Zhu Yun Xuan woke up early the next morning and went to Li Rui’s house with two full bags of things.
“What are these things?” Li Rui looked at the contents of the bags in surprise. One plastic bag contained two bundles of vines tied with straw, while the second bag was filled with… vegetable seedlings?
“These are all very flavorful vegetables! After this, there won’t be any left to eat!” Zhu Yun Xuan placed everything on the table and explained again, “This is pumpkin vine, sweet potato vine, and radish seedlings.”
“I’ve eaten radish seedlings before. We call them chicken feather vegetables where I’m from,” Xiao Hui said, walking over.
“My mom harvested a lot of radish seeds last year and planted them a while ago. Most of them are for the radish seedlings.” After the radish plants grow, the radish roots can be eaten as vegetables, but the leaves become too tough to eat. However, when the radish seedlings are still just a finger long, they’re great for cooking. Zhu Yun Xuan couldn’t stand eating the same few vegetables from their own land every day, so Jiang Yue Xiu would try different ways to make him fresh dishes.
“Then, is this the sweet potato vine?” Li Rui had never seen these things before.
“You peel off the outer layer of the sweet potato vine and stir-fry it. It tastes really good. The tips of the pumpkin vines need to be blanched, then chopped small and stir-fried with garlic, it’s a different kind of flavor. Oh, by the way, we use leaves from the pumpkin vine to dye glutinous rice dumplings green here.” Zhu Yun Xuan explained.
“How did you bring so many things?” Li Rui was happy that Zhu Yun Xuan remembered him.
“My mom asked me to bring them… By the way, I plan to borrow some books from you,” Zhu Yun Xuan said.
Li Rui’s parents had high expectations of him. After they arrived here, they went to Xinhua Bookstore to buy him several books, and later, Li Rui also bought some on his own. The bookshelf was already full.
“What books do you want to borrow?” Li Rui asked.
“I’ll go take a look first!” Zhu Yun Xuan walked over to the bookshelf and clicked his tongue in amazement.
There were all sorts of books here, a hodgepodge of many different kinds, and surprisingly, some of the English textbooks that he really wanted!
Zhu Yun Xuan knew that his mind worked well for the sciences. Even if he didn’t do his homework carefully, he could still quickly understand what the teacher explained in class. However, English…
English and him just didn’t get along! When he was in middle school, he attended many tutoring sessions focused on English. By the time he reached the third year of middle school, he could still score full marks in subjects like math, but English always failed to reach the class average, and sometimes, he even failed. High school was even worse… The past was too painful to look back on…
“I’m borrowing a few English books,” Zhu Yun Xuan said, picking out a textbook and also grabbing a Chinese-English dictionary. In his past life, he had been lazy and gave up on English, only bothering to cram for vocabulary tests just before the lesson. He would memorize words, then copy a few onto the desk with a pencil. When he got to university, somehow, he managed to pass the Level 4 exam, but after the exam, he forgot most of the vocabulary and grammar.
“Do you want me to tutor you in English?” Li Rui laughed. In his previous life, his grades were excellent in every subject, and his English even reached Level 8. Seeing Zhu Yun Xuan pick such a basic textbook made him smile.
“I’ll ask you if I don’t understand something!” Zhu Yun Xuan smiled in reply.
“Also, don’t just learn ‘mute English.’ It’s better to listen to tapes and learn that way,” Li Rui advised.
“I hated English the most in my last life!” Zhu Yun Xuan gritted his teeth, then pulled out the English audio tapes that came with the textbook. His family had an old, bulky tape recorder, but it would do.
“Well, everyone has to learn it,” Li Rui laughed. Being with Zhu Yun Xuan seemed to make his smile appear much more often.
“By the way, Li Rui, I think by the time I finish first grade, I’ll be able to skip two grades and go straight to fourth grade!” Zhu Yun Xuan remembered what happened yesterday and spoke again. If he wasn’t mistaken, Li Rui would likely skip grades with him.
With that thought, Zhu Yun Xuan went on to explain everything he had done yesterday, even mentioning the advanced math class.
“I see,” Li Rui nodded. The past few days, he had been quietly sitting in the back of the classroom, doing his own thing. Looking at it now, he realized he had to perform well in the future. He also had some advantages over Zhu Yun Xuan in certain areas.
However, the advanced math class… Biology was okay since he had always done well in it, but math, chemistry, and physics… those subjects were definitely the result of doing many exercises. He had no interest in them… Maybe he should write novels in the advanced math class instead?
A couple of days ago, Zhu Yun Xuan had been glared at by Teacher Chen a few times, but today, he was completely ignored.
He sat alone in the last corner and took out various textbooks from his backpack to read. He didn’t know if these textbooks had been adapted, but at this point, the elementary school content was still very simple. Zhu Yun Xuan remembered that in his last life, if he didn’t get full marks in math, the teacher would scold him because he often got the harder additional problems right but made mistakes in the easier ones.
After reading through all the textbooks, Zhu Yun Xuan went over some ancient poems he hadn’t been able to recite very well. In the end, he took out the English textbook and began to study.
Zhu Yun Xuan had chosen to sit at the back, and after an argument with the teacher, no one in the class dared to interact with him. This, however, gave him the peace and quiet he preferred.
In elementary school, there were only three classes in the morning. Afterward, students either used meal tickets to buy food at the cafeteria or went home to eat. Most of the time, they went home to eat. Zhu Yun Xuan, however, would go to the nearby market and eat with Zhu Cheng Cai. In the afternoon, there were also three classes, but after those, there was an additional hour of self-study time, and school would officially end at 4:20.
During the one-hour self-study period, the Chinese and math teachers each took half an hour. They would have students complete classwork and assign homework. However, students in the basketball team, advanced math class, or art class didn’t have self-study periods.
At this time, while the other students were having their self-study period, Zhu Yun Xuan stayed in the reading room of the advanced math class.
The person who brought him there was the vice principal, who had taught him general knowledge in his previous life. He had just seen him the day before. It was only now that Zhu Yun Xuan realized that this teacher, Mr. Wang, also taught advanced math.
At present, the classrooms at Wende Town’s elementary school still only had blackboards, without televisions or projectors. However, there were multimedia classrooms and a reading room. At this time, several multimedia classrooms were occupied by the advanced math class for grades five and six, so the third-grade advanced math class held their lessons in the reading room.
Zhu Yun Xuan was in the third-grade advanced math class, where everyone was just starting. Teacher Wang introduced himself, and perhaps wanting to spark the students’ interest in advanced math, he immediately gave them two problems.
The first one was to write the number “100” with one continuous stroke on a piece of paper, and the second was to connect nine points arranged in a square using four continuous lines.
A group of people was busy solving the problems below, but most of them were confused. Zhu Yun Xuan had done similar problems where you had to connect nine points with four lines. After trying a few times, he solved it. The “100” problem… he thought that any number written with one continuous stroke must be connected, so how could he write “1” and “0” separately in a “100”? Was it some sort of tricky riddle?
While Zhu Yun Xuan was working on the problems, the other students in the advanced math class were carefully watching him. When the advanced math class first recruited third-grade students, it was through recommendations from the homeroom teachers. Each class had five students, all of whom were favorites of the homeroom teacher. Later, the class would recruit more students with strong math skills, but some would be eliminated over time. In the end, the remaining students would depend on the situation. However, it was very rare for a particularly young student to join an advanced math class from a higher grade.
Despite their curiosity, it was already class time, and Zhu Yun Xuan had been arranged by Mr. Wang to sit in the front. The other students could only watch his back in silence.
Teacher Wang was carefully observing each student, with a special focus on Zhu Yun Xuan.
Actually, he was older now, and though his math skills were solid, he hadn’t taught advanced math classes for years. He was worried that he might not be able to keep up with the pace. However, after Zhu Yun Xuan came to see him and the principal yesterday, although they didn’t rush to do more, they decided to have him teach the third-grade advanced math class this time.
If Zhu Yun Xuan truly was a promising student, he couldn’t let him slip by easily!
“Zhu Yun Xuan has already solved the first problem. Everyone else, think a little longer. I’ll announce the answer soon,” Teacher Wang said, bending down to glance at the notebook in Zhu Yun Xuan’s hand, a pleased expression on his face.
Zhu Yun Xuan was momentarily stunned. Only then did he realize that the teacher was right beside him. At this moment, he also had a slight clue about the problem involving the “100” written with one stroke.
To write “100” with one stroke, the lines would certainly have to be connected. But since the three digits couldn’t be connected, he needed to figure out how to separate the lines… And since the problem mentioned it was on a piece of paper, could there be a trick in that?
“Teacher Wang, can I fold the paper and write the number ‘100’ on the folded part, so that the connected parts are on the folded paper, and when I unfold it, the number ‘100’ will appear, unconnected, but still written with one stroke?” Zhu Yun Xuan thought it through and felt that his guess was probably correct. But this… probably wasn’t considered an advanced math problem, was it?
“Exactly! That’s it! You’ve got a sharp mind, and you dare to think outside the box,” Teacher Wang responded with enthusiasm. Advanced math was all about two things: practicing examples and doing problems, and having a naturally quick mind. However, to really excel, both were needed. It seemed that he would need to keep a close eye on Zhu Yun Xuan to ensure he didn’t slack off. After all, how many geniuses had been ruined by not studying hard enough?
Zhu Yun Xuan didn’t know that he was the focus of attention. Right now, he was flipping through an advanced math book.
The book contained many types of problems, but just like in his previous life, Zhu Yun Xuan’s favorite were the “logic reasoning” problems. He flipped through the book for a while, and soon, Teacher Wang came over again. “Do you understand what you’re reading?”
“I understand, but I can’t do it,” Zhu Yun Xuan smiled and replied. He knew the formulas and methods for problems involving things like adding a series of numbers in a pattern to find the final result. There were also some problems that involved knowledge from high school and even college, which he could solve. However, not every problem was within his abilities. Plus, he was only six years old now. If Teacher Wang had too high expectations…
“Just keep practicing, and you’ll get it. Many problems have fixed solutions. For example, this problem about two ships sailing together in the water is similar to this one about running around the track…” Teacher Wang said, speaking in vague terms, but his excitement was barely contained. If Zhu Yun Xuan could win awards in some advanced math competitions, their school would far surpass other schools! After all, in terms of advanced math, their school was just as good as the city’s top schools!