BTO CH8

It wasn’t just Xu Sheng who was losing his mind; Shao Zhan, separated by only an aisle and having clearly heard the words “function problem,” wasn’t doing much better.

No matter how calm Shao Zhan usually was, even he didn’t dare to imagine what would happen next.

After entering the classroom, Shao Zhan pulled out his chair under Li Mingyong’s terrified gaze. The clothes he was wearing had been tossed to him by Xu Sheng after rummaging through his closet—a T-shirt chosen for its comparatively simple design.

Shao Zhan was not used to such a wide neckline.

He raised a hand and tugged the collar back. For some reason, what surfaced in his mind was actually the image of Xu Sheng wearing the school uniform just a moment ago.

Regarding Xu Sheng, even though there was a time he couldn’t match the name to the face, Shao Zhan still knew some of the rumors about him.

His refusal to wear the school uniform had caused a huge uproar during their freshman year.

Shao Zhan didn’t care about these things, but before changing clothes in the dorm, he had accidentally passed by the mirror and still frozen for a moment.

Xu Sheng wearing a school uniform… looked different from what one would imagine. Or rather, it was completely unexpected. If any Sixth High teacher or student had pushed the door open right then, they probably would have frozen on the spot too.

The teenager in the mirror, dressed in the grayish-blue uniform, still couldn’t hide his sharp edge, but the clothes brought out a hint of a student’s aura that was usually invisible on him. He was already tall, a natural clothes hanger.

The “bad student” in a school uniform walking around campus would turn significantly more heads than he did now.

After Shao Zhan finished changing, he realized that he seemed to be the only person in the entire school who had ever seen Xu Sheng wearing the uniform.

By the time Shao Zhan tossed out the thought of “Xu Sheng wearing the uniform,” his former desk mate across the aisle was still eagerly awaiting “Shao Zhan” to respond to the function problem.

Shao Zhan let out a low cough, signaling Xu Sheng not to say anything stupid.

Xu Sheng slowly closed his eyes. Right now, he genuinely had no idea what to say.

The desk mate’s gaze was fervent, shy, and brimming with expectation.

One look and you could tell this desk mate was the Study God’s number one fanboy. And that was indeed the truth—from the moment the seating chart was released, the desk mate’s mood had soared into the clouds; happiness had practically knocked him out!

Although Shao Zhan usually barely paid attention to anyone, being able to sit next to his idol, study together, and make progress together was already an immense honor.

Meanwhile, Xu Sheng’s current mood was indescribable.

He sank into a brief silence and an overwhelming, sweeping wave of bewilderment.

He really didn’t know how to do it.

Not only did he not know how to do this problem, but even if he flipped through that entire green-covered workbook, he wouldn’t necessarily find a single problem he knew how to solve.

But he couldn’t exactly say: Hold on a sec, let me go ask “Xu Sheng” for you.

When Xu Sheng was pretending to memorize vocabulary, he had held a pen to keep up appearances. Right now, truly not knowing how to react, his fingers gave the pen a spin. From anyone else’s perspective, he actually looked incredibly calm and composed.

“It’s this one, the third sub-question,” the desk mate mustered his courage again, dragging his chair a bit closer. “Can it be solved by taking the logarithm or proving monotonicity?”

Xu Sheng’s bewilderment deepened.

What the fuck were logarithms and monotonicity?

These few seconds were perhaps the longest seconds in Xu Sheng’s entire life.

His mind first raced against time to fire off a few curses, then, amidst a wave of dizziness, he began to think: What should I say? Maybe praise him and say his train of thought is pretty good?

…

Fortunately, Xu Sheng’s adaptability was decent and his psychological fortitude was strong. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to go back and forth battling King of Hell Gu for a whole year, rarely getting caught for any rule-breaking aside from the uniform issue.

In the end, all these messy thoughts and schemes dissipated, and Xu Sheng unexpectedly calmed down.

He pinched his pen and gave it another unhurried spin. Under the desk mate’s increasingly expectant gaze, he opened his mouth: “You don’t even know how to do this problem?”

Desk mate: “…”

Shao Zhan, across the aisle: “…”

Xu Sheng’s move was too ruthless, striking preemptively. Hearing this, Shao Zhan’s desk mate lowered his head in shame and indignation.

Xu Sheng added, “It’s not that I’m unwilling to teach you.”

The desk mate’s hope was rekindled, and his head snapped back up.

Xu Sheng paused here, spun the pen in his hand again, sighed, and delivered a line of absolute bullshit with deep, earnest sincerity: “It’s just that I don’t want to deprive you of your ability to think independently.”

Xu Sheng pretended to ponder over the third sub-question he couldn’t comprehend for two seconds. Then, habitually lowering his head to bite off the pen cap, he drew a dashing circle around the only three characters he understood—”positive integer”—circling the condition without caring whether it was right or wrong. Biting the pen cap, he said, “How about this, I’ll highlight the key point for you, and you think about it yourself first.”

After casually highlighting the key point, Xu Sheng capped the pen and threw down a sentence with the posture of an absolute boss: “Think about it first. Learn to think independently.”

“Read the problem more. Feel the intention of the question setter. Have you heard the saying ‘read it a hundred times and the meaning will reveal itself’? Forget it, it doesn’t matter if you have or haven’t, you’ve heard it now.”

After saying this, Xu Sheng wanted to applaud himself for this maneuver!

Tears of being deeply moved shimmered in the desk mate’s eyes. “Study God…”

Xu Sheng replied shamelessly, “No need to thank me, it’s what I should do.”

“…”

Shao Zhan raised a hand to support his forehead. While he breathed a sigh of relief, he also truly couldn’t bear to listen anymore.

Although Xu Sheng was spouting utter nonsense, at first glance it actually sounded quite profound, and he won entirely on aura, bluffing the guy out of his wits. Shao Zhan’s desk mate genuinely began to scratch his head and ponder bitterly over the third sub-question.

Seizing the opportunity, Xu Sheng slowly got up and walked out the back door of the classroom. Before leaving, he secretly kicked Shao Zhan’s chair and lowered his voice: “Come out.”

The two met secretly at the stairwell entrance.

During morning study hall, students were mostly in their classrooms; hardly anyone wandered outside. Xu Sheng squatted on the stairs. He somehow managed to make the rigid school uniform Shao Zhan wore look somewhat casual. “What’s the deal with your desk mate?”

School had only started a few days ago, and Shao Zhan wasn’t familiar with his desk mate either. “An accident.”

Xu Sheng couldn’t be bothered to dwell on this accident. He stood up and pulled out the paper and pen he had hidden in his pocket. “We’ll settle the score later… First, tell me how to do this problem.”

Xu Sheng could finally ask the questions he had been holding back for ages. For the first time in his life, he was consulting a classmate like this, thirsting for knowledge: “What is a y-intercept?”

Shao Zhan: “The value of x or y when the function intersects with the x or y axis.”

Xu Sheng memorized this sentence and asked again, “Your desk mate just asked if he could take the logarithm, and what mono… monotonicity?”

Shao Zhan sighed, no longer expecting someone at his level to be able to go back and paraphrase it for the desk mate. “Give me the paper and pen.”

Xu Sheng handed them over.

Shao Zhan asked, “Did you copy down the problem?”

For the first time, Xu Sheng realized that he was actually radiating an aura from the inside out that said, There isn’t a problem in this world that I can’t solve, as if he had turned on cheat codes. Although he had heard many people use the title “Study God,” only now did he truly feel a bit of what it meant.

It was genuinely pretty badass.

Xu Sheng: “I copied it, on the paper.”

Shao Zhan smoothed the paper against the wall and was just about to lift the pen to solve the problem. But when he clearly saw the writing on the paper, he stared at the few lines of words and remained silent for two seconds. “Come here.”

With that tone, Xu Sheng had no doubt that what he actually wanted to say was get the hell over here.

Xu Sheng stood up and walked over. Shao Zhan flipped the pen around and tapped the two lines Xu Sheng had written. “What is this written here? Translate it.”

Although the problem-solving process experienced a few hiccups, the ending was quite satisfactory.

Just as Shao Zhan’s desk mate was staring at the problem for the umpteenth time, Xu Sheng returned to the classroom.

The desk mate was just about to say that reading the problem a hundred times didn’t seem to have any effect, and that he still didn’t know how to do the third sub-question, when Xu Sheng knocked on his desk twice with bent knuckles. He pushed over the step-by-step solution Shao Zhan had just written out: “If you can’t figure it out, forget it.”

He couldn’t just throw away the nonsense he had spouted earlier. Under the desk mate’s increasingly worshipful gaze, Xu Sheng touched his nose and added, “But you still have to remember to learn to think independently.”

The desk mate etched the phrase independent thinking into his brain. He nodded solemnly, thinking to himself that his life motto from this moment onward had instantly become those two words: Independent Thinking!

During the morning study hall, King of Hell Gu was patrolling the classes.

Sharp-eyed students caught sight of King of Hell Gu approaching and immediately gave signals to their classmates. The morning air and energy levels were quite good; as King of Hell Gu patrolled the corridor from Class 1 down to Class 7, he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary. He nodded in satisfaction and told the teacher beside him, “It seems everyone is maintaining a good study atmosphere today. Their performance is all…”

The words very good got stuck in his throat.

As King of Hell Gu spoke, he had just reached Sophomore Class 7. Sweeping a glance from his angle outside the window, the situation in Class 7 was completely visible—especially “Xu Sheng,” who happened to be turning the page of a manga book right at that moment.

King of Hell Gu stood at the back door with a dark face. “Xu Sheng, stand up!”

It took Shao Zhan two seconds to realize that the “Xu Sheng” being yelled at was him.

King of Hell Gu strode into the classroom. He had put on a pair of glasses to see the situation in each class more clearly during his patrol. He snatched the manga away and pushed up his glasses frame. “Do you know it’s currently class time? Reading extracurricular books during class—how does that help your future and your life development?!”

After saying this, King of Hell Gu demanded, “Did you write the self-reflection I told you to write yesterday?”

“…I wrote it.”

Shao Zhan bent down and pulled the stack of reflection papers from inside the desk.

King of Hell Gu confiscated both the reflection and the manga, delivered another round of lecturing, and ordered before leaving: “Stay standing. Stand until morning study hall is over. The rest of the class will supervise.”

Shao Zhan could somewhat understand how Xu Sheng felt earlier: Sleeping, reading manga.

Standing as punishment was not included in this list.

Although the situation deviated from their expectations, after this battle, both of them thought in unison: The most urgent matter at hand is resolving the desk mate problem.

The aisle wasn’t wide, but it was still a physical distance.

Sitting apart made doing anything inconvenient, and no one knew when the next function problem would strike.

To sum it up in one sentence: Becoming desk mates keeps you safe.

In the teachers’ office.

A large wave of students had gathered during the break to hand in homework.

Never in his wildest dreams did Meng Guowei expect that students Xu Sheng and Shao Zhan would appear before him together.

He was preparing the materials he needed for his next class. Taking a sip of water, he said to “Shao Zhan,” “Is the homework all here? Just put it down for now. How come you two came together? Got something to discuss?”

Xu Sheng had already prepared himself mentally before coming. He put down the homework and weighed his words carefully. “Mr. Meng, there is something. About the desk mate thing we talked about last time…”

The words “desk mate” had barely left Xu Sheng’s mouth when Meng Guowei interrupted him. “Is that all? Don’t you worry about that.”

Worry?

Rest assured about what?

Xu Sheng was shut down by Meng Guowei before he could even finish a sentence.

Meng Guowei had already been thoroughly brainwashed by the nonsense Xu Sheng spouted in the office last time. As he continued preparing his materials, he said, “I’ve thought it through, and what you both said makes sense. You really can’t force the desk mate issue. I absolutely will not change your seats for you.”

Shao Zhan: “…”

Xu Sheng: “…”