The classroom suddenly fell into a strange silence.

The next moment, Lin Nian’s shocked voice cried out, "Impossible! How could Qin Jiao have possibly gotten first place!"

At first, all eyes were on Qin Jiao. But after Lin Nian’s outburst, everyone first looked at her, and then... their gazes shifted to Chen Feng.

Chen Feng had been just as shocked, but with so many of his classmates staring at him, his face instantly flushed bright red.

Qin Jiao sighed inwardly.

’Is Lin Nian an idiot? Chen Feng has to be in a terrible mood right now. By shouting like that, she’s just going to make him feel even worse.’

Sure enough, Chen Feng’s expression was thunderous. He shot Lin Nian a dark look, and the reproach in his eyes made her freeze for a moment.

She bit her lip hard.

Meanwhile, Sun Guotao glanced knowingly at the two students and said in a calm voice, "I’m sure you’re all quite surprised. To be honest, I was too. Ever since the semester began, Qin Jiao’s progress has been remarkable. Her subject teachers have also given me feedback from the regular pop quizzes, telling me that she can answer most of the questions they throw at her. This is the result of hard work, and I hope the other students will learn from her example."

"Yes, we’ll definitely learn from Qin Jiao!" Jiang Xiaoyue, who was already good friends with Qin Jiao, took the lead in responding, and the atmosphere in the classroom grew lively once more.

Qin Jiao found herself admiring Mr. Sun Guotao. With just a few words, he had managed to restore the mood in the room while subtly protecting Chen Feng’s pride.

In her past life, Qin Jiao hadn’t been in her third year of high school at this point, so she didn’t know if Chen Feng’s grades had ever fluctuated this drastically.

But she figured that if Chen Feng continued to be affected by what was happening with his mother and performed poorly on the next few monthly exams, there was a high probability he would fail next year’s college entrance exam.

Qin Jiao hadn’t understood it before, but she later came to realize that while a strong academic foundation was crucial for the college entrance exam, a student’s mental fortitude was equally important.

Countless students who were academically strong ended up failing because their mental resilience was poor. A single minor mishap during the college entrance exam would cause them to have a complete breakdown, leading to their failure. It happened all the time.

For some reason, her thoughts drifted. She turned to look at her deskmate and found him holding a pencil, completely absorbed in a sketch.

As if sensing her gaze, Shen Yi looked up, arching a handsome brow as if to ask what was wrong.

Qin Jiao slowly shook her head.

Meanwhile, Sun Guotao continued reading the results. "Qin Jiao is ranked 25th in the entire grade this time, which is incredibly impressive. Second in our class is Meng Lanlan, ranked 36th in the grade; third is Lin Nian, ranked 45th; fourth is Chen Feng, ranked 68th; fifth is Shen Yi, ranked 89th..."

As the rankings were read out, the students once again fell silent.

These monthly exam results felt surreal.

After finishing the results, Sun Guotao went on to name several other students who had made significant progress besides Qin Jiao, including Shen Yi and Jiang Xiaoyue.

He said in a heartfelt tone, "Shen Yi has also shown immense improvement. He used to be weak in certain subjects, but he has used the limited time left in his third year to study hard and bring those grades up. If he keeps this up, he’ll definitely get into a university he’s happy with next year. So, I don’t want to hear any of you saying there’s not enough time left and using that as an excuse not to try. You might not succeed even if you work hard, but if you don’t work hard, you are guaranteed to fail!"

The students were deeply moved. Jiang Xiaoyue’s rank was still outside the top two or three hundred, but she clenched her fists, her eyes filled with determination.

’As long as you start trying, it’s never too late!’