After Differentiation, My Arch-nemesis Thinks I’m Fragrant - Chapter 14

“This quiz is just to test your knowledge from the recent period. Midterms are approaching, and our progress has been quite fast lately. I’m using this quiz to help you identify your weak spots.”

The middle-aged math teacher, wearing glasses, stood on the podium. He smiled gently as he organized a thick stack of test papers in his hands. As he handed them to the students in the front row of each group, the smell of ink and the residual heat from the printer seemed to linger on the paper.

Zhao Qinglan, sitting in the very back row, received the test paper passed back by Ping Hui. After placing a copy on the desk beside her, she subconsciously glanced toward the doorway.

She stared for a few seconds.

A figure appeared at the door, panting for breath. The high ponytail from previous days was gone, replaced by short, soft, curly hair—like a little lamb, making the person look… utterly adorable.

“Re… Reporting. Sorry I’m late, Teacher.”

Zhao Qinglan sat in the back row with one hand propped under her chin. Her neat school uniform was worn without a single wrinkle, looking newer and brighter than those of the students around her.

She watched the person at the door with interest, listening as the good-tempered math teacher let the latecomer in. When a gust of wind brushed past her and the chair on her other side was pulled out, she spoke in a teasing tone: “Going to school with such a sense of ceremony? You even change your hairstyle periodically?”

Shu Youzhan raised her hand to twirl her long hair, only to remember that this morning, a lock of hair wouldn’t stay in her hair tie and looked terrible hanging down. In the end, she had grabbed a pair of scissors and—snip…

This resulted in the tragedy of having to find a barbershop early in the morning to rush a short haircut.

She took a deep breath, spread out the math test, scanned the multiple-choice section with a glance, and reached into her bag for her pencil case. The bandage on her right index finger was particularly eye-catching. “Yeah, but don’t worry. Even if I were ten minutes later today, I could still crush you.”

Hearing her whispered response, Zhao Qinglan twirled her pen and wrote her name on the test paper. “I’ll wait and see…”

Even without taking the final exams last semester, with Zhao Qinglan’s intelligence, self-studying at home allowed her to easily keep up with the current curriculum. The problems the math teacher set today were standard tests of knowledge.

Except for the last two sub-questions of the final large problem, which required a little time, Zhao Qinglan didn’t even use scratch paper for the rest.

Flip…

The sound of a page turning came from beside her.

Shu Youzhan tried hard to suppress the urge to glance sideways. She was working on the last fill-in-the-blank question; the knowledge point for this one was a bit of an extension. To be safe, she briefly wrote down several lines of thought on her scratch paper and was currently double-checking her calculations.

However, her attention involuntarily drifted:

She’s writing that fast?

Did Zhao Qinglan take secret tutoring, or was she using the strategy of doing the easy ones first and the hard ones later?

Shu Youzhan felt a rare sense of tension. Her calculation speed increased significantly, and she quickly flipped the page to start on the large problems at the back.

The mini-quiz only lasted two class periods, a total of ninety minutes.

During the break between classes—

Zhao Qinglan stood up from her seat and walked toward the podium with her test paper in a relaxed manner. Shu Youzhan had just finished writing the solution to the last sub-question. Her brown almond eyes widened as she stared at that tall silhouette, confusion written all over her face.

Actually, the fight outside the school gate yesterday still had some effect on her; right now, Shu Youzhan felt a faint, hidden pain on the back of her right hand whenever she gripped her pen tightly to write.

But she forced herself to finish the last problem quickly, ignoring her already “wild and flying” handwriting in the proof process. After a hurried check, she rushed up to hand in her paper just before Zhao Qinglan returned to her seat.

The sound of two chairs being pulled out in succession in the classroom stimulated the sensitive nerves of the students.

Pei Yi looked at them in a daze, then looked down at her own progress—having only finished two large problems—and couldn’t help but wonder:

Could it be… that today’s paper is actually extremely easy??

“Ring, ring, ring…”

The bell for the end of school rang. After three periods of self-study, the students of Class 1 became as excited as rabbits released from a cage. Shu Youzhan lifted the English newspaper on her desk, pondering the next Cloze test question. Every time she wrote an answer, she would immediately release the pen and shake her right hand.

“The results of the math quiz seem to be out already!”

“Really? Where can we see them?”

“Probably in the office… I only saw three perfect scores.”

Shu Youzhan subconsciously peeked over. Pei Yi happened to be next to the student spreading the gossip. She leaned in to take a look and then gave Shu Youzhan a big thumbs-up with two fingers for a “V” sign.

Relieved, Shu Youzhan leaned back in her chair and was about to continue her problems when she remembered something. She called Pei Yi again and pointed her pen to the side.

Pei Yi used mouth shapes to answer her: “Perfect score!”

The little lamb-like girl puffed out her cheeks and glanced sideways, saying pointedly: “Some people get 150 points because they can only get 150, while some geniuses get 150 only because the paper is only worth 150.”

During these self-study periods, Zhao Qinglan didn’t know how long she had been staring at that soft hair that reached just below the neck.

Hearing this now, she only smiled and then looked at the problem Shu Youzhan was doing. “This one, choose A.”

“Hmm… A and C are distractors and synonyms, but I think C is more appropriate in this context.”

Shu Youzhan immediately re-read the original text, hesitating but wanting to stick to her choice.

“The answer key for the next issue says A.”

“Is the answer key printed wrong?” Her gaze shifted from firm to self-doubt. Seeing her about to pull out a heavy, latest-edition English dictionary to check, Zhao Qinglan curled her lips and stopped teasing her. “Yes. This is a real question from the college entrance exam eight years ago, but the correct answer is printed wrong here.”

Shu Youzhan breathed a sigh of relief and was about to continue her work. She turned back but felt something was wrong, so she turned around again: “Did you secretly study at home?”

Zhao Qinglan looked around, noticing that many students’ seats were now empty, and chose once again to change the subject: “About what you asked me yesterday, I thought about it carefully for you…”

“Eh?” Shu Youzhan had waited for her reply for over half an hour last night. Thinking Zhao Qinglan couldn’t help, she had long put the question out of her mind. Now that it was mentioned, she stared at her intently.

“You want to train your resistance to Alpha pheromones, don’t you?”

Hearing her hit the nail on the head, Shu Youzhan couldn’t help but lick her lower lip. Her gaze drifted for a moment before returning, her voice a bit loud.

But her confidence was slightly lacking: “So what if I do? I just thought you should have the same troubles as me, so I came to you to learn from your experience.”

“I… have the same troubles as you?” Zhao Qinglan emphasized the words, her deep black eyes fixed on her.

Shu Youzhan blinked, not understanding which word she had said wrong.

Exhaling softly, Zhao Qinglan thought of her proposal. She sat up a bit straighter, her fingertip tapping lightly on the desk. Soon, she added: “My family recently brought in a pheromone simulator. It’s in the training ground. You can come over this weekend—”

“What did I just say? Look at you, still won’t admit it!”

“But I have a prerequisite.” Zhao Qinglan’s gaze was like a deep pool, bottomless.

For a moment, the girl was intimidated and immediately adopted a cautious attitude, thinking Zhao Qinglan was going to ask for something difficult to achieve. To her surprise, in the next second, the other girl’s palm covered her head.

She rubbed it and pulled away before the other could react: “Send me the business card of that barbershop. This place does good work.”

Shu Youzhan: “…”

She stared blankly at Zhao Qinglan’s retreating figure as she carried her schoolbag. It took quite a while before she reacted, muttering while fixing her hair, “If you want to ask, just ask. Why are you touching me randomly?”

Outside the classroom…

Sun Yue waited for Zhao Qinglan. Although the other’s expression hadn’t changed, based on her years of experience in reading people, she perceptively said: “Boss is in a good mood today? Is it because of that math quiz in your class this morning? I heard you were first?”

Zhao Qinglan casually adjusted her collar. Thinking of something, the corners of her lips curled up: “It’s because the family is getting a new pet.”

“What pet?”

“A little lamb…”

“Huh?”

“The fur feels pretty good.”

“Ah?”