Chapter 30

This morning’s English tutoring session was a deep torment for both the “teacher” and the “student.”

No wonder “tutoring homework” and “veteran driver teaching how to drive” were known as the two ultimate killers of intimate relationships—Shen Yuze exhausted all the poise he’d cultivated over his seventeen years in that moment.

Call Lu Ping dumb? He was sharp in every other way. But whatever Shen Yuze taught him, Lu Ping forgot it in the blink of an eye, as if there were a filter in his brain that automatically sifted out all the English letters.

Shen Yuze had prepared a pen, and every time Lu Ping got a question wrong, he tapped the back of Lu Ping’s hand… By the end of the morning, Lu Ping’s hand was all red.

Lu Ping said pitifully, “Can’t you hit somewhere else? It hurts, you know?”

Shen Yuze avoided looking at his pitiful expression and said in an icy tone, “This is to help you remember. My English is at least number one. You’re my personally tutored student—if your next monthly exam English score is still only half of the full marks, it won’t just be your face losing out.”

“It’s not just half,” Lu Ping hurriedly clarified. “It’s 82 points! That’s 7 points more than half!”

“…And you’re proud of that?” Shen Yuze laughed in exasperation. His smile flashed by, and he quickly resumed his icy demeanor, circling three reading comprehension passages from the workbook and pushing them in front of Lu Ping. “You have twenty-five minutes. Do three sets of readings—not hard, right?”

Lu Ping was shocked. “How is that not hard?! It’s insanely hard!”

Shen Yuze pretended not to hear, his handsome face devoid of any amusement. “Fifteen questions total. You can’t get more than two… three wrong. One extra wrong answer means punishment.”

“What punishment?”

Shen Yuze didn’t speak. Instead, he crooked his finger in a forehead-flicking gesture.

Lu Ping: “…??”

Damn it—Lu Ping hadn’t had his forehead flicked since elementary school! Was Shen Yuze treating him like a little kid?

Lu Ping wanted to haggle, but Shen Yuze had already pulled out his phone and set a stopwatch. “Get ready. Three, two, one—go!”

Lu Ping: “Wait, can we change the punishment? Forehead flicking is too childish!”

“Reminder,” Shen Yuze glanced at the time on his phone, “you’ve already wasted twenty seconds.”

“…”

What could poor Lu Ping do? He could only whine and start on the English questions.

Twenty-five minutes was way too short for an exam. Lu Ping spent ten minutes each on the first two readings. To minimize mistakes, he worked extra carefully, double- and triple-checking the options and going back to the text over and over. This left too much time wasted upfront, so for the last—and hardest—reading, he had only five minutes left!

Shen Yuze tapped the table with his finger. “Five minutes.”

Lu Ping hurriedly started reading the first line.

A moment later.

Shen Yuze: “Three minutes.”

Lu Ping hadn’t even finished the second paragraph!

Another moment later.

Shen Yuze: “One minute.”

Lu Ping wailed in grievance, “Can you stop counting down? It feels less like you’re urging me to do the questions and more like you’re counting down my life!”

Rushing was the worst thing when doing problems. Pushed to the brink with tears nearly welling up, Lu Ping could only grit his teeth, abandon reading, and jump straight to answering.

When the timer in Shen Yuze’s hand hit the last five seconds, Lu Ping boldly filled in C for the final three questions.

“Time’s up—” Shen Yuze asked, “—Lu Ping, why did you pick C for all of them?”

“Simple, it’s a math problem.” Lu Ping set down his pen and said solemnly.

“How does math come into this again?”

“See? This is what you get for not paying attention in math class!” Lu Ping had been itching for a chance to tease Shen Yuze, so he turned the tables and lectured him. “It doesn’t matter which option you pick—a, b, c, or d. The key is picking the same one! Four options per question, so randomly picking one gives a 1/4 chance of being right, yeah?”

Shen Yuze nodded.

Lu Ping grabbed a sheet of paper and scribbled a probability equation. “Probability of getting all three right: 1/4 × 1/4 × 1/4 = 1/64. Two right, one wrong: 3/64. One right, two wrong: 9/64!!! Add it up—that’s nearly 1/5 probability!!” He clenched his fist. “Go for it—turn a bike into a motorcycle. I refuse to believe my luck is that bad.”

Shen Yuze: “…In the end, it’s all luck.”

Lu Ping: “Wrong—I’m blessed by the god of math.”

“Fine then, let’s see if the god of math blessed you.” Shen Yuze took the paper and started grading right away.

Lu Ping: “Wait, why aren’t you checking the answers?”

“Why check answers?” Shen Yuze countered. “When you tutor your little sister, do you need to look at the answers?”

“…” But An An was only in first grade this year.

Lu Ping puffed his cheeks and swallowed his protest.

He clasped his hands together over his chest in a prayer pose, leaning forward anxiously to watch Shen Yuze grade.

The first reading: perfect, not a single mistake! Worth reading it twice carefully!

The second: decent, only one wrong.

Lu Ping patted his chest reassuringly. “It’s okay, it’s okay—I can’t give up until the last moment!”

Finally, the last one—the hardest!

The third reading had tough vocabulary and complex grammar. Plus, with Shen Yuze counting down beside him, Lu Ping’s focus shattered, and he read haltingly… Of course, Lu Ping had to admit that even with double the time, he wouldn’t have been confident of a perfect score.

But a five-star difficulty passage in Lu Ping’s eyes was still simple to Shen Yuze. The teen lightly furrowed his brows, scanning it ten lines at a time, his gaze sliding down to…

Lu Ping even held his breath, staring intently at the red pen in Shen Yuze’s hand, mentally casting a spell on it.

The red pen lifted, the red pen fell—two red X’s appeared next to the answers in a row!

Lu Ping: “…Why are the first two wrong??”

If it were the last three, fine—they were guesses. But the first two were ones he’d actually done himself—how could they be wrong? QAQ!

Shen Yuze’s pen didn’t pause, moving to the next row.

Question three: C, correct.

Question four: C, also correct!

Shen Yuze clearly hesitated, going back to the text to double-check… No mistake—these two were indeed C.

The god of math had truly favored Lu Ping.

Beside him, Lu Ping nearly couldn’t suppress his scream! His once-clasped hands now clamped over his mouth. His heart had never pounded this fast—he swore this was the most thrilling thing he’d ever experienced!

If the last one was right too, he wouldn’t be the Niangao Prince anymore—he’d be the Probability Prince!!!

Lu Ping’s mind was already playing epic BGM for himself.

But before his mental victory anthem could reach its climax, a sudden X shattered the Probability Prince’s coronation.

The devilish red pen mercilessly drew a big X next to question five. The correct answer wasn’t C—it was D…

But whether A, B, or D, it didn’t matter anymore—Lu Ping had four wrong answers, triggering Shen Yuze’s “punishment.”

Lu Ping still resisted desperately. “…No, wait—Your Honor, I appeal! I request a retrial!”

“Appeal what?” Shen Yuze drew a red line on the paper. “Question five’s answer is in the last paragraph of the text—just a synonymous word swap and a double negative instead of a positive.”

Lu Ping stared at the red line over and over, forced to admit Shen Yuze was right.

The great god of math had abandoned the little Probability Prince—now Lu Ping was back to being a pitiful little mouse.

And one whose tail was pinned by the cat, about to face punishment.

The little mouse raised a hand to cover his forehead and asked tremulously, “Sh-She-Shen Yuze, you’re not really going to hit me, right?”

“Didn’t we agree earlier?” Shen Yuze hooked his thumb and middle finger together and flicked at the air twice. That force, that speed… made Lu Ping shudder involuntarily. Shen Yuze urged, “No room for bargaining between us. Lu Ping, I’ve explained so many questions to you this morning, and you still got this many wrong. I’m only flicking your forehead—no spanking your butt. That’s already giving you face.”

At that, Shen Yuze’s gaze drifted to Lu Ping’s lower body, a half-smile playing on his lips. “Or do you prefer the butt?”

Lu Ping rushed to say, “…Th-then, the head it is.”

Of two evils, pick the lesser—Lu Ping understood that much!

The boy pitifully brushed back the fringe from his forehead, exposing his smooth brow. He tilted his head back, eyes squeezed shut in fear, lashes trembling faintly. It was just a simple forehead flick, but he’d scared himself into looking like a martyr going bravely to his fate.

With the fringe lifted, sunlight finally kissed the boy’s forehead freely.

Boys aged sixteen or seventeen were in the throes of puberty, fueled by hormones—most were “crooked melons and split dates”: half battling acne, the other half fighting scruffy mustaches daily.

But Lu Ping’s face was clean and neat, nothing sloppy like his peers. His skin was fair and fine—even up close, there were no flaws. With eyes closed, the innocence and inferiority in them were hidden away. His round face scrunched his nose twice in tension, lips pressed together, tongue tip darting out now and then to lick them.

Adorable and pitiable.

His face wasn’t particularly refined or handsome, yet Shen Yuze found himself unwittingly entranced.

—He leaned forward, drawing closer and closer to the defenseless boy. One more centimeter, and he’d smell that sweet glutinous rice scent on Lu Ping again.

Lu Ping’s world was pitch black. He waited trembling in the darkness. After what felt like forever, the expected pain on his forehead never came.

Instead, he vaguely felt a heat source slowly approaching.

“?” Lu Ping didn’t dare open his eyes, asking in confusion, “Shen Yuze, not flicking anymore?”

“…”

Silence answered him.

—The heat source suddenly pulled away.

The next second, a flick landed on his forehead.

…Huh, weird—it didn’t hurt.

Lu Ping’s eyes flew open in surprise. Shen Yuze had already returned to his seat, sitting primly, flipping through the textbook in front of him.

Facing Lu Ping’s astonishment, Shen Yuze’s tone was as calm and composed as ever. “Alright, I’ll let you off this time.”