Yuan Su walked in just as the class bell rang.
He wore the slightly oversized blue-and-white school uniform, the zipper of his jacket only halfway up, exuding an air of laziness and indifference.
As he approached his seat, his movements suddenly halted.
The test papers handed out over the past few days had always been piled up in a messy heap, sometimes even falling to the floor and getting stepped on.
But now.
Those papers were neatly stacked and sorted by subject at the corner of the desk.
Yuan Su tilted his head and glanced at his new deskmate, who was staring at him in confusion.
Their eyes met again, and neither spoke.
Pu Yu felt inexplicably nervous and whispered an explanation, “The papers that were handed out… I was afraid they’d get messy, so I helped you organize them.”
Yuan Su didn’t respond. He pulled out his chair and sat down.
The physics teacher had already entered the classroom, slamming his lesson plan heavily onto the lectern.
Thud.
The last murmurs of discussion in the classroom vanished.
“Where did we leave off with last class’s test paper? Lenz’s Law of electromagnetic induction—do you all still remember?” The physics teacher scanned the room with piercing eyes, then picked up a piece of chalk and turned to write a string of formulas on the blackboard.
What followed was Pu Yu’s “gibberish” time.
The physics teacher spoke at an extremely fast pace, interspersed with a heavy local dialect from Baiting Town that was almost impossible to decipher, with tones twisting and turning every which way.
Pu Yu widened her eyes, desperately trying to pick out keywords like “current” or “magnetic field” from the “%￥#@” syllables.
But after struggling for a while, she was still utterly lost.
She couldn’t keep up with the teacher’s train of thought at all, so she could only copy down the notes on the blackboard without fully understanding them. She copied the formulas and diagrams but couldn’t grasp the derivation process.
A faint rustling sound came from beside her.
Out of the corner of her eye, Pu Yu saw Yuan Su pull a pen from the side pocket of his backpack.
He flipped open his physics test paper, twirled the pen, glanced at the questions, and began writing.
Swish, swish, swish—
The smooth sound of his writing was especially clear to Pu Yu’s ears.
She couldn’t help but steal a glance and was shocked to discover that for the last two major problems that had stumped her for two days and left her completely clueless, Yuan Su hadn’t even drafted any rough work!
He simply listed a few lines of formulas and wrote the answers directly!
In less than twenty minutes, the entire test paper was filled.
Then, he casually tossed the pen back into the drawer, leaned on the desk, tilted his head, closed his eyes, and fell asleep.
“Yuan Su!”
A roar came from the lectern.
Immediately after, half a piece of chalk traced a precise parabolic arc and thwacked against the boy’s head, leaving a white mark.
Yuan Su slowly straightened up, rubbed his hair, and didn’t seem angry—just wore the weary expression of someone who hadn’t fully woken up.
Teacher Wang’s temper flared instantly. “Are you here to sleep or to attend class?! It’s only been a few minutes, and you’re already lying down?! Did you finish the test paper?!”
The eyes of the entire class focused on them at once.
Some were sympathetic, some were gleeful, but most were eagerly anticipating the drama.
Xu Suiran also secretly turned around to make eye contact with Pu Yu, mouthing silently:
“Love and hate.”
“Today, it’s hate.”
Pu Yu was still immersed in her earlier shock.
Good heavens.
That was an advanced physics test paper.
Yuan Su reached out and picked up the test paper, his voice hoarse and lazy:
“Finished.”
“Finished?”
Mr. Wang knew he was smart, but this test was quite challenging. The kid hadn’t attended class for several days—even if he could solve the problems, it would take him some time.
Half-skeptical, Mr. Wang walked down from the podium and snatched the test paper.
The reprimand he had prepared got stuck in his throat when he saw the concise, flawless, and error-free problem-solving steps on the paper.
Another perfect score.
Mr. Wang sighed, feeling a mix of frustration and disappointment. “If you could just spare a bit of that brainpower for other subjects, you wouldn’t be… Ah, forget it! Even if you got everything right, you can’t sleep in class! This is a classroom!”
Yuan Su raised his hand and casually wiped the chalk dust off his forehead with his thumb before speaking calmly. “Your dialect is too hypnotic—it’s like chanting sutras.”
The classroom fell into dead silence.
A few seconds later, someone couldn’t hold back and let out a stifled laugh.
Soon, suppressed laughter rippled through the room.
Even Xu Suiran in the front row was shaking with laughter.
This was practically… pulling a tiger’s whiskers.
“You’re the only troublemaker in the whole class! Everyone else understands, but you don’t, is that it?”
As soon as he finished speaking, Mr. Wang’s gaze inadvertently swept over Pu Yu, who was sitting next to Yuan Su.
She was holding a pen, but her scratch paper only had a few scattered formulas. The last page of her test paper was completely blank for the final problems.
Mr. Wang’s expression shifted unpredictably.
Finally, he snorted heavily and scolded, “You and your nonsense! Come to my office after class!”
But after returning to the podium, he cleared his throat.
When he spoke again, he actually switched to Mandarin with a hint of a local accent.
“W-we were just talking about this…”
Pu Yu’s hand holding the pen trembled slightly.
She turned to look at Yuan Su, who was still sleeping with his head down.
Everyone in town understood the dialect—the only one who didn’t was her.
When the class ended, Pu Yu stared at the disjointed problem-solving steps on the blackboard, still feeling lost.
The last two problems involved several combined concepts. The teacher had explained the formulas clearly enough, but her mind just couldn’t wrap around them.
The bell rang, and students around her gradually filed out.
Biting her lower lip, Pu Yu glanced at the messy yet logically rigorous perfect-scoring test paper next to her, then at Yuan Su, who was still asleep.
After mustering her courage, she finally reached out.
She gently poked the boy’s firm arm with her finger.
Once.
No response.
She poked again.
Yuan Su finally stirred.
He moved with extreme impatience, his brows furrowed, radiating the low pressure of someone just woken up. Slowly, he lifted his eyelids.
His dark eyes, bloodshot, swept coldly toward her.
“What do you want?”
Pu Yu was startled by his gaze, like a frightened fawn.
But she still pushed her test paper toward him, pointing at the blank spaces, and said softly, “Th-these two problems… I didn’t fully understand them… Could you… please teach me?”
Yuan Su stared at her for two seconds, as if assessing the courage of his new deskmate.
Xu Suiran, sitting in the front row, turned around at the noise and saw the scene.
Her eyes widened in horror, and she frantically signaled to Pu Yu with her eyes—
Don’t provoke him!
His morning temper is terrible!