Ansheng watched his parents walk away with a sigh of relief, then turned back to the bed and said to Miaomiao,
"It's fine now, they've gone."
Rustling sounds came from the bed as Miaomiao poked her head out from behind the curtain, stepping carefully down the ladder from the bed.
Ansheng patted his chest, still lingering in lingering fear. Seeing the frightened look on his face, Miaomiao couldn't help asking out of curiosity,
"Are you that terrified of your parents?"
Ansheng shrugged, looking quite helpless. "You could say that. The thing is, my mom is a bit scatterbrained. If she saw a strange girl in my house, the scene would probably get extremely chaotic..."
"Can't you just tell her I'm here to help you study?"
Miaomiao pressed on, settling herself back down on the carpet.
Ansheng sat back down in his original spot, shaking his head and curling his lip. "She most likely wouldn't believe it. At best, she'd put on a face like she believed me, but actually look at you with a sly grin—you know what I mean, right?"
Miaomiao lowered her head to ponder for a moment, then shook her head earnestly. "I don't know what kind of look that is."
Ansheng was taken aback. "Let me give you an example. Personally, I don't have any improper thoughts about you. But logically speaking, if your parents saw such a pretty daughter of theirs sitting outside with a strange guy for weeks on end... wouldn't they worry about you getting into puppy love or something?"
Miaomiao's eyelashes trembled, her gaze turning somewhat dim. "My family... our situation is different from yours."
"How is it different?" Ansheng tilted his head.
"My family members... both my parents are very busy, so they've hardly ever paid attention to my school life. It's been like that since middle school."
Miaomiao tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, revealing a forced smile.
"Is that so?"
Ansheng nodded and didn't press any further. This probably already touched upon Miaomiao's private boundaries.
Miaomiao let out a breath and pulled herself together. It was better to let those matters rot away in the depths of her heart; she would definitely resolve them step by step.
"Come on, let's get back to studying. The end-of-month exams are coming up soon, and this counts as our first formal test."
Ansheng bit down on his pen cap and muttered to himself, "I feel like with my current ability, I shouldn't do too terribly, right?"
Miaomiao burst out in a clear, muffled giggle behind her hand. "Do you remember where you are?"
"Chunhe, so what?" Ansheng asked, puzzled.
"Chunhe Middle School is packed with top-tier students from every middle school. There are tons and tons of people who definitely do previewing ahead of time."
"When I was helping Teacher Huacai before, I heard her sigh and say that the students in our year are all very hardworking. There are lots of people in their teachers' office every day, asking questions about knowledge way beyond the textbook."
"I reckon the designated scope for this month's exam is already stuff they know inside and out. Not to mention the high difficulty of Chunhe's independently drafted test papers—and you haven't even finished memorizing the materials I gave you yet. How do you feel about your capabilities now?"
Hearing Miaomiao's analysis, Ansheng's heart sank with a jolt. He lowered his head, pulled out his phone, and tapped out a message to someone with a solemn and utterly serious expression.
Miaomiao leaned over, asking curiously, "What are you doing? Are you searching online for how to memorize three units of material in a single day?"
Buzz—
Ansheng's phone vibrated. He glanced down, kept typing, and after a brief back-and-forth, he turned his phone around to face Miaomiao.
"It's fine, I feel like I'll definitely make some progress—at least I won't regress."
Hearing Ansheng's exceptionally resolute tone, Miaomiao grew even more puzzled and leaned in to look at his screen.
The phone displayed a chat between Ansheng and someone whose remark was saved as—Ren Wen.
——
Ansheng [You there?]
Ren Wen [What's up, bro?]
Ansheng [End-of-month exams, 21st.]
Ren Wen [?]
[You kidding me?]
Ansheng [Nope.]
Ren Wen [You aren't pulling a prank, are you?]
Ansheng [Do I look like the kind of person who pulls pranks?]
Ren Wen [What if you've got that kind of weird sense of humor?]
Ansheng [Get lost.]
[Seriously though, exams are coming, just giving you a heads-up.]
Ren Wen [Oh nooooooo, I haven't studied at all!]
[What do I do aaa]
[You definitely haven't reviewed either! We'll keep sitting firmly on our thrones together!]
[Reply to me! Hurry up and say you haven't reviewed either!]
Ansheng [Lolz / rolling on the floor laughing]
——
Miaomiao's mouth twitched as she looked at Ansheng, who seemed considerably more relaxed. "This is what you're relying on?"
Ansheng nodded matter-of-factly and said, "I'll definitely make progress. With Ren Wen backing me up, I'm not afraid of regressing. He's definitely going to keep sitting firmly on his throne."
Miaomiao fell silent. Ansheng's phone started buzzing and vibrating again. She glanced sideways and saw Ren Wen spamming stickers.
(Sadness.jpg) * N
Ansheng frowned. "Is my phone broken? Why won't it stop vibrating?"
"Ah, no, it's Ren Wen spamming," Miaomiao pointed at the constantly jumping stickers on the phone screen.
"Oh, help me reply with [Spam again and don't come looking for me ever]," Ansheng said with unruffled calm.
With a look of utter astonishment, Miaomiao still reached out a finger and helped Ansheng send the message. Sure enough, the moment it went out, Ren Wen stopped spamming instantly.
[My bad, bro. I'll review properly.]
Utterly bewildered, Miaomiao looked at Ansheng. "Did you make some kind of weird deal with him?"
Ansheng, who was in the middle of sipping water, choked and broke into an unstoppable coughing fit.
"Would you stop phrasing it in such a weird way, please? I just promised that when he goes hunting for items at the secondhand market, I'd help him keep an eye out and look things over."
"Secondhand market? You know that much about the prices of those items?" Miaomiao asked, curious. She felt like Ansheng was full of uncharted territories she knew nothing about.
Ansheng nodded. "Even though I don't have that much money to buy them, I've got a general idea of the market prices for most of the popular merchandise out there."
"How did you memorize so many?"
Ansheng smiled faintly, pressing his lips together. "I didn't memorize them on purpose. Sometimes when I'm bored, I just browse secondhand markets. For instance, if I see a figure I think looks nice, I'll search for it, check the current market price, and then check forums for past prices. That way, I more or less figure out what price range the item's value falls into. After seeing enough of them, I just memorized it..."
Miaomiao looked at Ansheng, who wore a inexplicably energized expression. It seemed he only ever opened up when talking about things related to anime; he was completely unlike his usual silent self at school. He probably only cared about things he liked and approved of.
"...So these prices actually all follow a pattern. Even though I can't afford to buy them, I can look at them. It just so happens that Ren Wen sometimes hunts for various merchandise, so I keep an eye out for him, and sometimes help him snipe them at even lower, lucky-bargain prices."
Miaomiao suddenly spoke up, "You know, if I had that kind of ability, and turned it toward looking at all those textbooks and materials I need to memorize..."
"Wouldn't I be able to memorize tons of knowledge points super easily!"
Miaomiao's eyes lit up. Ansheng looked at her and his mouth twitched. Should he praise this violent study monster for her bizarre train of thought, or scold her for being an idiot?
"You really are... an idiot."
Ansheng ultimately chose to scold this study monster; this person had clearly gone off the deep end with her studying.
Miaomiao crossed her arms and let out a cold hmph.
"Hmph, you're the same. Just think, if you had that kind of ability when it comes to memorizing books, you could memorize anything casually, and then you'd catch up to me in no time—even surpass me."
Ansheng broke out in a cold sweat. Surpass Miaomiao? This monster whose scores across all six subjects average out to only about ten points deducted per subject?
"Your capabilities are still something I can only look up to from afar..."
"At least memorizing the tasks I assigned you would be a breeze then."
Ansheng retorted, "Three units in two hours! Could you memorize that?"
"No," Miaomiao replied with unexpected bluntness. "Originally, I only assigned you one unit, which you could totally handle with ease."
"..."
Ansheng let out a long sigh. "You need hobbies to have motivation; that's why I remember the market prices of so many figures."
"I don't have hobbies," Miaomiao said with a trace of smugness.
Ansheng glanced sideways at her. "Do you have a desire to crush others and stand at the top?"
"---It seems I do indeed. Though I feel sorry for crushing others, I must hold the number one spot."
"Figures," Ansheng nodded, verifying his own guess.
For some reason unknown to him, Miaomiao seemed to be striving hard to always keep herself in the number one position.
That was the driving force Miaomiao had maintained for three solid years since middle school, and had even carried over into high school.
"That's a rather terrifying motivation..."
Ansheng muttered subconsciously, drawing a curious gaze from Miaomiao.
"What are you saying?"
"Nothing, I said Qin Shi Huang is truly awesome."
"----? Didn't I ask you to memorize the events of the Roman Empire?"
"Oh, there was a guy with the same name, he single-handedly pushed through a reform."
Miaomiao blinked in surprise. "When did this happen? How come I don't remember any such formidable figure? Add this to my notes for me; it might be on the exam."
"Can't write it down. You definitely won't remember it either." Ansheng said calmly.
"Why?"
"I made it up."
After a brief silence, Miaomiao spoke up.
"---I think you can memorize the contents of four units."
"I can't. Qin Shi Huang definitely could, you should go look for him."
"You're doing five."
"---Am I even more awesome than Qin Shi Huang?"
"Yes, keep it up."
Miaomiao smiled, looking utterly "benevolent".