Ethan Foster spread out the test papers in his hands, and upon hearing this, he pulled them back a little. “Well... I think that’s fine too.”

He then glanced at Eric Bennett beside him, and said, seemingly on purpose, “Hmm, anyway, there’s still one last day tomorrow, and then we’ll have two days of free review time. How about I come find you and we review together? If there are questions you know, you can explain them to me, and for the ones you have trouble with, maybe I’ll have some ideas.”

Ethan Foster’s words were, in a way, a show of force to Eric Bennett. He had noticed earlier that Olivia Harris blushed and turned her head under Eric Bennett’s gaze. He thought to himself, this kid who’s been hiding in the corner like a turtle for three years, what’s gotten into him today? Is he planning to go wild before graduation and pursue the school beauty Olivia Harris?

Especially when Olivia Harris’s rarely seen blush just now left Ethan Foster momentarily stunned, and at the same time, filled his heart with immense hostility toward Eric Bennett. But by saying this, he was making it clear that he and Olivia Harris belonged to the top tier of the class, and only she could stand on the same level as him. As for small fry like Eric Bennett, they were the kind of people who would soon be drowned out by the flood.

Olivia Harris was clearly a little tempted. Although her grades were excellent, she wasn’t arrogant—there were still junior high questions she couldn’t solve, which was perfectly normal. What Ethan Foster said made sense. For the two days before the entrance exam, Olivia Harris had already planned to spend one day reviewing and one day resting. If she could review with someone like Ethan Foster, whose grades were on par with hers, it would be a great help in filling in any gaps.

Of course, Eric Bennett saw right through Ethan Foster’s deliberate act and found his jealousy amusing. Without commenting, Eric Bennett casually glanced at the test papers in Ethan Foster’s hands. “Um, can I take a look?”

“Look? Can you even understand it?” Ethan Foster raised his eyebrows, handed the test papers to Eric Bennett, and made no effort to hide the disdain in his tone.

Eric Bennett saw that the test papers had no title; they were special exam questions printed by the school’s print shop. The thick smell of ink on the mimeograph paper hadn’t faded yet, and as he breathed it in, he felt a wave of indescribable nostalgia. Eric Bennett was suddenly overcome with a sour feeling in his nose, almost wanting to cry—these were such precious memories of the past.

But of course, Eric Bennett couldn’t show his true emotions. Otherwise, if so many people saw him getting teary-eyed over a test paper, they’d probably think he’d lost his mind, or was expressing some kind of sorrow for the uncertain future.

Everyone saw him frowning at the test paper, but no one paid much attention. They each whispered about their own topics, many of which carried a sense of sadness about the upcoming graduation.

This set of test papers had no title; it started right away with the first question. Whether it was multiple choice, geometry proofs, or calculation problems, there were no blank lines between questions, all the way up to a hundred questions. Combined with Ethan Foster’s earlier attitude, Eric Bennett realized this was an internal set of exam questions. Usually, teachers would select some of the more difficult problems at this stage and distribute them as internal reference materials to the top students in the class, so they could make their final push and prepare for the last big battle.

These materials were always in limited supply and only given to top students like Ethan Foster and Olivia Harris. Students like Eric Bennett almost never got them.

This wasn’t because the teachers were biased or had any dark motives. It was simply that these questions were on the fringe of the curriculum and were the most difficult at the junior high level. For average students, giving them such tough problems as review material before the exam would be of no help at all—on the contrary, it could even be harmful. For top students, these problems could help consolidate and review the entire knowledge system, but for ordinary students, they would only disrupt their normal thinking and cause disastrous results.

As Eric Bennett looked at these problems, although he couldn’t solve them all at a glance, at least the things he learned in high school and college—what they called “advanced mathematics”—were all based on an understanding of junior high math. It was like a high schooler looking back at junior high problems: while he might not be able to solve every single one, he could handle at least eighty percent. What’s more, after suffering repeated setbacks later on, Eric Bennett had studied hard, but because his foundation was too weak, his grades never improved.

It was like in martial arts novels, where someone who’s been sickly and underdeveloped since childhood, no matter how hard they work later, can never become a master with great inner strength—unless they have a miracle, like falling off a cliff and finding a treasure.

Now, it seemed that fate had given him a chance to rebuild his foundation.

But looking at these problems now, they all felt incredibly familiar. He could see the whole picture at a glance. For some questions, Eric Bennett was confident that if he had a piece of paper and a pen, he could work out the solutions.

If Ethan Foster and Olivia Harris, who hadn’t yet fully mastered this set of problems that supposedly covered all junior high knowledge points and traps, knew how confident Eric Bennett was at this moment, their jaws would probably drop in shock.