Generosity

Generosity

Mathematics did not lie, but it did insult people.

Teacher Bai rattled on for ages, until every word Zheng Fa heard seemed to be hammering against his skull.

"Do you understand now?"

He heard Teacher Bai ask him, raised his head, and gave him a bewildered look.

"And you?"

The old man asked Tang Lingwu beside him.

"More or less." Tang Lingwu said softly, "Wasn't this pretty easy?"

Teacher Bai nodded at Tang Lingwu, then glanced at Zheng Fa and let out a deep sigh.

...Neither of you was targeting me, but it really feels like you're both cursing me viciously.

"I'll explain it one more time. Student Zheng, listen carefully this time."

Teacher Bai did not give up. He picked up his pen again, practically wanting to break everything down and feed it into Zheng Fa's mouth bit by bit.

Then he made Zheng Fa understand that if you did not give something your all, you would never know just how incapable you truly were.

Tang Lingwu, beside him, had already begun yawning in boredom, while Zheng Fa still wore a thoroughly blank expression. At best, he only half understood.

"I have never taught a student as stupid as you!"

Teacher Bai flung down the pen in his hand and said angrily.

Zheng Fa was feeling a little dejected when Tang Lingwu quietly said beside him:

"Teacher Bai used to be a professor at Capital University. It's perfectly normal that you can't compare to him."

Zheng Fa actually did feel comforted. Capital University was the country's top university; compared to Jiangnan University, the school of his dreams, it was several tiers higher.

Zheng Fa knew himself well. At most, he could be considered diligent. He absolutely could not be called a genius.

But the old man grew more and more anxious, his mouth full of disdain.

"Stupid!"

"Your brain just won't open up!"

"Are all Qingshui Middle School students like you? I think the salary your teacher gets is all compensation for emotional distress!"

Zheng Fa remained calm, but the old man had clearly exhausted every scrap of his patience.

He kept cursing Zheng Fa without pause.

He even stormed off halfway through teaching, leaving Zheng Fa and Tang Lingwu behind to smoke on the balcony.

Zheng Fa had not cracked. He had taught the old man until the old man cracked.

"Are you all right?" Tang Lingwu had listened to the old man's assessment of Zheng Fa from the side. Seeing Zheng Fa's expression now, her face was full of sympathy. "What Teacher Bai said just now was a little too much."

"He's used to teaching those geniuses. Teaching me instead is, for him... also a tribulation." Zheng Fa indicated that his mindset was very steady.

Compared to the vulgar jokes from the Zhao Residence, this scolding was practically refined.

"That's true..." Tang Lingwu nodded. "I heard him say before that he never understood how people who got a perfect score in Mathematics on the College Entrance Exam dared apply to Capital University's Mathematics department."

"?"

"Because true geniuses mostly get in through competitions."

Tang Lingwu explained, and Zheng Fa once again deeply understood just how much of an uncarvable rotten log he was in Teacher Bai's eyes, with his Mathematics score only occasionally reaching one hundred and thirty.

"But he really went too far."

"It's fine. Being stricter with me is a good thing!" Zheng Fa even turned around and comforted Tang Lingwu.

The girl gave him a long look, somewhat impressed. "I've realized you're quite generous. If it were me, I couldn't stand it!"

"All right, you won't be able to learn the rest anytime soon. I'll explain these diagrams clearly to you!" Old Man Bai finally gave up. "These diagrams are actually just two patterns."

"Some parts are probably incomplete." He added a few strokes to the patterns, then drew two relatively simple shapes on the paper. "These diagrams were all transformed from these two simplest patterns."

Zheng Fa looked at the two shapes and committed them to memory.

"Teaching you for thirty minutes will shave three years off my life!" Old Man Bai was still complaining. He clearly regretted it a little and seemed ready to back out.

"How about I teach you instead?"

"Hm?"

"A secret never passed on, a peerless skill of the sect." Zheng Fa smiled with particular innocence.

"Come, come, come!" The old man immediately grew excited and led Zheng Fa into an empty room.

"Follow me!"

When Zheng Fa said he would teach him, he truly taught him. He assumed the stance of the Pine Crane Stance and demonstrated it for the old man. Tang Lingwu watched curiously from the side, and he did not mind.

The old man twisted his body into the shape of a pretzel.

Slap! Zheng Fa smacked the back of the old man's head.

"What are you doing?!"

"Your head is in the wrong position!" Zheng Fa said with a stern face.

"Oh."

Old Man Bai obediently straightened his head.

Slap! "Pull your arms back!"

Slap! "Don't stick your stomach out!"

Slap! "Plant your legs firmly!"

The repeated slapping sounds made Tang Lingwu's scalp hurt just listening to them. She bared her teeth in sympathy alongside Old Man Bai.

"Move your legs forward!"

"No, no! My legs are going to break!"

Old Man Bai let out a miserable cry.

Then Zheng Fa said in a tone of exasperation, as though iron had failed to become steel:

"Stupid!"

"Did no one oil your body?"

"Your previous master probably got so angry with you that he stopped teaching you and turned himself in!"

Tang Lingwu gave Zheng Fa a long look from the side.

In her heart, she sincerely bowed deeply in apology to the word "generosity."

By the time Old Man Bai had held the stance for ten minutes and finally could not endure any longer, Zheng Fa let him go.

According to Instructor Xu, the old man truly did not have much talent. At best, he was below average.

On top of that, he was old, and his bones were not flexible.

He would be doing well if he learned the Pine Crane Stance at one-tenth of Zheng Fa's speed.

Old Man Bai kneaded his aching arms and hopped in place once. "I have to say, I feel like my whole body has become much lighter."

Zheng Fa was certain that with the old man's aptitude, there was no way he could have cultivated anything in such a short time. It was most likely a psychological effect.

"Then we'll take our leave first."

Zheng Fa wanted to slip away.

"Stop!" Old Man Bai blocked the doorway. "Finished cursing to your heart's content? And now you want to run?"

"..."

"Study with me for another half hour!"

The old man dragged Zheng Fa back, fetched a reference book from the study that he had used during his lesson earlier, and began tormenting Zheng Fa again.

By the time Zheng Fa and Tang Lingwu left, it was already around ten at night.

"You did it on purpose?" In the hallway, Tang Lingwu blinked and asked Zheng Fa, "You deliberately angered Teacher Bai so he would teach you more?"

"No, he did it on purpose." Zheng Fa carried his schoolbag and glanced back at her. "That old man is dying for someone to teach him."

He had not missed the fleeting loneliness on Old Man Bai's face when the two said goodbye.

When he woke again, he was back at the Zhao Residence.

Gao Yuan, on the other bed, was sleeping in a sprawled mess, with several sheets of paper scattered beside his pillow.

Zheng Fa was already so familiar with the patterns on them that he nearly wanted to throw up.

After cramming at Old Man Bai's house for an entire weekend, Mathematics was still difficult, but Zheng Fa had at least figured out those diagrams.

At the very least, he had remembered how to understand their patterns through Mathematics.

"You're awake?" Gao Yuan drowsily turned over, looked at Zheng Fa getting up, and rubbed his eyes.

"Hurry up and get up. Instructor Xu is waiting for us."

Zheng Fa urged him. After Instructor Xu had taught them the Pine Crane Stance, he had washed his hands of them. Yesterday—or rather, the day before Zheng Fa traveled to the modern world—

He had suddenly said that he wanted to see how the two of them had practiced over the past few days.

(End of chapter)