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Ten days ago, he had thought Chi Ning was only temporarily exhausted and would still enter the competition after resting up.

He hadn't expected that ten days later, not only had he not entered the competition, but this top-ranked student seemed like he didn't even want to attend school anymore.

Why?!

Teacher Wang waved a hand, his voice listless. "Go to class first."

"Okay."

The moment Chi Ning reached his seat, he saw that half the class was staring at him. His deskmate's gaze was the most blatant of all.

The bespectacled boy craned his neck and looked him over from bottom to top, his eyes full of curiosity. "God Chi, when did you get involved with people from Class 18? Why did that Zhang Qiuwen come bring you a drink?"

A drink?

Chi Ning swept his gaze over the desk and spotted the bottle of bayberry juice in the corner. Only then did he remember that he had ordered a month's worth of bayberry juice from Qin Heng some time ago.

"We happened to run into each other before and chatted a little." Chi Ning glanced at the test paper beneath his deskmate's elbow, saw the name at the top, and awkwardly made conversation. "Li Qiuhe, what's up with Class 18?"

Li Qiuhe opened his mouth wide in flattered surprise. "Y-you actually talked to me... I-I..."

After all, when Chi Ning had been at school ten days ago, he had practically been deaf, immersed only in his own world.

A gleam of gossip suddenly burst from his eyes. He lowered his voice animatedly. "You know about the two notorious troublemakers in our school, right?"

Chi Ning raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"You don't know?" Li Qiuhe's voice cracked in shock. "The one surnamed Qin and the one surnamed Yue! Zhang Qiuwen, who brought you the drink today, is that Qin guy's lackey."

Chi Ning became the slightest bit interested. He unscrewed the cap of the bayberry juice and took a small sip. "And then?"

"Yesterday, those two got into a fight. The one surnamed Yue got a tooth knocked out. I heard they fought over money, maybe something like loan sharking."

Li Qiuhe grimaced as if he were the one who had lost a tooth. "They don't reason with people. You'd better not get involved with them."

Chi Ning's brow twitched.

Loan sharking?

His intuition told him Qin Heng probably wouldn't borrow that kind of money, but what if...

What if Qin Heng was lending money or helping someone collect debts? Then knocking out someone's tooth while collecting a debt would be perfectly reasonable.

When Li Qiuhe saw Chi Ning frown, he immediately felt the gazes of his classmates turning unfriendly toward him.

He thumped his chest loudly. "Why aren't you saying anything? Are you scared? It's fine. You're Class 1's precious treasure. Everyone will protect you."

Chi Ning smiled but didn't respond.

Li Qiuhe tactfully changed the subject. "Didn't you throw away your notes a few days ago? After I picked them up, I organized copies for everyone in class who wanted them. But there are some problems we don't understand. I compiled them together. Could you explain them to us during study hall later?"

So Li Qiuhe was the vice class monitor.

Chi Ning looked up and swept his gaze across the room. Seeing his classmates' expectant eyes, he suddenly thought of the graduate students who had interned under him.

He held out his hand. "I can explain them. Give me the problems first. I'll take a look."

The kids were sincere. He hadn't had the time or inclination in his previous life, but after giving up this life, he had more time than he knew what to do with. If he could give them a hand, he would.

Class 1 already had more than a dozen students recommended for admission. Many of them stopped coming to school after receiving their recommendations. Most of those still in class were dissatisfied with the schools they had been recommended to and wanted to make another push through the upcoming competitions.

Li Qiuhe was one of them. After getting Chi Ning's agreement, he happily flashed the others a V sign, grinning from ear to ear.

-

As Chi Ning looked over the problems, he finally remembered his habit of taking notes in high school.

After understanding a knowledge point, he liked to make up problems himself, then come back and solve them after some time had passed. The problems he created were all exceptionally tricky; he was a textbook example of making things difficult for himself.

Fortunately, it was hard for him to forget anything he had learned from childhood through university, and he remembered all the relevant knowledge points.

After figuring out how to explain everything, Chi Ning found class unbearably boring. He propped his chin on his hand and began to daydream.

By the time noon came around, the bayberry juice he had been carefully sipping was empty too.

Chi Ning held the bottle and sighed. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed words written in black marker at the bottom.

It was the character Ning, written neatly, its strokes strong and vigorous.

Chi Ning brushed the character with his fingertip and gave a faint laugh.

The Qin Heng of today only resembled the Qin Heng from his previous life in his handwriting.

And even that resemblance had only been practiced over the last two days.

"Knock, knock."

Someone tapped on the side window.

Chi Ning turned his head and met Qin Heng's complicated gaze.

Qin Heng stared into Chi Ning's eyes, mulling over the scene he had accidentally witnessed just now.

The pampered young master had loosely held the glass bottle in one hand while gently stroking the writing at the bottom with the other, staring at it so intently that he had even smiled.

Sure, he had deliberately practiced that character twenty-seven or twenty-eight times, just to make it look nicer when he brought it out and better fool the young master into becoming a long-term customer so he could earn an extra three hundred yuan every month.

But he had only wanted to reel in some money.

He hadn't wanted to reel in a person.

When Mo Yuanzhou had asked Chi Ning ten days ago whether he was his boyfriend, Chi Ning had only denied that they were dating. He hadn't denied liking men.

Could Chi Ning really be moved by a single character?

Qin Heng swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing as thoughts churned within him, while his expression remained icy. "I'm here to collect the glass bottle. You'll use this bottle from now on."

Chi Ning gave an oh, fully opened the window facing the corridor, and passed the bottle over.

If the character written on Qin Heng's face was the word for arrogant, then the left half was the hand radical and the right half was dragging.

The entirety of Class 1 fell silent, everyone's eyes darting in their direction.

Li Qiuhe was tense all over, afraid Qin Heng would fly into a temper and start throwing punches at any moment.

Qin Heng glanced at Li Qiuhe with amusement. "Brother Yuanzhou said he has something to discuss with you in person. See you at the billiards hall tonight?"

Chi Ning said, "Sure."

It had only been a short while. Chi Ning still called Mo Yuanzhou Teacher Mo, while Qin Heng was already calling him Brother Yuanzhou.

Calling him socially adept wouldn't be an exaggeration.

A self-made CEO really was something else.

Qin Heng carried the bottle away, thoughtfully closing the window behind him before he left.

"Phew—" Li Qiuhe let out a long breath, his face covered in a fine sheen of sweat. "That scared me to death. You actually dare stay in contact with him."

"What's so scary about him? No matter how fierce he is, he doesn't eat people." Chi Ning found the bespectacled boy rather cute. He rolled up the problem sheet Li Qiuhe had compiled into a paper tube and lightly tapped him on the head with it. "All right, stop worrying about useless things. Before the food arrives, I'll go over the problems with everyone."

He walked to the blackboard, braced both hands against the edge of the wooden podium, and began, "First, look at the first problem. This involves mechanical dynamics and is a derivative mechanics problem. Students planning to enter the physics competition should pay close attention."

Chi Ning picked up a piece of chalk, habitually snapped it in half, then turned and rapidly wrote out the solution on the blackboard, leaving the students below in a daze.

God Chi really was God Chi. How did he look even more at home in front of the blackboard than Old Wang?

With both hands braced there and the chalk snapped in half, who would believe he had never taught before?

Chi Ning spoke extremely quickly as he explained. Before long, he had finished all three solutions to the problem, writing the key steps across nearly half the blackboard.

"Is there anything else you don't understand?"

"If not, we'll move on to the next problem." Chi Ning scanned the room. Seeing no objections, he immediately continued.

After he finished explaining three problems, the only sound left in the classroom was the rustle of pen tips against paper.

Li Qiuhe clutched the problem he had finally understood and nearly dropped to his knees before Chi Ning. Without thinking, he blurted out, "God Chi, why don't you come teach us? Such flexible thinking, such simple solutions—I feel like my Ren and Du meridians have been opened—"

Before he could finish, Wang Quan stepped into the room. "What are you all doing? The food was delivered outside. Why aren't you going to get it and eat? The person collecting the meal boxes will be here soon..."

His words abruptly stopped.

Wang Quan stared dumbfoundedly at the blackboard that had already been filled with writing, then looked at Chi Ning, whose fingers were dusted with chalk.

Wait, weren't you not entering the competition? Why were you so damn good at competition problems?

The two stared at each other, and Chi Ning was the first to guiltily look away.

Li Qiuhe was wildly excited and didn't notice the slightly awkward atmosphere. He darted over to Wang Quan and pointed at the physics problem. "Teacher, look! That physics problem we asked you about before—the one you said might have an issue with the question—Chi Ning taught us how to solve it!"

Wang Quan: ...

How exhausting. I think you're the one with an issue.

Why was this kid exposing his teacher's shortcomings?

Wang Quan glanced at it once, then again, and suddenly slapped his belly. "Oh! Not bad. I thought there was a problem because I overlooked one condition and fell into the question setter's trap. Chi Ning, you said..."

Wang Quan turned around, but Chi Ning, who had been standing beside him, had already disappeared.

-

Chi Ning took his lunch and sat in the most secluded bamboo grove on campus to eat.

Thoughts kept sprouting in his mind one after another:

Morning classes had been so boring that he had flipped through all the textbooks like extracurricular reading.

Why had Qin Heng been so arrogant as a kid? Little liar, little Qin liar!

What exactly did Mo Yuanzhou want to discuss with him? Did it really have to be said in person?

Chi Ning picked up a piece of preserved vegetables with pork belly, imagined it was Qin Heng, and bit into it. Still grumbling, he finished his meal.

That evening, Chi Ning finally learned what Mo Yuanzhou wanted to discuss.

Teacher Mo, looking every inch the respectable man, reclined against the sofa in the billiards hall's lounge area. His gaze traveled between Chi Ning and Qin Heng, and he nodded in satisfaction.

Chi Ning felt uneasy under his stare and asked softly, "What is it, exactly?"

"Everyone in the group was very satisfied with the last set of photos, but we all felt they still lacked a little impact. I thought about it carefully, and maybe what they lack is contrast."

Mo Yuanzhou smiled like a fox. "I talked with Qin Heng a couple of days ago and asked whether he was interested in making a little money as a model. He agreed. I want the two of you to try shooting a set together."