Chapter 1 — I Set a Trap for a Copywriter

01

In the seventeenth minute of the city-wide Physics exam, I finished the last difficult question. The moment the tip of the pen wrote down the final result, a cold voice suddenly rang in my head. 【The first complete solution has been copied.】 My hand stopped. The black ink pen pulled an unexpected streak of ink on the answer sheet. What is it? I raised my head. In the exam room, there was only the sound of turning papers and the sound of clock hands moving. The supervisor sat on the podium, head down, looking at his phone. No one talked. I looked at the answer I had just written, and my heart suddenly beat a few beats faster. Hallucination? Last night I practiced until two in the morning. This isn't the first time I've had a lack of sleep. I tried to suppress the feeling of insecurity and turned to the penultimate essay. The Physics test this time is ridiculously difficult. The multiple choice section ahead took a lot of time, but the last three essay questions were exactly what I was best at. Synthetic electromagnetic fields, momentum collisions, motion of charged particles. If you change to someone else, you probably won't be able to complete one sentence. As for me, it's just a matter of time. I tightened my grip on the pen again. Twelve minutes later, the second sentence was completed. 【The second complete solution has been copied.】 This time, I heard every word clearly. Not an illusion. I suddenly raised my head and glanced around the exam room. No one looked at me. Only Trinh Y Hoan sat in the third row across the front just in time to turn to another page. Her movements are very slow. It could even be said to be overly calm. The exam had passed nearly half an hour, but her scratch paper was still clean, with only a few lines of simple formulas. Like waiting for something. I looked at her for two seconds. She suddenly raised her head. More than a dozen tables apart, our eyes met. Trinh Y Hoan smiled at me. Then bow your head and start writing. My back immediately felt cold. No way. A wild thought just popped up and I forced it down. This is a city-wide exam. Six schools use the same test, organize the exam uniformly, and the entire exam room has video cameras. Even if Trinh Y Hoan wanted to copy, he couldn't sit that far away and see my answer sheet clearly. Besides, she's at the top of her class. I ranked fourth. During the past year, in more than a dozen large and small exams, she has never fallen out of the top three. The teacher said she thinks closely. Her classmates said she was born to take exams. Even the school's propaganda board had her photo on it. Trinh Y Hoan basically doesn't need to copy my work. I took a deep breath and continued working on the third essay. This question is the most complicated. I don't solve it the usual way but reset a velocity variable, reducing the original lengthy process into three steps. This is my own habit. To avoid confusion with the letters in the question, I intentionally used a very rare Greek letter. The final inference step is complete. I wrote the answer down. 【The third complete solution has been copied.】 【The number of copies in this test has been used up.】 My pen tip completely stopped. Copy. Three articles. Turn is over. Every single word I understood. But when put together, they were like an invisible hand pressing hard on the back of my neck. I looked at Trinh Y Hoan again. She had her head down, writing at lightning speed. The scrap paper just now was barely empty The formula has now been sealed. She writes so fast. So fast that it doesn't look like I'm thinking. It's like copying a pre-made answer. I tightened my grip on the pen. No way. There's definitely something wrong. For the next hour, I hardly looked at her again. I forced myself to complete the remaining questions, then checked the answer sheet from beginning to end. When the bell rang, I was sure my last three sentences were okay. The only thing uncertain is a simple mechanics quiz ahead. I hesitated between the two options for too long, but in the end I still changed it to C. As soon as I left the exam room, Tran Du Xuyen chased me from behind.

“Have you done all the last three questions?”

“Yes.”

“The third sentence as well?”

“Already done.”

He looked at me like a monster.

"I haven't finished drawing that sentence yet."

The students next door immediately gathered around when they heard it.

“Co Nam Kieu turned on cheat mode again.”

“She did the difficult questions at the end really quickly.”

“But every time in the previous part, she lost points. Otherwise, she would have ranked first a long time ago.”

"What's the use of doing it fast? Trinh Y Hoan calls it stable."

Speaking of Trinh Y Hoan, she just walked out of the exam room. Her face was calm, she didn't even look tired after doing a difficult problem. Someone asked her how she did the last three questions. Trinh Y Hoan smiled modestly.

“The time is a bit tight, so it's done even if it's forced.”

I looked at her.

“What method do you use for the third sentence?”

Her smile stopped for a moment.

“The normal way.”

“What is the normal way?”

The surroundings suddenly fell silent. Trinh Y Hoan looked at me, his voice still gentle as before.

“I just finished the exam so my mind is a bit confused and I can't remember each step clearly.”

“Let's wait for the question paper and talk about it later.”

After saying that, she left. Tran Du Xuyen gently touched my arm.

“What's wrong with you today?”

“Nothing.”

I stared at Trinh Y Hoan's back. That mechanical voice echoed in my head again. Three complete solutions. If I didn't hear wrong. If the so-called copying is really related to Trinh Y Hoan. So why couldn't she tell me the solution just now? Three days later, the results were announced. When Han Tranh walked into class holding a stack of exam papers, his face was rarely so pleasant.

“The general exam in Physics this time is very difficult.”

“The average score across the city is only sixty-three.”

“But our class has two students who performed extremely well.”

I raised my head. The entire class's eyes simultaneously turned to Trinh Y Hoan. Han Tranh read her name first.

“Trinh Y Hoan, ninety-eight points.”

The whole class immediately exploded.

“Ninety-eight?”

“Did she get all the last three questions right?”

“Are you still human?”

Trinh Y Hoan sat at the front table, slightly pursed his lips, looking a bit embarrassed. Han Tranh continued:

“Especially the last sentence, she uses a very rare transformation, the steps are extremely concise.”

“This idea is great.”

The blood in my body felt cold at that moment. A rare transformation. My variable. My solution. Han Tranh's eyes turned to me.

“Co Nam Kieu, ninety-four points.”

“The last three sentences of the essay are all correct, and the solution is also very beautiful.”

“But the basic multiple choice test ahead had two wrong questions.”

The teacher placed the test on my desk, his voice full of regret.

“My problem, The teacher has said it many times.”

“Being able to answer difficult questions does not mean you will get a high score on the exam.”

“True stability is not losing any points that could have been gained.”

"This point, you must learn from Trinh Y Hoan."