I thought I'd get to make a move on my teacher, but this was it?

"Your brother wanted to protect you, but he never considered your feelings or wishes, and he didn't believe you could change.

I can only say that while he fulfilled his responsibilities as an older brother, he still didn't do a very good job."

Listening to Yang Cheng speak so confidently, Suzune Horikita couldn't help asking curiously, "You mentioned earlier that you had a younger sister too, didn't you?

What kind of person is your sister? How do the two of you usually get along?"

Yang Cheng had no younger sister in this world.

The sister he had mentioned earlier was actually Nami from the One Piece World.

"My sister? I suppose she's quite a mischievous little troublemaker.

She has plenty of flaws, but I don't think that's a bad thing. After all, her strengths and weaknesses are both part of who she is.

Like I said earlier, everyone has their flaws. Nobody can be truly perfect, not even the brother you admire.

Being outstanding simply means striving to surpass those who came before you. Facing your flaws and surpassing your current self-that's progress."

After hearing what Yang Cheng said, much of the confusion on Suzune's face faded.

"Thank you so much for tonight, Yang Cheng. I feel like I've learned a lot from talking to you."

"It's nothing major. Just some motivational fluff you could take or leave.

By the way, you called me out tonight because you had something important to discuss, didn't you? What was it?"

Only when he remembered why he had met Suzune Horikita here tonight did Yang Cheng recall the actual matter at hand.

Faced with Yang Cheng's question, Suzune Horikita immediately froze, stammering as she struggled to find the words.

Her main reason for asking Yang Cheng out tonight had naturally been to put a clean, decisive end to his hopes of dating her.

But after everything that had just happened, Yang Cheng had first helped her understand her brother's true intentions, then comforted her like that.

Wouldn't rejecting him now be a little too harsh?

Previously, Suzune Horikita had considered herself and Yang Cheng nothing more than classmates, so she hadn't thought it mattered if she spoke bluntly.

But he had just helped her so much. Clearly, it would no longer be appropriate to use the harsh words she had prepared.

"Um... actually, the main reason I asked you out was to hear your thoughts on Class D's upcoming midterms.

But so much happened tonight. Let's invite Ayanokoji next time and discuss it together then."

After giving that answer, Suzune Horikita turned and left without giving Yang Cheng any chance to say more.

That was right. After agonizing over it, Suzune had ultimately failed to accomplish her real purpose in calling Yang Cheng out tonight.

She felt she could wait for a suitable opportunity later and express her thoughts to him more subtly.

Watching Suzune Horikita jog away, Yang Cheng stood alone, utterly bewildered.

What was any of this supposed to mean...?

After meeting Kushida Kikyo and Suzune Horikita one after the other, Yang Cheng felt that everything tonight had taken a bizarre turn.

Kushida Kikyo had invited him out intending to frame him, only to get herself caught up in it instead.

When Suzune Horikita invited him out, Yang Cheng had initially assumed she wanted to discuss Class D, but he had ended up meeting her student council president brother instead.

And judging by Suzune Horikita's reaction just now, her original reason for inviting him clearly hadn't been to discuss Class D either.

Those two unexpected encounters in a row had left Yang Cheng feeling mentally and physically drained, and he hesitated over whether to meet the final beautiful woman on his schedule, Sae Chabashira.

His schedule had been too packed, so Yang Cheng had been forced to ask Karuizawa Kei to wait until tomorrow.

His final stop tonight was his meeting with Sae Chabashira in the school's multimedia classroom.

After hesitating for a moment, Yang Cheng ultimately decided to meet the beautiful teacher, who was at least a 36E.

But when he reached their meeting place and walked into the dim multimedia classroom, he discovered that Sae Chabashira hadn't invited only him.

A certain expressionless boy was also sitting off to one side, while their generously endowed, beautiful teacher occupied a seat in the row in front of them.

"Nanju, looks like she's set her sights on you too."

Yang Cheng didn't mind Ayanokoji's emotionless greeting. He simply spread his hands and said, "Tell me about it. When I first got Chabashira-sensei's text,

and she asked me to meet in a dark, deserted classroom like this, I was hoping for some exciting forbidden romance.

But I didn't expect you to be here too, Ayanokoji. That probably means this isn't quite what I initially imagined.

Or... is Chabashira-sensei more adventurous than I thought, and she wants a three-"

Before Yang Cheng could finish, Sae Chabashira, sitting in the row ahead, lost her composure.

She stood up, folded her arms, and glared at Yang Cheng as she snapped, "Nanju, if you keep spouting nonsense, I can expel you for insulting your homeroom teacher."

In response to Sae Chabashira's threat, Yang Cheng merely spread his hands, showing that he didn't care.

He wasn't Ayanokoji, who had to compromise with Sae Chabashira because his scumbag father had followed him to school.

He was living life with cheats now. Graduates of the Advanced Nurturing High School might all be members of society's elite, but as far as Yang Cheng was concerned, attending this lousy school wasn't a necessity.

Seeing Ayanokoji and Sae Chabashira here, Yang Cheng could more or less guess what they had discussed.

The reason Ayanokoji was so ridiculously capable was entirely down to the almost inhuman training he had received as a child.

As part of his politician father's "comeback" plan, Ayanokoji had spent his childhood in the White Room, an institution that all but stripped its subjects of their human rights, where he had mastered every field of knowledge relevant to life.

That included academics, martial arts, Taijutsu, self-defense, social skills, and other things that would take most people an entire lifetime to learn.

In other words, Ayanokoji was an artificially created genius. His painful childhood experiences had shaped the cunning, calculating realist

he was today.

He had enrolled at this school to escape his father's control, to understand the true meaning of "equality," and to explore questions such as what genuine "ability" really was.

Now Ayanokoji's father had tracked him down to this school and wanted him to withdraw.

Sae Chabashira, meanwhile, had used the threat posed by his father as leverage, partially coercing Ayanokoji into leading the current Class D up to Class A.

Ayanokoji needed someone to withstand the pressure from his father, while Sae Chabashira wanted to make up for her regrets from high school. That was how the two had reached an agreement.

But as Yang Cheng had just said, he wasn't Ayanokoji. Without any outside pressure bearing down on him, he had no obligation to help Sae Chabashira make up for her regrets.