"I Won't Waste Time"

The late-autumn sunlight spilled through the windows onto the desks, while the number on the blackboard counting down to the college entrance exam decreased day by day.

The pressure of further education weighed on every senior at Jiangcheng No. 7 High School.

Even the students with the worst grades had no choice but to put away their usual laziness and bury themselves in their studies at this critical juncture.

The days passed one after another, unchanged.

The only difference was probably that Li Dong, who had once had little presence, suddenly became busy.

Either Zheng "Tiger," the discipline director, was looking for him, or Old Yang would occasionally stuff a few test papers without the school's letterhead into his hands.

And every time Li Dong finished them and handed them in, Old Yang's expression was always complicated.

Sometimes he was beaming with delight; other times, he frowned deeply. But in the end, he always said nothing and left with the papers.

This happened often enough that it naturally sparked plenty of curiosity.

"Dongzi, why does Zheng 'Tiger' keep looking for you? Did you get into trouble?"

A boy who was usually close to him came over to ask.

Li Dong merely raised his head from his pile of books and laughed.

"Nothing much. Didn't I sign up for the physics competition? Teacher Zheng just gave me a few practice problems."

"That's what I thought." The boy curled his lip. "It's just a waste of time."

Everyone had their own things to do. After the initial buzz had passed, Li Dong's sudden participation in the physics competition had become little more than something to casually laugh about.

But not everyone was indifferent.

Mi Xia, who sat in the front row, had increasingly dense notes on derivatives and physics mechanics in her mistake notebook.

Whenever she grew tired from solving problems, she would turn around and see Li Dong still bent over calculations, then grit her teeth and pick up her pen again.

Li Dong had forcibly stirred up her refusal to admit defeat.

Jiang Yizhou and Liu Liang had been similarly provoked.

Jiang Yizhou had become much more low-key lately, but the study guides in his backpack had been upgraded to more advanced versions.

It was said that his family had hired a one-on-one tutor for him.

As for Liu Liang, his changes were the greatest.

He never again asked Li Dong to go to an internet café to play games. He even memorized vocabulary during exercise breaks.

It was as if he had suddenly become a different person—more silent, and more grounded.

Perhaps Li Dong's words at the bus stop that day—"I want to give it everything I've got"—had truly struck some chord within him.

The bell for evening self-study rang.

Old Yang hurried into the classroom, looking more exhausted than usual.

"I have something to do tonight. Study on your own, keep quiet, and class monitor, maintain order."

After saying that, he did not even have time to make his usual round of the classroom before hurrying away.

As his footsteps faded, quiet discussion began in the classroom.

"Why has Old Yang been so busy lately?"

"Yeah. He used to practically drag a stool up to the podium and watch over us during evening study. Why has he been gone so often lately?"

"I heard he has something going on outside..."

The students' voices did not disturb Li Dong.

At that moment, University Physics, Volume 1 was all that existed in his world.

He was grinding through the textbook.

Because he had discovered that there really was not enough time.

Many people thought university physics was merely an extension of high school physics, but that was not the case.

In terms of the amount of knowledge involved, they were things from entirely different dimensions.

Take high school physics, for example. Required and elective courses combined only amounted to five or six textbooks at most.

But what about university physics?

Li Dong had looked it up. The information density contained in University Physics, Volume 1 alone was several times that of high school physics textbooks.

At university, a teacher might finish Newton's laws of motion in two classes, while in high school, the same topic took an entire month.

Not to mention thermodynamics and statistics, wave optics, the foundations of quantum physics, and more that came afterward...

The formulas regarded as "axioms" in high school all had to be derived anew with calculus here.

If I didn't have my attribute bonuses supporting me, I probably wouldn't have even finished grinding through high school physics yet.

Li Dong silently counted himself fortunate, then quickly turned to the chapter on the fixed-axis rotation of rigid bodies.

His plan was simple.

He would first build a framework of physical theory, then use the "inspiration" offered by the big shots in the screen-peeking group to force himself to understand the physical concepts. Once he had memorized them, he would start drilling problems to activate all the knowledge points.

"Ring, ring, ring..."

The bell signaling the end of evening self-study rang.

The teaching building instantly became noisy. Day students poured out in droves, while boarding students headed toward the dormitories in twos and threes.

The boarding conditions at No. 7 High School were fairly good.

Because there were not many boarding students, the school had not crammed the dorm rooms full. Many rooms originally meant for eight students housed only four, or even fewer.

There were only three people in Li Dong's Room 302.

Besides him and Liu Liang, the other was Chen Yue from Class One next door.

Chen Yue was formidable.

He was a top student in the science Class One and had held first place in the grade for years.

That was why he did not need to attend evening self-study and could review in the dormitory instead.

When Li Dong and Liu Liang returned to the dorm, Chen Yue was sitting at his desk with a worried frown.

Li Dong and Liu Liang exchanged a glance, both moving more quietly as they went to wash up.

When they returned after finishing up, they found Chen Yue still sitting there in a daze.

Liu Liang directly dug a bag of chips out of the pile of socks in his locker and tossed it over.

"Old Chen, what are you doing? You look constipated..."

Chen Yue caught the chips and gave a bitter laugh.

"Don't mention it. I'm stuck."

He sighed, tossed his pen onto the desk, and slumped back in his chair.

"This problem's too hard. I've been stuck on it for a whole hour! I was going to play a match of Honor of Kings after finishing this paper. What rotten luck tonight—I was only one star away from reaching Glory."

"Oh? Even a problem that can stump you?" Liu Liang became interested and leaned over.

"Let me take a look."

Chen Yue handed him the test paper and pointed at the final, hardest question.

"See for yourself. It's a variation of the final derivatives problem from last year's National College Entrance Exam Paper I. The person who wrote it is insane—they combined shifted extrema with hidden roots. There's no way to find an entry point."

Li Dong was about to climb into bed when he heard that and instinctively glanced over.

Hmm, this problem really was quite difficult.

The key to the first part was factorization. Li Dong automatically skipped the process and arrived directly at the conclusion: when a ≤ 0, f′(x) < 0, so the function was monotonically decreasing; when a > 0, setting f′(x) = 0 gave x = -ln a, and the function attained its minimum at x = -ln a.

The second part required considering hidden roots and endpoint effects...

So the range of a should be 0

<a<1

It still took Li Dong more than a full minute to arrive at the answer.

Meanwhile, Liu Liang held the test paper with a completely blank expression.

"Forget it, forget it. I can't even understand what it's asking."

He turned to Chen Yue.

"Old Chen, isn't this beyond the syllabus?"

"It's not beyond the syllabus. It's just hard."

Chen Yue shook his head helplessly.

"It tests all the basics, but putting them together is brutal."

Liu Liang suddenly felt competitive and pulled out a sheet of scratch paper.

"No. I'll copy it down and give it a try. What if I solve it? Then I can brag that I'm even better than the top student in the grade."

Chen Yue was amused. "Sure, sure, you're amazing!"

After saying that, he noticed Li Dong was still standing there in a daze.

"Hey, Dongzi, aren't you going to take a look?"

Chen Yue was from another class and knew nothing at all about the recent "Li Dong legends" in Class Two.

In his impression, Li Dong's math grades had always hovered around passing, even a little worse than Liu Liang's.

So he was only asking casually.

Li Dong came back to himself and shook his head.

"I still have a few physics problems I haven't figured out, so I won't waste time doing this."

Chen Yue immediately nodded in understanding.

To him, Li Dong meant, I definitely can't solve this problem, so spending time on it would be a waste. I might as well do physics problems instead.

That showed good self-awareness.

To spare his roommate's pride, Chen Yue said nothing more and turned back to continue battling that problem.

But Liu Liang turned and gave Li Dong a long, deep look.

Was it too easy?

He did not dare think any further. He only lowered his head, stared at the problem that looked like a heavenly scripture, and clenched his teeth.

Meanwhile, in Sunshine Garden Residential Compound, Jiangcheng.

It was a residential compound more than twenty years old. The security door to Room 406 was pushed open.

Old Yang dragged his heavy steps inside.

"You're back? Have you eaten?"

A gentle woman leaned out from the kitchen.

Old Yang hung his briefcase on the coat rack and shook his head.

"Not yet. Things were too rushed today."

"Then wash your hands first. I'll heat up your dinner." His wife wiped her hands and turned back into the kitchen.

Just then, a girl in a middle school uniform walked out of the bedroom with a worried expression.

A little girl in a middle school uniform walked out with a worried expression, holding a homework notebook.

"Dad, you're finally back! Come explain this geometry problem to me. I've been thinking about it forever and still can't solve it."

Old Yang forced himself to perk up.

"All right, let Dad take a look..."

"Ningning!"

His wife's mildly reproachful voice came from the kitchen.

"Let your father finish eating before he helps you with your homework! He's been tired all day."

Yang Ning nodded obediently.

"Oh, then eat first, Dad. I'll wait for you in my room."

With that, she obediently returned to her room.

Before long, steaming dishes were brought to the table.

Old Yang sat at the dining table and ate in large mouthfuls.

His wife sat across from him, a trace of heartache flashing through her eyes.

"Honey, every day you have to teach a graduating class, run to that graduate entrance exam tutoring center, and give extra lessons to that little genius you mentioned... can you really handle it?"

Old Yang swallowed a mouthful of food and smiled. "What do you mean, whether I can handle it or not? That's life."

He sighed.

"Ningning will be starting high school soon. We can help her with math and Chinese, but what about the other subjects? The two of us only earn fixed salaries. If we don't make more money now, what will we do for our child later?"

"And besides..." A bit of life returned to Old Yang's eyes.

"That graduate entrance exam tutoring center is tiring, but it's meaningful too. Today, there was a student in that class named Lu Yao or something. She's a third-year girl from Jiangcheng Institute of Technology, and she's quite talented."

"I think that with proper planning, she has a very good chance of getting admitted, and she could get into a really good school. Being able to help these kids fulfill their dreams makes me happy too."

His wife looked at him and sighed softly.

She was a teacher too, so she naturally understood the urge to lend a hand whenever one saw a promising student.

"You really were born to worry."