Cui Xiaoxin stood at the door. After pondering for a moment, she was just about to raise her hand and knock when the room door happened to be pulled open from inside.
A pretty girl with straight bangs brushing her forehead leaned forward. When she saw someone standing outside, she widened her eyes and froze there, her beautiful eyes staring fixedly at the visitor.
Cui Xiaoxin likewise sized up Li Sinian. She knew Li Mu Yang had a younger sister, but she had never imagined that Li Mu Yang could have such a beautiful sister—
Were they really biological siblings? This thought popped into Cui Xiaoxin's mind for no reason.
Then she instantly tossed the thought out of her head. Li Mu Yang was her lifesaver. How could she think such—insulting things?
"Cui Xiaoxin?" Li Sinian was the first to break the silence, asking aloud.
"Li Sinian?" For some reason, when Li Sinian called her by name at once, Cui Xiaoxin felt a hint of secret delight. She felt it was a kind of acknowledgment, although she had never cared before whether anyone acknowledged her.
"It's me." Li Sinian nodded repeatedly and said with a grin, "I knew it was you too."
"I came to see Li Mu Yang." Cui Xiaoxin felt that there was something strange about Li Sinian's gaze, but she had already imagined a scene like this on the way here. She had even originally thought she would have to face an even more complicated situation: Li Mu Yang's father, mother, and some important relatives would all be there, looking at her with scrutinizing or appreciative eyes.
A pretty girl coming alone to visit a sick classmate was the sort of thing that easily invited outside misinterpretation. Without a doubt, if the students in their class found out, rumors about the two of them would probably spread throughout all of Fuxing Middle School in the blink of an eye, right?
The fact that only Li Sinian was in the hospital room undoubtedly spared her a great deal of trouble.
"Oh, Li Mu Yang is my brother—" Li Sinian said with a smile. She affectionately took Cui Xiaoxin's hand and said, "Sister Xiao Xin, please come in."
Cui Xiaoxin was not used to such intimacy. She had never held hands so affectionately with another girl, either.
But Li Sinian really was a lovely girl. Her smile was so pure, her enthusiasm so sincere, as though refusing her would be an act of blaspheming the gods—
Cui Xiaoxin hesitated briefly, then let Li Sinian pull her over to Li Mu Yang's bedside.
"Brother, the Sister Xiao Xin you've been muttering about is here," Li Sinian called out. She winked at Li Mu Yang, then put on a wronged expression and said, "The moment you opened your eyes, you asked how Sister Xiao Xin was doing. You even forced me to find out immediately whether she had gone to school today—look, look, isn't Sister Xiao Xin perfectly fine? Is anything hurt? Did she lose even a strand of hair or a piece of flesh?"
"I was only—"
"Fine, don't explain. An explanation is a cover-up." Li Sinian did not give Li Mu Yang a chance to speak at all. She said, "You two chat, all right? I'm going out to get something to eat. I'm starving!"
Li Sinian tightened her grip on Cui Xiaoxin's hand and said with a smile, "Sister Xiao Xin, I'm leaving my brother in your care?"
Cui Xiaoxin's expression stiffened, but she still nodded and said, "All right."
She could tell that there was an ambiguous meaning in what Li Sinian had said. But if she did not answer, would that not make it seem as though she was the one overthinking things?
Li Sinian secretly gave her brother an encouraging gesture, then said goodbye to Cui Xiaoxin and left.
Li Mu Yang gave an awkward little laugh and said to Cui Xiaoxin, "That's just how she is. Don't take it to heart."
"She's very cute," Cui Xiaoxin said seriously.
Li Mu Yang nodded, then looked into Cui Xiaoxin's eyes and asked, "Are you all right?"
Cui Xiaoxin had fair, smooth skin and delicate features without a single flaw. She wore a purple, painted hibiscus-patterned, front-opening dress with a fitted waist. Though she wore no sash, it made her waist look soft and slender, like a weak willow brushing in the wind. Her whole person gave off a simple, clean feeling.
In Li Mu Yang's memory, Cui Xiaoxin seemed to have been injured during the attack at Beast-Faced Pavilion—but now he could not see a single wound on her, as though what had happened that day had been a vivid and painful nightmare.
"I'm sorry." Cui Xiaoxin lowered her eyelids, her long lashes falling like an alluring fan. "You risked your life fighting someone to save me, but I fled the battlefield—"
"You were taken away by someone, weren't you?" Li Mu Yang said with a smile. "The person who shouted 'Beast!' was one of your people, and that red orb that incinerated the crows was also cast by one of your people. You only left after confirming that the killer had gone, right?"
Cui Xiaoxin blinked and asked, "How did you know that?"
"I feel—" Li Mu Yang spread his mouth into a grin, revealing two rows of dazzlingly white teeth. "That this is what you should have done."
"Thank you." Deeply moved, Cui Xiaoxin said, "Thank you for trusting me so much."
"We're friends now, aren't we?" Li Mu Yang said with a smile. "Just as you believe there's still hope for me academically, I believe in your character. I believe you didn't deliberately abandon me alone on that dangerous battlefield—"
"My family took me away," Cui Xiaoxin explained. She felt she owed Li Mu Yang an explanation, and that was one of the reasons she had insisted on coming to visit him. "I was already unconscious when we left. I had no ability to resist."
"I understand." Li Mu Yang waved his hand casually and said, "I can imagine what that scene was like."
"Then—" Cui Xiaoxin thought that it was time for her to say goodbye.
No matter how brave and formidable Li Mu Yang had been at Beast-Faced Pavilion that day, he was still only an ordinary person.
Since that person had already found her whereabouts, and this attempt at interception had failed, they would probably employ even more methods and force them to face an even worse situation.
She did not want to drag Li Mu Yang into this again, because no one could guarantee that he would have such good luck a second time.
"Does our agreement still stand?" Li Mu Yang suddenly spoke.
"What?"
"You said you would start tutoring me today—the words you said that day at Beast-Faced Pavilion." Li Mu Yang gazed into Cui Xiaoxin's eyes and said with a smile.
"Oh." Cui Xiaoxin brushed back the hair from her forehead and said, "I did say that, if you're still willing."
"Of course." Li Mu Yang smiled and said, "I really want to attend Xifeng University too. I heard Xifeng University has Weiming Lake, where you can see the most beautiful sunset in the entire world."
"Then let's work hard together," Cui Xiaoxin said, smiling with her thin lips pressed together.
--
From that day onward, Cui Xiaoxin came to visit Li Mu Yang every day and accompanied him as he studied for four hours.
She was a renowned all-around academic prodigy at school. There was not a single subject that could stump her.
She explained the subjects one by one, then had Li Mu Yang read his books and answer questions. Whenever Li Mu Yang did not understand something, she would explain it again in simple, easy-to-understand terms. She continued until Li Mu Yang had completely grasped the problem.
Whether it was because men and women working together made the labor less tiring, or because beautiful women had a refreshing, mind-clearing effect, Li Mu Yang slept much less these days, and his reaction speed grew faster and faster. Many extremely difficult problems could be quickly understood and thoroughly mastered after Cui Xiaoxin explained them once.
Cui Xiaoxin was greatly surprised. She deliberately found several difficult problems to test him and discovered that Li Mu Yang could still solve them swiftly. Sometimes, he even used methods she had never taught him.
This left Cui Xiaoxin deeply puzzled. The Li Mu Yang of the past had never listened in class at all, which was why he always ranked at the bottom or scored zero on every exam.
Now, when he had only been taught a problem once by her, how had he found other ways to solve it?
Was he able to draw inferences from one example?
Could he be a hidden genius?
Cui Xiaoxin gazed at Li Mu Yang's dark face and discovered that the longer she looked at him, the more pleasing he seemed. Although Li Mu Yang's skin was pitch-black, he had refined, deep-set features. Most distinctive were his eyes—those lively eyes that seemed capable of devouring another person's soul.
"Li Mu Yang—" Cui Xiaoxin called out.
"What?" Li Mu Yang looked up at her.
"Did you really know nothing before?"
"I suppose so." Li Mu Yang nodded. "But recently, I don't know what's going on. All sorts of strange things keep surfacing from somewhere, as though I had already experienced them once before—these problems too. Even though it's the first time I've heard you explain them, I can somehow find many ways to solve them."
Cui Xiaoxin widened her eyes and looked at Li Mu Yang. "Are you saying—you can find many ways to solve every problem?"
"I guess so." Li Mu Yang nodded. Then he scratched his head and said somewhat sheepishly, "Some only have one way to solve them. The others are false solutions, because if you continue working through them, you'll discover that you get a completely wrong or opposite answer. They're academic deep traps. It's easy to waste far too much time on them."
Cui Xiaoxin did not believe him. She immediately set a problem from Nine Chapters on the Mathematical Art, pushed the draft paper in front of Li Mu Yang, and said, "Solve this problem. Use every method you know."
Li Mu Yang nodded, then bent over the desk and began solving it.
Five minutes passed, and Li Mu Yang was still solving it.
Ten minutes passed, and Li Mu Yang was still solving it.
Half an hour passed. Then an hour passed—
While solving the problem, Li Mu Yang changed pens and asked for twelve more sheets of draft paper.
After more than an hour, he handed over more than a dozen sheets of draft paper to Cui Xiaoxin and said sheepishly, "I only know these—"
Cui Xiaoxin quickly took the papers. The more she read, the graver her expression became. Finally, she gathered all the sheets together, looked at Li Mu Yang, and said, "You used eleven methods?"
"Yes." Li Mu Yang nodded. "Actually, there's one more. But I only know how to work out the beginning of that method. I'm still getting stuck on the later calculations, and I can't complete the string-and-arc theory in it—"
"But—" Cui Xiaoxin bit her lip, her gaze complicated as she looked at Li Mu Yang. With incomparable difficulty, she said, "I only know two methods."
"—"
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