie down where we should put our heart into something.

The principle of "the province should spend its money on flowers" will never go out of style.

For example, the watermelons we are eating now were grown by the villagers in Fengyi County, Pengcheng City. Uncle Zhang used to only cultivate mushrooms, but because the amount of mushrooms grown in the greenhouse was a bit too much, he simply started growing watermelons as well.

The Academy of Agricultural Sciences of Jiangkou Province was quite cooperative, bringing a bunch of specialty watermelon varieties to Fengyi County to test the waters. It all comes down to fate.

Because agricultural scientific research involves not only funding issues, but also the need for land for project implementation. It's not that affiliated companies or farms of agricultural research institutes can simply allocate a piece of land to researchers.

Cooperation with farmers is never about giving them money; farmers also bear risks.

Uncle Zhang is different; he can't stand seeing the land in the countryside lying empty, so he just tends to it.

A few years ago, the Agricultural Research Institute of Jiangkou Province improved several watermelon varieties, one of which was called "Jiangba-Huangpi". It was tried to promote in the neighboring Jianghuai Province, but the project failed because the watermelon skin was too thick and the sweetness was too low.

This is an improved variety of yellow-skinned watermelon. In the north, it is mainly produced in Beijing, while in the south, it is produced in Lingxi Province. In Jiangkou Province, it is just filling in the numbers since it is not in use. If it is not commercialized, it will be used as a reserve.

The yellow-skinned watermelons grown in Beijing are currently spindle-shaped, while those from Lingxi Province are large and spherical. Those from Jiangkou Province are smaller, generally weighing only one or two kilograms. They mature in 28 days, and the yield is neither high nor low, depending entirely on the weight of the rind...

When the watermelons were being loaded onto the truck, the research staff from the provincial agricultural science academy ran faster than rabbits. Uncle Zhang had been giving them trouble for over a month.

Are you sure your melons are ripe?
Guaranteed.

Is it sweet?
No guarantee. Is the skin too thin to guarantee?

Not guaranteed.

Does it guarantee the portion size?

Not guaranteed.

There are still several hundred tons of production to be made. Where can you find large-scale yellow-skinned watermelons now? These are all grown in greenhouses.

When Coach Zhang saw that his uncle was up to something again, he decided to give the researchers from the Academy of Agricultural Sciences a hand and bought them at a high price of five cents per kilogram.

A truckload of forty tons, all of them high-grade golden watermelons!

Don't ask, the answer is "the top scholar's golden melon".

Coach Zhang also bought the patent for this thick-skinned, not-so-sweet watermelon, registered it as a product name, and called it "Top Scholar Golden Melon" or "Golden Watermelon".

With a sweetness level of around 9, it's not even close to the sweetness of "Ink Eyes" or "Black Beauty".

After all, it's an obsolete variety; a watermelon that's not sweet is like a cucumber with a slightly sweet taste.

Well, Zhang Da'an can buy it for 50 cents a pound and sell it for 5 yuan a pound, and that's the discounted price during the back-to-school season.

We signed a contract with several supermarkets in Jiangkou Province to sell gift melons, emphasizing that the melons themselves are not sweet, but the sentiment is.

The main cost is in the packaging box.

The packaging box manufacturing plant was a piece of riverside industrial land that Mazhou City had given to Coach Zhang through investment promotion. Previously, Liu Jingbo and Liu Yuanshan's cooperation was to get a share of the packaging business in Chengdong District of Jiangning City. However, because Liu Yuanshan went to Yuzhang Province and Liu Yuanshan's "boss" went to the labor and social security management department, it became Coach Zhang's business expansion.

To be honest, Vice Mayor Liu really went to great lengths for this matter, including but not limited to helping Coach Zhang find second-hand production and printing equipment. The total cost of purchasing all the equipment was over ten million yuan for Coach Zhang, unintentionally setting a small record for a single investment that year.

After all, the new Dongwei Port Middle School Mazhou Branch has already been put into operation and is undergoing stable software and hardware upgrades.

With the opening of the Jianggao branch school, there is now a regional brand building called "Zhuangyuan Street". Previously, if Jianggao and Mazhou wanted to apply for the expansion of county and township roads from the city, they could only focus on the urban area and could not radiate outwards at all.

Taking Jianggao City as an example, there have been attempts to build highways eastward to Chongzhou City, and there are indeed plans for this. However, apart from an old highway that has been in disrepair for many years, all the newly built county and township roads in Jianggao City are "dead-end roads".

Whether it's asphalt or cement, it's all a pit in Chongzhou.

Things are different now. The "road and bridge economy" has been brought up again, but when it's mentioned in conjunction with Xindongwei Port Middle School, it becomes a topic of great interest.

The reason behind this is simply that if the road isn't repaired, the benefits generated by our Mazhou/Jianggao branch school will just be a waste for the neighboring Jianggao/Mazhou.

Beautiful~~
No matter how much money Yangtai and Chongzhou are short of, can they really be short of a little bit of "saving face" funds?

This explains the absurd reality of such rapid development surrounding the two campuses of Xindongwei Port Middle School.

The underlying logic is similar to Coach Zhang collecting watermelons and then selling them.

The effects of the "top student economy" are real.

Zhang Da'an's arrogant outburst in Jiangning earlier wasn't without people wanting to come and cause trouble.

Unfortunately, the Mazhou branch and the Jianggao branch are practically inseparable; you can't find a single fault between them.

Let alone the fact that people in Yangtai City won't listen to one or two professors from universities in Chongzhou, even people in Jianggao City... act as if they're just one of us.

The Jianggao branch school achieved a solid "revenue of over 100 million yuan" right from the start, not the 60 million yuan estimated the year before last. Even a grassroots cadre can tell the difference between these figures.

With two branch schools located on either side of the boundary river, it's like having an "industry giant".

This is why there is no more noise within the relevant local departments now. Even if local middle schools have opinions, they are all similar to Uncle Zhang: you can raise your opinions, but we will not make changes.

However, the absence of offline presence does not mean there is no presence online.

Previously, Zhang Da'an had fallen out with dozens or even hundreds of companies and studios in Taihu City and Chongzhou City that did cartoon manufacturing. It would be impossible for there to be no reaction at all.

Putting aside portal websites, "Jinbang Blog" has seen a large number of animation and comics professionals register personal blogs and then launch various accusations and revelations.

They use all sorts of tactics: playing the victim, spreading rumors, smearing others, mudslinging the waters, using white noise, and striking and disengaging...

Everything is available.

Coach Zhang started online warm-up again on September 10th.

Originally, he was just criticizing the company owner's wife and the studio founder's father; the "spectators" were just there to learn some technical details.

The problem lies here: the very next day was September 11th, and a Middle Eastern boy whose uncle was an ace pilot lost his uncle forever, while Coach Zhang lost the "World Trade Center Twin Towers" forever...

(End of this chapter)