After finishing, he carefully read it over once more, silently recited it, then reached out, crumpled the paper into a ball, and tossed it into the trash bin.

Well then, let’s begin!

……

8:30 p.m., rooftop terrace.

Henry Thompson hurried upstairs, and as soon as he reached the rooftop, he saw Grace Miller leaning on the guardrail, lost in thought again.

“Hey, beautiful, can you stop sending blank texts from now on? At least type something, or just send a letter, or even a number would do!”

Grace Miller glanced at him, then turned her head back expressionlessly to keep staring into the distance.

It was obvious she was in a bad mood.

“There wasn’t even a fight on the fifth floor across the way today. So boring!” Henry Thompson said.

Grace Miller remained silent.

So Henry Thompson fell silent as well.

After a while, he nudged Grace Miller's elbow and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

Grace Miller looked at him, as if she wanted to say something but hesitated. In the end, she just said, “It’s nothing, just… just not in a great mood. I don’t even know why.”

Henry Thompson was taken aback, his eyelids twitching a few times, and said in a mock-serious tone, “This kind of thing… isn’t it better to talk to your mom about it than with me?”

Grace Miller was startled by this, her eyes wide as she stared at him. “You… how did you know?”

She had indeed called Henry Thompson up here today because she wanted to talk about something, but for some reason, when she actually saw Henry Thompson, she didn’t want to say it anymore. After all, it was just her own guess: an old family friend’s child came back from studying abroad and visited their home—what’s the big deal? They didn’t say anything, so if she brought it up and it turned out to be nothing, how awkward would that be? It would seem like she was overthinking things!

But… how did Henry Thompson know?

Henry Thompson was stunned again. “Why wouldn’t I know? Just look at your expression, clearly in a bad mood or something… Okay, I get it, girls always have a few days like this every month…”

Grace Miller's eyes suddenly widened, a momentary daze in her gaze.

Then, as she snapped back to reality, her face flushed bright red!

She angrily kicked Henry Thompson, both embarrassed and flustered, not knowing how to explain, so she could only stomp her foot and say, “It’s not that!”

Henry Thompson spread his hands in grievance—just a few days had passed and he’d gotten kicked again.

Grace Miller glared at him, then turned away in silence.

But she had to admit, after Henry Thompson's antics, the thing that had been weighing on her mind faded away without her noticing.

After a moment of silence, Grace Miller remembered the main thing and said, “The monthly exams are next Thursday and Friday.”

“Oh.” Henry Thompson nodded absentmindedly.

“You only scored 433 last time,” Grace Miller continued.

Henry Thompson suddenly perked up and asked, “How many points do I need to get into the top thirty?”

He had just set his short-term goals, with the first one about studying and the last one about university. So, this score issue was not something to take lightly.

Grace Miller thought for a moment and said, “Xiaoping, who sits behind me, scored 518 last time. She was 27th.”

“Oh, so I need about 500 points,” Henry Thompson understood.

Grace Miller said, “If you end up in the bottom ten in the final exams, just like when we moved from first to second year, you’ll have to transfer to another regular class… You don’t have to get 500, 480 is enough. With 480, you can probably stay in this class.”

Henry Thompson said, “Hey, it doesn’t really matter which class I’m in. You’re leaving anyway…”

Grace Miller blushed a little and fell silent.

Henry Thompson didn’t notice her expression and kept calculating his scores to himself, “Chinese, 90 is hard to say, but 85 should be fine. History and philosophy, I can probably get 80 in each. English and science, I’ve been studying like crazy lately, so let’s say 75 and 70. That adds up to… only 390. That’s a lot of pressure. Okay, I’ll try to get 70 in math, which shouldn’t be too hard. Second-year math isn’t that difficult. But Russian… 60 is really tough!”

After all the calculations, Henry Thompson felt he could score between 500 and 520, and was fairly satisfied with that result. He turned to look at Grace Miller.

Behind her glasses, her eyes blinked rapidly. She looked away, avoiding Henry Thompson's gaze, and said softly, “Maybe I should tell my sister that I… won’t go to Beijing?”

She paused, as if afraid Henry Thompson would misunderstand, and explained, “I mean, I mean… if I don’t go to Beijing during the summer, I can tutor you in Russian. Russian is your worst subject!”

Henry Thompson blinked and said nothing.

Grace Miller looked back at him and carefully counted on her fingers, “Last time you got 91 in Chinese, 43 in math, 61 in English, 52 in Russian, 70 in history, 67 in philosophy, and 49 in science… Based on your own calculations, do you really think you can improve that fast?”

Henry Thompson was stunned. He couldn’t exactly say: In my previous life, my grades were actually pretty good, except for Russian, which I never studied before, so I can only rely on what I know in this life. As for the other subjects, with a bit of review, I shouldn’t do too badly…

“You remember so clearly. I’ve already forgotten…” he said.