My IQ has been increasing year by year.

The Provincial Experimental High School is not far from the guesthouse, just two streets away.

At 4:30 pm, the sun was shining brightly.

A group of people walked on the sidewalk in the provincial capital.

The road was wide, lined with plane trees on both sides, but it couldn't block the heat rising from the asphalt.

Road construction is underway everywhere.

Yellow excavators roared, and sand and cement pipes were piled up on the roadside.

In 2002, China was a huge construction site, and provincial capitals were no exception.

We arrived at the entrance of the provincial experimental school.

The retractable gate was open. The security guard glanced at the team leader's badge hanging around Lao Zhao's neck, then waved him through.

As soon as I entered the school gate, the noisy construction site sounds seemed to be cut off.

The campus was very quiet.

The road was lined with neatly trimmed holly trees, and there were even fountains in the flower beds.

"Go to that building."

Old Zhou pointed to a building in front of him that was covered with red tiles.

That's the senior high school building, and it's also the exam site for this year.

Everyone followed them inside.

The glass doors leading into the lobby.

"Phew~"

A gust of cool air hit me.

Liu Kai was fanning himself with a newspaper when the cold air startled him, and he couldn't help but sneeze.

"Achoo! Wow... it's so cool here?"

He looked up and around.

In the corner of the hall stood two huge Haier cabinet air conditioners, blowing out cold air.

The indicator light shows "24℃".

"Does this school... charge for electricity?"

Li Hao was also stunned.

At the No. 1 Middle School in the city, the only thing in the classrooms is the four large ceiling fans that creak and groan when they turn.

As for air conditioning, it was only available in a few important laboratories, conference rooms, and classrooms where they competed.

As for the treatment of having air conditioning right at the entrance, they simply couldn't even dream of it.

"Zipper it up."

Old Zhao turned around and glared at Liu Kai, then reached out to tighten the collar of his school uniform for him.

"Don't go out for cold things right now. If you go from hot to cold, you'll get a fever tomorrow and you'll have no one to blame but yourself."

Everyone quickly wrapped their open school uniforms up tightly.

Go up to the third floor along the terrazzo staircase.

The hallway was quiet; the only sound was the scraping of shoes against the floor.

The ground was so clean, it was even a little slippery.

Zhao Chen walked very carefully, afraid of tripping and falling.

I found the exam room, but the door was sealed off, so I couldn't get in.

Everyone pressed their faces against the windows and peered inside.

Upon closer inspection, it revealed that same kind of naive silence, a result of someone who had never seen the world.

The classroom was very bright; I don't know if it was due to good natural lighting or bright lamps.

The most eye-catching thing is the table.

Not the kind of double table that's been used for decades, with a pitted and worn-down tabletop and edges that expose the wood-clad iron underneath.

This place is all single tables.

The tabletop is made of off-white composite material with a matte finish.

The table legs are made of gray metal tubing, which looks very lightweight.

The chair wasn't a hard wooden bench; the seat and backrest were soft, and it had a blue fabric cover.

Each table is spaced one meter apart.

It was completely empty in all directions.

"This table..."

Wang Yang pressed his hand against the glass and frowned.

"This is so...empty!"

At the No. 1 High School in the city, everyone is used to being crammed together.

Your deskmate's elbow will bump into you when they're writing, and the back of the chair in front of you will bump against your desk.

And here.

Everyone is an island.

In this unfamiliar city, in this unfamiliar school, I sit at this standardized single desk that looks like it was prepared for robots.

A profound sense of alienation arose spontaneously.

"Hey, look at that."

Liu Kai pointed to the ceiling above the blackboard.

There was a white, rectangular machine hanging there, pointing directly at the blackboard like a giant cannon.

"That's a projector."

Li Hao is a physics enthusiast; I've seen him in magazines.

"For multimedia teaching."

"How do you use this thing? Does the teacher not write on the blackboard anymore?" Zhao Chen asked.

"Connect directly to the computer and project the questions onto the screen."

Li Hao pointed to the white cloth rolled up next to the blackboard.

"It saves us the trouble of erasing the blackboard."

Everyone fell silent.

This technological gap in hardware is more painful than that blue internal lecture note.

Because it is everywhere.

From the air conditioner at the entrance, to the terrazzo floorboards, to the single table, and then to the projector overhead.

All of this was a reminder to them.

This is the provincial capital, another world.

You're just country bumpkins.

The days you're used to, with chalk dust all over your hands, sweating profusely, and huddled together doing problems, are synonymous with backwardness here.

"Have you finished watching?"

Old Zhou stood in the middle of the corridor with his hands behind his back, his voice echoing slightly in the empty stairwell.

He didn't look at the advanced equipment, nor did he comment on the air conditioner.

He simply looked at the students who were clearly stunned.

"Look around and leave. Don't be a cleaner here. Do you think it's nice to look at things by peering through the glass?"

Old Zhou turned and walked towards the stairwell, his footsteps steady.

"No matter how fancy the table is, it's still used to put exam papers on; no matter how cool the air conditioner is, it can't solve your equations."

"The projector is for teachers, it has nothing to do with you. The test papers handed out tomorrow will still be on that 80-gram white paper, and the text will still be in Song typeface."

Don't be blinded by these fancy things.

"We're here to take an exam, not to visit a science museum."

Wang Yang took a deep breath and removed his hand from the glass.

A blurry handprint was left on the glass.

He rubbed his face vigorously.

Yes.

Does whether a table is slippery or not have anything to do with whether you can solve a problem?

Even sitting on the throne in the imperial palace, you still have to calculate the equation for that conic section yourself.

"Let's go!"

Wang Yang shouted, as if to bolster his courage.

We ate dinner at the KFC across from the exam center.

The guesthouse originally had a buffet, but Lao Zhao felt that the food there was too oily and was worried that the students would get sick. He also wanted to encourage everyone.

After all, in 2002, KFC was still a rarity, a high-end Western restaurant.

Pushing open the door, I was greeted by the familiar cold air.

It's lunchtime, and there are quite a few people here.

A long queue formed in front of the ordering counter, and the air was filled with the unique aroma of fried chicken, along with the tangy smell of ketchup.

Old Zhao told the students to reserve seats while he took the money and went to queue up.

Chen Zhuo and Liu Kai found two empty tables and put them together.

Liu Kai stared at the ice cream in the child's hand at the next table, his Adam's apple bobbing.

It was Old Zhao's turn.

He stood in front of the counter, slightly tiptoeing, and frowned slightly as he looked at the densely packed menu and prices.

It is indeed expensive.

One hamburger is enough for him to have several breakfasts.

But he didn't hesitate to take out his money.

This is funding specially approved by the school; the principal said not to skimp on it.

"Um... three family buckets, six large Cokes, no ice, and a few more fries."

The waiter banged on the doorbell for a while and then announced a number.

Old Zhao counted out a wad of RMB from his wallet and handed it over.

"Please issue an invoice."

Old Zhao leaned forward and gave a special instruction to the sales clerk behind the counter, his tone very professional, revealing the strictness of a headmaster.

"The heading should be 'Zeyang No. 1 Middle School,' and it must be the full name. Not a single word can be omitted. The project should include 'meal expenses.'"

"Please don't write anything like hamburgers, chicken wings, or family buckets."

Old Zhao added another sentence, still not entirely convinced.

"It'll be difficult to report this to the finance department, you know?"

"Understood. I'll issue you a fixed-amount invoice without showing details."

The waiter, clearly used to this kind of spending of public funds, quickly tore off a stack of invoices and handed them over.

Old Zhao took the receipts, but didn't rush to leave. He stood there counting the amounts one by one, and only after confirming that everything was correct did he neatly fold the receipts and put them into the innermost compartment of his wallet.

On the other side, the food pick-up area.

Liu Kai and the chubby Zhao Chen were waiting eagerly.

"Hey, could you give me a little more ketchup?"

Liu Kai pointed at the small box of ketchup, his face full of longing.

"Take more, it's free."

Zhao Chen also chimed in from the side.

In their eyes, KFC's ketchup is the best thing ever, with its perfect balance of sweet and sour, making it an absolute must-have for dipping fries.

The waiter glanced at the two teenagers, said nothing, and casually grabbed a handful of ketchup packets and threw them onto the plate.

"Is that enough?"

"That's enough! Thank you, sister!"

The two of them happily carried the plates away.

The joy of getting a few extra packets of ketchup is more real than getting a perfect score on a test.

Soon, the family bucket was served.

Three huge paper buckets were placed in the middle, like three golden mountains.

"start!"

Without further ado, let's get started.

The crispy chicken skin bursts open in your mouth, releasing a burst of hot, juicy chicken.

Then I took a big gulp of ice-cold cola.

"Cool!"

Zhao Chen let out a loud burp, his mouth full of oil.

"This tastes amazing! The McDonald's near our school is garbage."

"Of course, this is KFC."

Wang Yang was holding a chicken leg in his hand, eating it without even looking up.

"I heard that each chicken is numbered and raised scientifically."

"Really? The chickens even have numbers?"

Everyone ate and chatted.

The topics were varied and even mundane.

They said the toilets here were really clean, even the hand sanitizer smelled nice, and the hand dryer blew out warm air.

We talked about the girls from the provincial capital we saw while queuing earlier; their skirts were really short. We also discussed whether we could go shopping after the exams tomorrow.

Old Zhou and Old Zhao didn't squeeze into the same table as them.

The two old men couldn't stand the fried food, so they each ordered a cup of hot black tea and sat at the small round table next to them.

Old Zhao took out two roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) he had bought on the way from his bag and gave one to Old Zhou.

The two men ate roujiamo (Chinese meat sandwiches) while drinking red tea, watching the kids wolf down their food.

Old Zhou smiled and took a sip of tea, without saying anything about eating slowly.

This is how children should be.

Being able to eat and sleep well—that's the state of being in war.