Chapter 117: A Paradigm of Inspiration

"Shenyu, you aren't kidding, are you? Did your parents lecture you again this weekend? Don't let it get to you, though—homework still needs to be copied."

Hearing his deskmate's words, Wang Shenyu felt an inexplicable sense of accomplishment. He pulled seven completed exercise sheets from the backpack hanging on the back of his chair and placed them at the seam between his desk and Xiaoyou's.

Looking at the filled-out pages, especially the long-form math problems written out in full detail, Xiaoyou was stunned. "No way. Don't tell me you actually did these yourself?"

Xiaoyou, whose full name was Zhao Xiaoyou, was indeed Wang Shenyu's closest friend. He knew his friend’s academic level and personality all too well. While Wang Shenyu’s grades weren't exactly at the bottom of the barrel, he wouldn't necessarily be able to finish seven full sheets of homework even if he spent the entire weekend on them. But would he actually do it? Don't make him laugh.

Furthermore, looking at these sheets—Xiaoyou flipped through them and compared them to the ones he had just finished copying from someone else—damn, they actually looked more accurate than his own.

The other friends nearby heard the commotion and crowded around. This group of "brothers in arms" who had all been caught together recently were very close; they always hung out together, and the best students among them were usually Xiaoyou and Wang Shenyu, both hovering around the lower-middle tier of the class. The other four or five were teetering on the edge of the bottom.

"Come on, come on, let me copy them, I haven't finished mine yet..."
"Me too, I'll copy the math first, you guys take the others, we'll swap in a bit."
"Copying Shenyu's homework today—how novel."

Several identical sets of papers were produced in short order. The next day, when the teacher collected the assignments, they once again saw several papers with a high degree of similarity. This situation happened far too often; the teachers knew full well what was going on, sometimes they simply chose not to call it out. The teacher glanced at the names—these were the same students who had been publicly reprimanded by the school on Saturday morning. Aside from Xiaoyou, who had already finished his own, the other five were all there, even though they hadn't handed them in together.

The teacher sighed, setting those papers aside to grade the others first, intending to find out who the "original author" was later. There were several other stacks of papers with high levels of duplication divided into separate groups.

*Scratch, scratch, scratch.* Most of the period passed, and the math papers for Class 9 were all graded, save for the five that had been set aside. To the teacher's surprise, they couldn't figure out who these students had copied from—at the very least, the problem-solving style for the complex questions was different.

After grading those five papers, the teacher noticed that while the accuracy wasn't perfect, the logic behind the complex problems was clear. There were only minor errors in processing details; if they could just hear the correct approach once, they likely wouldn't make similar mistakes again. When it came time for the Class 9 math lesson, the teacher specifically pointed out and explained the subtle, hard-to-spot errors in those papers. This made everything suddenly click for Wang Shenyu, who was listening intently.

Although not every teacher was as dedicated as the math teacher, over the following period, Wang Shenyu’s progress was noticed by each of his instructors one by one. First, he scored high on a difficult math exam common to multiple classes; then, his chemistry and physics quiz scores climbed higher with each attempt, followed by significant improvements in English and Chinese.

Later, in the grade-wide mock exam, his ranking soared, leaping from 1,100th place to 121st. He even squeezed into the top seven of his class. Such a jump of nearly a thousand places was rare. Moreover, the teachers of Class 9 admitted that even before this, Wang Shenyu’s performance had begun to improve significantly, and his classroom efficiency had become remarkably high.

Due to the contrast between the previous school-wide reprimand and this sudden progress, the school leadership was deeply impressed by Wang Shenyu. It served as proof that the school's teaching quality was commendable—it showed the school had the ability to successfully transform a traditional "problem student" into a model scholar. As for whether his character was as "excellent" as his academics? Did that even matter? As long as his grades were good, he was a model student.

Following the mock exam, the school leaders specifically mentioned Class 9 and Wang Shenyu’s progress during the Monday flag-raising ceremony. They even invited him on stage to share his "secret" to studying and encouraged other struggling students not to give up, noting that anyone had the chance to catch up.

For those further away, even in the next class over, most students didn't pay much attention. But within Class 9 and among his acquaintances, Wang Shenyu had become a minor celebrity. His parents, in particular, felt a sense of vindication. After receiving a call from the homeroom teacher praising their son, they were instantly overcome with the delusion that Tsinghua or Peking University was already within their grasp. In their neighborhood and among relatives, they seized every opportunity to steer the conversation toward their son.

They would make small talk and then find a way to ask, "How is your child doing lately? Are their grades good?"

Usually, people would either brush it off or say "it's okay," then politely ask about their own child. That was when the moment of glory arrived.

A wave of boasting would follow. "Oh, the homeroom teacher praised him last time and called me personally; the kid didn't even tell me, honestly..."
"During the last flag-raising ceremony, the school leaders invited Shenyu up to share his study experience. Sigh, this kid, he didn't even tell us about that either, he's so exhausting..."
"Studies are so intense, yet this kid still joined the school basketball team and even won second place in the tournament. Seriously, what if he got hurt..."

Relatives and friends would express their surprise, offering a mix of genuine and polite praise, which greatly satisfied the vanity of Wang’s parents. When they returned home to lecture their own children, Wang Shenyu would become the new "child of someone else." This earned the boy several new resentful peers.

Strangely enough, as Wang Shenyu’s overall quality as a student improved, the number of arguments between his parents at home decreased. It was as if they had found a spiritual anchor. His father, who had previously seemed irritable, and his mother, who had seemed annoyingly long-winded, both became much kinder and more amiable.

One Saturday evening, he sat at the desk in his room once again. Beside him was a plate of fruit his mother had peeled after dinner. Wang Shenyu pulled a sketch from his notebook—it depicted a mighty monster, the image of the primordial demon, Sallasor. For some reason, despite not being skilled at drawing, sketching this image felt as simple as photocopying it from his mind.

He stared earnestly at the drawing and sincerely "thanked" the demon, hoping to gain even greater "power." He had considered the danger of becoming entangled with a demon, but after having experienced it, losing that power would be the truly terrifying prospect.

How many people had prayed to angels and deities and gained nothing? What they could not give me, the demon could! So what if it is a demon!