Huai Shi had never been good at getting along with strict people.
Especially people like Ying Fangzhou—upright and rigid, with absolutely no tolerance for flaws—were even harder to deal with.
If the senior had looked down on him and thought him beyond redemption, that would have been one thing. But Ying Fangzhou had placed even greater faith and expectations in Huai Shi than Huai Shi himself did.
Ever since he had been summoned, he had seized nearly every moment, hoping Huai Shi could improve further, teaching him everything he knew without holding anything back.
Time waited for no one.
If circumstances allowed, he would probably have loved to turn into some kind of system attached to Huai Shi, automatically force-feeding him cultivation, grinding skill proficiency, and handling the entire process in one go.
Grind! Grind like your life depends on it! Grind from dawn till dusk! Eighty Tutoring Classes—grind out the brilliant future of an ideal nation!
At the very least, he had to avoid repeating his own past mistakes...
As for the cause of his death back then, Ying Fangzhou had only one conclusion.
—I wasn't strong enough!
So, Huai Shi, you must become stronger than me!
As for how much stronger... forty times stronger should be about right, shouldn't it?
Thus, in order to avoid being worked to death by the old senior's hellish tutoring class and to carve out even a little breathing room amid his packed lessons, Huai Shi could only do his best to lower Ying Fangzhou's estimation of his talent and potential.
The ideal result, of course, would be: "What? Other people's children score perfect marks in two subjects, while ours has only barely passed? It's fine, he's an idiot, and he's already tried very hard!"
But Huai Shi knew that was unrealistic. Still,