The police station, communications room.
The officer and Song Yu stared at each other.
Holding a pen, the officer said with a half smile, "Why is it you again?"
Song Yu answered slowly, "Probably because I have a strong sense of responsibility and like calling the police whenever I see injustice."
The officer laughed. "No, I meant, why are you always the one getting beaten up by a gang?"
Song Yu: "..."
Xie Sui laughed beside him.
The thugs were actually more badly hurt than they were, but Redhead and his gang already had countless offenses on their police records. The police ruled it self-defense, took down a few basic details, and let them leave. They had originally intended to contact their parents, but Song Yu volunteered information about Xie Sui's family situation, appealing to both emotion and reason, and got that step dropped.
Once again, they left the police station. Once again, they went to the same little clinic.
Only a handful of people were in the brightly lit clinic.
The male doctor inside still remembered them.
The doctor said, "Last time it was your leg, this time it's your hand. You're even using real knives in your fights. You're pretty wild, young man."
Sitting in the chair, Xie Sui smiled, his eyes curving slightly, and said modestly, "I'm all right."
The doctor was furious, his pen nearly tearing the paper as he wrote. "I call you wild and you actually take pride in it? You might be showing off out there, but have you thought about how worried your family is? At your age, you should just settle down and study, not hang around with those good-for-nothing delinquents. If something happens, your parents are the ones who'll suffer."
Sucking on his mint, Song Yu spoke up for Xie Sui. "Uncle, you've misunderstood. You can't just judge by appearances."
The doctor rolled his eyes at him. "I haven't even gotten to you yet. You're his friend, aren't you? So you just stood there watching him fight? Didn't even try to stop him?"
Song Yu choked on his words and scratched his head, looking a little embarrassed. "We're talking about different things."
The doctor put the medicine in a bag and sneered. "Fine. So appearances aside, are those injuries from battling aliens? Do aliens use such down-to-earth bladed weapons too?"
Song Yu: "..."
Ultraman Tiga was playing on the television mounted on the wall. Hearing that, the doctor's two-year-old son clapped and turned around, his clear, big eyes curving as he giggled in a babyish voice, "Awiens."
Xie Sui paid and took the medicine. "Thank you."
The doctor looked exasperated with him. "When my son grows up, if he keeps getting himself hurt all over like you, I'll break his legs first."
Crunching his mint, Song Yu protested, "I told you not to judge by appearances. What's with you, mister? My friend got hurt fighting evil and protecting the innocent. He just took on a hundred men alone and bravely fought the street bullies. He protected the personal safety and property of every elementary, middle, and high school student up and down Lianyun Street. These are a hero's scars."
The doctor: "..."
The child sitting in the chair clapped, drooling. "Hero."
Song Yu was delighted. "Hey, you're so smart, little guy. Say that again."
The little boy smiled sweetly at the praise and said in his babyish voice, "Big brother, hero."
Seeing him teaching his child bad things too, the doctor angrily grabbed a feather duster and shooed them out. "Go, go, go. Bravely fighting street bullies? I think you're the biggest bully on Lianyun Street."
"Pfft, hahahaha."
Newly promoted to street bully, Song Yu laughed helplessly and pulled Xie Sui outside.
A few moths had gathered around a streetlamp outside the clinic. In the quiet summer night, little insects hummed in the bushes.
It was already very late. Standing beneath the streetlamp, Song Yu called Uncle Ma and asked him to pick him up at the usual place.
After hanging up, Song Yu turned to Xie Sui. "I won't be coming over much anymore. See you when school starts after summer break."
Those thugs had prior records, so they would probably spend several days at the station this time. Xie Sui should be safe through July and August.
With the most dangerous thing he would encounter over summer break dealt with,
Song Yu felt there was no need to keep coming here.
Xie Sui could still smell that mint scent.
He couldn't help wondering just how much Song Yu liked mint.
His fingers curled in, and he smiled. "Mm. See you when school starts."
Song Yu stared at him, remembering the boy who had fought so ruthlessly in the alley, and found himself momentarily speechless.
For an instant, he felt he no longer understood Xie Sui, but then again, perhaps he had never truly understood him.
He got into the car, and it left the remote residential neighborhood for the bustling city center.
Colorful neon lights shone across Song Yu's thoughtful face.
Uncle Ma asked, "Were you here to see that friend you hit it off with again, young master?"
Song Yu came back to himself. "Yeah."
Uncle Ma said, "You come here every day. The old madam is getting suspicious. A few more visits, and I think she'll want to meet that classmate of yours."
Song Yu laughed. "I won't come anymore. I won't."
Actually, there was nothing wrong with letting Grandma Meng meet Xie Sui.
But he had promised 008 not to appear around Xie Sui as the Song Family's third young master. He even planned to make up an identity as a "poor distant relative of the Meng Family" later, and meeting Grandma Meng could easily give him away.
Song Yu had very few contacts on QQ. Lying in bed playing on his phone, he looked at Mr. Period's pitch-black avatar and inexplicably felt an itch to send something.
But today, he had racked his brains thinking up bad reviews and run the length of a street in the middle of the night. Mentally and physically drained, he was already exhausted.
At some point, he fell asleep.
When he woke up the next day, it was already nine in the morning.
Going downstairs for breakfast, Song Yu received a barrage of messages from Ma Xiaoding.
[Sadako Never Forgets the Well Digger: Pfft hahahahahahahahaha]
[Sadako Never Forgets the Well Digger: Brother Yu, were you the one spamming bad reviews? I deliberately went there to eat today and saw Zhu Zhixing's mom looking livid. She must be furious.]
[Sadako Never Forgets the Well Digger: Pfft hahahaha, that's brilliant. I got my boys to follow in your footsteps and post a bunch too. Let's piss that vicious woman off!]
Song Yu could no longer be bothered with Zhu Zhixing. Remembering Grandma Meng's expectant gaze and the stack of test papers on his desk immediately gave him a headache.
He sipped his milk and sent Ma Xiaoding a message.
[Your Husband Brother Yu: How are your grades?]
[Sadako Never Forgets the Well Digger: ???]
[Sadako Never Forgets the Well Digger: Why are you asking about that? Pretty good... I guess.]
Anyone who could get into Jingcheng No. 1 High School couldn't have bad grades.
Song Yu's lips curled as he began typing.
[Your Husband Brother Yu: Good grades in middle school don't necessarily mean good grades in high school. Don't think you can relax over the summer after the entrance exam. Other people are signing up for tutoring classes like crazy right now. No. 1 High School is really competitive. People jump off buildings every year; it's lucky the government hasn't shut it down. You can't fall behind at the starting line in your first year.]
Ma Xiaoding was stunned by this speech that sounded just like his dad.
[Sadako Never Forgets the Well Digger: ...Brother Yu, what exactly are you trying to say?]
Song Yu had already returned to his room, pulled out his chair, and sat down at his desk, looking at the mountain of test papers.
[Your Husband Brother Yu: Come over. I'll share some knowledge with you. We're good brothers. Let's do test papers together.]
[Sadako Never Forgets the Well Digger: ...]
Can I stop being your good brother?
After giving half the test papers to Ma Xiaoding, Song Yu felt much better.
Grandma Meng had given him a lot of materials. For the transition from middle to high school, much of it reinforced and reviewed middle school material while gradually introducing high school concepts. There were even actual college entrance exam questions, just to give him a rough idea of the difficulty.
Apart from the first paper, which he had stubbornly tackled with absolutely no preparation, Song Yu slowly began getting a feel for things.
He casually pulled a paper from the bottom of the workbook. It was very difficult, and he wasn't required to do it. With nothing else to do, Song Yu flipped to the final question and froze.
It was a classic function problem involving e to the power of x and e times x.
He hadn't planned on attempting the final challenge questions yet, but it felt vaguely familiar. A hazy concept even surfaced in his mind. Biting his pen, he thought for ages before finally remembering.
Wasn't this a typical example problem for Lagrange's Mean Value Theorem?!
He probably remembered this question so clearly because the theorem's name had been so bizarre when his high school teacher brought it up while expanding on problem-solving approaches.
The theorem given on Baidu was quite baffling without a specific example. Song Yu happened to want to have his first conversation with Xie Sui.
So he took a photo of the problem and sent him a message.
To wash away the humiliation of that earlier a66, he bit his pen and thought for a moment.
Then, putting on an air of profound knowledge,
[Do you know what Lagrange's Mean Value Theorem is?]
Xie Sui was leaning against his bed, his fingers tapping at his computer as he hacked into Linshui's internal network and pulled up surveillance records.
Once he was finished, he reached for the glass of water beside him and caught sight of the message glowing on his phone.
[Song Yu: Do you know what Lagrange's Mean Value Theorem is?]
Xie Sui: "..."
He really ought to be glad he hadn't drunk any water.
As a student, Xie Sui had always had outstanding grades. Aloof and withdrawn, he hadn't interacted with many normal classmates.
So he couldn't understand the thought process of an academic underachiever like Song Yu, who solved problems through sheer perseverance.
-You even have to count your way through permutations and combinations. Why are you asking about Lagrange?
Of course, Xie Sui didn't voice that blow to his pride. He could tell that Song Yu seemed quite enthusiastic about studying, and he didn't want to discourage him.
Xie Sui took out a pen and a sheet of paper. Keeping Song Yu's knowledge level in mind, he neatly wrote out the standard solution to the problem in exhaustive detail, then took a photo and sent it over.
[Xie Sui: [Image]]
[Xie Sui: You don't need that.]
After waiting all that time, this was all Song Yu got, along with a photo of a clearly laid-out solution in beautiful handwriting.
It was even easier to understand than the answer key.
Badass. As expected of the protagonist, heaven's favored son.
But once Song Yu got stuck on a particular point in a problem, he refused to let go, so he kept asking.
[Song Yu: Then how do you solve it using that?]
He sent a few reaction images along with it.
[[Head-scratching question mark]]
[[Pretty please]]
Xie Sui's finger paused over the little yellow head scratching its head. It was as though he could see Song Yu looking troubled on the other side of the phone. His expression grew a little distant before his lips curved.
[Xie Sui: You want to know that badly?]
[Song Yu: Yeah.]
[Xie Sui: Cross out that whole section from the third line to the fifth and replace it with "By Lagrange's Mean Value Theorem." That's all.]
"???"
After doing as he said, Song Yu voiced an underachiever's ultimate bewilderment.
[Song Yu: So just like that, there's a number in the interval that makes them equal.]
Xie Sui didn't even want to tell him that it was a theorem. After a moment's thought, he lowered his lashes, a mischievous smile in his dark eyes.
[Xie Sui: Didn't I give you an interval? You can substitute the numbers one at a time. You'll find it eventually.]
Song Yu: "..."
Song Yu: "..."
There are infinitely many fucking numbers in that interval!
Why did he keep feeling like Xie Sui was making fun of him?