For over a week, Miaomiao faithfully arrived at Ansheng’s home after school every day to tutor him in his studies for about two hours.
Thanks to Miaomiao’s strict and earnest approach, Ansheng had indeed made considerable progress.
"I'm done writing. Have a look."
Ansheng stopped his pen and handed over his exercise book.
"Huh? ...Oh, oh." Miaomiao blanked for a second or two before taking the notebook and looking it over, her brow heavy with fatigue.
Ansheng looked at Miaomiao with puzzled eyes. Over the past few days of tutoring, he had noticed that she seemed to grow increasingly tired.
Frankly, it was a bit disheartening. Was he really so hopelessly stupid that teaching him could make someone that exhausted?
Just as Ansheng’s mind was wandering, Miaomiao spotted an error.
"Your formula shouldn't be applied like that here..."
She paused, suddenly noticing that Ansheng was staring at her with a strange look in his eyes. She frowned in confusion.
"Don't stare at a girl like that. It's rude."
After more than a week of getting along, Miaomiao had also realized that Ansheng's claim of having zero interest in her was genuine; this guy... seemed to have a unique devotion exclusively to 2D anime characters.
"Ah, sorry." Ansheng snapped back to reality, glanced at Miaomiao a couple of times, and hesitated before asking,
"Can I ask you a favor?"
"Go ahead." Miaomiao rubbed her head, assuming he was going to ask a study question.
"...Am I really that stupid?"
Miaomiao blinked. "What do you mean?"
"I'm saying, watching you teach me these past few days, you look so exhausted you might drop dead at any moment. Am I really that dumb?"
"..." Miaomiao collected her thoughts, realizing that he had misunderstood why she looked so tired lately.
She smiled helplessly. "You're fine. You generally understand how to do things once I explain them. I have been a bit tired these past few days, but it's not because of you."
"It's just..."
Hearing this, Ansheng breathed a sigh of relief. I knew it! No matter what, he had managed to get into Chunhe Middle School; he couldn't possibly be that stupid.
"It's just?" he pressed on.
Miaomiao rubbed her heavy eyelids. "It's just that I still underestimated the workload of being a class monitor at this school. It's so much more numerous and complicated than in middle school."
Ansheng pondered for a moment. He remembered that when he was browsing the Chunhe Middle School admissions brochure earlier, there was a point stating it aimed to "socially exercise the abilities of student cadres."
No doubt Miaomiao, holding the most important position, was deeply experiencing the hardships that came with it.
At this thought, Ansheng felt a slight surge of secret delight that he hadn't run for any school positions himself.
"Why don't you find an assistant or something to help out? I think the teachers wouldn't mind either, since it also counts as cultivating the abilities of two students," Ansheng suggested.
Miaomiao shook her head. "To be honest, I'm not good at working with others."
Ansheng looked surprised. "You always look so smiley when you deal with everyone normally."
Miaomiao glanced sideways at him. "Have you ever seen me when someone approaches me alone?"
Ansheng frowned in recall. If the other person was a girl, Miaomiao would also greet them with a smile, but the moment she helped them solve their problem, she would immediately slip away, giving them no chance to express gratitude or push for a closer relationship.
As for boys... well, he himself was a living example of how she acted at first: wearing a foul expression, yet still helping you solve your problem.
"That's true too..."
Miaomiao stretched lazily and slumped facedown onto the low table on her own accord. "So you see, I'm really bad at forming deep connections with people."
"I had some business to take care of this past weekend and couldn't make it over, but I'll make it up to you next weekend."
"TD."
"What does that mean?"
"That's what you type to unsubscribe from spam text messages."
"Get lost and go do your problems."
"Oh."
***
On the weekend, Miaomiao was delayed by class matters for an hour, so she arrived a little past five o'clock.
Standing at the doorway, Miaomiao once again thought of what Ansheng had said a few days ago about finding an assistant.
"Should I really look for one...?"
She shook her head, pushing the thought aside for now. Today she was here to tutor Ansheng.
"Today we're studying history—"
Miaomiao opened the front door by herself. Ansheng had given her the spare key to his room so that whenever he happened to be out, she could just come in and wait.
Once she opened the door, Miaomiao froze.
A guy whose hair looked like he had just survived World War II was sprawled out haphazardly—his lower body on the sofa, his upper body on the floor, drool pooling at the corners of his mouth. He was wearing a button-down pajama shirt and lazily scratching his belly.
The messy takeout containers on the low table and the television screen displaying the words "Playback finished. Replay?" vividly attested to how thoroughly he had partied last night.
And it was already five o'clock in the afternoon!
Miaomiao's eyebrow twitched. Nimbly stepping over various bits of trash, she crouched down right beside Ansheng's ear and took a deep breath.
"Please briefly describe the concept, causes, significance, and impact of the feudal enfeoffment system!!!!!!"
Startled by the sudden shout, Ansheng snapped his eyes wide open and instinctively jerked upward.
As he raised his head, he slammed directly into Miaomiao, who was leaning in with a smirk. The impact knocked Miaomiao backward onto the floor.
Ansheng wiped the drool from the corner of his mouth and stared blankly at Miaomiao.
"Ow, ow, ow..." Miaomiao clutched her nose, a few tears welling up in her eyes. That really hurt.
"Uh, well, monitor," Ansheng began hesitantly.
Hearing Ansheng's voice, a wave of fury washed over Miaomiao.
"What?! You're still sleeping at five in the afternoon—are you part pig?! The moment I opened the door and saw you looking like this, I—"
"Stop, stop, stop—" Ansheng forcibly cut Miaomiao off and pointed at her.
Following the direction of his finger, Miaomiao looked down and saw that he was pointing at the hem of her dress.
"It's all your fault! My clothes are stained too. Where did this grease even come from—"
Ansheng cleared his throat twice. "...I meant the white ones."
Miaomiao frowned. "Does my white dress offend you?!"
"I meant your panties—your underwear."
Miaomiao stiffened and looked down at herself, her eyes widening.
Because of the fall, she had tumbled backward, and as she hadn't gotten up yet, her knees were pressed together, accidentally exposing what was underneath.
Seconds later, her face flushed a brilliant shade of crimson, and she reached out to cover her vital area.
"It's all your fault—!!!!"
Ansheng furrowed his brow, rubbed his chin, and shouted loudly, "Wait!"
Staring blankly at this freak with exploding hair who currently looked like a weeping hobo, Miaomiao momentarily stopped yelling.
"Although white looks like the pinnacle of the pure aesthetic, and there's even a little bow in the middle that adds some points—"
"Still, it's not as good as blue-and-white bowls. I can only give it an 8 out of 10."
With an utterly serious face and absolute composure, Ansheng delivered his critique of Miaomiao's white underwear.
Miaomiao's complexion steadily darkened. She lowered her head, stood up in silence, and clenched her fists tightly.
"I have quite unique insights when it comes to this..."
*Bang—*
Before Ansheng could finish, Miaomiao flew into action with a kick directly to the side of his head.
"Your head is full of insights! Go die!!!!!!!!"
***
A few minutes later, Ansheng had finally entered study mode, albeit with a swelling lump on his head.
He knelt properly beside the low table, maintaining an outward appearance of utmost composure while inwardly muttering to himself about how violent 3D girls truly were.
Miaomiao's chest was still heaving violently, the blush on her face refusing to fade.
Ever since she was little, she had always maintained the image of a dignified and proper young lady, yet today she had been seen by a boy wearing... that kind of thing!!!
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got. Miaomiao couldn't help gritting her teeth and glaring resentfully at Ansheng.
"For the next two hours this afternoon, you are going to memorize every single knowledge point in this unit! I've already organized them for you, and I'll be quizzing you later!"
"Can we cut back a bit...? My memory isn't that great..." Ansheng offered a sheepish smile.
"Sure, two units."
"That's not what I meant..."
"Three."
"I yield. Have mercy, please."
With a tragic expression, Ansheng flipped open the thick stack of study notes. Not only were there materials straight from the textbook, but Miaomiao had also gathered a large amount of extra-curricular content.
At that moment, Ansheng keenly understood the feelings of an ancient monarch gazing out at the vast, dark sea of rebel troops massing outside his palace hall.
He let out a long sigh, "Heaven is truly trying to destroy me..."
Two hours later, Ansheng naturally had not finished memorizing all that material, whereupon Miaomiao declared that they would simply keep going.
Furthermore, she decided to cancel tomorrow's mathematics problem-solving session and replace it with more history memorization, adding whatever he failed to finish directly to tomorrow's checklist.
Ansheng felt as though the sky was falling in. In an instant, even mathematics—a subject he usually couldn't stand—suddenly looked warm and approachable by comparison.
Noticing it was already past seven o'clock, Ansheng's stomach began to rumble loudly after a whole day without food.
Habitually, he pulled out his phone and opened a delivery app. "Want to eat something? My treat, to thank you for organizing my study notes."
Miaomiao paused in her tracks and frowned. "Takeout?"
Ansheng nodded, looking at her with a matter-of-fact expression.
"You just eat this stuff?" Miaomiao pointed at the bags of takeout scattered across the table. Ansheng nodded again.
"What do you want to eat? I'll order it for you."
Miaomiao fell into contemplation. Ordering takeout would take an hour or even longer, plus it was unhealthy and cost money...
She pressed her lips together and made up her mind. "Where's the kitchen?"
"Huh?"
"Where's the kitchen?" Miaomiao repeated.
Ansheng pointed toward the very back of the apartment. Miaomiao nodded. "Wait here, don't order takeout."
With that, she shuffled off in her slippers, *clack, clack, clack*. Ansheng heard the door of the neighboring apartment open, and a few minutes later, Miaomiao hurried back, this time carrying a bag of groceries.
She had even tied a white apron around her waist, and her hair was tied up in a ponytail that bounced in the air.
Ansheng looked stunned. "What are you doing?"
"Takeout is too slow and unhealthy. I'll cook for you, so you just focus on memorizing."
With a calm nod, Miaomiao turned around and dove straight into the kitchen, getting right to work with bustling energy.
Ansheng scratched his head, feeling like he owed her quite a bit now...
"Um, aren't you usually super tired? Let me be your assistant for a few days."
Busy with her preparations, Miaomiao paused. "My assistant?"
"Consider it payback for this meal..."
Without breaking her rhythm, Miaomiao turned the idea over in her mind.
It felt like... having an assistant might actually be worth a try?