Numbers and the Tao

The three core subjects-Chinese, mathematics, and English-often had double periods. Today's first two periods were a double math lesson.

The math teacher's surname was Zhang. He was a middle-aged man in his forties, with thinning hair that rivaled Teacher Liang's. His glasses seemed to have a very strong prescription, making his eyes look particularly small through the lenses.

Middle age inevitably brought some weight gain. His little belly visibly stretched the white short-sleeved shirt tucked into his trousers, yet the arms exposed beneath his sleeves were thin.

One glance was enough for Chen Shi'an to tell that he probably had spleen deficiency with excessive dampness and an internal accumulation of turbid phlegm. It likely had something to do with Teacher Zhang's habit of sitting for long periods, exercising little, and enjoying rich, greasy food.

Of course, he was here to study, not to see patients. Plenty of modern people had this sort of suboptimal health, and it was nothing too serious. If Teacher Zhang wanted to improve his condition, Chen Shi'an would not mind giving him a few pointers. Some Chinese herbs to regulate his spleen and stomach, a controlled diet, and the occasional practice of the Eight-Section Brocade or Five-Animal Exercises would all help.

By now, Teacher Zhang had stepped up to the lectern. As he sorted through the teaching materials he had brought, he announced clearly, "Class begins."

A girl in the first group stood and called, "Stand up!"

Her name was Qiu Yufu, and she was the deputy class monitor of Class Five in the second year of senior high. Her everyday duties consisted of acting as class monitor and handling everything Lin Meng Qiu did not want to handle. Only when Qiu Yufu encountered something she truly could not manage would she ask Lin Meng Qiu to step in and save the day.

One could say that Lin Meng Qiu's greatest purpose as Class Five's monitor was deterrence. She was the class's sole wielder of the sword.

For example, if everyone refused to listen no matter what Qiu Yufu said, a single word from Lin Meng Qiu would put an end to all objections...

After all, she was nothing like Qiu Yufu. Lin Meng Qiu had the principal's office behind her!

Sometimes, close friends would secretly complain on Qiu Yufu's behalf. She was clearly doing all the class monitor's work, so why should she settle for being the deputy?

Silly girls. Just how high did a class officer have to climb before it counted as high enough...

Anyway, Qiu Yufu was satisfied with being deputy class monitor. If she actually became the monitor, the things she normally managed well would become difficult instead. She understood perfectly that her classmates were not afraid of her, but of Lin Meng Qiu behind her.

Over time, Qiu Yufu learned to work in tandem with Lin Meng Qiu, one playing good cop and the other bad cop. Between them, they kept Class Five firmly in order.

After Qiu Yufu called for everyone to stand, the students of Class Five rose to their feet. It was hardly synchronized; some stood quickly, while others took their time.

Chen Shi'an was among the slow ones.

Mostly because he was not used to it.

They had stood to greet their teachers in elementary school too, but how many years had it been since then...

"Good morning, teacher-"

"All right, sit down."

Since the students had been divided into arts and science streams in the second semester of their first year, neither their classmates nor their teachers had changed. Everyone was a familiar face, and Teacher Zhang was fairly casual about these formalities.

He braced both hands on the lectern, leaned forward slightly, and swept his smiling gaze over the students before finally settling on Chen Shi'an.

Chen Shi'an was easy to spot. Lin Meng Qiu had always sat alone before, so it was hard not to notice the new deskmate beside her.

Teacher Liang had briefed all the subject teachers yesterday. Teacher Zhang knew that Chen Shi'an was a Taoist transfer student with a very weak foundation, but he still studied him with interest for a moment. A Taoist student... now that was a novelty!

"So we have a new student?"

"It's our Taoist master!"

Before Chen Shi'an could introduce himself, the little monkeys had already shouted out an introduction for him.

"All right, welcome to our class."

Teacher Zhang led the applause, and the class followed with enthusiastic clapping.

Chen Shi'an politely rose from his seat and bowed slightly toward Teacher Zhang at the lectern.

Teacher Zhang's eyes lit up-

Well now, this new student is interesting... not shy or timid, but calm and composed.

He looks so refined and well-mannered. Nothing like the poor student Old Liang described!

Old Liang wasn't being honest.

He must have spent too long teaching an honors class. His standards are sky-high. Even if a student's grades are a little weak, a good attitude should be enough!

After so many years of teaching, Zhang Hong hated to admit it, but he shared most teachers' stereotypes about students with poor grades. He assumed they were either lazy, disruptive, or so spoiled by wealthy or influential families that they had no respect for teachers.

Chen Shi'an's appearance and conduct left such a good impression on Teacher Zhang that he would rather believe the boy's grades were not actually that bad.

"All right, please sit down."

Only then did Chen Shi'an sit.

Once that brief formality was over, Teacher Zhang took out the math paper from the monthly exam a few days earlier and began going over it.

Chen Shi'an had a copy of this paper. It was the one he had attempted during yesterday's placement test.

"Everyone, take out your papers. We'll spend these two periods briefly going through them."

"You've all seen your scores and rankings. I could understand students in the regular classes finding this paper difficult, but it was out of a hundred and fifty. How did someone in your class manage to score only ninety-something?"

"Everyone except Meng Qiu is to copy out the questions they got wrong. Take responsibility for it yourselves. The subject representative should make a note of that and collect everyone's error notebooks after evening self-study today..."

The classroom was quiet while Teacher Zhang spoke, but Chen Shi'an's hearing was sharp enough to catch a few whispered grumbles:

"It really was hard this time, okay? Old Zhang has no idea how the rest of us live. I bet he didn't even score as high as me when he was at school..."

"Who got ninety-one?"

"Who else? Zihan."

"Eat shit. I got ninety-six!"

"Then who got ninety-one?"

"I remembered wrong. Nobody got ninety-one. Ninety-six was the lowest."

"Your mother..."

Chen Shi'an: "..."

The young Taoist looked at the paper in front of him, which had probably earned a zero. He had no idea whether his score would count toward the class statistics, or whether Teacher Zhang's order to copy out questions included him...

His paper was outrageously neat. After every question, he had drawn a circle, like a line in a divination hexagram.

He had not even answered the multiple-choice questions. This was a placement test, after all, so random guesses were pointless. Mainly, he could not understand any of the questions, so he had drawn circles for all of them.

Turning to look at his deskmate Lin Meng Qiu's paper, he found hers blank too, though she had used it for scratch work, leaving a few scattered lines and expressions.

Chen Shi'an

paused, then asked curiously, "Didn't you get full marks? How come you didn't answer the paper either?"

Lin Meng Qiu: "?"

She moved aside the question paper on top, revealing the answer sheet beneath it. Her answers in black ink were a pleasure to look at, and the scores in red ink filled the page. At the very top, the three digits [150] blazed like the midsummer sun, too dazzling to look at directly.

Lin Meng Qiu instinctively puffed out her little chest. She had seen the surprise on Chen Shi'an's face. What would he say this time?

"Oh, there's a separate answer sheet. No wonder..."

"..."

Lin Meng Qiu did not want to speak. She hated people who talked in class.

"But your answers are really nicely written. The page looks very pleasing."

"~~~"

"Can I take a look at your answer sheet?"

"..."

Without a word, Lin Meng Qiu pulled out the answer sheet and slid it to the middle of their desks.

Chen Shi'an smiled, took her answer sheet, and held it lightly as he compared the questions on the exam paper with the answers she had written.

Lin Meng Qiu glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. He was reading intently, his brows slightly furrowed, apparently thinking.

Lin Meng Qiu did not believe someone who could not even solve middle-school equations could understand these questions or her answers. She had seen Chen Shi'an's paper... those circles were certainly round.

Lin Meng Qiu had guessed correctly. Chen Shi'an really could not understand it. After thinking for a while, he realized that even with the answers in front of him, he still could not make sense of it.

That was a serious problem. It meant he currently lacked any ability to keep up with a high-school math lesson.

At the lectern, Teacher Zhang was going over the paper.

"This question."

Teacher Zhang bent down to retrieve a broken piece of chalk from the floor. His voice carried stern displeasure and the rasp peculiar to middle-aged men. "It looks intimidating, but break it down and it's all fundamentals. How did so many of you still get this question wrong?" As he spoke, he drew a heavy circle around the vertex of the parabola. Chalk dust drifted down, and the classroom remained stifling and silent...

Chen Shi'an looked up at the blackboard, trying to follow the teacher's explanation to see whether he could understand it. In the end, aside from the circle Teacher Zhang had drawn to vent his frustration, he understood nothing...

Seeing his grave expression, Lin Meng Qiu finally spoke.

She did not even look up. While the teacher explained the paper, she was working on other questions. Still writing, she said quietly, "Don't waste your effort listening. Study the middle-school basics first."

"Why aren't you listening either?"

"..."

Lin Meng Qiu looked up at him with an expression that said, Are we remotely the same?

Chen Shi'an: "..."

Your expressions are pretty rich, aren't they? I know what you're thinking without you saying a word...

With Lin Meng Qiu saying so too, Chen Shi'an finally gave up trying to follow the lesson.

Until now, a trace of pride had kept him from accepting defeat. Now he had to admit that when he did not know how to solve a math problem, he simply did not know...

He neither grew discouraged nor gave up. Once he was certain he truly could not keep pace with the high-school lesson, he immediately put away his exam paper, returned Lin Meng Qiu's answer sheet, and took out Seventh-Grade Mathematics, Volume One, focusing on learning middle-school math from the basics.

Elementary-school math mainly revolved around natural numbers, fractions, and decimals, including basic operations such as addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

In middle-school math, the scope expanded to rational and irrational numbers, introducing concepts such as negative numbers and radicals. Calculations became more complex, and algebra was added, including solving linear equations in one variable and two variables. Beyond numbers, there were also geometry, statistics, and probability.

Chen Shi'an had never encountered any of this before, and it gave him a new understanding of the scope of the subject called "mathematics."

The textbooks used for each school subject had undergone generations of refinement before reaching classrooms. Their content did not aim for great depth, only for the vast majority of students to understand and master it, so the difficulty was not particularly high.

Especially with Chen Shi'an's intelligence, even without a middle-school teacher to teach him, he could understand and learn the textbook material through self-study alone.

"x and y... so that's what they mean..."

Chen Shi'an did not find studying painful. This process of constantly absorbing new knowledge and understanding new concepts gave him an inexplicable thrill.

Every time he understood a new concept, another piece of knowledge immediately sprang out to tell him, You still don't know enough.

Sometimes, the methods taught in the textbook opened his eyes, astonishing him with the realization that a problem could be solved that way.

An expression could be simplified from something complex, or expanded from something simple. Its endless transformations opened up his thinking. Whether a circle was as large as a wheel or as small as a fingertip, that ratio always remained constant.

Was this profound mystery not the Tao itself?

Laozi said, "The Tao gives birth to one, one gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, and three gives birth to all things." This spoke of an origin, a law of evolution.

And mathematics? Mathematics also spoke of origins and laws, from the simplest numbers to complex formulas, and then to describing the workings of everything in the universe...

Chen Shi'an read the textbook with a pen in hand, practicing the exercises as he went. Completely absorbed, he did not even notice when class ended.

The bell and the surrounding noise did not disturb his concentration in the slightest. He seemed to have entered a meditative state, reading, learning, practicing, and calculating...

Lin Meng Qiu was astonished...

She was often quiet too, but she would still be disturbed once the surrounding distractions reached a certain level. It was not that she could not hear those sounds; she simply did not want to acknowledge them.

Chen Shi'an, on the other hand, had shown absolutely no reaction despite Teacher Zhang calling to him from the lectern for ages, as though prayer beads had plugged his ears!

Was he pretending? No. She had watched him gradually become absorbed.

In just one period, he had worked through more than twenty pages of his math textbook and filled both sides of three sheets of scratch paper.

Lin Meng Qiu did not know whether to admire his learning speed or his concentration. He had only just suffered a setback, after all. If it had been her, she doubted she could have rallied so quickly.

"Chen Shi'an?"

Teacher Zhang called from the lectern again.

That was the third time.

Lin Meng Qiu felt she ought to do something as his deskmate, so she took her pen and poked him with its tip.

Despite having been a student for so long, this was her first time poking someone with a pen, and she felt a little awkward. Through the pen in her hand, she touched his arm. The subtle springiness transmitted through the pen made her

feel something tingling and itching in her heart.

Poke, poke. Poke, poke.

No reaction?

Another poke, poke. Poke, poke!

Chen Shi'an turned and looked at her in confusion.

Lin Meng Qiu: "..."

What's with that look? I was kind enough to remind you, and now you're blaming me?

Ungrateful! One point deducted!

"What is it?"

"Teacher Zhang is calling you."

"Hm?"

Chen Shi'an turned. Having called for so long without getting a response, Teacher Zhang had simply come over himself.

"What were you reading all period, Shi'an? I called you for ages, but you didn't respond." It was break time now, and Teacher Zhang was already standing beside Chen Shi'an's desk, chuckling.

With a teacher before him, Chen Shi'an was not accustomed to remaining seated while speaking, so he immediately stood.

Looking apologetic, he offered a sincere apology. "I'm sorry, Teacher Zhang. I didn't hear you."

"It's fine, it's fine. Sit down."

Whatever the circumstances, a polite person naturally inspired goodwill. Teacher Zhang was increasingly convinced that Old Liang had deceived him. How bad could Chen Shi'an possibly be?

"What book are you reading? You've been looking at it all period."

"It's seventh-grade math. Teacher Liang lent it to me so I could build up my foundations."

"Huh?"

Teacher Zhang's heart lurched.

Somewhat disbelieving, he picked up the math textbook on the desk. Sure enough, it was Seventh-Grade Mathematics, Volume One!

No... no, no, this isn't right!

"Old Liang told me you attempted our monthly exam paper too, right? Do you have it? Let me take a look."

"Here it is, Teacher Zhang."

"..."

Staring at the paper, which contained nothing but circles and blank spaces, Teacher Zhang was dumbfounded. He asked uncertainly, "Where's your answer sheet? Did you write on the question paper?"

"Yes, I wrote on the question paper."

"Then these questions..."

"I couldn't do any of them. Teacher Zhang, I've never attended school. Teacher Liang told me this morning that I could study on my own during lessons. He said he'd already briefed you."

"..."

As he looked at the earnest, honest boy, Mr. Zhang felt his whole world come crashing down-

That bastard Old Liang was a real piece of work!

He'd only said Chen Shi'an had a weak foundation-not a word about him never having gone to school!

No wonder he'd bolted faster than a dog the moment he finished talking! Better someone else suffer than him, huh?

"Where are you going, Mr. Zhang?"

"I... need to go back to the office."

"My test paper..."

"Let me borrow it!"