"Isn't this question the same as the last one? The differentiation is just a little more complicated."
"But the numbers are different."
Xie Qin: ...
"Lu Renyi, you take over. I'm going outside to calm down."
Xie Qin was afraid he would lose control in a moment and slap Qi Yue's brilliant brain.
Lu Renyi took on the burden and sat beside Qi Yue in Xie Qin's place. After explaining the same problem ten times, he finally got Qi Yue to stop asking, "Why do you differentiate it this way?"
Off to the side, Lin Shubei practically wanted to put Lu Renyi on an altar. He had never expected someone who seemed so impatient to be willing to repeat himself so many times while tutoring Qi Yue.
"Tutoring time counts as part of the training, and my pay has to be doubled."
"...Fine."
Money could make Lu Renyi turn a millstone. Lin Shubei simply considered it money spent to avert disaster. Heaven knew how much effort he and Jian Yi had expended to drag Qi Yue across Supernova Ability Academy's admissions cutoff.
Maybe he should have Lu Renyi tutor Qi Yue long-term?
Xie Qin stood outside for quite a while and helped Jian Yi with a question while he was there. At last, he broke free from the nightmare he had just experienced.
A strange trace of relief rose within him.
Thank goodness. Thank goodness there weren't three Qi Yues. Thank goodness Lu Renyi could handle him.
Only one day had passed, yet Xie Qin felt as though he had endured a year of torment. He had originally joined the team because it seemed interesting, but now he genuinely admired Lu Renyi.
"With patience like that, you'll succeed at anything."
Xie Qin sprawled over the table beside them, tilting his head to watch Lu Renyi organize Qi Yue's mistakes for him.
"It isn't that extreme. Qi Yue responds pretty well. He just asks a few too many questions and his thoughts jump around a little. Once you explain things clearly, he's fine."
Lu Renyi pulled out one of the questions he had just explained and had Qi Yue work through it again, then rose and walked over to Xie Qin.
"You surprised me, though. I thought you'd slam the door and leave this morning, refusing to team up with us. I didn't expect you to stick it out."
Xie Qin rolled his eyes and ignored Lu Renyi's teasing. He buried his head in the crook of his arm, his voice muffled.
"If you hadn't taken over, I would've left yesterday."
"Ahem!"
Xie Qin's meaning was far too obvious. It was practically the same as calling Qi Yue an idiot outright. The other three, Lu Renyi included, hurriedly signaled him to shut up and cautiously turned to look at Qi Yue, who was working through the questions nearby.
When they discovered that he had not heard their conversation, they all breathed a sigh of relief. Heaven knew how dumbfounded Xie Qin had been that morning when he called Qi Yue stupid and Qi Yue immediately burst into tears.
If Lin Shubei and Jian Yi had not known how to soothe him, the entire study room might have been flooded with Qi Yue's tears.
Xie Qin had clearly thought of that morning too and gave an awkward snort. He had been frightened as well, all right? Who could have expected someone who always seemed carefree and utterly thick-skinned to start bawling the moment Xie Qin snapped at him during a breakdown?!
"By the way, I've been meaning to ask. Why did you decide to team up with those three? Even if you couldn't join anyone from Class S, you could've added two people from Class A or Class B, right? Isn't Ke Qi pretty interested in you?"
Xie Qin remembered how the five of them had left together after forming the team yesterday and run into Ke Qi coming the other way. Ke Qi's eyes lit up the moment he saw Lu Renyi, and he rushed over. His sincere expression contrasted starkly with Lu Renyi's indifference.
"I just think Lu Renyi is very interesting, so I wanted to form a team and have some fun. We only have three people so far. With Student Lu joining us, we're sure to win all the way to the end!"
That was roughly what Ke Qi had said. Even after Lu Renyi ignored him completely, he did not care and instead tried to poach Lu Renyi right in front of them.
"Your classmates from Class F are interesting too, but compared to Student Lu, they're quite a bit less impressive. Oh, Xie Qin, you don't count. You brought this on yourself."
Xie Qin, who had brought it on himself, pretended not to hear Ke Qi's provocation. He wanted to hear Lu Renyi's answer.
But how should he put it? Lu Renyi truly deserved to be someone Xie Qin's elder brother had told him to watch carefully. The things he said were always so unexpected.
"I'm on Lin Shubei's side. So is Xie Qin. As for you, you probably will be soon."
It was a peculiar statement, but against someone like Ke Qi, it was actually more effective than a serious answer.
Still, Xie Qin could not make sense of it.
"What did you mean when you said Ke Qi and I would both end up on Lin Shubei's side?"
Lu Renyi had not expected him to ask about it now when he had said nothing at the time.
"Exactly what it sounds like. You're on Lin Shubei's team now. You're in the same boat, and your interests are aligned. Doesn't that put you on his side? As for Ke Qi, I only said it to annoy him. Don't worry about it."
Was that so?
Xie Qin kept the matter in mind and decided to observe them carefully later. Lu Renyi's attitude had not seemed casual at all.
"Then why are you so determined to team up with Lin Shubei?"
"I already told you that Teacher Jiang arranged it. What if I refused and he made things difficult for me later? I'm very pitiful. If I can't find a job after leaving the academy, I'll starve to death."
Nothing Lu Renyi said was ever quite serious. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Lin Shubei and Jian Yi practically pricking up their ears. He looked somewhat speechless.
"You two, if you want to listen, then listen. Why be so sneaky about it?"
Then he turned back toward Xie Qin, who had already sat upright. Seeing how relaxed he looked suddenly annoyed Lu Renyi.
"And why did you insist on joining our team? A member of the Xie family came to Class F and even teamed up with ordinary people like us. However you look at it, you're the stranger one, aren't you?"
Lin Shubei and Jian Yi both looked over. They were curious about this as well. Unlike Lu Renyi, Xie Qin could have sought out a better team, yet he had not done so and had come to them instead.
"It was fate's arrangement. We were destined to be teammates this time, so of course I had to follow it."
Xie Qin would never tell them what his elder brother had warned him about back then, although he had not entirely understood it himself.
"Your university life will be full of twists and turns. If you want stability, stay close to people who hide their strength."
The meaning was unclear, and his elder brother had no intention of explaining it. He only told Xie Qin to remember.
As luck would have it, Xie Qin encountered Lin Shubei and the other two as soon as the school year began, followed later by Lu Renyi. The four of them were a team, which made building a good relationship simple.
"Fate's arrangement? Since when did you become a fortune-telling fraud too?"
Qi Yue had been memorizing the key points Lu Renyi marked for him, but when he heard Xie Qin's deliberately cryptic words, he could not resist making a sarcastic remark.
Xie Qin had no desire to speak to someone who needed his help just to pass the exam. That was why he thought Lu Renyi better fit his idea of someone whose strength did not match his class.
He had previously gone to Jiang Yan to ask about Lu Renyi. Apart from saying that he could not disclose anything, Jiang Yan had only said that the strength Lu Renyi displayed publicly carried severe backlash.
That was where the art of phrasing came in. The strength he displayed publicly, and its backlash. What about Lu Renyi himself?
Jiang Yan did not answer the question. He smiled and drove Xie Qin back to class.
"Your brother deliberately sent you to Class F. He must have foreseen something. Just listen to him and don't pay too much attention to other people."
Jiang Yan merely thought Xie Qin's curiosity had flared up again and casually fobbed him off.
But the more Jiang Yan acted like that, the more interesting Xie Qin found it.
"Why are you staring at me? Is there something on my face? Don't tell me this is another arrangement of fate."
With Xie Qin staring at him nonstop, Lu Renyi lost even the desire to ask the System about Xie Qin's elder brother.
"What? Don't tell me you don't believe in fate. There are plenty of precognition-type ability users. Isn't Jian Yi a precognition type too?"
Jian Yi had no idea how the battle had suddenly spread to her. She silently raised her book to hide her face, indicating that Lu Renyi did not need to worry about her.
Seeing the disgust on Lu Renyi's face, Xie Qin abruptly grew interested. His elder brother was a precognition type, and as far back as Xie Qin could remember, none of his predictions had ever been wrong.
Yet his elder brother himself was not someone who believed in fate.
"From the moment I learn the future, fate slowly begins to shift. It can be changed at any time."
When Xie Qin was young, he had looked up at his elder brother as he said those words. Xie You had already entered Supernova Ability Academy at the time. He seemed exhausted every day and rarely spoke, even during the holidays.
"Then why don't you change fate, Big Brother? It would be so cool!"
"Because even if I changed it, I wouldn't necessarily get the result I wanted."
As the memory flashed through his mind, Xie Qin recovered the curiosity he had shown Xie You back then.
"I hear most precognition-type ability users can change fate. Aren't you tempted?"
"Not at all."
"Why?"
"Because I don't believe in so-called fate."
"Why don't you believe in it?"
"Believe in it too much and you might die a terrible death."
Lu Renyi felt certain this exchange would appear in the comic. After some thought, he simply turned the question back on Xie Qin.
"Then do you believe in it?"
"...No."
His elder brother had used his ability so many times and still said he did not believe. Xie Qin had followed his elder brother's lead all his life, so of course he did not believe either.
"What are you talking about? I want to hear it too, I want to hear it too, I want to hear it too."
The moment Qi Yue finished his questions, he rushed over. He had just heard Xie Qin say he did not believe and excitedly started asking everyone.
"Don't believe what? What don't you believe? Who doesn't believe?"
Lin Shubei and Jian Yi reached out at the same time to stop Qi Yue from throwing himself at Lu Renyi. Lu Renyi also changed seats and moved beside Xie Qin, using him as a shield from Qi Yue.
Sure enough, Qi Yue still remembered Xie Qin calling him stupid. Once he saw Lu Renyi sit beside Xie Qin, he stopped making a fuss and only asked Lin Shubei and Jian Yi what had happened.
"Fate? I do believe in it. I've met plenty of precognition-type ability users, and they really can foresee what will happen later. That seems like a kind of fate too, doesn't it?"
Qi Yue held fate in considerable awe, so when he learned that neither Lu Renyi nor Xie Qin believed in it, he found it strange.
"I can understand Brother Lu, but Xie Qin, isn't your brother a precognition type? Even you don't believe? I remember Senior Xie You won an award at the World Ability Academy Tournament back then. His photo is still posted on the honor roll downstairs in the teaching building."
Xie Qin: What am I supposed to say? That my brother doesn't believe either? But he's never publicly said whether he believes or not. If I blurt it out like this, won't he beat me up when he finds out?
After agonizing over it, Xie Qin finally looked to Lu Renyi for help.
Lu Renyi: ?
Completely oblivious to Xie Qin's plea, Lu Renyi finished checking Qi Yue's second attempt at the problems and gave him a thumbs-up.
"Your accuracy is up to 80%. You still have several days. At this rate, you'll pass without a problem."
"Oh yeah!"
Qi Yue's attention was easily diverted. After taking back his notebook, he focused on reviewing his mistakes again. Even Lin Shubei and Jian Yi had never seen him work so hard.
"Brother Lu, you're incredible. When Linzi and I tutored him before, he always dodged us faster than anyone. If only we'd met you sooner."
Jian Yi wanted to cry whenever she remembered the miserable experience she and Lin Shubei had endured in the first half of the year. They had agreed to enter the academy together, only to discover that the thing standing in their way was Qi Yue's appalling grades.
"Hey! Don't talk about that. It's embarrassing."
"If you know it's embarrassing, then stop sleeping and zoning out in class. You wouldn't have to trouble other people, and we wouldn't have to suffer either."
Lin Shubei's resentful voice drifted over. Qi Yue pretended not to hear. Did he skip those classes because he did not want to listen? He could not understand them, all right? Partial derivatives, double integrals, and every kind of symbol came rushing at him. Anyone who did not know better might have thought they were performing some kind of blessing ritual.
"That's because you aren't smart enough. Look at Brother Lu. He didn't despise me or think I was stupid."
Qi Yue looked left and right, making no attempt to hide his contempt for their complete lack of patience.
Xie Qin sneered outright. Lin Shubei and Jian Yi, scorned by Qi Yue's gaze, also remembered their previous misery and wanted nothing more than to punch him.
Lin Shubei in particular had not only found someone to tutor him but also had to pay for it. Seeing Qi Yue's smug expression, he had already begun planning how to use psychic manipulation on him and make him run three naked laps around the academy.
As someone who had managed to remain good friends with Lin Shubei and Qi Yue for years, Jian Yi had a sudden flash of inspiration and met Lin Shubei's eyes.
Lin Shubei: I'll handle it.
Jian Yi: I'll keep watch.
Still utterly unaware of the danger, Qi Yue continued grinning foolishly and chatting with Lu Renyi.
"Brother Lu, I've decided. From now on, you're my real brother. If anyone messes with you, I'll hit them from behind with a club, put a sack over their head, tie them up in a dark room, and beat them."
"Thank you. You're a very kind person."
Lu Renyi assumed Qi Yue was joking. Everyone in the protagonist's group was a good person. Even if they took revenge, there was no way they would truly resort to underhanded violence. Thus, when Lu Renyi later discovered that Qi Yue really had put a sack over someone's head and Lin Shubei had even helped coordinate their stories, he dimly felt as though he had joined a bandit den.
An inexplicable silence settled over them for a moment. Lu Renyi continued reading the book in his hands. Xie Qin stared blankly at the chair opposite him, wondering why Lu Renyi had changed the subject so abruptly.
Lin Shubei and Jian Yi continued communicating with their eyes about how to put a sack over Qi Yue's head, while Qi Yue remained immersed in his excitement over achieving 80% accuracy.
So when Xie Qin finally returned to his senses and realized that no one was talking, even though they still had 20 minutes left in the study room, he started a new topic.
"Come to think of it, we all seem to assume we only need to worry about the academic exams. We have four people from Class F and one from Class C, don't we? Is everyone really that confident?"
Xie Qin's words reminded them. They exchanged looks and realized that he was right. If anyone from another team learned that they gathered every day solely to study for the academic exams, they would probably laugh at them for focusing on the wrong thing.
"Everyone has secrets. We're only forming a team for now, so there's no need to pry into everything."
Lu Renyi was somewhat surprised that the protagonist's group had not yet exchanged information among themselves.
"We should at least introduce our basic abilities. The four of us are from Class F and introduced ourselves at the start of the school year. I'm a physical-enhancement type, Lin Shubei is a psychic type, Jian Yi has precognition, and Qi Yue manipulates the metal element."
"What about you, Student Lu? Is your ability really psychic manipulation, with severe backlash?"
Xie Qin was determined to clarify the matter. Aside from Lin Shubei, who had seen Lu Renyi use his ability, Jian Yi and Qi Yue were both curious too.
Lu Renyi sighed. He had known he could not avoid this.
"It's a psychic-type ability called Silent Prison. It can strip away the color, temperature, sound, psychic power, and life force within any space enveloped by my psychic power."
"It has no backlash."