Over the Mid-Autumn Festival break, the teachers assigned an extraordinary amount of homework. Ruan Mian had wasted two nights and a day, and since she woke up late this morning because she overslept, she hurriedly stuffed a few exam papers into her schoolbag and took them to Qi Yan’s house to finish.

There wasn’t a suitable place to do homework in the living room, so Qi Yan took her to the study. He briefly estimated her height—a little over 1.6 meters—and selected a wooden chair of suitable height, placing it opposite his desk and signaling her to sit.

Ruan Mian sat down and looked around his study curiously.

On the left was a huge wall of books, neatly stacked with various categories. She glanced at them; most were related to economics, politics, military affairs… and there were even psychology books.

She couldn’t help but wonder: What exactly does he do?

Qi Yan left and came back holding two cups. He handed her a cup of warm water and held the other himself, lowering his head to take a sip.

His stomach had been faintly uncomfortable since the day before yesterday, and last night the pain had become severe, forcing him to cancel an important work meeting. He had just lain in bed like that, quietly watching the sky brighten.

The man’s movement holding the cup was elegant and charming. Two fingers rested against the bottom of the cup, while one finger traced the rim absentmindedly. His profile was distinct and sharp.

Ruan Mian watched him while secretly mimicking his movements, leisurely drinking most of the water. Qi Yan sensed her gaze and looked over. Caught in the act, she shrugged slightly in embarrassment and took out the exam papers from her bag to write.

A moment later, Qi Yan sat down opposite her and began reviewing the minutes from last night’s meeting.

After the financial crisis, the US dollar had suffered another major plunge. The global economy had entered a recession, and the situation was not optimistic.

Qi Yan frowned, skipping over the tedious charts and analyses, and looked directly at the final report. Just last night, the market value of the stocks held by his investment company and several partners had evaporated by nearly thirty percent…

And this was merely the beginning.

This meant that all the efforts he had made over the past few years might turn to nothing overnight.

But this was precisely his original intention for entering the financial market. He liked these massive fluctuations and enjoyed the feeling of carving out a path to life amidst the gloom.

He had always believed in the rule that this world is only fair to the strong. His eyes only saw things of value. Companies were merged, declared bankrupt—those with value were supported, those without were destroyed directly…

His style of action was far more aggressive than his appearance suggested.

But many things seemed to have changed since last night. He seemed to have developed a strange mood. He would consider that small export companies like Ying Haodong’s would inevitably bear the brunt of the impact. Not hurting the foundation would be the best outcome, but if it went bankrupt… this unloved little girl would probably become pitiful, possibly even a victim.

He had seen too many such things.

A layer of deep gloom surfaced in Qi Yan’s eyes.

“Can you help me… look at a problem?”

The little girl’s soft voice suddenly crept over like a cat.

Qi Yan looked up. The gloom had long been quietly hidden away, and his eyes clearly reflected her fresh, pretty face.

“Which one?” His voice betrayed no anomaly, still clear and cool like spring water in winter mountains.

Ruan Mian pushed the paper over, thought for a moment, then walked to his side and pointed with her pen. “The last one.”

This was the hardest problem on the math paper. When the teacher explained it, she only half-understood. Towards the end of the class, the teacher spoke very fast, and she couldn’t keep up, only noting down the final answer.

In the silence, Ruan Mian’s heart began to flutter. The problem was too difficult. Even if this man was amazing, he must have been out of school for many years. What if he couldn’t solve it?

She regretted it a little.

But seeing the dense, intricate curves on his screen, she felt her worry was superfluous.

In her heart, he was omnipotent.

Qi Yan finished reading the problem, pulled out a piece of blank paper, and began calculating. Ruan Mian leaned closer, staring unblinkingly, a little pink drum beating in her heart.

Sigh, how is his handwriting so good? Should she practice her handwriting when she has time? No need to buy copybooks; she could just practice copying his.

Actually, apart from a string of formulas and numbers, the only things Qi Yan wrote on the paper that could be counted as words were just “Solution, therefore we get”—five characters.

“The final answer is eight times the square root of three?” He stopped writing and asked her.

“Right! Huh? That’s not right…”

The man raised an eyebrow at her rare confused look and suddenly laughed softly. “Is it right or not?”

Ruan Mian hurriedly looked at the exam paper. “The final answer the teacher gave was five times the square root of seven.”

He nodded and recalculated once, getting the same result as before.

Qi Yan then analyzed the problem-solving process for her in detail. He spoke slowly and methodically. Ruan Mian’s train of thought opened up quickly, and she could even keep up with him.

Explanation complete.

“Could the reference answer be wrong?” Although the chances were slim, it was still possible.

His smile deepened. “You trust me that much?”

Ruan Mian’s ears, hidden under her long hair, quietly turned red again. She belatedly realized the distance between them was only the size of a fist. She only needed to lean a little closer to touch his arm.

She pursed her lips in a smile, sat back on the opposite chair, and took the two sheets of scratch paper along with the exam paper.

She decided to write his answer in her correction notebook and hand it in tomorrow.

Time flowed quietly. Unknowingly, a twilight glow settled on the windowsill.

Ruan Mian put down her pen, rubbed her sore eyes, and looked over. The man was standing by the floor-to-ceiling window talking on the phone, his voice kept very low, indistinct.

The cool wind blew past him, then gently brushed her face, indescribably comfortable.

Bang. She widened her eyes, watching a phone smash onto the floor as the man bent over with his back to her…

She ran over quickly. “Are you okay?”

His stomach was cramping in waves, and his vision blurred from dizziness, but Qi Yan could feel the small hands supporting him trembling slightly. He forced himself to steady his mind. “I’m fine.”

But he didn’t look fine at all. His face was incredibly pale, and cold sweat constantly beaded on his forehead…

“Do you need to go to the hospital?”

He shook his head. “Old problem. Just need some medicine.”

Ruan Mian helped him into the bedroom, then went downstairs to find the medicine.

After taking the medicine, Qi Yan lay on the bed. Seeing the little girl standing by the side with a small knot in her brow, and his shirt soaked in cold sweat, he lay motionless, but his breathing grew heavier.

Ruan Mian keenly sensed something was wrong. Her chest tightened, as if she too couldn’t breathe. “Let’s go to the hospital, okay?”

She was probably really scared.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t experienced worse pain, but he had always endured it silently. At this moment, however, he couldn’t refuse that soft, pleading voice. He sighed lightly in his heart and compromised.

On the first day back at school after the holiday, Ruan Mian was almost late. She had rushed her homework last night, not getting into bed until after 2 AM. Her body was too tired to move, but her heart kept thinking of him.

Hospitals held too many terrible memories for her, and the doctor seemed secretive about his condition…

Sigh, if only she had a legitimate status to know about his illness.

Ruan Mian held her pen, writing unconsciously on the paper.

After the morning reading session, Pan Tingting and Zeng Yushu arrived late, entering through the back door while arguing.

“Are you even a man? You see me carrying so many things and won’t help. No gentlemanly manners at all!”

“Sometimes,” Zeng Yushu said coolly, “gentlemanly manners depend on the person.”

Pan Tingting was so angry she wanted to pinch his arm, but the bags in her hands were too heavy to lift, so she could only glare at him through gritted teeth.

“Soft Cotton,” she put down her things, rubbing her hands constantly. “You need to discipline your deskmate.”

Ruan Mian smiled and said nothing. Sometimes, she felt she couldn’t intervene between this bickering pair at all.

Pan Tingting dug out a box of fruit mooncakes from her bag for her, then looked at Zeng Yushu with a smile, pointing out, “With that attitude, how will you ever chase a girlfriend in the future?”

She dragged Ruan Mian into it. “Soft Cotton, don’t you agree?”

Ruan Mian innocently opened a mooncake to eat, treating it as a make-up breakfast.

“Hey!” Turning around to see the group leader collecting homework, Pan Tingting scratched her hair in frustration, looking pitifully for help. “Soft Cotton, for the sake of me bringing your geography paper back and writing it with you, can I borrow your math correction homework for reference?”

She had never been interested in obscure subjects like math. When the teacher explained the paper, she had just stood her book up vertically and went to dreamland on her desk, so she hadn’t noted the correct answers.

And the math teacher was particularly perverse; to prevent them from becoming dependent, he often didn’t print out separate reference answers.

Pan Tingting grabbed Ruan Mian’s notebook and buried her head in copying. As a permanent resident of the “dragging down the class average” list, she usually had huge chunks to correct. This copying session lasted right up until class started, which happened to be math class.

The math teacher usually liked to announce the list of students who hadn’t submitted homework before class, but this time was extremely unusual. As soon as he stood on the podium, he touched his smooth forehead. “Students, after discussion within our math department last night, we discovered an error in the reference answer for the last question on the paper.”

A murmur of surprise rose from below.

The math teacher wrote the correct answer on the blackboard.

Ruan Mian paused, then slowly smiled.

That was a secret hidden in her heart, known only to her.

In front, Pan Tingting’s hand paused. Eh, the answer Ruan Mian wrote in her notebook is exactly the same as the one on the blackboard!

At this time, the teacher said again, “Although this question is difficult, it also exposed a problem.” He surveyed the class with a majestic gaze. “Everyone blindly believes in the reference answer too much. Is it that once the teacher explains it, you just copy the answer and consider it done?”

The students lowered their heads.

“Teacher,” Pan Tingting suddenly raised her hand. “It’s not like you said. At least I know that classmate Ruan Mian redid this problem correctly.”

Almost everyone’s gaze swished to focus on Ruan Mian behind her.

The math teacher originally had a long, earnest speech prepared, but interrupted by her, he cleared his throat lightly. “Very good… Then… Ruan Mian, come up and explain the solution process to everyone.”

Ruan Mian hadn’t been the focus of so many gazes for a long time. She took a deep breath, walked slowly to the podium, picked up a piece of blue chalk, and began writing on the blackboard.

Undoubtedly, everyone was watching her.

She closed her eyes briefly, thinking, If the person standing here right now were him, he definitely wouldn’t have stage fright.

Not nervous anymore.

She recalled the solution process and wrote it down neatly.

The math teacher watched from beginning to end, resting his chin on his hand in surprise, muttering to himself, “…This method is even simpler than what we discussed, and easier for students to understand.”

People below whispered, “Not surprising, remember? She used to be first in the whole grade, she even gave a speech as the freshman representative…”

The math teacher’s gaze contained approval. “Very good!”

Ruan Mian nodded to him and walked back to her seat.

“Students, let’s look at the solution to this problem. First, find the derivative… Student Ruan Mian’s method is more fitting. I hope everyone learns from her in the future.”

Pan Tingting turned back, shook the notebook in her hand, and winked at her. Ruan Mian’s smile faded slightly, her face heating up again, and she quickly snatched her notebook back.

Oh god, oh god, she had actually written a full page of his name in her notebook…

A whole page of “Yan”.

After class, Ruan Mian’s desk was surrounded by several girls. “Ruan Mian, you’re so amazing…”

School days were like this, without so many twists and turns, full of pure friendship and healthy competition.

Many people, only after walking out of the school gates, truly became men and women of society.

Fortunately, they were still girls now.

The girls chatted one after another. When they stopped, Ruan Mian said, “Actually, I didn’t solve this problem myself.”

“Wow,” someone exclaimed. “Who is so amazing? Even more amazing than our math teacher who graduated from Beijing Normal University!?”

Ruan Mian pursed her lips in a shy smile, silently answering her in her heart—

It’s… the person I like.

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