Chapter 3
That day, I memorized more than twenty vocabulary words. I heard Zhou Fanjun and Yao Yao had caused a huge scene, raising hell until he fell silent and she burst into tears.
Heh. They were wasting their lives while I became a glorious educated person. I was proud of myself.
The next day, I carried the fruit Gran had packed for me to school, only to find someone already sitting in my seat.
He was refined and handsome, with rimless glasses: Yin Hengyu, the top student who had held first place for years, a brilliant genius with a tragic past—and the second male lead.
The comments sprang to life again.
[Here we go! The second male lead has come to avenge the heroine.]
[That earlier plot left me speechless. Can we finally get back on track now?]
[The second male lead forces the supporting girl to apologize. The heroine is so touched that she gives him a little gift. The male lead goes insane with jealousy and force-kisses her. Hehe, that’s what I came for.]
[The supporting girl thinks she’s so irresistible, tangled up with two handsome guys. Later she goes to make trouble for them and gets humiliated in public. Tsk.]
After reading the comments, I looked at Yin Hengyu.
He stood and gazed down at me.
I jumped onto the desk, bent over, and gazed down at him.
Yin Hengyu: “…”
“Could you come down first?” he asked helplessly.
Hands on my hips, I said in a ringing voice, “Then squat down when you talk to me. Otherwise I have to look up at you, and it hurts my neck.”
He nodded. I hopped off the desk and sat down. He slowly squatted in front of me and looked up.
I could not resist plucking a grape and tossing it to him.
The corner of Yin Hengyu’s mouth twitched. “What was that for?”
I chuckled. “Sorry. The big wolfhound back home is about your height when it sits. Every time I see it, I can’t help tossing it something to eat. Conditioned reflex.”
Through gritted teeth, he said one word at a time, “Dogs. Can’t. Eat. Grapes.”
“I wasn’t feeding a dog. I was feeding you.”
Yin Hengyu’s face instantly darkened.
[Holy crap, hahahaha! It’s over! The second male lead is incredibly proud. Now he’s definitely going to find a way to put the supporting girl in her place.]
[The second male lead is my favorite. A genius who has never lost finally surrenders to love and shares the heroine with the male lead. I can’t wait to see how he deals with the supporting girl.]
After reading the comments, I took out an apple, bit into it, and asked, “What do you want with me?”
“I heard you made Yao Yao cry yesterday.”
I nodded. “Yeah. So?”
His expression chilled. “Go apologize to her.”
I was just about to raise my hand when he said, “We were in the same room during the test a few days ago. I saw you cheat, though the teacher apparently didn’t. How about I remind her? The surveillance camera probably caught everything.”
To be honest, cold sweat broke out all over me.
He was telling the truth. I had been stressed before the exam, so I had secretly prepared a little cheat sheet.
But when the moment came, I worried that if I got caught and they told my family, Gran would be terribly disappointed.
So I took the paper out for a second, lost my nerve, and shoved it away again. In my heart, I swore I would study honestly from then on.
I never imagined he had seen me. And wait—why were there surveillance cameras in the classroom?
These devious city people.
I thought fast, then forced myself to remain calm. “All right. I hear you’re very smart. Let’s have a contest. If you win, I’ll listen to you and apologize. If you lose, you’ll take this secret to your grave. Deal?”
“A contest? Sure. I love contests. What are we competing in?”
He looked brimming with confidence, which made sense. His IQ was off the charts. He swept every competition and won medals by the handful. When ordinary people wanted to switch off their brains, they scrolled through their phones; when he wanted to relax, he did practice questions for the national college entrance exam.
I wrote a pile of slips, shook them inside my pencil case, and held it out. “Pick an event yourself.”
He pulled one out at random and unfolded it.
Two characters were written in bold strokes.
Transplanting rice seedlings.
Yin Hengyu: “…”
I gave him my most honest country smile. “Hehe.”
In a daze, he repeated, “…Transplanting rice seedlings?”
I patted his shoulder. “Come on. Let’s find a place and compete. I’m amazing at it—five minutes and I can plant a whole paddy. Here, look.”
To prove I was not boasting, I took out my phone and showed him.
On the screen was a video Gran had filmed of me helping her plant rice. I moved like a nimble rabbit, zipping back and forth. In the blink of an eye, I had planted an entire paddy!
Yin Hengyu’s hand trembled. For the first time, this brilliant specimen of humanity had discovered there was something he could not do.
He could not transplant rice seedlings.
“That’s not fair,” he said through clenched teeth. “Pick something else.”
“Sure, sure. Reasonable. Draw again.”
He pulled out another slip.
“…Talking to an idiot?”
“Right. I can talk to an idiot. We get along great. Can you?”
I showed him a second video, a precious recording of my best friend and me before I moved to the city.
In the video, my simple-minded friend mumbled and gestured. I said, “All right, all right. I’ll remember to write to you. What present did you bring me?”
He nodded vigorously, held up a hand to make a pinkie promise, then pulled a big apple from his pocket and stuffed it into my hands.
Yin Hengyu: “…Let’s try another one. Crowing like a rooster?”
I immediately let out a resounding cock-a-doodle-doo.
The drowsy students all jerked their heads up and asked who had hidden a chicken in their schoolbag.
I lifted my chin at him. “Your turn.”
“…I—I can’t.” Yin Hengyu’s voice trembled a little.
I slapped the desk until it boomed. “Then what can you do? You can’t transplant rice, you can’t talk to an idiot, and you can’t even crow like a rooster! Tell me, what can you do?”
Yin Hengyu went deathly pale.
He was such an intelligent person that one day he would even learn to fly helicopters. He solved Olympiad math problems as casually as single-digit addition. Yet he had suddenly discovered there were so many things he could not do.
Worse, he did not have the confidence to tell me, “Those things are easy. I could learn them in a minute.”
After all, not everyone possessed the supreme gift of communicating with an idiot.
Thus, after a long and agonizing inner struggle, Yin Hengyu finally whispered, “I lost.”
A violent gust swept past outside, whirling up a cloud of leaves as though his very faith in himself had shattered.
I waved a hand. “If you lost, leave. Stop bothering me.”
But Yin Hengyu abruptly rose and planted both hands on my desk, staring down at me.
I shoved up my sleeves and snapped, “What? You can’t stand losing?”
“No.” Yin Hengyu said, “Teach me everything else you know. I’m begging you, Yu Taozi.”