Dear passengers, Zhongxing Road has arrived. Please take your belongings and get off in an orderly manner…
After more than ten minutes on the bus, Nan Xingwan arrived at the bus stop near Zhang Chen’s place. She quickly got off and soon spotted Zhang Chen waiting by the roadside… the same Zhang Chen who had said on the phone that he would come to the bus stop to pick her up.
At the time, Zhang Chen was still carrying his school bag. He had just returned from No. 1 Middle School to the bus stop near his home.
In his hand, he held a box of fresh-cut pineapple he had bought from a fruit shop along the way. When he saw Nan Xingwan jogging over, he smiled and handed it to her.
“Thank you.” Nan Xingwan accepted it generously, used a toothpick to spear a piece of pineapple, and put it into her mouth.
While eating, she did not forget to ask whether Zhang Chen had remembered to bring his test papers and homework today.
“Don’t worry, I brought everything.” Zhang Chen confidently lifted the school bag in his hand.
He had been well prepared today. There was absolutely no way he would repeat yesterday’s clueless performance.
Nan Xingwan nodded, eating the sweet pineapple and squinting in enjoyment.
Zhang Chen watched from the side and could not help but chuckle softly.
She really was exactly like it said in the book: whenever she ate something she liked, she would squint her eyes.
That laugh was easily caught by Nan Xingwan. She turned her head and frowned at him. “Hmm? What are you laughing at?”
“Nothing, nothing. I just thought of something happy,” Zhang Chen said with a serious face, touching his mouth.
Under Nan Xingwan’s suspicious gaze, he quickly changed the subject. “Is it sweet?”
Nan Xingwan asked strangely, “You didn’t eat any?”
“I tried a piece when I bought it, but I don’t know whether the ones in the box are sweet.”
Hearing that, Nan Xingwan generously speared another piece of pineapple with a toothpick and held it out in front of Zhang Chen. “Here.”
“A reward for studying hard yesterday.”
Zhang Chen laughed, took the toothpick from her hand, and bit the pineapple off in one bite.
Mm! Sweet, just as expected!
“Just one piece? Isn’t that reward a little too stingy?”
Nan Xingwan took back the toothpick, pouted, and quickly guarded the remaining box of pineapple slices as if she were protecting her food.
“One piece is already pretty good. You shouldn’t be too greedy.”
“But you can’t be too stingy either, right? I was the one who bought this.”
“No way. Once you gave it to me, it became mine!”
“…”
As Zhang Chen and Nan Xingwan bickered back and forth, Nan Xingwan speared another piece of pineapple and was about to bring it to her mouth.
Then she suddenly realized that she was sharing the same toothpick with Zhang Chen.
Even though both of them had only eaten the pineapple off the top and had not touched each other’s mouths, and there was no so-called indirect contact, even that alone was enough to make her heart skip a beat.
If this had been before middle school, back when she and Zhang Chen were on good terms, this kind of habitual action would not have made her feel anything.
After all, they had grown up together. When they were little, they even shared a single popsicle.
But now, her relationship with Zhang Chen was no longer what it used to be. Yet this habitual action of hers had not earned Zhang Chen’s disgust today.
She tilted her head to look at Zhang Chen. After confirming that he had not noticed this detail, she added, “At most, I’ll give you one more piece.”
Zhang Chen, being completely carefree, had not noticed at all.
He only saw Nan Xingwan’s stingy, food-protecting expression and teased, “…Stingy.”
Then, after Zhang Chen once again accepted the pineapple Nan Xingwan fed him, her steps suddenly became lighter.
“Walk faster! Hurry home so I can tutor you!”
Seeing her suddenly dart ahead, Zhang Chen looked confused.
“W-why the sudden rush?”
Why was she acting like a rabbit, suddenly going crazy?
“Hurry up! It’ll be 10 o’clock soon, and we won’t have much time to study!” Nan Xingwan turned around and urged.
“Okay, okay, okay…” Zhang Chen agreed and quickly caught up.
Even though he had completely mastered the material, when faced with Nan Xingwan’s urging, he acted as if it were truly urgent…
…
The one-on-one tutoring still lasted until about 11:30. Zhang Chen glanced at the time, worried that Nan Xingwan would get back too late, and took the initiative to remind her:
“It’s almost 11:30.”
“Mm, two more problems. I’ll leave after I finish them.”
With her head down, Nan Xingwan carefully wrote out her own problem-solving thought process for Zhang Chen.
Today she had brought over almost all of her precious notebooks for him. For every subject’s corresponding units and test points, she had already built a knowledge framework.
Afraid that Zhang Chen would not understand, she even built the thought process for him step by step, helping him establish the same knowledge system.
As a fellow top student, Zhang Chen could naturally see Nan Xingwan’s painstaking effort.
This thing called a knowledge system framework could only be deeply appreciated by another top student.
Students with average grades, or even students with slightly better grades, had no concept of it at all.
At most, they only knew what knowledge point a question tested and what methods the teacher had taught in class.
But with a knowledge framework, it was different.
For a top student, a single question could have multiple approaches; in fact, they were just different paths built within the framework.
It was like walking through a maze inside a memory palace.
Even methods the teacher had never taught in class, they could figure out on their own.
This was why, when it came to studying, there were always some monsters who were just built different. They knew what the teacher taught, and they also knew what the teacher had never taught.
Because of this, Zhang Chen deeply understood how difficult it was to help an academic slacker build a knowledge framework.
The prerequisite for building a knowledge framework was first having the relevant knowledge reserves…
Besides, if everyone could casually build something as abstract as a knowledge framework, then schools would not have so many academic slackers failing their exams.
Even Zhang Chen had never imagined someone like Nan Xingwan, who would hand-feed knowledge to an academic slacker who could not even remember all the knowledge points. She was practically one step away from stuffing the knowledge straight into that person’s brain!
Zhang Chen understood Nan Xingwan’s good intentions, so he stayed quiet.
He listened silently as Nan Xingwan continued explaining the problems…
The next day.
Class was in session.
The teacher was at the podium going over yesterday’s homework, while Zhang Chen at his desk had already started nodding off…
“Brother Chen, did you go to an internet cafe yesterday?” His deskmate, Duan Chenxu, felt a wave of relief when he saw Zhang Chen dozing off.
Zhang Chen not dozing off or zoning out yesterday had honestly seemed strange to him.
Zhang Chen waved his hand, signaling the fatty to get lost and leave him alone.
He did not know why, but when he listened to Nan Xingwan teach him, he did not feel sleepy at all. Yet when he listened to the teacher’s lecture, his eyelids started fighting to close.
Even though he had gone to bed early after seeing Nan Xingwan home last night, the habit of dozing off in class had not changed at all.
And right in the middle of Zhang Chen’s dozing, the math teacher Jia Wei suddenly called Zhang Chen’s name.
“Zhang Chen’s homework from yesterday was done extremely well: all correct, and the logic is very clear. Let’s give him a round of applause.”
All eyes in the class turned toward Zhang Chen…
The applause was thunderous…
Seeing that Zhang Chen was still dozing and had not reacted, Duan Chenxu quickly jabbed him twice.
“Brother Chen! Brother Chen, the teacher is calling you!”
Only then did Zhang Chen slowly lift his head, looking like he could barely keep his eyes open, his voice sounding just like Patrick Star’s:
“Huh?”
At that, the whole class immediately burst into laughter…