"Beldum has potential," Old Gu had said more than once. "It's just slow. You have to stick it out."
Stick it out.
Gu Yi got a headache whenever he heard those words. Other people's Pokemon could compete by the time they were sixteen, but even now, Beldum still couldn't use Psychic properly. Its Metal Claw was powerful enough, but the exam tested overall ability: Psychic, defense, coordination. It had to meet the standard in every category.
The high school entrance exams were just a week away.
Qingchuan No. 3 High School wasn't anything special. Last year, not a single student from the entire school got into Huaqing University's Pokemon battle program. The best student went to an ordinary college in the provincial capital. When he left, the school hung a banner by the entrance, red with yellow lettering, flapping loudly in the wind. Later, the rain faded its colors, and it hung over the gate, forgotten, for half a semester.
Gu Yi didn't want a banner. He wanted to go to Huaqing.
"What's Beldum's Psychic score?" Li Chengyang asked as he came downstairs, his hands in his uniform pockets. His Mankey followed behind him, baring its teeth at Beldum.
"Thirty-seven," Gu Yi said.
Li Chengyang drew out a long, "Oh."
Thirty-seven. The Psychic test was out of a hundred, and the passing mark was sixty. What did thirty-seven mean? Dead last in the entire grade, eleven points below the student in second-to-last place. That student had switched to the humanities track and given up on the exam.
"So where are you planning to apply?" Li Chengyang asked, as casually as if he were asking what was for lunch in the cafeteria.
"Huaqing."
