Tokyo: Oreimo

She turned to the first page.

My gaze swept over the first reading comprehension question.

stunned for a moment.

That's it?

No, it can't be that simple. She suppressed the inappropriate sense of relief in her heart and forced herself to concentrate.

The second, the third, and the fourth.

She continued working on each dish one by one.

wrong.

It wasn't just the reading comprehension questions. The classical Chinese translation, grammar analysis, and literary history questions all went much more smoothly than expected. The traps that repeatedly appeared in Ryosuke's practice tests were almost entirely absent from the actual exam.

When I finished the first round, there were still more than forty minutes left in the exam.

She doesn't believe it.

The questions Ryosuke gave her had a trap on average every three questions. Using the wrong formula, choosing the wrong part of speech, being misled by synonyms—she would find at least four or five mistakes every time she checked her work.

Ling Nai checked the test paper from beginning to end.

On the first pass, he found two missing kana markings. Such basic mistakes would earn him at least ten minutes of lectures from Ryosuke.

The second time, I corrected a word that wasn't accurate enough.

Ryosuke once said that the most damaging thing to do in translation questions is to "understand the meaning but not express it accurately," a lesson she learned after spending three sets of test papers.

After checking the test paper for the third time, she stared at it blankly for ten seconds.

There really were no traps.

How is this possible? Isn't it Waseda University's entrance exam? Isn't it one of the most difficult in the country?

……

When she received the second science exam paper, she was still a little skeptical.

Halfway through, that familiar sense of unease returned.

It's not that the questions were easy; they were still quite challenging. She spent fifteen minutes on the final question.

Overall, however, she was working on a standard difficult problem, rather than Ryosuke's collection of traps where "I'm setting a problem so you'll get it wrong."

She suddenly understood.

For the past few months, she has been measuring herself against Ryosuke's standards.

When she finished, she checked it again and corrected a calculation error and a skipped step.

……

When Ling Nai finished the multiple-choice questions in the third foreign language exam, she even felt a little unreal.

The reading comprehension passages were quite long, but the vocabulary was far less than what Ryosuke had taught her. She wrote them using the framework Ryosuke had taught her and thought she had done a good job.

When the bell rang, she put down her pen.

The exam is over.

She sat in her seat, watching the proctor collect the exam papers, and couldn't quite describe how she felt.

It wasn't happiness, nor was it disappointment.

Instead, it was confusion.

Is that all? What about the traps? What about those tricky questions that make you want to throw your pen in frustration? What about that feeling of defeat after you finish and doubt whether you've actually learned anything?

None at all.

As for the fourth subject, geography and history, the experience was roughly the same as the first three subjects.

After a careful inspection, it was confirmed that there were no errors or omissions.

When Ling Nai walked out of the examination room, she was still immersed in a strange calm.

The corridor outside the examination hall was crowded with candidates. Some were comparing answers with their friends, some were scratching their heads in frustration, and some were stretching with relief.

She walked through the crowd, her mind still replaying the contents of the exam paper.

It wasn't until she reached the school gate and saw the familiar car and a family standing beside it that she came to her senses.

Takashiro Isao was the first to come forward, even more nervous than the students' parents, with an expression on his face as if he himself had taken the exam.

"Ling Nai! How is it?!"

Mieko stood behind him, her expression much calmer, but her eyes held a questioning look.

Ryosuke leaned against the car door, holding an unopened bottle of mineral water, looking at her without saying a word.

Ling Nai did not answer immediately.

When Takashiro Isamu saw her strange expression, his heart skipped a beat.

It's over. It's over.

He was telling Mieko in the car that Lingnai had been studying so hard lately, so she would definitely be fine. But when his daughter came out, she had this expression, which clearly means she failed the test.

"It's okay, it's okay."

He quickly waved his hand, his voice gentler than ever before, "If you don't do well on the exam, you don't do well. Dad always thought it would be good for you to go to university in Chiba, it's close to home, the food is good, you don't necessarily have to go to Tokyo..."

“Dad,” Ling Nai interrupted him.

Takashiro Isamu immediately shut up, waiting for his daughter to start crying.

Ling Nai looked at her father's expression that said, "I'm ready to accept the worst outcome," and then glanced at Ryosuke, who was unscrewing a mineral water bottle cap next to her.

"Well," she said, her tone carrying a subtle sense that she hadn't fully accepted the situation yet, "I think I probably did okay on the test."

Takashiro Isao's expression froze.

"good?"

"Ah."

What does "it's alright" mean?

Ling Nai looked down at her hands. She had gripped the pen too tightly in the exam room, and the knuckle of her right middle finger was still red.

"That's right." She paused, "I'll probably pass."

Takashiro Isamu's mouth opened and closed, closed and opened again.

The mother chuckled softly beside her.

Ryosuke unscrewed the cap of the mineral water bottle and handed the water to her.

"Thanks for your hard work."

Ling Nai took the water and tilted her head back to drink a large gulp.

Sunlight fell on her golden ponytail, and when the wind blew, a few strands of hair brushed against her slightly flushed cheeks.

She looked at the person in front of her, the one she had desperately wanted to get into the same university.

“Those questions of yours,” she said.

"what?"

"It's much harder than the actual exam."

Ryosuke chuckled upon hearing this.

"Yeah."

Chapter 271 Moving

In late June, the rainy season in Chiba was still not over.

The mailbox at the Takashiro family's house was half-soaked by the rain, but the kraft paper envelope containing the Waseda University admission letter was intact because the postman had carefully put it in a transparent waterproof bag.

Ling Nai stood in the entryway, holding the envelope in her hand, her fingernails digging into the seal, hesitating to tear it open.

"What, you don't dare to dismantle it?" Ryosuke's voice came from behind her.

Ling Nai's shoulders twitched, then she turned her head and glared at him. "Who wouldn't dare! I was just seeing how to open it without tearing the things inside!"

Ryosuke leaned against the wall of the corridor, not saying a word, just quietly watching her.

She took a deep breath, carefully tore open the seal with her thumb, and pulled out the beautifully printed notice.

His gaze swept over the first two lines of text, and his pupils dilated slightly.

"It passed."

Her voice was very soft, as if she herself couldn't quite believe it.

"I passed! I passed! I got in!"

She held the notice high in the air, her blonde ponytail whipping in an arc as she jumped.

Just as Ryosuke was about to congratulate her, the girl turned around and suddenly threw herself into his arms.

The force was so great that he took half a step back.

Ryosuke paused for a moment, his hands hovering in mid-air for a moment before gently landing on her back.

"I told you you'd be fine."

Ling buried her face in his chest and let out a muffled groan.

"Those questions... You knew perfectly well that the actual exam wasn't that difficult, yet you deliberately gave me such tricky questions."

“Otherwise, you’ll be lax during the inspection.”

Ling Nai did not refute him, because she knew he was right. If she hadn't been tormented by his tricky questions over the past few months, she wouldn't have been able to check the exam paper three times in the actual exam room.

She released her grip on his shirt and took a step back.

"I...I'll go tell Dad and Auntie!"

After saying that, she turned and ran towards the living room. Ryosuke watched her disappear around the corner of the corridor, glanced down at the wrinkles on his shirt that had been pulled out, and gave a helpless laugh.