You Should Apologize to Him

Jiangcheng University of Technology, girls' dormitory 306.

"Come on, Wang Hao! How many times have I told you? I need to study! It's not that I'm ignoring you. Why are you so clingy? If you've got nothing to do, go write my elective course paper for me!"

On the balcony, a girl was unleashing a barrage at the person on the other end of the phone.

After hanging up on her boyfriend, she let out a long sigh and turned to Lu Yao, who was packing her bag.

"Yaoyao, that Teacher Yang from the grad school prep center you mentioned before... is he still taking students?"

As soon as she said that, the other two roommates quietly perked up their ears as well.

Ever since Lu Yao had casually mentioned after returning to the dorm that the tutor she had hired for grad school prep was actually a master's graduate from the Mathematics Department of Capital Normal University, the atmosphere in the dorm had become subtly different.

Junior year was already an anxious time. Some were preparing for graduate school entrance exams, some for civil service exams, and some for jobs. Everyone was anxious.

And in a dorm room, once one person started grinding like crazy, everyone else would inexplicably feel guilty.

That feeling of anxiety—Everyone else is working hard. Am I just useless?—was even more aggravating than a breakup.

It would have been fine if everyone had been slacking off together. But now, not only was Lu Yao preparing for graduate school, her tutor was also a master's graduate from one of the country's top universities. That made them even more anxious.

Lu Yao stuffed several graduate-level math review books into her bag as she spoke.

"I don't know whether he's still taking students, but I'll ask him for you today."

She paused, then added as if she had remembered something.

"But after today's lesson, he probably won't be tutoring me for a while."

"Huh? Why? Does the teacher have something going on at home?" her roommate asked in surprise.

Lu Yao shook her head, a trace of barely concealed envy in her voice.

"No. Teacher Yang said there's a student in his senior class who's competing in the Huaxuan Cup physics application contest next week."

"He needs to set aside time to tutor that student. After all, physics and math go hand in hand."

"He's really responsible. He'd rather turn down a side job with a high hourly rate like mine than help his own student."

Lu Yao sighed.

"I'm so jealous of the students in that class. If I'd met a teacher like him back in high school, I wouldn't be struggling so much with advanced math now."

"Huaxuan Cup?" Her roommate froze for a moment.

"Yeah. It's a commercial competition, but it carries a lot of weight in the field," Lu Yao explained. "The finals are even harder than the second round of the Olympiad. The people competing in it are probably the seed players from their schools."

With that, Lu Yao slung her bag over her shoulder and walked out the door.

Forty minutes later, in a small classroom at the grad school prep center.

Yang Shengguo looked fairly energetic.

"You're here? Then let's get started."

Unlike teachers at other prep centers, Old Yang did not like to spend class time chatting about everyday life or feeding students motivational nonsense.

He still believed in the old saying: a teacher passed on knowledge, taught skills, and resolved doubts.

Even if he was earning extra money, he had to make it worth what he was being paid.

"Lu Yao, after these tutoring sessions, I've found that your foundation is actually quite solid."

"If you were applying to an average school, you could absolutely prepare on your own. But since your goal is Jinling University, there are some things I need to say plainly."

Old Yang opened Lu Yao's workbook and pointed at several proof problems involving the mean value theorem.

"There's still a slight misunderstanding in your calculus reasoning. You rely too much on formulas and ready-made conclusions. Once the conditions become even a little obscure, you no longer know how to construct an auxiliary function."

"For example, when converting between Lagrange's mean value theorem and Cauchy's mean value theorem, you always force the formulas into place."

Lu Yao lowered her head, her face slightly red.

That really was her long-standing weakness. She relied entirely on the intuition she had piled up through endless problem-solving, and the moment she encountered a new problem type, she was lost.

"To help you understand the art of 'construction' more intuitively, I have a problem here."

As Old Yang spoke, he took out a sheet of white paper and wrote down an equation.

"This problem should be no trouble for a third-year mathematics major like you."

"But I don't want to see you brute-force it with standard differentiation. I want to see how you think."

After finishing, Old Yang pushed the paper in front of Lu Yao.

Lu Yao froze when she saw the question.

This... wasn't this...

Seeing her space out, Old Yang smiled. "What? Do you think it's easy?"

Lu Yao came back to her senses, her expression a little strange.

Although she had complained about Li Dong for ages after returning home, her science-student compulsiveness had still driven her to privately study that "isomorphic bounding" solution.

At the time, she had been certain that Li Dong could never have come up with it himself, but she had to admit that the solution was indeed brilliant.

So, she picked up her pen.

She did not construct a complicated difference function, nor did she differentiate twice.

[Using tangent-line bounding: e^x≥ ex...]

In less than a minute, without even using scratch paper, Lu Yao had written out the entire solution.

Sitting across from her, Old Yang's hand holding his thermos froze in midair.

"This..."

Old Yang inwardly cried out in amazement.

How had he run into another prodigy?

The last time, it had been that freak Li Dong. This time, even Lu Yao had evolved?

A third-year math major might have a solid foundation, but her speed of reaction and angle of approach were far too quick.

"Lu Yao, you..." Old Yang's tone held a trace of surprise.

"How did you think of it so quickly? This kind of isomorphic bounding perspective is usually something only people with extensive competition training can think of instantly. Can you tell me your thought process?"

Lu Yao's cheeks grew hot as she listened to Old Yang praise her.

Normally, praise like this would have made her ecstatic.

But now, she only felt embarrassed.

"Teacher Yang, actually... I've seen this problem before."

"You've seen it?"

Old Yang was puzzled.

"Although this is a variation on a classic model, I only changed the numbers for it on the spot in class a few days ago. It was just something I wrote casually on the board. Where could you have seen it?"

"You made it yourself?"

Lu Yao exclaimed.

"Could it really be that much of a coincidence?"

"What's such a coincidence?"

Lu Yao asked tentatively.

"Teacher Yang, are you... a teacher at Jiangcheng No. 7 High School?"

Old Yang nodded. "Yeah. Haven't I ever mentioned that?"

"Oh my god..." Lu Yao held her forehead, caught between laughter and tears.

"What's wrong? What's wrong with being a teacher at No. 7?" Old Yang was completely baffled by her reaction.

Lu Yao then told him about how her mother had asked her to tutor a third-year student from No. 7 High School.

"...That's what happened. I saw this problem and this solution on his test paper."

As she spoke, Lu Yao became increasingly annoyed.

"The most infuriating part was that student had only scored a little over eighty in math. His foundations weren't even solid, yet he told me he had casually derived it himself because he wanted to save effort."

"Kids these days are just way too vain."

"It was clearly the essence of what you taught in class. Fine, he copied it down, but he even insisted on claiming it as his own."

The more Lu Yao spoke, the more convinced she became that she was right.

However, she did not notice that Old Yang's expression was becoming increasingly colorful.

Only after Lu Yao finished did Old Yang slowly speak, his tone somewhat complicated.

"Lu Yao, the student you tutored... was his name Li Dong?"

Lu Yao froze.

"Yes, yes, Li Dong! Teacher Yang, is he usually a real headache too?"

Old Yang leaned back in his chair and shook his head.

"What a small world..."

"What is it, Teacher Yang?" Lu Yao sensed that something was off.

Old Yang sat upright, his smile fading as his expression grew more serious.

"Lu Yao, I think you really misunderstood him."

"Huh?"

"This problem may have been written on the blackboard by me, but that solution..."

"Using tangent-line bounding really was something he derived himself in class."

"And it took him less than a minute."

Lu Yao suddenly felt as though the world had been turned upside down.

"How is that possible?! He... didn't he only score a little over eighty in math?"

"Scores represent the past, not the present."

Old Yang interrupted her.

"Li Dong has changed a lot recently. He can even score 360 points on a physics Olympiad paper."

"Lu Yao, I think the next time you see him, you should apologize to him—or get to know this junior student again."

Lu Yao sat blankly in her chair. In her mind surfaced the boy's clear, sincere eyes, along with the words she had dismissed with scorn: "I just gave it a try."

So... I was the clown all along?

Time always passed quickly, and before long, it was the weekend again.

For high school seniors, weekends merely meant changing locations to do practice papers.

Li Dong was bent over his desk.

"The differential form of Maxwell's Equations..."

Li Dong spun his pen in his hand, his brows tightly furrowed.

"Gauss's law? ∇ = ρ/ε?... This isn't just a formula. It describes the divergence of a field source."

With the boost from [Physics Perception] and his core attributes, those dry Greek letters seemed to come alive before his eyes.

But even so, fully mastering this university-level knowledge in a short time was still incredibly mentally taxing.

Click.

The bedroom door opened.

Li Qin walked in carrying a plate of peeled, bite-sized apple pieces.

"Xiaodong, take a break and have some fruit."

Li Qin looked at the books covering the desk, her eyes full of gratification.

"Mom, I'm not tired."

Li Dong casually speared an apple piece and stuffed it into his mouth, speaking indistinctly.

Li Qin set down the plate. After hesitating for a moment, she spoke anyway.

"Oh, right, Xiaodong. I need to tell you something. That Sister Lu Yao of yours is coming over tomorrow to tutor you in math."

"Cough, cough..."

Li Dong nearly choked on the apple.

He whipped his head around, terror written all over his face.

"Who? Lu Yao?"

Li Dong remembered that senior girl who had somehow become deeply disappointed in him for no reason.

"Mom, can't you tell her not to come?"

He spoke with a miserable expression.

"You child, what nonsense are you talking about?" Li Qin pulled a stern face.

"Lu Yao is a university student. You only got such a low score in math on your last monthly exam. How can you not get tutoring?"

"But..."

Women really were troublesome.

There was already Mi Xia at school. Lately, she was like a ghost, constantly turning around to stare at him.

He couldn't live like this!

"Mom, my math has actually improved a lot now. I really don't need—"

Just as Li Dong was about to argue his case, the phone in Li Qin's pocket suddenly rang.

She took it out, and her expression changed slightly.

"Oh, Supervisor Liu... Yes, yes, I'll come over right away. All right."

After hanging up, Li Qin looked at her son apologetically.

"Xiaodong, the supermarket suddenly needs to do inventory. Mom has to hurry over there. Make yourself something to eat tonight, okay?"

As she spoke, she headed outside. Before leaving, she did not forget to turn back and remind him.

"When Sister Lu Yao comes tomorrow, study properly with her and keep a good attitude! Don't let her think our family has no manners!"

Bang!

The door shut.

Li Dong was left standing there in a daze, still holding the half-eaten apple piece.

"I just want to study Maxwell's Equations properly. Why is that so hard?"