Chapter 27: Class President,
When Chen Shian went upstairs and returned to the classroom, Lin Mengqiu had long since resumed her seat.
However, at this moment, she wasn’t reading or working on exercises. Perhaps it was from just finishing morning calisthenics and basking in the sun for a while—there was a fine sheen of sweat on her face, and she was sipping water from her bottle in small delicate gulps.
Her chin was slightly raised, and when the bottle touched her lower lip, it made the tiniest tremor. The gentle curve of her swallowing throat was soft and graceful, a few wisps of hair clinging to her damp forehead, revealing refined brow bones now tinged with faint pink, less taut than usual.
If Chen Shian were to describe her appearance now, he would say she looked a little like glutinous rice cake warmed and softened by the sun—unexpectedly endearing.
Unfortunately, that gentleness was short-lived. When she saw Chen Shian walking toward the empty seat beside her, the cool composure returned to her face.
Lin Mengqiu didn’t greet him. She screwed the cap back on her water bottle with poised elegance, put it aside, and took out the math test paper she’d need for class.
She had, after all, seen Chen Shian looking at the honor board by the stairs.
Unless he was blind, he could not have missed her name, her ranking, and her score.
Now he must realize how ignorant that earlier “Oh—” of his had been!
Her expression unchanged, Lin Mengqiu spread the test paper on her desk, but her gaze could not help flickering surreptitiously in his direction. She felt sure he would have something to say, so she left part of her mind open, waiting.
But Chen Shian seemed not at all inclined to speak to her.
He simply took out the seventh-grade math textbook from his stack, opened to the first lesson, and—much as she had just done—took a sip of water as he read.
The anticipation she’d reserved for him went unspent, leaving her with a faint, itchy frustration at her own misjudgment.
Fine, ignore him.
Lin Mengqiu uncapped her pen, reached for a sheet of scrap paper, and began working on math problems.
But reality, as ever, seemed eager to tease her.
When she didn’t want a desk-mate, her father had arranged one for her; when she waited for Chen Shian to speak, he kept silent; now, when she truly focused on her work, he found himself distracted by her.
Chen Shian’s gaze landed on the tip of her pen. The mathematical symbols that felt awkward and foreign when he copied them from the book flowed smooth and effortless under her swiftly moving hand. He couldn’t follow her logic or calculations, but the transformation and distillation of equations beneath her pen was beautiful to watch.
At one point, her pen paused, its tip pressed to the page, leaving a visible mark of ink.
He returned to himself, and when he looked up again, she was staring right at him.
She didn’t speak, but her meaning was clear in her eyes: What are you looking at?
Being caught in the act didn’t embarrass Chen Shian. He asked with natural curiosity, “I was watching you solve problems. What question are you working on?”
“Math.”
“I can see that.”
“Proving an inequality of a sequence.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
Chen Shian was candid, and then smiled. “I checked the honor board just now and saw you scored 706, with a perfect score in math.”
“Mm.”
Her expression remained cool, but inside she felt a sudden lightness, as if she’d just solved a problem that had stumped her for ages—a clear and refreshing relief.
“Your math is truly impressive.”
“……”
“I watched you working for a while—even if I couldn’t quite understand, it looked very smooth and pleasing.”
“~~~”
At those words, her indifferent expression began to melt. She was surprised by his praise. Growing up, she was often complimented for her looks and grades, but those were always generic. Few had ever commented so specifically, and on what she was proudest of—her mathematics.
“How do you know I haven’t made a mistake if you can’t understand it?”
“It’s not the correctness that draws me, but the way you solve problems—confident, focused, fluid.”
“~~~”
Chen Shian always spoke his mind. Listening to his sincere words, Lin Mengqiu’s temperature remained steady, but her earlobes inexplicably grew warm.
She had no grounds to argue with his answer—it was as if he’d found the unique solution to her previous question.
It’s not the correctness that attracts me, but your state of problem-solving. Is that really right for mathematical research? Perhaps not, but it pleased her to hear it.
Lin Mengqiu didn’t reply further; she simply continued solving her problems.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed that Chen Shian was once again watching the tip of her pen, his gaze seemingly fixed solely on her writing.
There was something strange about being watched in this way as she did math.
Especially after such enthusiastic praise.
Her slender, pale fingers unconsciously tightened on the pen, her posture straightened, and each symbol and number she wrote became more careful and precise…
It wasn’t until she finished the problem that Chen Shian’s gaze finally moved from her pen to her face.
“Did you solve it?”
“Mm.”
“Was it a hard one?”
“It was all right.”
“I couldn’t understand a thing.”
“Your fundamentals are weak.”
“Your math is really good.”
And with that, the little Taoist revealed his true intentions—
“So, Class Monitor, could you teach me math?”
“……”
Lin Mengqiu turned her head. Chen Shian was looking at her, his smile clean, pure, and honest.
He sat on the aisle side, the noisy classroom behind him, and for a moment, as he smiled at her, it was as if everything else was frozen—a fleeting silhouette that left her momentarily dazed.
Instinctively, she was about to say “yes,” but her meticulous nature caught up with her. Chen Shian had asked, “teach,” not, “can I ask you questions if I don't understand?” There was a fundamental difference—active teaching versus passive explanation.
Seeing her hesitate, Chen Shian didn’t rush her or look away. Just as when he first asked her name, he watched her quietly, as if he would keep looking at her until she answered.
How rude—deduct a point for that.
Lin Mengqiu conceded. She didn’t enjoy being stared at, but she didn’t give him a direct answer either; instead, she said,
“I’m not very good at teaching. You don’t have the basics, so it’s hard for me to teach you.”
“What basics do I need?”
“You haven’t gone to school.”
“I just haven’t attended school, but I’m not uneducated.”
“Can you do addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division?”
“Yes.”
“What’s 743 plus 849?” Lin Mengqiu asked casually.
“One thousand five hundred ninety-two,” Chen Shian replied instantly.
He answered so quickly that Lin Mengqiu barely registered it—his answer came within a second of her question.
She herself hesitated, having only thrown out the problem offhand. After he answered, she mentally verified it—he was spot on.
But she certainly wasn’t as quick as he was.
“What’s 367 times 295?” she asked next.
“One hundred eight thousand two hundred sixty-five.” This time, Chen Shian didn’t answer instantaneously, but still calculated mentally, and with remarkable speed.
Now it was Lin Mengqiu’s turn to freeze.
This time, as she asked, she tried to calculate herself.
Simple multiplication wasn’t hard, but higher digits meant more computation—a real test of memory and calculation skills.
She had only just begun checking when Chen Shian finished already?!
Three sixty-seven times two ninety-five… the wait to verify the answer felt excruciatingly long, and for once, she found herself flustered—she, who had never rushed before, was now anxious. The less calm she was, the harder it was to get the answer quickly.
That wretched Taoist even twisted the knife: “Are you thinking of the next question?”
“……”
Lin Mengqiu’s face flushed, but she didn’t admit she hadn’t solved it yet. Irritated, she said, “Let me think of another…”
Her thoughts were a mess; she couldn’t calculate it for now.
She gave up on verifying the answer immediately and decided to write the problem down and check his answer later…
“One hundred seventy-eight thousand nine hundred forty-five divided by three hundred twenty-one—what’s the answer?”
“Five hundred fifty-seven, with a remainder.”
“……”
She couldn’t keep asking him basic arithmetic!
Either he was making things up, or he really could calculate that quickly.
But was he just guessing? Lin Mengqiu hadn’t worked out the exact answer, but her mathematical intuition told her his answer was in the right ballpark.
From Chen Shian’s relaxed demeanor, it was clear these questions posed no challenge for him.
Some people do train in rapid mental math and can calculate quickly, but Lin Mengqiu doubted that Chen Shian, who’d never attended school, had ever practiced such things.
There was only one explanation—he really was calculating it in his head, perhaps with his own unique techniques, but his sensitivity to numbers was undeniable. This was a direct manifestation of mathematical ability.
But doing math well isn’t just about being fast at calculations…
Once calm, Lin Mengqiu realized Chen Shian had already surprised her more than enough—almost overturning her perception of a “hopeless case.”
Still, she wasn’t ready to give up. After a moment’s thought, she posed a common middle school algebra problem:
“(x+1)/(x-2) = 2x/(x+3) - 1. What is x?”
Chen Shian blinked, asking, “What’s ‘ex’?”
“…It’s the unknown variable.”
“Oh—”
Another “Oh—”! Deduct another point!
Because the question was more complex than basic arithmetic, Chen Shian didn’t answer as quickly this time.
Problems like this, involving equation simplification, were difficult to solve mentally—even for Lin Mengqiu.
Seeing him take a long time to respond, she felt she’d regained the upper hand.
“?”
“Hmm, wait, I need to write it out.”
She watched as he took out a notebook and pen, used a circle instead of an x for the variable, wrote out the equation, and began working through it step by step…
Before long, he’d filled an entire page with calculations, but he came up with the answer.
“One-third?”
“Mm…” Lin Mengqiu couldn’t help but say, “If you multiply both sides by the least common denominator, (x-2)(x+3), you can clear the fractions, expand each term, and simplify—it’s much less complicated than what you did.”
“I see…!”
Chen Shian looked enlightened. It was his first time solving such an equation, and though he’d brute-forced the answer, it clearly wasn’t as elegant as her method.
Strong computational ability, but weak mathematical thinking—Lin Mengqiu summed up her impression.
But that wasn’t unfixable. After all, mathematics classes are meant to develop students’ mathematical thinking, and the ability to calculate is the one thing that sets the ceiling for how far someone can go.
As he put down his pen and waited for her to give another problem, Lin Mengqiu decided she’d tested him enough.
She admitted Chen Shian had a certain mathematical talent—at the very least, a keen sensitivity to numbers—but basic calculation alone meant nothing in middle and high school math. To progress, he’d have to develop mathematical thinking; that was key.
“No more questions?” Chen Shian asked.
“I’ll teach you,” Lin Mengqiu said, almost to herself.
He paused, then broke into a smile. “Thank you, Class Monitor.”
“……”
Her expression was complicated. The moment she agreed, regret crept in. What impulse had possessed her, who hated trouble, to volunteer for more?
It was all her father’s assignment! If not for that, she’d never agree to teach.
Annoyed, she mentally deducted another point from him.
When his score drops below sixty, she thought, she’d have every right to go to her father and demand a new desk-mate.
…
Class began.
Chen Shian took out his seventh-grade math textbook, and when he glanced over, Lin Mengqiu was scribbling calculations on a scrap of paper.
He peeked curiously, only to provoke a fierce reaction—
She instantly covered her work with her small hand and shot him a glare.
Chen Shian: “…”
The little Taoist felt quite apologetic—he really shouldn’t have looked.
Because she was checking 367 times 295…
To reveal someone’s weakness in front of them is truly unforgivable.
…