The monthly exam took two days. Right after the exam ended was the school sports meet.
For the two days of exams, Chai Meicen, Zhou Rui, and Zhang Ruchen all took the international class exams in the morning and the regular class exams in the evening.
Chai Meicen wanted to see Zhou Rui's level in the regular class.
Zhou Rui was just listening to his mom and focused on participating.
When the sports meet started, Zhou Rui was very happy.
When Chai Meicen arrived, she deliberately brought a big bag and put it on Zhou Rui's lap after sitting down in the stands, "Mom bought this for you."
Her manner was quite similar to when Zhou Rui was little and participated in sports meets and field trips, with Chai Meicen buying a big bag of snacks for him.
"Thank you, Mom," Zhou Rui thanked her very casually.
"I also want to have a son like Zhou Rui!" Zhuo Wenqian, who was sitting next to Chai Meicen, joked, "When there's an issue, just lock the son out."
Yang Ge saw it and immediately rushed over, "Brother Rui! I didn't have breakfast!"
"Call dad."
"Dad!" Yang Ge also called out casually.
Zhou Rui gave the snacks to Yang Ge, then asked Chai Meicen to turn around, pointed at Yang Ge and said, "Mom, this is your grandson."
Yang Ge even called out very casually, "Grandma!"
Chai Meicen was amused, "Do you kids play like this nowadays?"
Zhou Rui tore open a piece of ham sausage and took a bite. He leaned over to Chai Meicen and said, "You should eat some too. You still have to participate in events later."
"When is my event?" Chai Meicen ate a cracker.
Zhou Rui looked at the schedule, "Don't you think this schedule is a bit crazy?"
Chai Meicen took a look and immediately felt dizzy.
The schedule was for the girls. The names on it were either Chai Meicen or Zhuo Wenqian. The two names dominated the entire page.
A few other girl's names popped up here and there, which looked quite touching.
Chai Meicen let out a long sigh, "What's the first event?"
"Right, it's after the opening ceremony. Don't worry, the boys go first."
Chai Meicen hurriedly ate some more, afraid of being hungry during the event.
On the first day of the sports meet, the teams gathered on the track field at 8 am. The opening ceremony started at 8:10 am.
The opening ceremony mainly consisted of leaders giving speeches, releasing doves and balloons, and everyone clapping—the standardized procedures.
Zhou Rui was on the student council, so he didn't stand in line. The PE teacher called him to arrange things, which resulted in the surrounding teams starting to act recklessly.
"International Class 3 will rank last again for sure."
"Of course! No matter how well the boys can fight, just 5 girls still won't cut it."
"6 girls now!"
"What difference does that make?"
Laughing followed.
Chai Meicen stood in a relatively front position and could hear the boys from other classes commenting while looking in their direction.
Without Zhou Rui there, he couldn't keep the situation under control. This was the first time she felt that her son's dominance was also very important.
"But the sixth girl is pretty. If she were a cheerleader, International Class 3 would be hyped!"
"Right, that's the girl in the third row, the glowing white one."
"She's quite pretty. I'd let her be my girlfriend and..."
Chai Meicen was annoyed listening to this when she saw an arm reach out in front of her. The hand pressed down on the boy standing next to Chai Meicen.
Then Li Xiaonan walked over and grabbed the collar of the boy who was speaking: "I'll beat you to death if you keep this up."
As soon as the boy saw Li Xiaonan, he shut up and didn't dare say anything. Li Xiaonan's eyes were just not suitable for eye contact.
The boys around him quickly said, "We were just joking."
This alerted the teacher. The teacher didn't dare yell loudly for fear of affecting the leader's speech. He walked over and asked, "What's going on? Go back to your own class!"
Li Xiaonan glanced at the teacher indifferently without paying much attention. He still had that detached and gloomy look, paired with those slightly fierce eyes. It made everyone give way to him on his way back.
After returning, Li Xiaonan stood diagonally in front of Chai Meicen again. Chai Meicen tugged Li Xiaonan's clothes when she saw things had calmed down.
Li Xiaonan looked back at Chai Meicen, questioning.
"Very thoughtful. Sis will treat you to something delicious later." Chai Meicen raised her eyebrows at Li Xiaonan, looking quite chivalrous.
Li Xiaonan's mouth twitched into a smirk but he didn't say anything and continued standing there.
When the team disbanded and returned to their seats, Zhou Rui also came back with number cloths made of silk. He was holding a plastic bag and gave it to Chai Meicen, "I bought this for you."
Chai Meicen opened the bag to find a set of sportswear inside, "I was planning to wear the school's sportswear!"
"Can't do that. You're our class's hardest working athlete. We all chipped in to buy this for you. Don't say we're ungrateful!"
Yang Ge, eating snacks, said, "That's right. We each contributed 20 bucks. Brother Rui was collecting it like he was collecting protection fees."
Chai Meicen laughed when she heard this. She stood up and said, "I'll treat the whole class to milk tea."
International Class 3 immediately cheered, attracting looks from students of other classes.
Chai Meicen wanted to find a place to change into the sportswear. Zhou Rui reminded her, "Go to the library. It's close by and the restrooms have individual stalls."
"Great!" Chai Meicen immediately went to change, bag in hand.
The clothes were bought by Zhou Rui. He had specially chosen a tender pink, clearly knowing her preferences very well.
Sports brands nowadays were like they had cheats enabled. The styles were getting better and better looking. Chai Meicen still remembered when she was young, those sports brands just cycled through the same few styles. The one she remembered most vividly was the luminous green top.
They had all become fashionable designs now.
Chai Meicen also specially tied her hair up in a ponytail.
But her hair was short, so she tied a little top knot on her crown to keep it out of the way and then swaggered back.
As soon as she returned, Zhou Rui took out his phone to take pictures of her, "Our athlete Chai Meicen is so cute!"
Zhuo Wenqian pinned Chai Meicen's number onto her with safety pins, then pulled Chai Meicen to go register. The first event was about to start.
Since they came late, when registering with the teacher, they could hear students from other classes preparing and commenting.
"Ahhh I'm so nervous. What if we rank last?"
"Don't worry. There's still International Class 3 at our level."
"Then that's good. We won't die too miserably."
After hearing this, Zhuo Wenqian couldn't help but roll her eyes. "Just because we were so disastrous in 10th grade, they still treat us as a joke now."
Chai Meicen started warming up, stretching her legs and hopping a few times. "I'm fired up now!"
"Yeah, let's crush them!" Zhuo Wenqian was also full of fighting spirit.
The first event was the 800m dash.
Since Huaqiao International School had a junior high and a high school, and many classes, it took quite a long time.
When they arrived, the boys' group had just finished and it was the high school girls' turn after the junior high girls finished.
Zhou Rui walked over holding a yellow minion umbrella, and stood next to the two girls to help shade them, "I specially borrowed this umbrella from Zhang Ruchen."
"Wow, Zhang Ruchen's umbrella. Let me touch it." Zhuo Wenqian looked at the umbrella with greedy eyes.
"Aren't non-participants not allowed to come over in case it affects the competition?" Chai Meicen asked while standing on the side.
"I'm student council, the PE department head. I can swagger all over the field at occasions like this."
"How come you never told me about it?"
"What's the point of saying it? You'd rather I were the academic affairs committee member."
"Class monitor wouldn't be bad either."
When it was almost Chai Meicen's turn, Zhou Rui also started feeling nervous. "Don't force yourself if you can't run. Don't stress yourself out. It's fine, we're used to it."
"Just watch." Chai Meicen said and went up.
While standing in the ready position, she looked left and saw a girl nearly 1.7 meters tall. She looked right and saw another girl nearly 1.7 meters tall.
Do kids develop this well nowadays?
After the gun fired, Chai Meicen immediately started running. She really was quite fast.
Zhou Rui watched from the track field, holding a conspicuous little yellow umbrella.
He couldn't help but mutter, "Damn, running so fast, will she still have strength left at the back?"
But he really underestimated Chai Meicen.
She had already taken the lead after the first lap. Just when everyone thought she would run out of steam, she actually sped up in the second lap!
Their rubber track was 400 meters per lap, so two laps made 800 meters.
Zhou Rui watched as Chai Meicen ran faster and faster, finishing the 800 meters a good half lap ahead of the second placer.
"Holy crap! Those little short legs are pretty fast!" Zhou Rui couldn't help but yell out, grinning from ear to ear.
International Class 3 was about to explode.
The entire class could be seen standing up in the stands. Their camp was quite unique—a black mass consisting entirely of boys. Their cheers were extremely earth-shattering.
Due to poor academics, they had been hit hard. They spent the entire time yelling, "Damn! Goddess you're awesome!"
Their vocabulary was very limited.
Chai Meicen rushed past the finish line with an overwhelming victory, still full of energy as she casually walked over to Zhou Rui and asked when her next event, the 400m, was.
Zhou Rui checked the schedule, "The last event in the morning."
"Okay, I'll head back first then."
Zhou Rui immediately went to the finish line to check the time. He was happy very quickly and took the results to ask the teacher, "Did she break the record?"
"Let me check." The teacher replied and flipped through the records, also quite delighted, "She broke the school record, 3 seconds faster than the previous record."
"Does breaking the record get extra points?"
"Yes, an additional 10 points."
Soon after, the school broadcast read out the results, repeatedly emphasizing Chai Meicen breaking the record three times.
The girls who were just discussing International Class 3 earlier sank into despair. "We're done for. Not only did we rank last, we became a foil."
"We're also witnesses of this historic moment."
When Chai Meicen returned to the stands, Yang Ge was so excited he gestured wildly. Not knowing what to say to Chai Meicen, he just went "Ahhh" at her, like a prairie dog.
"This kid is silly," Chai Meicen couldn't help asking.
"Sister Mei is awesome!"
"Sister Mei is invincible!"
Now not only Yang He called Chai Meicen "Sister Mei", it has become the collective term for the entire Class 3 of the international department.
After a while, Zhou Rui came up holding a small yellow umbrella, and his classmates immediately gathered around to ask, "How did you do on the exam?"
"I'm in second place now," Zhou Rui replied.
"What's going on, don't we have Sister Mei's bonus points?" Yang He felt very puzzled, thinking he could make a comeback this time.
Zhou Rui sighed, "Just now, in the shot put, our female group was completely eliminated in the preliminaries."
The two other girls immediately said, "We tried our best."
"It's okay, it's okay, we all know the situation in our class," Zhou Rui immediately waved his hand, "We won't blame you."
The girls felt a little better hearing this.
At this moment, Chai Meicen said, "Don't worry, your sister is here."
After saying this, she took off her school jacket and started warming up.
The 400m race would start soon.
She didn't know why, but Chai Meicen hadn't cared much for the sports meet before. But now at this moment, her competitive spirit was ignited.
