Chapter 42 Part 1

The most enduring background music of high summer was the incessant chirping of cicadas hidden beneath the dense green leaves.

The dog days hadn’t arrived yet, but heatwaves were already beating down on the earth in wave after wave.

Bright glass cast down beams of incandescent light. Yu Mo strolled through the bamboo grove in the courtyard, her backpack slung over her shoulder, her graceful silhouette flickering in and out of view.

The entire teaching building was immersed in an unusual silence, rows of classrooms with lights off and doors locked.

Today was the second week of summer vacation, and Zhang Wenmin’s Math Competition Class had started as scheduled.

Yu Mo thought she’d arrived quite early, but upon entering the classroom, she found quite a few people already there.

They looked up upon seeing Yu Mo enter, then lowered their heads with a hint of disdain.

This appraising gaze made Yu Mo very uncomfortable. She adjusted her backpack strap and walked head held high towards the spot by the window in the third row.

People trickled in one after another; the small classroom of twenty was soon nearly full.

Students sat in front and behind Yu Mo, but the seat beside her remained untouched, as if she were being ostracized.

Yu Mo looked at the book in her hand and chuckled softly.

What did she mean, ‘as if’? This clearly was ostracism, wasn’t it?

Having shed their school uniforms, they wore four-digit clothes and shoes, five-digit necklaces and jewelry. Meanwhile, Yu Mo wore only a simple white T-shirt and denim shorts, the watch on her wrist a cheap time-telling tool bought for a dozen bucks at the Night Market.

But why should she care about that?

Some of them came to this competition class to expand their knowledge, some to win any random award, and some even just to kill time. But Yu Mo was here to change her fate.

Yu Mo tapped her white canvas shoes lightly, uncapped her pen, flipped through the book she was about to finish, and continued taking notes.

After a while, a slight stir arose in the quiet classroom.

Almost everyone raised their heads, looking towards the person entering the doorway.

—It wasn’t Zhang Wenmin, but the belatedly arriving Shen Shuyu.

Seats in the class were mostly taken. A few girls who already knew Shen Shuyu was coming amiably signaled her to take the empty seats next to them. Among them was a prime spot in the middle of the first row.

“Shuyu, here!” Wang Jia enthusiastically pointed to the middle seat in the first row, gesturing for Shen Shuyu to come over.

She had arrived half an hour early today specifically to get this seat.

But Shen Shuyu gently declined: “Sorry.”

Her gaze calmly swept across the classroom, finally landing on a spot in the third row by the window.

Outside the window, a weeping willow swayed in the breeze, its light and shadow dancing. Yu Mo, as if lost among stars, sat quietly in the seat beneath the window.

She wore simple clothes, her jet-black long hair neatly tied up with a plain black elastic band, as sleek as a ponytail. Her features were delicate and handsome, with a few strands of fine baby hair on her forehead, exuding a youthful, dashing charm.

In this classroom filled with heavy colors, Yu Mo was like a unique and refreshing touch of pure white.

A shadow slowly cast itself over Yu Mo’s head. In her peripheral vision, an exquisitely crafted, beautiful black leather handbag appeared on the table beside her.

Yu Mo initially thought no one would be her deskmate; with a sense of novelty, she raised her eyes.

She saw Shen Shuyu standing quietly before her, dressed in a white slip dress. This slip dress was the season’s most popular style: a simple smocked bodice with ruffled, wavy straps adorned with scalloped edges.

Shen Shuyu’s alluring collarbones were unabashedly displayed in a field of snow-white, fully presented to Yu Mo’s eyes.

Sunlight fell on her cold, elegant face. In a daze, Yu Mo thought the corner of her mouth seemed to be slightly upturned.

Shen Shuyu’s slender arms gently gathered her skirt. Without asking Yu Mo, she calmly, under everyone’s watchful eyes, sat down in the seat beside her.

A faint, ethereal fragrance settled next to Yu Mo.

Yu Mo slightly retracted her book, which had been encroaching on the neighboring space, frowning, “Why did you come sit here?”

Shen Shuyu tilted her head slightly, looking towards Yu Mo: “Not welcome?”

Yu Mo shook her head lightly and explained, “No, I just thought someone like you wouldn’t want to sit with someone like me.”

Shen Shuyu could probably guess what Yu Mo had just experienced. She asked calmly, “What kind of person do you think I am?”

The pen in Yu Mo’s hand paused. She thought for a moment, “A good person?”

Not a lover, not quite a friend either. A mere acquaintance. The best Yu Mo could think of was using the ambiguous term “good person”.

But for Shen Shuyu, the title “good person” really didn’t fit.

Thinking this, Yu Mo looked towards Shen Shuyu with a hint of amusement in her eyes.

Their eyes met.

The amusement in her eyes held a trace of deep-hidden sarcasm.

Shen Shuyu’s pupils quivered under this knowing sarcasm.

But she wouldn’t expose it, nor would she get angry. She just pretended to take Yu Mo’s words at face value, pulled a book from her backpack, and said with a teasing tone: “Here, this is a book for you, from a good person.”

Hearing this, Yu Mo couldn’t help but smile.

This Shen Shuyu was becoming a little interesting.

Yu Mo raised her hand to take the book Shen Shuyu offered, her tone losing a bit of the deliberate distance she usually maintained with her: “Thanks.”

The hour hand above the blackboard clicked, landing on the number eight.

Zhang Wenmin was still wearing his usual teaching attire, but the thermos in his hand had been replaced by a clear glass cup.

Jade-green tea leaves bobbed up and down with the rhythm of his walk.

“Alright, today is the first day of our class. Let’s go over the plan first. This is a three-week intensive training session. Right? Summer vacation is four weeks; I gave you one week off. You’ve played, you’ve slept enough. Summer is still a time to do some thinking. School starts on September 1st, the preliminaries are at the end of the month. If you pass the preliminaries, the finals are at the end of the year…” Zhang Wenmin repeated the speech he gave every year to the students.

Then he picked up a piece of chalk and wrote the first problem of this training session on the blackboard.

It was a very basic problem, just with a few twists.

Yu Mo sat upright at her desk, her eyes fixed on the numbers on the board. The answer emerged in her mind without her even moving her pen.

Zhang Wenmin scanned the pondering students below and tapped the blackboard: “This type of problem is usually the last one in the multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank section on our regular exams. But in competition questions, problems like this are everywhere. You need to get used to it. Next, I’ll explain the solution approach. First, we draw a diagram…”

Even though Yu Mo was absolutely confident about this problem, she still looked up, listened carefully, and noted down Zhang Wenmin’s solution steps.

The steps of the standard answer perfectly matched the steps in her mind.

After explaining one problem, Zhang Wenmin projected several similar practice problems onto the screen.

Problems of the same type essentially stay true to their core; for Yu Mo, it was like a template. With a slight variation, she could apply it and solve it.

Yu Mo analyzed quickly and finished faster than everyone else.

She looked up at Zhang Wenmin leisurely sipping tea behind the podium, then secretly pulled out the book she had borrowed from Shen Shuyu last week, the one she was about to finish.

The rustling of pages evaded Zhang Wenmin’s notice, but it didn’t escape Shen Shuyu’s, who had also finished her problems.

Carefully, Shen Shuyu used her peripheral vision to glance at Yu Mo.

Outside the window, it was quiet and windless. The bright sunlight, unimpeded by the willow branches, poured entirely into the classroom.

Yu Mo’s long lashes were lowered, her pupils filled with seriousness and focus.

Her slender, well-defined fingers gently held the pages, her pinky slightly crooked, her nails trimmed neatly and smoothly.

The book Shen Shuyu had lent her had been flipped through and read so many times it was already slightly fluffy and fraying at the edges.

Seeing Yu Mo so absorbed, Shen Shuyu gathered a bit more courage and slightly tilted her head to steal a look at Yu Mo, tracing her profile with her eyes.

First, using the golden pen of sunlight to outline her full forehead. Then, the golden line followed the curve of her slightly humped nose bridge, sliding down to rest on her slightly protruding lip bead.

The girl wore no makeup; her lip color was light, like a peach blossom.

Shen Shuyu lightly licked her own lips. She had once freely plucked this very lip.

Warm, soft, and utterly tantalizing.

Shen Shuyu wanted to watch a little longer.

But then, amidst the sharp, starry eyes, Yu Mo’s brow suddenly furrowed into small hills like white jade. She seemed to have encountered a difficult problem she couldn’t solve on her own.

An alarm bell rang in Shen Shuyu’s heart. She quickly averted her gaze, pretending to ponder the problems on the screen.

The next second, Yu Mo knocked on the table of the feigning Shen Shuyu: “Um… I have a question I want to ask you.”

Shen Shuyu composedly moved her gaze back and asked, “What is it?”

Yu Mo pushed the book towards Shen Shuyu, pointing to a case study in the lower right corner: “Here, I don’t quite understand this.”

Shen Shuyu looked at the case study Yu Mo pointed to, seeing a small question mark drawn in pencil in the latter half. She reread it carefully.

“It’s like this, look at this part of the case, there’s a premise here: Party A’s company…” Shen Shuyu sorted out the train of thought for Yu Mo, directly drawing on the book with a pen.

Yu Mo watched the black ink spread on the paper, slightly taken aback.

Shen Shuyu’s books were always clean, without any marks or circles. Yu Mo had also been extra careful when borrowing them, drawing with pencil and then erasing it, even checking the book the day before returning it.

This uncharacteristic line Shen Shuyu drew in the book was like a contrail across a clear blue sky.

Not that it was bad, but it was somewhat surprising.

Shen Shuyu patiently broke down this example problem into pieces and spread it out for Yu Mo. The originally clean page now had many indelible marks.

“Did you understand?” Shen Shuyu put down the pen, asking specifically, worried Yu Mo hadn’t grasped it.

“Mm.” Yu Mo nodded.

Shen Shuyu had explained very clearly, the mind map laid out on the page was logical and easy to understand at a glance.

“I feel this book is taking more effort to read than the previous ones.” Yu Mo organized the points Shen Shuyu had explained, her tone somewhat troubled. “There were a few case studies I had to think about all day before I understood.”

“Of course.” Shen Shuyu looked at the cover of the book. It was a more comprehensive and difficult book she had found in university in her last life, feeling the textbook from her major didn’t provide a systematic enough knowledge.

In less than half a year, Yu Mo had already caught up to her freshman-year self. Her Little Fish was growing really fast.

Shen Shuyu knew Yu Mo now had a firm goal. Before Yu Mo truly reached the goal she had set, all romantic love shouldn’t—and wouldn’t—be considered by her.