A Fellow Traveler in Sorrow

Night fell outside the window.

Inside the classroom, the soft, bright lights illuminated rows of neat desks and the students bent over them in deep thought.

Jiang Ning was guiding Chen Siyu through a math problem.

Chen Siyu's grades could only be considered slightly above average in Class 8, placing her around twentieth. Even that ranking was watered down.

Because during exams, she and her sister had used the Great Displacement Spell.

In order to win Bai Yuxia back, Chen Siyu had been working very hard these past few months, often asking Jiang Ning for help during evening self-study.

Jiang Ning casually wrote down a problem for her:

"Let vectors a = (m, 1) and b = (1, 2). If |a + b| = |a| + |b|, then m = ?"

Three minutes later.

Jiang Ning asked, "This problem is simple. You don't have any idea how to solve it?"

Chen Siyu said, "I know the answer! It's -2."

At first glance, her genius seemed comparable to Xue Yuantong's—she actually knew the answer.

Jiang Ning said, "I just told you the answer, of course you know it. What I'm asking is why the answer is -2."

Chen Siyu said, "Because you told me."

Jiang Ning said, "Don't you need to show your work? Can you get points without writing out the process?"

Chen Siyu said, "I don't need to. It's a fill-in-the-blank question. The grader only looks at the answer, not the work."

Jiang Ning fell silent for a few seconds. "Talking to you is exhausting. How are you this dumb?"

Lies did not hurt people. The truth was the sharpest blade.

That blade stabbed straight into Chen Siyu's heart.

If it had been another girl, someone like Xue Chuchu, she might have gone pale, her eyes vacant, her heart