The Rampaging Cockroach

After explaining everything, Madam Yang left the house.

Standing outside Han Mengqi's door, Lu Zhou looked at the key in his hand. After thinking it over, he ultimately slipped it into his pocket and knocked on the door.

Bang—

A dull, muffled thud sounded.

It was as if the door had been hit by something like a pillow.

"Go away! I'm warning you, if you dare come in, I'll call the police!"

She really was a girl with a terrible personality...

Even though her voice was quite pleasant.

Lu Zhou shrugged, not the least bit angry. Through the door, he said, "I don't really care. Whether you come out or not, I still get paid. But is this really okay? Five hours is a thousand yuan, you know."

Anyone would feel a little heartache upon hearing a thousand yuan, right?

Lu Zhou tried putting himself in her shoes, only to realize that he had still underestimated the willfulness of rich people.

"Heh." A cold snort came from behind the door. Han Mengqi raised her voice and said indifferently, "Do whatever you want. That woman has plenty of money anyway. It's her business how she spends it. Why don't you just let her keep you?"

That woman...

Judging from her tone, the rift between mother and daughter was no ordinary one.

After waiting outside for a while and seeing that the little girl had absolutely no intention of opening the door, Lu Zhou decided not to waste any more time. He turned around, returned to the study, and carried all the materials there into the living room.

He had not touched high school material in a long time, but picking it back up after a quick look was no challenge. After all, he was a student at a top university, one of the warriors who had fought his way across the single-log bridge amid an army of competitors. He had to have some skills.

Sitting on the sofa, Lu Zhou flipped through the textbooks a couple of times. Then he suddenly noticed the shards of glass on the floor and frowned.

His old obsessive-compulsive habit was acting up again.

With a sigh, he stood up, went to the bathroom for a broom, and cleaned up the trash first.

Just as he was about to put down the broom, a scream suddenly came from the tightly shut room.

"Ah—!"

Lu Zhou's heart jolted. Thinking something had happened, he tossed aside the broom without a word and rushed toward the room.

He took out the key and opened the door. The moment he pushed it open, a black unidentified crawling creature darted toward his feet.

A cockroach?

Lu Zhou instinctively stepped on it, killing it, then continued into the room and hurriedly asked,

"What happened?"

With the curtains drawn, the room was very dark.

It was hard to imagine that this was a girl's bedroom, and even harder to imagine that a room like this existed in such a high-end apartment.

In a sense, the mess here was practically on par with their dorm room.

Books were piled haphazardly in the corner alongside stuffed toys and other things. Bags of puffed snacks had been tossed all over the floor, and there were even a few potato chip crumbs left behind... No wonder the cockroach had come in looking for food. Those things were especially sensitive to grease.

Her loose long hair was slightly disheveled. A petite figure huddled in the corner of the bed, clutching a pillow tightly in both hands and hugging her knees as she trembled. She wore loose pajamas, her pale face drawn tight, her lips bitten nearly blue. The terror on her face made it look as though she had seen a ghost.

"Dead, dead..."

"Dead?"

"Is it dead?" Her lips trembled as Han Mengqi shakily glanced beneath the bed, looking like she wanted to climb down but did not dare.

Lu Zhou froze for a moment, then gave the thing beside his foot an odd look.

"You mean... the cockroach?"

Han Mengqi nodded nervously.

"It's dead. Right here." Lu Zhou sighed and pointed down.

He had thought something serious had happened. It was only a bug.

Couldn't she just step on it?

Was this really necessary?

Upon hearing that her natural enemy was dead, Han Mengqi finally breathed a sigh of relief, and her tense body relaxed.

But very quickly, she stared at Lu Zhou as if facing a formidable enemy. She pulled out her Apple phone and said warily, "Wh-who told you to come in without permission? Get out, or... or I'll really call the police—! Why did you suddenly turn on the lights? Y-you... you rude man!"

The sudden light stung Han Mengqi's eyes, making her instinctively raise an arm to shield them.

Lu Zhou ignored her and went back to the bathroom to fetch the broom.

He cleaned up everything one by one—the packaging on the floor, the space under the bed, and every nook and cranny of the room.

Only then did he realize that not cleaning was one thing, but once he started sweeping, the result was truly shocking.

Looking at the huge pile of trash he had swept out, Lu Zhou wiped the dust from his forehead and could not help complaining, "You've got so many snacks piled up in here. Are you trying to raise poisonous insects?"

At his words, the girl sitting on the bed flushed and snapped, "None of your business... You're meddling."

Lu Zhou glanced at her, then at the snacks in the box. "Is this what you ate for lunch?"

"..."

The girl snorted coldly and said nothing.

Lu Zhou did not say anything else. He tied up the garbage bag, turned toward the door, and closed it behind him.

Watching the door close, Han Mengqi was slightly surprised. Her grip on the pillow loosened a little. She had not expected the tutor that her heartless mother had hired to "give in" so quickly. She had been prepared for a long-term confrontation, yet now she felt as though all her strength had nowhere to go...

Back in the living room, Lu Zhou opened the required high school Mathematics textbooks and spread them out across the coffee table.

There were not only school textbooks, but also supplementary study materials and previous monthly exam papers among the pile Madam Yang had left behind. Just as Madam Yang had said, her Mathematics grades really were not very good.

On a 150-point test, she could not even score half. Her highest score had only barely reached 80.

With grades like that, never mind getting into a first-tier university—even getting into an undergraduate program would be a problem.

Her Chinese grades, however, were quite good. Lu Zhou looked over her essays and found that they were unexpectedly literary. Her English was also decent—not exceptionally high, but usually above 120 points. As for Biology, Chemistry, and Physics, her grades fluctuated too much to judge.

"With this foundation, why study science at all... She could still be saved if she switched straight to the humanities."

Lu Zhou shook his head, picked up a pen from the table, and began writing and drawing on a blank sheet of A4 paper.

High school Mathematics was not difficult. Of course, that was not taking into account the complex variations in problem types, but judging purely by the amount of knowledge involved.

The material in one required textbook covered nothing more than sets and elementary functions, requiring around forty class periods to teach. The concepts covered in a single university Advanced Mathematics lecture might exceed all that.

That was why many students ranked near the top of their class in high school but struggled to adapt once they entered university. The teacher at the podium was not driving a train—they were launching a rocket.

Han Mengqi's foundation was weak, but in Lu Zhou's eyes, it was not beyond saving.

After all, exams were not competitions. They tested the basics.

If she solidified her fundamentals, then even if she could not score above 140, getting all the 120 points' worth of "basic marks" would still make for a respectable score.

The four required textbooks looked intimidating when stacked together, but the knowledge they involved was really not that much... At least, that was how it seemed to Lu Zhou, who had crammed through the entirety of Analytic Geometry the night before.

First, he needed to make an outline and organize all the knowledge points from the four required textbooks. Then, based on Han Mengqi's past exam results, he would mark out the concepts she had failed to master... Though all this was originally supposed to have been summarized by her herself.

In any case, no matter how terrible the "client's" attitude was, Lu Zhou felt that since he had accepted the job, he had an obligation to do it as well as possible.

He asked for nothing else—only to earn his 200 yuan hourly wage honestly. Even without knowing anything about the tutoring market, he knew that this pay was definitely above the market average.

And so, second by second, time passed.

At around five-thirty, Lu Zhou stretched and stood up to loosen his slightly sore shoulders.

Looking at the stack of neatly written A4 sheets on the coffee table, the corners of his mouth lifted into a smile.

It had been troublesome at first, but after finishing something and looking back on it, it still felt rather satisfying.

It was almost six o'clock.

With this result, today's work could be considered done.

At that moment, there was a faint sound from the room some distance away, followed by a petite figure slipping out.

Lu Zhou looked up and saw that she had changed out of her pajamas into a casual T-shirt and jeans, though her loose long hair was still a mess.

And perhaps it was just his imagination, but she seemed even smaller standing up than when she had been curled into a ball on the bed.

Especially that little frame, flat as plane geometry, without the slightest curve in sight. She was the complete opposite of her cousin.

"Wh-what are you looking at... I'll call the police."

Lu Zhou sighed. "Could you stop threatening me with the police? I haven't done anything. Even if you call them, you need a reason, right? Disturbing public order can get you detained, so think carefully."

"..."

Rendered somewhat speechless by Lu Zhou's calmness, Han Mengqi bit her lip and said nothing before turning and rushing into the bathroom.

Looking at the closed door, Lu Zhou suddenly understood. So she had been holding it in.

I was wondering why she was willing to come out.

Before long, the sound of flushing came from the bathroom. Han Mengqi emerged after washing her face, her expression still tight.

As she passed through the living room, she suddenly noticed the things on the coffee table. She paused slightly and frowned. "What's this?"

"You don't even recognize your own textbooks? How long has it been since you touched a book?"

"...None of your business." Looking at the thick stack of A4 paper, Han Mengqi muttered softly, turned her head away, and walked toward the kitchen. "I'm hungry. Do whatever you want."

"Your mom will be back soon. Aren't you waiting to eat with her?" Leaning back on the sofa with one leg crossed over the other, Lu Zhou looked at Han Mengqi's back and said seriously, "Since you're family, I think it's better to sit down and eat together."

Han Mengqi turned back and gave a cold smile.

It was not an expression that should have appeared on the face of a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl.

"Wait for her? Didn't she message you?"