Chapter 700: Operation Send Zhang Ye Home!
Translator: Legge Editor: Legge
Several reports were published one after the other.
Beijing Times: Several young teachers, including Zhang Ye, have join the college entrance exam question setting teams. This shows that the Beijing Higher Education Entrance Examination Board is determined to reform the Beijing college entrance exam. The questions for this year's exams are not likely to be as "comfortable" as previous years' anymore, so let's see how it will turn out.
Beijing Online: A last-minute change in the exam question setting team leaves the Beijing college entrance exams in doubt.
People's Daily Online: On temporary hiatus from The Voice of China, Zhang Ye tries his hand at setting the Mathematics and Chinese Literature sections for the college entrance exam. Will Zhang Ye be up to the task?
The news spread like wildfire!
Online, more and more people found out about the news!
Yao Jiancai posted on Weibo: "Whoa, I was trying to reach Zhang Ye's phone just now to chat with him, but couldn't get through even after trying a few times. I was still wondering what happened. So it was because he had gone up into the hills!"
Zhang Ye's fans were also loving this piece of news.
"Haha, Teacher Zhang is coming up with something else again!"
"Setting exam questions for the college entrance exam? Does he need to go that far?"
"I'm so looking forward to it!"
"I would like to see how difficult the questions Zhang Ye set can get. Is the Beijing Higher Education Entrance Examination Board starting to make radical changes this time? It looks like Teacher Zhang will be taking on the lead role this time! But coming back to the point, no one has ever seen Zhang Ye's questions for the high school level before. I wonder if Teacher Zhang Ye can really complete this task? Will his exam questions really end up being too difficult? I guess that's still a big question mark there."
"It will definitely be very difficult!"
"I think so too, Zhang Ye's not going to be easy to deal with!"
"Yeah, who doesn't know what Teacher Zhang Ye's style is like. It's going to be a tough one for those college entrance examinees this time! Plus it's really unlucky to have unfortunately met with Zhang Ye getting appointed this year!"
"I just took the college entrance exam last year, but now that I think of it, my heart is also fluttering with fear. If my mother had given birth to me two months later, I would have to take my college entrance exam this year! This is the first time I feel like I should be giving my heartfelt thanks to my mother!"
There were those who were here to observe the fun.
There were others who were here to make sarcastic remarks.
There were also those who wished to watch the world burn.
Many of the Beijing college entrance examinees who saw this gnashed their teeth in hatred!
"You people, enough!"
"Don't you all have any compassion at all!?"
"Has anyone ever considered how we are feeling? In the final push before the exam, we have practiced countless times on past exams which were easier just so that we get used to the exam's question setter's train of thought and difficulty level. But now they're changing the lead question setter just like that, yet you all are here gloating at our misfortune. Do you all even know how hard we've worked?"
"To be put into this spot by Zhang Ye who has suddenly become the lead question setter for both the Mathematics and Chinese Literature exam sections! This is as good as taking our lives!"
"Teacher Zhang, knock it off, could you seriously knock it off!"
"Just go back and do The Voice as you were before! Why did you come to the college entrance examination's question setting teams to mess around! Hurry up and go back to where you came from. When my college entrance exam is done, I promise that I will buy three TVs and tune in to Central TV Department 1 every Thursday at 9 PM to support and add to your viewership ratings!"
"We were so close to taking the college entrance exam. How could they suddenly change the lead question setter! This is too unfair! Such bullies!"
"Boycott Zhang Ye!"
"Yeah, let's strongly boycott Zhang Ye!"
"This is numbing! We can't let this guy be the lead question setter!"
"Calling for Teacher Zhang to leave the question setting team!"
"Calling for Zhang Ye to leave the question setting team!"
"+1!"
"+99999!"
"Teacher Zhang Ye, please go home!"
Suddenly, whether it was on Weibo, the forums, or any of the big or small Tieba groups related to Beijing, many college entrance examinees and their parents started a new round of calls for boycotting. It was just over a week ago when the television industry insiders were calling for a boycott on Zhang Ye due to his disruption of the market practices. But now another wave of boycotting activities was beginning. Everyone was "shouting" their mottos. This round of boycott actions was labeled as—"Send Zhang Ye Home"!
The examinees were creating an uproar.
"Teacher Zhang, your house is on fire. Quickly go home and check on it!"
"Teacher Zhang, your telephone bills are due. Quickly go home and pay up!"
"Teacher Zhang, the plants at home need watering. Quickly go home and water them!"
"Teacher Zhang, there's a drop dead gorgeous woman at your house bathing right now. Quickly go home and take a look!"
There were many comments from the examinees. Their messages made many netizens who were just observing the fun laugh like crazy. One by one, more and more people began following the thread. Some of the more clever replies were even being forwarded countless times!
In the present era of the college entrance exam, it had become a watershed moment in life and an important basis and formation of the current societal structure. So if even the entire society, media, and citizens were focused on something like that, then what could be said of the examinees themselves and their parents? Adding on the famous Zhang Ye from the entertainment circle who always worried others, Zhang Ye's name had become synonymous with this current topic. Naturally, the topic of him joining the Beijing college entrance examination's question setting team had instantly gone viral. Finally, the boycott that was started by the examinees was gathering great momentum!
10!
100!
200!
Numerous Beijing examinees were even starting a group boycott, calling for everyone to join in to their Operation Send Zhang Ye Home, as more and more of the other Beijing examinees started to join!
……
Elsewhere.
The Beijing question setting teams were not in the know of all that was happening.
Zhang Ye had stayed up overnight to rack his brains, trying to write out all the questions.
Some of the other question setters were also still in discussions about the exam questions, while some were eating a late night snack. A few were already deep in sleep. They were all isolated from the outside world while they were here. That meant both physically as well as their communications like cell phones or the Internet, so they were unaware of what was going on out there.
……
Meanwhile.
Over at the Beijing Higher Education Entrance Examination Board.
With the commotion online getting bigger and bigger, the Higher Education Entrance Examination Board also reacted and called an emergency meeting. There were 15 or 16 people taking part in the meeting and every one of their expressions showed that they found it both funny and annoying. None of them had expected that there would be such a huge reaction from the public because of their invitation of Zhang Ye to the question setting team!
Someone spoke but hesitated, "Professor Zhang is…"
Another female staff member was feeling rather helpless. "Teacher Zhang's affinity with the people seems to be very poor. Why does he always get boycotted wherever he goes to! I remember him getting boycotted by those people from the television stations just last week, didn't he?"
A young staff member gave a wry smile. "But that can't be helped, can it? We can't possibly be thinking of sending Professor Zhang home? He is the country's few top mathematicians, so we can't just ask him to come and go as we like. We won't be able to justify our decision that way. If the examinees want to boycott, just let them do it. From a different perspective, this also shows that our decision to invite Professor Zhang to join us was right. Didn't we do so because we wanted to increase the difficulty of the exams?"
A woman said, "That's true."
Finally, after a discussion in the meeting, the Board unanimously decided—they would simply ignore the issue raised by the examinees!
……
The next day.
Operation Send Zhang Ye Home was still ongoing.
"Teacher Zhang, I've deposited 1 billion RMB at your house!"
"Teacher Zhang, your wife is going to give birth soon!"
"Teacher Zhang…"
"Teacher Zhang…"
On one of the larger Beijing forums, in the college entrance exam discussion group, this thread was even stickied at the top. All kinds of people were coming up with all sorts of strategies and posting all kinds of wondrous sounding ideas!
However, to be realistic, everyone knew that this was just a form of self-entertainment by the examinees. Boycott Zhang Ye? The literary world had tried to boycott him before, but their faces ended up getting smacked swollen by Zhang Ye. The SARFT tried to ban him, but he still did whatever he wanted to do. The television industry also tried to boycott him, but now? All of them fell silent and not a single one of them could be seen anywhere. After so many people and groups had tried boycotting Zhang Ye multiple times, none had come to any effect at all, not to mention their group now. The examinees understood that they would have to face reality in the end!
Sure enough, when they went back to school for their classes, every Beijing high school teacher wore a different expression altogether.
……
Beijing Normal University Affiliated High School.
Class 3-1.
A female teacher was standing at the podium, not looking too well. "Class, our revision using the notes and examination guides might be obsolete already. You won't need to do the focused review plan that I designed for everyone a few days ago anymore either. There's no meaning to those assignments anymore. From here on, I will be working with the other Year 3 teachers to prepare something new for everyone to review intensely with, because I'm sure that everyone already knows that the lead question setter this year is Zhang Ye!"
A male student anxiously asked, "How could they change the scope of the exam now, didn't they already approve it beforehand? With this last-minute change, how are we expected to be able to take the exam!?"
"That's right!"
"Teacher, what should we do!"
The female teacher said, "The scope of the exam definitely won't change. It's more or less going to be the same as what we have told you all to study before today. Those are the subjects that the exam questions will be based on. However, a good question setter will still be able to stop you from getting the correct answer even if they provide you with the exact subject or the proper formula to start with. It's regrettable, but our Year 3 group of teachers has analyzed that Zhang Ye is likely to be such a person. He is possibly the only one in the Chinese math field who has the highest understanding of logic operations and algebra, along with a few other topics. According to our worst case scenario, his questions will be very difficult to answer if you just attempt to solve it using the most conventional methods! That is why this college entrance examination's Mathematics section is really going to be a test of everyone's quality!"
……
At Beijing No.14 High School.
"Teacher!"
"Can you highlight the main subjects for us?"
"Yes, everyone says that Zhang Ye's questions will be very difficult!"
"He wouldn't possibly make us compose a poem, would he?"
"I just hope that the essay questions will not be written by him! The weight of points on the essay section is too high!"
"Teacher Zhang, what kinds of questions will Zhang Ye give?"
The students were talking one after another.
The No.14 High School Chinese Literature teacher held it in for a long time before finally shaking her head and saying, "I don't know either. All you can do right now is completely memorize the entire scope of the subject for the exam, and then…" She stopped there, not wanting to tell them that she could only offer them a blessing on this matter! With Zhang Ye's literary level, no one in the entire country could possibly guess the questions that he would write or which train of thought the questions would be based on!
……
Yucai High.
"Hurry up, class. Everyone has to finish these three sets of exams today!"
"Ah? What exams are these, Teacher?"
"These are the three most difficult sets of exams over the years in all the national college entrance exams that have been held. Everyone, prepare yourselves for this, but it may be possible that this year's Beijing college entrance math exam might be the most difficult ever! The Beijing Higher Education Entrance Examination Board has already sent a very clear signal about this!"
This time, with Zhang Ye's surprising inclusion in the college entrance examination's question setting team, it not only caught the examinees off guard, even the teachers were affected and blindsided!