After sunset, the clock hands ticked steadily. Yun Buran had been following for a long time. As soon as the evening self-study bell rang, she eagerly packed up and left.
“Hey, did Goddess Cloud just smile?”
“Bro, have you gone dumb from doing problems? You only ever see Iceberg Cloud’s cold face, so how would you know?”
“She really smiled. Could she be sneaking off on a date?”
“Funny.”
But Yun Buran couldn’t hear them. She was already at the bottom of the teaching building and quickly arrived at the school gate.
“Did you finish the plan I made yesterday?”
That was Su Nian’s first insensitive remark. Faced with a girl whose anticipation was practically overflowing, he only felt annoyed.
“Of course.”
Yun Buran wanted to hear that “very good” said in that water-smooth tone again. She pulled out the small notebook from her bag, but then she suddenly froze.
Su Nian reached out for it, but Yun Buran abruptly pulled back.
Su Nian raised an eyebrow, thinking. ‘Did I misjudge? Am I also within the scope of her androphobia?’
His previous conclusion was that Yun Buran hated any physical contact with boys, but he hadn’t been included in that range.
Yun Buran knew Su Nian must have misunderstood. She said anxiously, “No, that’s not what I meant…”
Su Nian knew it was her plan book. Could it be that Yun Buran had slacked off today?
“If you didn’t finish the plan, you should admit it boldly, reflect, and find the problem. What’s with that attitude? Is that all the determination you have to achieve your goal?”
Hearing Su Nian’s harsh tone, Yun Buran gritted her teeth and handed over the notebook. She absolutely didn’t want this person to think she wasn’t working hard.
Hard work was her talent.
When Su Nian took it, he deliberately avoided touching her fingers. When he opened it, he saw the plan he had arranged yesterday, with neat checkmarks behind each item.
Su Nian was very satisfied—if not for this page being densely covered with his name written all over it.
He handed it back and looked at Yun Buran with disdain. He said bluntly, “I like girls with good grades.”
This was a very important life lesson for him. When faced with someone liking you, you must reject them decisively and thoroughly, otherwise it would become troublesome.
Su Nian turned and walked ahead. He was reflecting. Maybe the meal meeting yesterday had made him seem too approachable. Next time, he couldn’t act like that.
Yun Buran walked behind him in shame. For the first time, she felt like dying, but at the same time, she found the way Su Nian had looked at her just now strangely thrilling.
She suddenly remembered—why hadn’t she argued back just now? Who said she liked him? She raised her head to step forward and reason with him, but then she saw the boy’s silhouette under the moonlight. His neck and slender fingers were so pale that they dimmed the moonlight itself.
‘I really want to hear what he’s thinking.’
“Don’t just stand there like an idiot. Go tidy up the room, and if there’s anything to drink, prepare a cup for me.”
Su Nian said rudely. He decided to act more harshly.
This legendary cold senior had just stopped still in front of her own house. If I stop, you stop too, huh?
After telling her to open the door and go inside, she continued to stare at Su Nian blankly, as if waiting for the next instruction.
Su Nian had a serious case of misanthropy toward stupidity.
“Ah? Okay. And my room doesn’t need tidying up!”
Yun Buran snapped back to her senses. This time, before the tutoring even started, her face was already flushed red.
“Is she in heat?”
Xiali jumped out of the schoolbag and headed straight for the sofa in Yun Buran’s house.
“If that’s the case, I’ll just turn around and leave. Might as well let the world end.”
Su Nian complained with irritation. His novelty for saving the world had worn off. He thought it would be some exciting challenge, but all he encountered was a stupid, off-putting girl.
“Are we continuing with the game today? Which subject?”
Yun Buran held a cup in front of her face, blocking it, and blinked as she asked Su Nian.
“No. I’ve already gone back and looked at your answer sheet. I’ll directly plan out your Chinese studies. I don’t intend to waste tutoring time on Chinese and English, so I’ll tell you how to study them and you’ll do it yourself at school.”
“Today’s task is to finalize the Chinese plan, then let me watch you solve a few sets of science problems. I need to see your thought patterns and habits when you’re solving problems.”
“Okay.”
Yun Buran immediately sat up straight. After last time, she had completely lost her senior air.
“The easiest part to score in Chinese is the memorization section. Use the fragmented method from yesterday to repeat it.”
“For the reading comprehension section, your multiple-choice scores are unstable. Buy a practice book, keep reading articles and then the multiple-choice questions, then directly look at the answers. Use reading as practice. For the short answer questions, only the part about novels is weak. I’ve made a template for you.”
Su Nian handed her a few sheets of loose-leaf paper stapled together. Yun Buran took them excitedly.
The first page even had a table of contents in the form of a mind map. Later pages detailed which keywords for which type of question corresponded to which answer template, and it was all written in an exquisite running script.
“Thank you.”
Yun Buran declared that Chinese would become her favorite subject.
“As for the writing section of Chinese, I won’t assign it to you. I’ll teach you personally. Formalize the language and style, and innovate the ideas and themes.”
“Alright, now for science, find a set of mock exams each and write them for me. I’ll time you. Try to simulate the exam environment as much as possible. I’ll be watching your thought process the whole time.”
“Based on your answer sheet, your point loss is in three areas, distributed normally. The highest proportion is the difficult final problems—the last two in math, the last one in physics. From the unfinished steps, I can see you can do them, but you can’t solve them quickly within the exam time.”
“As for the deformed basic problems and careless mistakes, those two parts account for fifty-fifty of the remaining loss. The basic problems you lose points on are because your understanding of the concepts isn’t thorough enough, plus various careless errors. I’ll figure that out from your thought process soon enough.”
“Alright, begin.”
Faced with the strict Su Nian, Yun Buran’s mood dimmed a little. She still preferred the him from yesterday. But her movements didn’t hesitate. She wouldn’t complain or procrastinate.
Because hard work was her talent.