On September 1, when a female voice read out "noon" for Question 3 of the listening test, the low-frequency hum below 200 hertz in Shen Zhou's left ear drowned it out. She raised her hand and asked for the audio to be played again. Qi Beiwang said, "The whole school is listening to the same broadcast. You're the only one who can't hear it?" Sun Tingyue turned around and said, "She didn't react when we called her three times during morning study last time. She should get checked out at the hospital. We can't let this affect the college entrance exam." Shen Zhou said, "If you won't replay it, I'll tell you what happened in the corridor over the last thirty seconds." She recited the two lines of conversation spoken by someone in high heels and someone jogging at 9:37:40, the complaint about the air conditioner from someone wearing hard-soled shoes at 9:38:05, and the two crinkles of a plastic bag by the back door at 9:38:20. She said it wasn't a signal problem: the bearing in the air-conditioning unit outside the east side of the fifth floor had run short of lubricant, so its low-frequency hum was out of sync with the fan blades. If they left it another week, the shaft would develop a groove. No one said a word. Qi Beiwang walked back to the lectern and wrote on the blackboard: "Shen Zhou, misconduct. Listening: zero. Written score still counts." The old recorder she'd picked up in eighth grade recorded the entire exam from inside her pocket. The next day, the score list showed Jiang Yan in first place with 694 points and Sun Tingyue in second with 683. Shen Zhou was twentieth with 341 points. Her listening score was zero. A number beside it had been crossed out once, so hard the paper was worn through.
