One of the proctors from 026 stayed behind to quickly maintain order in the exam room, while the other hurriedly chased after him, shouting in the hallway, “Don’t run! Lao Li, Lao Zhang, catch that kid! He’s still holding the answer sheet! Don’t let him affect the other candidates! Hurry up!”

The two proctors wandering in the hallway had never encountered such a situation before and were a bit stunned.

As they spoke, Alan Cooper had already dashed headfirst into the third classroom next door. He kicked the door open, and seeing everyone’s wide-eyed, open-mouthed shock, he didn’t say a word, kicked aside a desk, and ran straight to Little David. Under Little David’s dumbfounded gaze, Alan Cooper swiftly snatched his answer sheet.

Little David stared blankly and said, “What the hell are you doing?” He never imagined Alan Cooper would “cheat” so brazenly.

Alan Cooper said, “I told you before the exam, be careful with your paper.”

The proctors in this room were both young women. Seeing Alan Cooper kick the door open and snatch the answer sheet as soon as he entered, neither dared to step forward to stop him. They just stood there in shock and shouted, “Which exam site are you from? What are you doing? Put the paper down right now!”

Only then did Little David react, furiously lunging to grab it back. “Give it to me!”

Although Alan Cooper wasn’t particularly athletic, he was still a bit stronger than Little David. He dodged to the side and sprinted out of the classroom. Three staff members came running from the opposite side of the hallway. Alan Cooper hesitated for a split second, then leapt out of an open glass window in the first-floor corridor into the flowerbeds. As he ran toward the empty side of the playground, he lowered his head and compared his own answer sheet with Little David’s, memorizing the questions Little David had marked.

ABBCADDDBCDADAB…

He’d lost nearly half a minute running out of the classroom and grabbing the answer sheet. Now there were thirty seconds left.

Still enough time!

“Come back!”

“Stop right there!”

Several staff members and security guards closed in from both sides!

Alan Cooper ignored them and kept reciting the answers in order, ACCABBDDDCAD…

“Catch him!”

Suddenly, something heavy hit his back—Alan Cooper was tackled to the ground.

A proctor behind him said angrily, “Who is this guy! Disqualify him from the exam!”

Another, panting, said, “This is really serious, call the police!”

“My results still count, right?” Little David, who had caught up, said anxiously, “He’s the one who took my answer sheet!”

Lying on the ground, Alan Cooper endured the pain and finished reading the last line of choices, then shouted at the top of his lungs, “BACK!!”

……

All around, there was dead silence.

Inside exam room 026, everyone had their heads down, answering questions. Not a single person spoke.

The sound of pens and 2B pencils scratching on the test papers filled the air, and a tense atmosphere hung over the room.

Alan Cooper’s head spun dizzily, and in the next moment, he saw the bald proctor standing in front of him, frowning at his answer sheet. “Don’t draw boxes all over your answer sheet. If you write like this, how can the machine read it? Hurry up and erase it!”

Time had gone backwards!

Alan Cooper wiped the sweat from his brow, still shaken. “Yes, sir.”

The proctor glanced at him and turned away.

Immediately, Alan Cooper didn’t dare waste a second and quickly filled in the answers with his pencil. I must not forget! I must not forget!

ABBCADDDBCDADAB…

That week of memory training wasn’t for nothing. Alan Cooper had prepared specifically for this cheating attempt. His pencil flew across the page. The first twenty multiple-choice questions were no problem—most people could remember that many letters with short-term memory. But the later ones were a bit harder. Alan Cooper used all his strength and finally managed to reproduce the thirty-some letters that were his memory limit. For the last dozen or so, he already knew he wouldn’t be able to remember them clearly, so he made some compromises.

For example, AACBA, he just remembered as AAAAA.

For example, ABAD, he just remembered as ABCD.

Two minutes later, Alan Cooper had copied all the options he got from Little David.

If Little David had scored nearly full marks on the civil service exam’s administrative test last year, then this year’s shouldn’t be much worse—at least a 90% accuracy rate, right? That would be enough. Plus the questions Alan Cooper was confident about, he was sure to get a very high score on the administrative test!

Phew!

Cheating… success!!

Chapter 9 [Is this a Shenlun question!?]

The administrative test was over.

In the hallway outside the exam room, Alan Cooper and Little David ran into each other.

Little David looked at him mockingly. “This time the administrative test was even harder than the national exam. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Alan Cooper shot back, not to be outdone, “You didn’t mess up, did you?”

“Me? Mess up?” Little David couldn’t help but laugh, full of confidence. “Don’t compare me to you. Except for two logic questions I probably got wrong and a few really tough general knowledge ones, I basically couldn’t have made any other mistakes. I did the math before handing in my paper—unless something unexpected happened, my error rate won’t exceed 7%. And you? With such a tough paper, you must have gotten at least forty or fifty wrong, right?”

Alan Cooper smiled and said, “Don’t worry about me. If you’re fine, then I’m fine.”