During Thursday afternoon’s physics class, a new male intern teacher named Chen Da arrived. Still looking rather green and wearing black-rimmed glasses, he nervously eyed the students seated below.
This was his last chance. After failing his graduation teaching internship classes several consecutive times, if he failed again, he truly wouldn’t get his graduation certificate!
Chen Da glanced at the row of teacher evaluators sitting at the back, swallowed hard, and stammered out an explanation of the conditions required to generate friction. Once he finished, he deliberately cleared his throat and told a joke he had prepared for a long time:
“Classmates! Actually, there are physical phenomena in the Four Great Classical Novels of China as well. For example, when Tripitaka crosses the Tongtian River in Journey to the West, why do they need to tie grass and cloth [to their boots]? That’s physics right there! It increases friction so they can walk on the slippery ice. Otherwise, Tripitaka and everyone else would slip and fall to their deaths, and there wouldn’t be any subsequent journey to retrieve the scriptures. The author would just have to write: The story ends here, Tripitaka’s group slipped to their deaths. Hahaha…. Heh Heh Uh, not… not funny, huh?”
Seeing that the students below had virtually no reaction, Chen Da wiped the sweat from his forehead. Glancing at the attendance roster, he decided to call on a few students to share some examples of friction from everyday life.
“Um… Qi, Qi Shun-classmate, could you please stand up and tell everyone about some other examples of friction around us? Qi-classmate? Which one is Qi-classmate? Is he not here?”
“Um… Teacher, he… he’s sleeping. You should call on someone else,” a student in the front row kindly reminded him.
“Qi-classmate, wake up please. Don’t sleep in class, someone wake him up.” Chen Da had no idea that in this school, Qi Shun showing up for class was purely for show; he didn’t need to be managed at all.
No one dared to go wake him, and Fei Qinan had zero intention of meddling. Everyone exchanged awkward glances. Although the evaluating teachers in the back row naturally knew how things stood, it wouldn’t do for them to speak up and stop it.
Holding his textbook, Chen Da walked right up to Qi Shun and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Classmate, classmate, wake up, Wake up, Stop sleeping now!”
Qi Shun was finally roused. Wiping the drool from his face, he lifted his eyes to look at Chen Da standing beside him.
“What?”
“Qi-classmate, this school isn’t a place for you to sleep. Just now I called your name and asked you to give a few examples of how friction is applied in daily life.”
“Friction?” Qi Shun blinked, stunned. It was the first time he had ever been woken up during sleep to answer a question. Was this teacher from outer space?
“Yes, friction! Do you know what examples of friction exist in our lives?” Chen Da chanted inwardly for himself to stay calm, he had to stay calm.
Qi Shun looked around, focusing particularly on the back of the head directly in front of him, and instantly grew interested at the sight. He lazily pushed himself up, making Chen Da look a head shorter by comparison.
“C-Classmate, what are you doing?” Seeing that Qi Shun’s appearance differed so drastically from ordinary students, Chen Da felt a tinge of fear.
“Teacher, didn’t you ask me to answer a question? Naturally, I have to stand up.” Qi Shun flashed a wicked smile.
“T-Then go ahead and tell us.”
“Friction, right? Let me think…. Wiping the blackboard with a blackboard eraser counts as the result of friction, doesn’t it?” Qi Shun tilted his head in thought.
“Correct! What else?”
“Also… the speed bumps on the road… those count too, right?”
“Yes, anything else?”
“There’s also… the continuation of our great human race, which we also owe to friction… right, Teacher?” With that, Qi Shun deliberately grinned as he looked at Chen Da.
The students in the classroom instantly caught the implication, bursting into a wave of roaring laughter. The faces of the evaluating teachers in the back row turned a mottled shade of red and white.
Qi Shun looked pleased with himself over his masterpiece of class disruption, but when he noticed Fei Qinan’s back turned in complete indifference, his smile faded away.
“C-Classmate, you can sit down. Let’s continue, let’s continue with class.” At that moment, Chen Da’s mind went completely blank; he had no idea how he managed to stumble through the rest of the lesson.
After class, he glared resentfully at Qi Shun. Once he got back, he was definitely going to draw circles and curse that unserious student.
With the episode on friction over, Qi Shun had lost all drowsiness. Bored out of his mind, he flipped through his brand-new textbook, then, as if suddenly remembering something, tapped Fei Qinan on the shoulder.
“Hey, Classmate, how about I take you ditching class to do something exciting?”
Fei Qinan shook his head in refusal. Qi Shun tapped his shoulder again and asked, “Then how about we go to the restroom together? We can discuss that friction problem along the way?”
“Go by yourself, I’m not interested.”
“Then what are you interested in?” Qi Shun felt this guy had zero manners.
“Everything you aren’t interested in.”
“Oh? Is that so? Well, there’s one thing you definitely won’t be interested in.”
“What?”
“I’m not even interested in myself. Could it be that you’re interested in me?”
“……”