Yongjia Middle School.
Principal Luo had been quite perplexed these past few days, having let a national top scorer slip away.
Oubei No. 1 Middle School's promotional vehicle even came to publicize near their school. No, this was showing off!
That damned Zhang Mubao!
Principal Luo now also knew that Fang Bai had a very good relationship with the County Leader, which was quite impressive.
Fang Bai didn't know that Principal Luo was always thinking about him. Even without his aunt's matter, he wouldn't have gone to Yongjia Middle School to repeat a year; that area was too remote and inconvenient.
So, Principal Luo was overthinking things, he just didn't know it, and he kept holding a grudge against Chen Xia.
Chen Xia could be said to have been inadvertently harmed by her nephew. After she learned that Fang Bai had become the top scorer, she deeply regretted her initial actions, and school leaders didn't give her a good look when they met her.
If she had known Fang Bai's plan, she would have wanted to grab her nephew by the neck: "Why did you tell the school leaders that she didn't agree to repeat a year at Yongjia Middle School!"
Actually, it wasn't Fang Bai's fault. If anyone was to blame, it was Fang Bai's mother, who kept coming to Chen Xia for help and even complained to the school leaders.
It could be said that Chen Xia was quite wronged.
...
At 3 PM on August 5th, Fang Bai finally received his admission letter from Shanghai Jiaotong University, and he finally breathed a sigh of relief.
[Jiangzhe (Province/City) Yongjia (County/District) Oubei No. 1 Middle School (Middle School) Student Fang Bai, you have been admitted to our school's Mechanical Engineering and Automation major. Please report to the school with this notice between September 4th and September 6th, 1991.]
It also listed the dormitory number 15-213, already assigned.
Upon receiving the admission letter, Fang Bai was very excited. He called Qin Shuyu from the living room to inform her, and then called the mall to tell his parents.
After the call, Fang Bai returned to Oubei No. 1 Middle School to get a copy of his admission letter for the school.
Fang Bai wanted to leave, but he couldn't. The Principal asked him to wait a moment, found Zhan Feng, and the three of them took a commemorative photo together in front of the school's Wall of Honor. Then, Fang Bai was asked to take a solo photo with the admission letter for the school's publicity.
After the photos, the Principal finally let Fang Bai slip away.
"Fang Bai, come back to your alma mater for tea when you have time!" Principal Zhang waved his hand. If Fang Bai didn't come, he would personally visit; the school was too close to his home.
"I will, I will."
Fang Bai quickly left. He was a prominent figure at the school now.
After receiving the admission letter, Liu Fengqing finalized the arrangements for the celebratory banquet. She consulted a Taoist priest to pick a date, finally settling on the tenth day of the seventh lunar month, which was August 19th. She prepared invitations to deliver personally.
Fang Bai was reluctant to hold a banquet, but his parents felt it was a major life event and insisted on celebrating to wish him a smooth university journey.
"Then let's not accept red envelopes. Just treat relatives and friends to a meal, so people don't grumble about us using the graduation banquet to collect money," Fang Bai suggested.
"Not accepting red envelopes feels a bit inappropriate, even if our family isn't short on that money. When they leave, we'll return double the red envelope. If they give a hundred, I'll return two hundred," Liu Fengqing grumbled, then thought for a moment and added, "I want to make those stingy people regret it immensely."
Fang Bai chuckled: "Mom, while your trick might be useful, if we encounter those who specifically try to curry favor with our family by giving large gifts, it won't achieve your goal of showing off, will it?"
"Besides, every family's financial situation is different. For some, one hundred might be a small amount, but some families can't afford that much."
"Let them curry favor if they want to. If they dare to put down their pride, then we'll give them face. Anyway, I'll return double whatever red envelope they give, and I won't tell them beforehand. Let them decide based on their own intentions." Liu Fengqing still believed she was doing the right thing. Some relatives were wealthy but didn't give much in gifts; instead, they were even more stingy.
This time, he had to invite all relatives. The main purpose was to show off and vent years of resentment.
The past few decades had been too frustrating; this time, it had to be glorious.
"Whatever you say, I'll just be a puppet." Fang Bai was too lazy to persuade her. Let his mother do whatever she wanted. Ultimately, she still harbored some resentment about his grandparents' past actions and some relatives who were too snobbish.
Of course, there were also some relatives who were very good to their family.
But no matter which family, they all fell into three categories: bad, average, and good.
Alas, the poor are ignored in a bustling city, while the rich have distant relatives in deep mountains.
Around nine in the evening, Fang Bai had just finished showering and returned to his bedroom to read when he suddenly received a prompt from the Golden Finger.
[Prompt 1: Admitted to a key university, index finger can be upgraded to LV3. Do you want to upgrade?]
[Prompt 2: Admitted to a key university, index finger can be upgraded to LV4. Do you want to upgrade?]
"..."
"Holy crap!"
"Two levels up!"
Fang Bai's eyes widened, and he couldn't help but jump up and cheer, then rolled around on the bed a few times.
"Confirm upgrade!"
[Prompt: Index finger upgraded to LV3]
[Index Finger LV3: When touching books to study, memory and comprehension are enhanced fourfold, permanently increasing by two times]
"Confirm upgrade!"
[Prompt: Index finger upgraded to LV4]
[Index Finger LV4: Memory and comprehension are permanently increased by four times, manual dexterity +1]
Instantly leveling up twice felt incredibly satisfying!
Suddenly, he felt a warmth in his right index finger, and his head ached slightly.
Then, both hands also felt a tingling sensation.
A few minutes later, the warmth and tingling sensation ended, but his head still ached a bit.
Fang Bai rubbed his temples, and the pain only subsided after a while. He estimated that the upgrade was too intense at once, or perhaps, leveling up to LV4 caused a qualitative change.
He saw that the swelling in his index finger had disappeared, looking normal, though there was still a scar, and the scar felt a bit calloused.
However, it was no longer a major issue.
What surprised him was that his hands were much more flexible than before.
It should be said that they were much more flexible than before his finger was broken, capable of easily performing various precise movements and changes, such as bending the middle finger's outer joint 90 degrees to form a "7" shape without having to manually bend it.
It seemed this was the reason for the enhanced manual dexterity.
Fang Bai scrambled up from the bed, sat at his desk, picked up a pencil, and casually sketched a circle, feeling that the lines were drawn quite precisely.
Drawing one circle is easy, but drawing several identical circles is much harder.
Fang Bai couldn't draw perfectly round circles, but he could feel that his freehand drawing ability had greatly improved. He estimated that he would also learn other crafts more quickly, only lacking muscle memory.
Moreover, drawing well didn't mean he had artistic talent.
He picked up a pencil to try pen-spinning. Originally, he could only spin it once back and forth. Trying to spin it infinitely was too difficult; it felt like playing with this required innate talent.
Now, he attempted infinite pen-spinning. Although he didn't succeed, he felt that with more practice, he would be able to learn it.
With flexible hands, there were many more things he could do. For Fang Bai, the most direct benefit was more agile equipment assembly.
If one wanted to do scientific research, poor manual dexterity meant difficulty in conducting scientific experiments.
His brain also underwent a qualitative change, possessing sharper thinking and reaction abilities, capable of quickly capturing and understanding information.
This was a direct fourfold enhancement on his existing foundation.
He was originally an ordinary person, but suddenly became someone with a very agile mind.
Multiplying two-digit numbers, he could calculate them relatively quickly in his head. It was amazing.
For example, 56 * 47. If it were before, he would calculate 56 * 7 = 392, but when calculating 56 * 4, he would forget the number 392.
So, with an agile mind plus improved memory, he could calculate the result mentally.
But for multiplying three-digit by two-digit numbers, he still couldn't do it mentally; it was too difficult.
Adding one more digit increased the difficulty exponentially.
Fang Bai took out an English book and immediately tested his memory.
Three minutes later, Fang Bai felt that memorizing English words was much easier. He could easily memorize ten words. As for how long he could retain them, that was hard to say, but it would definitely be much better than before.
Of course, it was still far from the ability of photographic memory. Fang Bai's perception was that even a tenfold enhancement wouldn't achieve the effect of photographic memory.
At LV1, touching a book could temporarily boost memory by one time. Now, it was a permanent memory enhancement, effective even without touching a book.
With his index finger leveling up twice, Fang Bai was very excited. He stayed up reading until past 3 AM, finally finishing the book on mechanical drawing.
He estimated that the original four-year undergraduate curriculum could now be mastered in just half a year. He was truly a talent for scientific research.
Of course, he would need several years to master the knowledge of many subjects in terms of theory to catch up with experts who had studied for decades.
But in terms of experience, he was still lacking and could only slowly accumulate it.
After the Golden Finger upgraded to LV4, its functions underwent a qualitative change, and Fang Bai looked forward to higher levels even more.