An Bao looked at the vocabulary book on the table. It was a first-grade primer with 120 words, complete with a CD and a portable player. He set himself a time limit of five hours. He still remembered his phonics—he believed five hours would definitely be enough, and after the trial, he wanted to eat lunch.
Once the trial began, he started to question what was going on with this difficulty. Why did that dog outside the window keep barking and making noise incessantly? He was already memorizing words under such difficult circumstances. When he was tested on ten random words, just because his thinking lagged for a moment, the dog outside barked and barked. His focus now simply couldn't compare to before. Only now did he understand how easy it had been to be a genius back then.
In the final minute, he could recite 100 words from memory, but he was still 20 short. The toads said: "You've passed, but you still need to get through the second level. You may eat now."
An Bao immediately went downstairs, wanting to eat lunch. His mother had already prepared a feast of surf-and-turf rice noodle soup. Worried, his mother said, "Son, I had no idea you'd sleep all the way until noon."