Lu Yu had no idea what Lin Beixing had said to the math teacher in his body yesterday.

He only vaguely felt that when Old Zhang looked at him today, there was a little more hope in her eyes.

It was like she wanted him to get better.

But Lu Yu didn't like it. He didn't want anyone placing any expectations on him.

He leaned against the blackboard at the very back. To avoid smudging the class bulletin board his classmates had worked so hard on, he deliberately kept about ten centimeters away.

Standing in the last row felt awful. Lu Yu wanted to play on his phone, but with Old Zhang staring so directly at him, he couldn't really do it.

Luckily, the back door of the classroom was open. A steady draft blew through the hall and out the balcony window. Standing here was actually pretty cool.

At the podium, Old Zhang was explaining a problem students often got wrong. The white chalk scraped across the dark green blackboard with a sharp swish-swish.

Lu Yu watched her sharp handwriting. He watched how animated she was. But he still couldn't understand a word she was saying.

"Hm?"

Just when Lu Yu was so bored he was about to start counting the dots on the blackboard, he accidentally met the gaze of a girl who had turned around to look at him.

There was a faint ring of dark circles under Lin Beixing's eyes, but they did nothing to hurt her clean, pretty face. Her clear eyes still carried a trace of sweetness.

But those pretty, sweet eyes were staring at Lu Yu a little sharply right now.

Lu Yu: "?"

Lin Beixing raised a hand and pointed at the test paper in her hand.

Her score was 145. In this monthly exam, written by the teacher herself, that was already among the top scores in the whole grade.

For a moment, Lu Yu couldn't tell if she was showing off a score twenty-nine times higher than his, or if she meant something else.

He saw Lin Beixing lift a pale, slender finger and tap the last question on the paper.

So Lu Yu lowered his head and looked at his own test paper.

He hadn't done that question. There was a bright red zero there.

Usually, Lu Yu couldn't do the last few big questions on a math paper anyway. Even if he looked at them, he couldn't understand them. So he usually skipped even reading them and just filled in the multiple-choice ABCD answers like that counted as success.

After checking a few times, Lu Yu finally realized that Old Zhang was explaining this exact question.

And the urgency in Lin Beixing's eyes seemed to be reminding him to listen carefully.

Listen carefully?

Lu Yu froze when he reached that conclusion.

Forget listening. He didn't even know what the symbols in that word problem meant.

As class monitor, Lin Beixing was both gentle and strong in class. Under her overbearing commands, the students usually obeyed her in everything. That was also an important reason she had stayed class monitor of Class Five for so long.

But just because most students obeyed the class monitor didn't mean Lu Yu would too.

Under Lin Beixing's fierce glare, Lu Yu folded up his test paper, held it in his hand, and started idly counting how many dirty spots were on the blackboard.

Lin Beixing, who had been gesturing at him in secret, paused in shock. When she realized Lu Yu wasn't even looking at her anymore, she could barely keep her little pink fists from clenching.

At last, Lu Yu endured the remaining half of the class in boredom.

The moment the bell rang, and the math teacher tossed down the chalk, the tense atmosphere in the whole classroom loosened with it.

Lin Beixing was the first to stand up from her chair.

Lu Yu was still slowly making his way back to his seat. But when he noticed how aggressively Lin Beixing was charging over, his steps sped up a little guiltily.

However, the first person to reach Lu Yu's desk wasn't Lin Beixing.

It was their math teacher.

"Lu Yu, come to the office."

Teacher Zhang stopped him a step ahead of Lin Beixing.

Lu Yu hadn't even had time to stuff his test paper into the desk. He could only let out a light "oh," then picked up his pen and notebook and trotted after her.

Lin Beixing stood not far from them, looking like she wanted to say something but stopped herself.

As Lu Yu passed by her, the two of them exchanged a silent glance.

Lin Beixing really did smell nice.

Lu Yu had gone to her house yesterday, so he knew that faint scent wasn't perfume. It was a body wash from her bathroom.

He seemed to like that light, clean floral scent quite a bit.

"Did you need something, Teacher Zhang?"

He followed the math teacher into the office. The air conditioning inside was set very low, and Lu Yu absolutely loved this kind of cool AC room.

Honestly, mooching off the AC was probably the only thing that made being called to the office feel nice.

"Sit first."

Teacher Zhang pulled over a single stool and motioned for Lu Yu to sit.

Lu Yu didn't stand on ceremony. He got to sit in an air-conditioned room and enjoy the cool air. Who would say no to that?

After he sat down, Teacher Zhang started rummaging through the stack of booklets in front of her, then pulled out Lu Yu's workbook.

Inside it was a white test paper. These were all the math assignments given yesterday.

Lu Yu started to feel a little uneasy.

Because he could more or less guess what Teacher Zhang was about to say.

"Did you do this math homework yourself?" she asked.

Just as Lu Yu had expected.

His answer was calm and decisive.

"No." He shook his head.

Lu Yu wasn't stupid. Since Old Zhang had called him into the office alone to ask, she definitely already had her own conclusion. She wasn't really asking whether it was yes or no. She just wanted Lu Yu to admit it himself.

Struggling now would only give him more trouble. He might as well admit it openly.

"It's obvious the person who did your homework was deliberately imitating your handwriting... Kids your age aren't stupid. But maybe you forgot one thing..."

"Lu Yu, yesterday's homework was very hard. But you wrote out every single question clearly."

Teacher Zhang began her long lecture. Lu Yu sat there comfortably in the cool air, not anxious at all, quietly listening to her talk.

Whether he actually took it in was another matter. He only wished he could stay in this air-conditioned room a little longer.

"Lu Yu, at a time like this, don't do this kind of self-deception anymore... I didn't expect that after you agreed so nicely yesterday, this is the kind of answer sheet you'd hand me today."

Teacher Zhang sounded quite disappointed.

Lu Yu frowned. "Teacher Zhang, I was half asleep yesterday... Can I ask what exactly I promised you?"

"Is that so..."

The corners of Teacher Zhang's eyes were full of wrinkles. Lu Yu couldn't tell whether her eyes held helplessness or disappointment. But when those cloudy, weathered eyes looked at him, he suddenly couldn't face her kindness directly.

"Then I'll tell you one more time."

"You promised me you'd study hard every day, and that you'd hand in two math papers to me every day."

"..."

Lu Yu parted his lips.

He'd let the first half slide. But the second half...

Two math papers every day?!

At his current math level, aside from copying the answers, the only other option would be getting someone else to do them for him.

"Sorry, Teacher Zhang..." Lu Yu shook his head and said frankly,

"Can I take back what I said yesterday? I'm not capable enough. I can't do it."

"Is it that you're 'not capable enough,' or that you simply don't want to study?" Teacher Zhang asked back.

Lu Yu smiled helplessly. "Both."

"I think it's still not too late."

"Teacher Zhang, I think you'd be better off putting your energy into other students instead of wasting it on me..."

Lu Yu looked up and saw her gentle gaze. The corners of her eyes were carved with the marks of time. His fingers tightened slightly into a fist, and he added softly,

"I'm sorry."

"Ring ring ring—"

Break time was only ten short minutes. The class bell rang like timely rain, pulling Lu Yu out of this suffocating atmosphere.

"Class is starting, Teacher Zhang. See you next period."

Without waiting for her to speak, Lu Yu had already stood up. He took the pen and notebook he had brought, turned around, and left the cold office.