Chapter 712: Down with Zhang Ye!
Translator: Legge Editor:
Each time the college entrance examination was held, there would always be examinees who passed and failed. Some of them would do poorly, but there were others who did well in the examination. But looking at the situation now? Did everyone end up doing badly this time? Did everyone meet their doom at the Mathematics test? But no matter how difficult the test was, it couldn't be that not even one of them did well, right? There would surely be some straight-A student who could do well on this exam, but no matter where they searched and looked, why were all the examinees showing the same expression?
A father and his son were talking.
"Son, haven't you always done well at math!?"
"It was too difficult! The questions were way too difficult!"
"How many did you manage to get correct?"
"I don't know! I had to resort to guessing just to solve the questions!"
"How could that be! Just what kinds of questions did you get!?"
"Dad, if I can get 50 points on my math test this time, I would be more than happy!"
"What? You've always managed to get no fewer than 90 points in math! You even managed to score 99 points on one of the mock exams! Why would it be so bad this time? This doesn't reflect your aptitude at all!"
When another examinee heard that, he said, "Just be contented with that. Lei Zi can still score 50 points, but if I can score 40 points, I would already be extremely satisfied! I did not write a single word for my answers to the last three major questions! I couldn't even understand what the questions were asking!"
Several of the reporters' eyes met each other’s, but they could not believe what they had just heard. They could believe that a question could not be answered since difficult questions did exist, but for the candidate to even not understand the questions? They clearly could not believe it. As a result, those reporters tried to obtain some of the math questions by interviewing a few examinees who recounted to them from memory. Upon writing out and seeing the questions, those reporters instantly felt dizzy.
"Brother Liu, can you understand the questions?"
"…What about you?"
"Me? I don't get it at all."
"F**k, me too."
"Damn, is this question even meant for us humans?"
"It seems like the question setting team is really out to kill everyone!"
Very soon, quite a few news reports were published.
"Darkness befalls the second day of the Beijing college entrance exams!"
"Difficulty level of the Chinese Literature and Math tests goes off the charts!"
"The end of the college entrance exam: Students leave the exam venues in tears!"
"The Math exam questions exposed: Check if you can solve these questions?"
"Never before in history! Difficulty of exam questions brings examinees to tears!"
Many of the photos taken outside of the exam venues were also posted. In the photos, it could be clearly seen that the headlines of "brings examinees to tears" was not just a figure of speech. The examinees had really been brought to tears by the difficulty level!
……
Elsewhere.
When the exam was over, the Internet blew up with comments. The angered Beijing examinees invaded Weibo, Tieba, and a few of the larger online forums, "shouting" together in unison.
Examinee Little Wang: "Fairy tales are just lies! They're all lies!'
No. 3 High School Wu Fei: "Teacher, why didn't it turn out according to the way we discussed?!"
No. 4 High School Examinee: "It's not that I'm bad at math, but that the enemy is too crafty!"
Beijing Normal University Affiliated High School Examinee: "Who were the people who listed out the reasons one by one before deducing that the Math test wouldn't be too difficult? Show yourself! If I don't beat you to death, I will take on your last name!"
No. 8 High School Examinee: "After finishing the Chinese Literature test, I felt that my heart was crushed. But after finishing the Math test, I felt like my balls were crushed!"
"Balls crushed as well!"
"Balls crushed as well+1!"
"Balls crushed as well+99999!"
A student from No. 63 High School: "Dear juniors, if next year's Beijing Chinese Literature and Math tests become easier, please remember us. Please remember us, because that was exchanged with the sacrificed blood of your predecessors, your seniors, us! Don't thank me, just call me the unwilling Red Scarf!"
The examinees from the other provinces had gathered to watch.
"Scratching my head in confusion."
"Brothers and sisters who took part in the Beijing college entrance exam, it's been hard on you all."
"I've seen your Math exam questions, all I want to say is—you're all glorious warriors!"
"Come on, stay strong!"
"Whoever gets those questions would not be able to answer them either!"
"The Beijing Higher Education Entrance Examination Board has really gone big this time! Let's see how they will handle the situation later on!"
"Zhang Ye's such a wicked fellow! Those questions must have been set by him!"
"We're lucky that our province's Higher Education Entrance Examination Board did not invite this fellow to join them! Otherwise, the ones to be sacrificed this year would surely have been us! Just thinking about it gives me the shivers!"
"Whoever gets involved with a question setter like Zhang Ye who does not play his cards logically is surely down on their luck!"
"Zhang Ye is the scourge itself. When he was at the radio station, he fought the entire radio station system. Then when he went to the television station, he fought the television station's leader. At the university, he went against the education world. When he got into the crosstalk industry, he fought against the crosstalk world. Now, he has even come to destroy the Higher Education Entrance Examination system!"
The Beijing examinees were cursing!
The examinees' parents were complaining!
The entire society's attention had suddenly turned its focus to the Beijing college entrance exams!
The Beijing Higher Education Entrance Examination Board…the question setting teams…Zhang Ye…All of these parties were thrust to the forefront of discussions!
Not long after, a call to "severely punish the question setter" was making rounds across the Internet. Countless Beijing examinees and their parents were participating in it while the examinees from the other provinces also joined in to show their support. This new wave of dissent once again turned the Internet upside down as it caused a great deal of commotion!
"Where is Zhang Ye at?"
"Zhang Ye, where are you?!"
"Hand that man over!"
"Down with Zhang Ye! Revenge for the examinees!"
"Down with the Beijing Higher Education Entrance Examination Board! Justice for the examinees!"
The "shouts" came wave after wave, continuously!
……
At another place.
Zhang Ye's parents' house.
Dong dong dong, dong dong dong. There was someone knocking on the door outside.
His parents and Chenchen were at home staring at the computer for news related to the Beijing college entrance exam. When she heard that someone was at the door, his mother went over and opened it. "Who is it?"
Outside, Zhang Ye stepped into the house. "Who else could it be?"
His mother was surprised for a moment. "Why are you home?"
Zhang Ye laughed. "The college entrance exam is already over. If I don't come back, where would I go? Do you prefer that I stay in the hills? Heh, let me say this: I was bored out of my mind when I was there. It's always the woods that I see when I open my eyes. Just look at all these marks on my body, I got these bites from the mosquitoes and bugs. There's too many of those in the hills!"
His mother said, "Get into the house quickly, I will get you some essential balm."
Zhang Ye was in a rather good mood. "It's fine, I've already applied some." Then he walked into the living room and saw his father with Chenchen. "Dad, you're not working today? Chenchen, do you miss Uncle?"
Chenchen glanced at him. "—Hur hur."
Zhang Ye smiled and said, "Hur hur means you did." Then he asked, "Dad, did this little rascal cause any trouble in our home?"
Chenchen pouted.
His father looked at his son. "You're still worried about whether Chenchen caused any trouble? I think the trouble that you've caused is much greater! Just look at this, it's a total mess online! The examinees and their parents are all scolding you! You're really asking for it. Just stick to setting the questions, why did you have to make them so difficult?!"
Zhang Ye said, "Who's scolding me?"
His mother followed up, "See for yourself. No one is not scolding you!"
Zhang Ye went over to the computer and had a look. It was really true; his Weibo account had received countless mention notifications and all of them were talking about "ridding evil for the people." Zhang Ye was already sweating at the sight of this and suddenly plucked Chenchen out of the chair she was sitting on and then sat himself in front of the computer. He logged into Weibo and quickly posted a message.
Zhang Ye: "Everyone, cool down. If it was difficult, then it would have been difficult for everyone. If the scores are low because of this, then everyone's score will also be low. It is actually all the same and your college admission won't be affected." In this world, it was quite common for students to be admitted into universities. Out of ten examinees, more than half would qualify for university. That was why the difficulty of the questions wouldn't have affected their chances by much, unless the examinees did very badly on the overall exam. That portion of the examinees who did not achieve a good enough result still wouldn't have scored well, whether or not the questions were difficult. They still wouldn't have qualified for university, so there wasn't really much of a difference.
However, the examinees were having none of it!
When they saw Zhang Ye's Weibo status light up, all of the Beijing examinees swarmed over!
"That Zhang guy has appeared online!"
"Your sister, how dare you still appear!"
"Everyone, come and gather quickly! The culprit has appeared!"
"Down with Zhang Ye!"
"Zhang Ye, we've all been screwed big time because of you!"
"What kind of lousy questions of yours are those!?"
When Zhang Ye showed up, he was immediately besieged by countless people!
Zhang Ye was didn't know how to react. He coughed and then composed himself and posted onto Weibo like a boss: "Why are you all scolding me? The questions were not set by me, they were set by Dean Pan Yang of Peking University."
Dad: "…"
Mom: "…"
Chenchen: "…"
Su Na's Weibo: "…"
A Peking University teacher who was also on the question setting team: "…"
At a certain house.
Pan Yang came home totally worn out and had just taken a sip of tea before he started browsing through the Internet on his computer. Instead, he saw the Weibo message posted by Zhang Ye, and after reading it, he nearly lost his balance. He spat out his tea. He had not expected Zhang Ye to pin the blame on him to make him the scapegoat!
Pan Yang was also getting anxious. This was not something he could take the blame for. He was just about to post his Weibo reply when he saw the rest of the comments that the examinees followed up with. Those comments left him laughing out loud.
"Peking University's Dean Pan?"
"Don't listen to his nonsense!"
"Dammit, who are you trying to bluff here! It's you for sure!"
"Don't think that we don't know about it! These kind of wicked questions wouldn't have come from anyone else but you!"
"Pfft, Teacher Zhang, you're lying with a straight face! I'm suddenly very amused by this!"
"Zhang Ye, do you even have any integrity left!?"
"It was you! Can't be anyone else!"
"Don't try to shift the blame! Even if these questions get burned to ash, I will know where they originated from!"
In the end, not one of the examinees or netizens believed him. They all knew that Zhang Ye's mouth was totally unreliable!
Zhang Ye had no other way out, so he simply went offline as he knew that if he couldn't appease them, then the better way was just to hide! This guy was intending to lie low for the moment since he had become the public enemy to so many people!
……
At night.
The farce was still ongoing!
The Beijing Higher Education Entrance Examination Board was also interviewed with regards to this year's examination questions and a press release was published soon after. The press release exposed the names of the question setters of the most difficult questions in the various subjects' exams and even revealed some details in regard to how a question should be written.
This resulted in the Beijing examinees and the observing netizens discovering with shock that the questions that had tormented the examinees in both the Chinese Literature and Mathematics tests were indeed written by none other than the goddamned Zhang Ye!
That's right!
Every question!
Every question was set by him!!!
At this moment, the examinees became so angry they cried out loudly in rage. Every injustice has its perpetrator. They once again launched their attack on Zhang Ye's Weibo with wave after wave of scolding!
"You still dare claim that the questions were not set by you! And even tried to accuse Dean Pan of being the one?!"
"I give in to you, Teacher Zhang! How could it be that all the crazy difficult questions were set by you?"