Although Su Ke was angry at being scolded by the math teacher, there was nothing he could do about it. He recognized every one of the densely packed equations on the blackboard, but had no idea how to solve the problem. His face flushed red with frustration..
"Get out!" The math teacher pointed at the classroom door and shouted again. Su Ke hadn't made a serious mistake, but Wu Ming still insisted on making an example of him.
Class 3-8 was only around the middle-to-lower end of the grade rankings. Most of its students also had some bad habits: the boys talked and horsed around in class, while some of the girls squeezed pimples in little mirrors, and others even had earbuds stuffed in their ears.
Su Ke had just let out a foolish laugh, and Wu Ming, who had been suppressing his anger, immediately exploded. Su Ke was a quiet, introverted boy who usually went unnoticed in class and got average grades. Wu Ming had never cared about him or paid him any attention, but now he felt that Su Ke had made a fool of him—a boy who was usually so quiet he might as well have been part of the air.
"Mr. Wu, I—" Su Ke opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He was genuinely terrified.
"Get out!" Wu Ming pointed toward the door again, his expression stern and his eyes blazing.
With his head lowered, Su Ke walked out from his seat. He could only submit to the teacher's demands; he didn't have the courage to argue back. All his classmates had stopped what they were doing and watched him walk toward the door, step by step.
Suddenly, he stopped and slowly raised his head. Then he strode toward the podium.
Wu Ming was taken aback as he watched Su Ke approach. A sense of unease came over him. Was the boy going to hit his teacher? He took a step back and shouted, "What are you doing?"
Su Ke ignored him. Just as he had left his seat, a cool sensation had suddenly appeared in his mind, bringing with it a wealth of mathematical knowledge. Theorems and formulas all clicked into place at once. When he looked at the problem on the blackboard—the one that had stumped him moments earlier—it suddenly seemed easy..
He picked up a piece of chalk from the podium and began writing rapidly. After looking at the problem just once, the solution had already appeared in his mind; his right hand was merely putting the answer on the board.
"Smack!" Su Ke tossed the chalk stub onto the podium, then turned to Wu Ming.
"Mr. Wu, is my answer right?"
Wu Ming had already been shocked from the moment Su Ke stepped onto the podium. The boy was usually so timid that he blushed when speaking to girls and could barely manage more than a whisper with the other boys. Now he had actually dared to stride up to the front of the class.
Then Wu Ming saw the answer Su Ke had written on the blackboard. The steps were clear, and the answer was correct. He was startled again. This was a difficult problem, and Wu Ming was sure that no more than three students in the class could solve it. Su Ke certainly wasn't one of them.
"Correct!" Wu Ming said with a stiff expression, deliberately looking at the blackboard as he spoke.
Su Ke dusted the chalk off his hands and headed straight back to his seat. This time, he didn't keep his head down, and a rare smile graced his face.
Wei Lan looked at Su Ke as if she were seeing him for the first time. He had a handsome, clean-cut face, bright eyes, and a smile that carried an indescribable charm. Was this really the Su Ke who had always gone unnoticed in class? The shy Su Ke who was almost like a girl? The thought stirred a new curiosity in Wei Lan, the class study representative.
Su Ke sat down, pretending to be relaxed. When he looked up, his gaze met that of his math teacher, Wu Ming. Wu Ming was the first to look away.
"Class, Su Ke's solution to this problem is completely correct!" Wu Ming's voice rang out. Su Ke started grinning foolishly again. The Flower Picking System was real! The hundred yuan was real! High School Math Mastery was real, too!
This was a miracle from heaven! With the Flower Picking System, he was sure to change his fate! Su Ke shouted silently in his heart.
Suddenly, another cold, mechanical notification sounded in his mind. Su Ke couldn't focus on Wu Ming's lesson anymore. He quickly entered that strange space and looked at the electronic screen. The moment he saw it, he broke out in a cold sweat.
"Task: Touch Li Feifei's butt; Reward: 200 yuan."
"Oh, my god! Is this going to be the death of me?" Su Ke was dumbfounded. The moment he saw the task, he remembered Li Feifei's fierce, clawing expression, as if she wanted to eat him alive.
People always said you couldn't touch a tiger's butt, but he had to touch a tigress's. And the worst part was, he had to touch it again and again!
Li Feifei was a famous beauty at No. 17 High School. Su Ke was very introverted, but he was still interested in beautiful things. Otherwise, he wouldn't have approached Li Feifei and completed the task.
After leaving the space, Su Ke sat there in a daze, his thoughts running wild. The teacher's words went in one ear and out the other, and he remained in that state until school let out.
He took his half-new mountain bike from the bike shed. Out of the corner of his eye, he suddenly caught sight of a familiar figure passing close by. Well, perhaps it was more accurate to say he recognized the familiar butt. The two bouncing orbs beneath those denim shorts had already taken root deep in his heart.
Su Ke quickly turned his head away. His heart revved up again, his mouth went dry, his legs weakened, and his breathing quickened. He waited until the figure was out of sight, then pushed his bike away and fled as if for his life.
"Do I have to touch it again?"
"What if I get caught?"
"But honestly, it really is springy!"
With his mind full of butts, Su Ke finally made it back to the small shop his parents ran.
"Mom, Dad, I'm back!" Su Ke left his schoolbag in the storage room and went out to help. His parents ran a small supermarket near the entrance to the residential complex, selling not only cigarettes, liquor, tea, and candy, but also rice, flour, cooking oil, salt, and all kinds of daily necessities, along with fruit and vegetables.
It was quitting time, so the shop was busy with residents from the complex. Most had come in to buy vegetables for dinner. Vegetables were the most profitable part of the business, and Su Ke's father went to the wholesale market at four every morning to bring them back.
Every evening, Su Ke helped his parents at the shop. He usually couldn't go home for dinner until after nine thirty, but he was used to it by now. He just had to eat more at lunch. He had barely stepped out of the storage room when someone pushed the door open.
"Su Ke, back from school?" The customer was a woman with long hair draped over her shoulders. She was around twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Su Ke knew she lived in the complex and worked at a China Mobile service center. He thought her name was Liu Mengmeng. She had only recently gotten married and had a curvy figure, especially her ample chest.
Liu Mengmeng wore the China Mobile summer uniform, with a striped silk scarf tied around her neck, giving her an elegant, dignified look. She had on a fitted white short-sleeved blouse that stretched over her full chest, as if the buttons might burst at any moment, and a plain black pencil skirt that reached just to her knees.
"Hello, Sister Liu!" Liu Mengmeng greeted him, and Su Ke's face instantly reddened. He quickly lowered his head. He knew this was what people online called a "uniform fetish," but honestly, she did look beautiful. His heart began racing again.
Seeing Su Ke's bashful expression, Liu Mengmeng smiled and went to pick out some things.
Suddenly, Su Ke sensed a change in the space inside his mind. He entered it, and a new task appeared on the electronic screen.
"Task: Find out the color of Liu Mengmeng's underwear; Reward: 200 yuan."
Before you continue