The classroom was dead silent.
The teachers' mass exodus didn't just confuse Zhao Yuan; it left the rest of the third-year integrated Traditional and Western Medicine class completely stunned.
They had taken countless exams in their lives, but this was the first time they had ever encountered a situation like this.
"What is going on?" a student clutching a *Basic Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine* textbook cried out, forgetting to even cheat.
The students in the classroom all shook their heads.
They couldn't figure out what was happening either, muttering, "Aren't we in the middle of an exam? Time's not up yet, is it? How could all the teachers just leave? Shouldn't at least one of them have stayed behind to proctor?"
As they looked at each other in bewilderment, someone said with a strange expression, "I think I might be taking a fake exam..."
Someone else shouted, "Who cares! No proctor is great news! We can cheat without any worries!" With that, the person went back to searching for answers online with their phone.
The remaining students, as if they'd been reminded, dived into a flurry of cheating.
The exam had effectively become an open-book test.
Since they had textbooks and phones to search for answers, none of the students went to ask Zhao Yuan. They were all people of principle; even when cheating, one had to be self-reliant...
Zhao Yuan was happy for the peace and quiet. He wasn't in a hurry to leave, planning to head back to the dorm with Liu Zhu, Wang Rongfeng, and Wu Yan after the exam. He glanced over at the three of them and saw they were still scribbling away furiously, so he didn't disturb them. Instead, he summoned the textbook on Acupuncture theory from his Information Leaf and continued his studies.
Because he hadn't seen anyone else's test, Zhao Yuan had no idea his questions were different from theirs. Likewise, since they hadn't asked him for answers, the others didn't know he had been given special treatment.
A little over ten minutes later, a bell rang, signaling the end of the exam.
In the classroom, the students of the integrated medicine class once again looked at each other in confusion.
All the teachers had left. There was no one to collect the papers!
This was just too awkward!
In the end, the class monitor stepped up, collected everyone's exam papers, and took them to the office of the Basic Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine department.
At that moment, Xiao Xianlin had already made multiple copies of the exam paper, and a group of Basic Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine teachers were poring over them voraciously.
Whenever they came across a brilliant section, the teachers would slap their own thighs hard. The force and sound of the slaps made the class monitor's skin crawl; he felt the pain himself. Yet the teachers, as if their sense of pain had vanished, seemed completely oblivious. At the same time, whenever they had an epiphany from Zhao Yuan's arguments, they would dance with joy inside the classroom...
In this scene, how could they possibly look like a group of university professors? They looked exactly like patients in a psychiatric hospital!
It wasn't just the teachers in the office, either. Every so often, another professor proctoring the Basic Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine exam in a different classroom would return with a thick stack of papers. But instead of grading them, the first thing they would do was rush over to Xiao Xianlin, grab a copy of Zhao Yuan's exam, and join the ranks of the "psychiatric patients"...
The class monitor stood at the office doorway, hesitating for a long moment before finally mustering the courage to walk in.
'He was terrified. These teachers are acting like they've gone mad. What if one of them suddenly jumps up and beats me?'
Trembling, the class monitor walked up to his own class's professor, swallowed hard, and said cautiously, "Pro... Professor, I've collected the class's exam papers. Where would you like me to put them?"
"Exam papers? What exam papers?" The professor looked up, wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth, and asked with a completely blank expression.
The class monitor was dumbfounded. "The final exam papers for the Basic Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine course." Inwardly, he complained, 'It's just an exam paper, isn't it? Why is he drooling? Does he think it's some kind of gourmet meal?'
Fortunately, he didn't say this out loud, or he would have faced the collective wrath of every professor in the office: "Isn't a brilliant piece of writing a delicacy of the highest order? What's wrong with drooling over it? We've all been drooling!"
"Oh, oh, right, the exam. I almost forgot about that." The professor scratched his head, a little embarrassed. "What? Is the exam over already?"
The class monitor's expression darkened. 'This professor is so unreliable,' he thought. He gave a wry smile. "It ended a while ago. I saw you hadn't come to collect the papers, so I gathered them for you."
The professor nodded. "Alright, just leave them on the desk. After I'm done studying, I'll cross-grade them with the other professors."
According to the rules at West Hua Medical University, after every final exam period, not only were the grades published on the school's official website, but so were the year-level rankings to motivate students to study harder and more actively. Therefore, all final exams were cross-graded to prevent professors from giving their own students high scores to boost their rankings.
The class monitor did as he was told, placing the papers down and turning to leave. As he walked, he muttered to himself, 'It's just a final exam paper, isn't it? Why did the professor use the word "studying"? And all the other professors, even Elder Xiao and Elder Liu, are staring at that paper as if they're completely intoxicated. It's just too strange. There weren't any particularly difficult questions on this year's exam. Why are they acting like this?'
The class monitor could never have guessed that his exam paper and Zhao Yuan's were, in fact, completely different.
Zhao Yuan didn't guess it either. He was currently on his way back to the dorms with Liu Zhu, Wang Rongfeng, and Wu Yan. He casually asked, "How'd you guys do on the exam today?"
"Not bad!" Liu Zhu said with a grin. "I already knew a lot of the questions on the test. Plus, the teachers were so focused on you that they didn't pay any attention to us. So I took the opportunity to search for a bunch of answers online with my phone. I'm pretty sure that even if I don't get a perfect score, I'll be close."
Zhao Yuan was shocked. "Huh? You can find the answers to those questions online?"
Several of those questions had taken even him a great deal of effort to answer. He never would have thought the answers could just be found online.
"Of course you can!" Wang Rongfeng said. "You just have to search a few keywords and the answers pop right up. It's way more convenient than flipping through the book or using a cheat sheet."
Zhao Yuan didn't overthink it. He just figured that Wang Rongfeng and the others must have found some famous expert's medical thesis and felt relieved. They didn't compare answers; if everyone had looked them up online or in the book, what was the point of checking?
And so, Zhao Yuan once again missed the chance to realize he'd been set up.
Meanwhile, a group of uninvited guests barged into the office of the Basic Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine department.
It was Qiu Haogu, Ma Hanqing, and the other professors from the Medical Ancient Texts department.
They had also come to see Zhao Yuan's exam paper.
Although they specialized in teaching Medical Ancient Texts, as practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine, they were also deeply knowledgeable about its basic theories. They were curious to see what kinds of questions their colleagues in the Basic Theory department had cooked up for Zhao Yuan, and equally curious about how he would answer. If he produced any classic arguments, they wanted to be there to learn from them immediately.
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