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Chapter 11: The High Ground of Intelligence
Zhang Yudong arranged a few erasers upright on his desk, then stood up all the pen caps that could balance. He used his pencil case as a towering mountain and stacked textbooks haphazardly to mimic rolling hills.
At a glance, it was clear Zhang Yudong was orchestrating an epic battle with both hands—gray erasers raining from above like artillery shells while stealthy pen caps hid in the shadows below.
What a thrilling war this was…
“All done! Check it out,” Gu Lu interrupted the standoff between the ranks of pen caps and erasers after completing all his side hustles.
“One word: badass,” Zhang Yudong said, grinning. “I’m talking about how you managed to fool the teacher today.”
“Oh yeah, speaking of which… remember what we talked about last time regarding-” Zhang Yudong started but was cut short by a girl sitting in front.
“Zhang Yudong! Give me back my eraser!” she demanded.
“And mine too!” another chimed in. “No wonder I couldn’t find my pen cap.”
“That’s, like, the third time someone took my eraser without asking!”
“It’s always you!”
The cacophony erupted like fireworks, each voice louder than the last.
So that’s where your "troops" came from, Gu Lu thought silently as he slipped away.
By the final class of the day, Gu Lu still hadn’t seen Mr. Li, and since he was eager to submit his entry for the Bingxin Cup Writing Competition, he decided to tweak his plan slightly. There was no point waiting until noon tomorrow; he’d go see Fat Boss tonight to research ideas and finalize his topic. Once home, he’d draft everything onto paper.
After all, this piece required some serious brainpower.
“Ten… nine… eight… seven…”
Gu Lu heard Zhou Lin whisper-counting softly under her breath beside him. For reasons unknown, the school clock lagged behind Beijing Standard Time by a minute or two, but Zhou Lin’s digital watch was synced perfectly to the school schedule.
When the countdown hit “one,” the dismissal bell rang right on cue. Honestly, if there were any students who acted more like slackers than Zhou Lin, they didn’t exist.
Could there really be such a thing as genius? Someone who snacked during lectures, barely paid attention, yet never fell out of the top five rankings in grade-level exams?
Damn geniuses! Just like Oikawa Toru in Haikyuu!!, Gu Lu despised them.
Or maybe—just maybe—Zhou Lin wasn’t actually slacking off at school. Maybe she went home every night and burned the midnight oil studying secretly. But their relationship wasn’t close enough for Gu Lu to ask directly.
“Now let’s take a look at this problem—” the teacher droned on, refusing to end class even after dismissal. They dragged on for another ten minutes to finish going over the test papers.
The immediate consequence? By the time Gu Lu reached the gaming room, it was already packed shoulder-to-shoulder, making it nearly impossible to squeeze through.
“Didn’t you finish your draft already? No one is using the computer at the moment,” Fat Boss said casually.
“I want to enter a writing competition, so I need to do some quick research first,” Gu Lu replied.
“That’s the spirit! Since you write good fiction, your essays should be solid too,” Fat Boss encouraged before glancing at the wall clock and shouting across the noisy arcade, “Time’s up for station three! Stations seven and nine have ten minutes left!”
His booming voice carried effortlessly over the din.
First things first: Gu Lu logged into his email. Though he’d mentally prepared himself for disappointment, seeing an empty inbox from Story Digest still stung. Hurry up, hurry up!
But soon afterward, something else lifted his spirits considerably. While browsing online, he discovered there was no movie called The Days Without Lei Feng, but thankfully, Shinichi Hoshi still reigned supreme as the king of Japanese sci-fi short stories in this world.
“No luck with ‘He-y, Come On Ou-t’ though. What about Atsushi Nakajima? Oh wait, neither Nakajima nor Osamu Dazai exists here. Man, the japan in this parallel universe is missing so much great literature…”
Gu Lu paused to jot down notes on famous authors absent from this reality.
“The Ye Shengtao Cup carries real weight. Third place winners in the high school division get accepted into prestigious universities like Southwest University of Political Science and Law.”
In this pre-internet-boom era, information about award recipients was scarce, but one thing was certain: placing in the top three of the Ye Shengtao Cup guaranteed admission to a decent high school. The Bingxin Cup, however, yielded far less data.
While Gu Lu researched these parallels, let’s rewind briefly to what happened immediately after he dashed out of the classroom.
“Did Gu Lu leave?” Zhao Juan asked instinctively, noticing the empty desk of Gu Lu.
“In our class, only Chen Hong leaves faster than Gu Lu—check if Chen Hong is still here.” Zhou Lin remarked dryly.
Recalling squeezing past Chen Hong’s empty desk earlier from her desk near the wall, Zhao Juan confirmed that Gu Lu had indeed left.
“Did you buy another bottle of Coke?” Zhou Lin squinted her eyes to look at Zhao Juan’s hands.
“No,” Zhao Juan shrugged. Since Gu Lu wasn’t around, she muttered to herself that she’d deal with it tomorrow and walked off.
Actually, she didn’t head to the cafeteria for dinner either. Instead, she sought out Fan Xiaotian, Gu Lu’s best friend in class.
“Fan Xiaotian, do you happen to know Gu Lu’s QQ number?” Zhao Juan got straight to the point.
Something was definitely up. Fan Xiaotian’s small eyes gleamed mischievously. Deciding to cut to the chase, he said, “Gu Lu rarely logs into QQ anyway. Why don’t you just text him directly? Here’s his phone number.”
And just like that, Zhao Juan acquired Gu Lu’s phone number, adding, “Don’t tell him I asked for it, okay?”
“Sure, sure,” Fan Xiaotian agreed outwardly while inwardly resolving to spill the beans later.
Ah, the subtle games girls play. Zhao Juan wasn’t naive; she knew full well Fan Xiaotian wouldn’t keep quiet.
That night, the entire dormitory of No. 37 Middle School suffered a power outage—and then—
In the boys’ dorm, one unlucky student lost a bet and had to sing loudly from the balcony:
“Where does the wind blow, carrying dreams to distant shores?
For whom am I yearning, clinging to memories untold?
Where do clouds drift, soaring beyond mountains and seas?
In this vast crowd, where can weary souls find peace…”
Soon, voices from neighboring rooms joined in, swelling into a chorus of male singers belting out the refrain: “A single day in heaven equals a year on earth!” Their raucous singing lit up the dark night, leaving indelible memories for those living on campus.
Meanwhile, commuter-student Gu Lu returned home and began piecing together his essay for the Bingxin Cup. It was tough work.
If he merely churned out filler text, padding it to eight or nine hundred words, it would’ve been laughably easy. But the challenge lay in passing the initial round of the Bingxin Cup.
[Dad, did you see that? Your son speaks proudly because self-interest reigns supreme now, proving that your outdated ideals of mutual aid and Lei Feng’s spirit are obsolete.
Riiing! Bicycles emerged from the reeds—it was the students.
Dozens of them worked together to pull a car stuck in the mud.
Qiao Anshan spent his life emulating Lei Feng’s altruism, yet here he was being helped by students embodying that same spirit.
Keep doing good deeds! Our kindness won’t go unrewarded.]
Finally, Gu Lu tacked on an inspirational line he didn’t entirely believe, mulling it over before deleting and revising: [Good people helping good people leads to rewards for good deeds. Let’s punish wrongdoers harshly. Kindness shouldn’t be drained dry, nor should whether to help someone become a societal debate.]
“There’s no Peng Yu Case in this world, thank goodness. And I hope it stays that way,” Gu Lu muttered, not wanting his prediction to come true.
After giving the essay one last polish, Gu Lu reverted to his original ending. His sharp intellect had reclaimed the high ground: the purpose of this essay was to pass the Bingxin Cup preliminaries, not indulge in personal expression.
Sometimes clichés hit the mark better.
Twenty minutes later, he finally completed the arduous task.
“Yes! Finally done! This killed me, whew!” Overjoyed, Gu Lu leapt onto the sofa in triumph.
Krrrack!
The sofa collapsed beneath him.
Talk about adding insult to injury for a family already struggling financially.
Bzzzt—
But a second later, a mysterious voice echoed in his mind.
[Strange Tales][Repeatedly Declared Retirement From Writing][Award Creation]
“??” Gu Lu blinked.
Like the readers reading this right now, there were so many questions swirling around in Gu Lu’s head.
………………..
TL Note:
The Peng Yu case is a highly controversial legal case in China that became a focal point of national debate over morality, law, and public behavior.
Overview of the Peng Yu Incident:
- Date: November 20, 2006
- Location: Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China
- People Involved:
- Peng Yu: A young man in his twenties
- XU: An elderly woman in her seventies
What Happened:
Peng Yu claimed he saw the elderly woman fall while getting off a bus and went to help her by taking her to the hospital and giving her 200 RMB for her medical bills. However, the woman later accused Peng Yu of causing her fall.
Peng Yu denied pushing her and insisted he only helped her after she fell.
Court Decision:
The court ruled against Peng Yu, ordering him to pay nearly 45,000 RMB (about $6,000 at the time) in compensation. The judge said that Peng Yu’s act of helping the woman and taking her to the hospital indicated he likely felt responsible, reasoning that "ordinary people wouldn't help someone unless they felt guilty."
This logic was heavily criticized.
Public Reaction:
The case sparked massive outrage across China. It led to a widespread moral panic where people feared helping strangers—especially the elderly—out of concern they might be falsely accused and held liable. Many people began citing the "Peng Yu incident" as a reason not to intervene in public emergencies.
Long-term Impact:
- It changed public attitudes toward helping strangers in distress.
- Some scholars and commentators criticized the court’s reasoning as flawed and dangerous.
- It led to national debates over the need for “Good Samaritan laws”.
- In later years, China introduced laws to protect people who offer assistance in good faith (e.g., in Guangdong and national legislation like the 2017 Civil Code includes protections for Good Samaritans).
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