"I’ve got it! I’ve got it!"

Before the Sunday morning reading session began, Zhou Shaojie, unlike his usual last-minute arrivals, got to school five minutes early.

"Did you finally remember that you’re a transmigrator?" Yang Ze asked Zhou Shaojie with a grin.

"Transmigrator, my ass."

Zhou Shaojie said as he walked to his desk, his back to Zhuo Peipei.

After sitting down, Ah Jie began to summon everyone sitting nearby.

"Come on, come on, everyone gather ’round and listen to my momentous discovery! This is an absolute pearl in the history of biology!"

"If you’re just feeding us shit this early in the morning, I’m going to post on the school’s confession page saying you’re looking for a boyfriend," Zhuo Peipei threatened.

"I’m not a priest."

Ah Jie cleared his throat. Seeing that everyone had taken their seats, he began to speak with a grave expression.

"Yesterday, didn’t Ah Ze ask what the dominant gene is among mixed-race people? I went home and looked for some research material."

"The European and American section?" Chen Mingyu asked subconsciously.

The scene fell silent.

"Ahem!"

Shen Yuan broke the silence with a tactical cough. "Ah Jie, you can continue."

Ah Jie rubbed his nose, hiding his embarrassment.

"Actually, if you think about it, in mixed-race people of different ethnicities, there’s one thing that’s the most prominent and obvious!"

"What is it?" everyone asked in unison.

"The human body’s largest organ: the skin!"

Ah Jie continued, "Think about it. When a white person and an Asian person have a mixed-race child, you can’t really tell the difference just by looking at the baby’s skin, right?"

After a moment of thought, everyone nodded.

At this moment, Shen Yuan had a premonition. ’Ah Jie is about to pull off something brilliant.’

"But what if it’s a Black person? Whether a Black person has a child with an Asian person or a white person, the baby will have dark skin!"

Ah Jie said excitedly, "So, the gene for dark skin is the dominant gene in humans! If you get it, give it up for me!"

"Awesome, awesome!"

"A biologist! That’s a real biologist right there!"

All Shen Yuan could say was...

’Fucking brilliant.’

To come to such a conclusion from watching videos... and to pull off a stunt like this so early in the morning... it was just as you’d expect from Ah Jie.

Thanks to Ah Jie’s "discovery" of the dominant human gene, the entire morning reading session was filled with an unusual level of cheer.

"Why do we have to learn English? This is cultural invasion!"

"You don’t know shit. We learn it so we can culturally invade them back! Chinglish, ever heard of it? Make your opponent become just like you!"

What do you think good English is?

Is it going into a restaurant, sitting down, and when the waiter comes over, rattling off a bunch of English nouns to tell them what you want to eat?

Hello, I’d like to order a salad.

Who do you think you’re talking to, the Queen?

You walk into a restaurant, open the menu, point a finger, and say to the waiter, "This, this, this, thank you."

The purpose of language is communication.

If you’ve achieved communication, you’ve succeeded in using the language.

Using any kind of fancy wording in daily conversation has only one purpose—to show off.

...

The second and third periods were the weekly Chinese quiz.

Since the Chinese quiz included an essay, Sister Lan usually scheduled it during the long break between classes or during evening self-study.

After the Chinese quiz, this week’s round of quizzes was finally over.

He figured that during evening self-study, Old Zhou would hand back the math tests to whip the masses into shape.

"The weekend is over, so settle down and focus on your studies. You’re seniors now. Just suffer through it, endure this one last year, and once you get to college, you can have all the fun you want."

It was the kind of rhetoric designed to string you along.

Give you just enough hope so you don’t completely give up.

The mood in Class 15 was still pretty good, quite stable.

Stably insane.

But Old Zhou was right about one thing.

Endure it.

After fourth period, a short break would begin.

Shen Yuan’s plans for the break were already set. Because he’d messed with Li Zhi yesterday and caused her to skip her late-night snack, she had gone hungry all night. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

So he had to treat her to a good meal.

Those two were always talking about avoiding suspicion, but the moment the break started, they snuck off together anyway.

As a small county town, Jiyang only had so many places to eat.

"Where do you want to eat?"

"Let’s go for grilled fish. I haven’t had it in a while."

Shen Yuan nodded.

There was one good thing about taking Li Zhi out.

The girl had no analysis paralysis.

Usually, when Li Zhi thought of something she wanted to eat, she would make a decision immediately instead of hesitating while looking at a bunch of restaurants.

Of course, sometimes when Li Zhi couldn’t be bothered to decide, she would hand the decision over to Shen Yuan.

Shen Yuan didn’t have analysis paralysis either.

After making a call home, the two of them headed to the mall.

Grilled fish had been all the rage a few years ago.

But in recent years, the hype had mostly died down, and the restaurants seemed a bit lukewarm.

When they arrived at mealtime, the restaurant was pretty full, but there was no need to queue.

In a place like Jiyang, new malls kept opening one after another, naturally splitting the flow of people.

But the popular spots were still popular.

Neither of them were big fans of spicy food, but they both had a preference for sweet and sour flavors.

Shen Yuan believed that a moderate amount of spice could enhance the texture and flavor, but excessive spiciness would just mask the original taste of the ingredients.

Your taste buds would just be screaming in pain, you wouldn’t be able to tell if the meat was good or bad, and your whole mouth would just taste of spice.

These days, some Sichuan restaurants just add spice to everything no matter what.

Spicy means Sichuan, and Sichuan means spicy.

But in reality, spiciness is only one part of Sichuan cuisine.

Shen Yuan hated it when people just added spice to everything.

Before the food arrived, Shen Yuan went downstairs to pick up a mango pomelo sago with 30% sugar and light ice for Young Master Li’s loyal subject, and while he was at it, he got his own runner’s reward: a sugar-free, regular-ice passion fruit drink.

"Are you confident you can break 600?"

Shen Yuan stopped fiddling with his straw.

"Sis, can we not talk about this?"

Li Zhi didn’t answer, just stared at Shen Yuan until he felt his skin crawl.

"No. I did poorly on the math test, probably got around an 80."

Li Zhi poked at her milk tea, then said after a moment, "If it’s really not working, just wait for the first review round. The first round of comprehensive review starts after this monthly exam. You should be able to catch up then."

Shen Yuan nodded. "But I should still patch up what I can right now."

"Ask me if there’s anything you don’t understand."

Shen Yuan agreed.

After evening self-study tonight, Shen Yuan would be moving to the seat next to Li Zhi.

Compared to Ah Jie’s abstract, science-brained way of solving problems, Li Zhi was obviously much better at explaining things.

They were clearly speaking the same language, but when Ah Jie explained math, Shen Yuan couldn’t understand a word.

Just like the math teacher who had taught him for the past two years.

Just as they were talking, the grilled fish arrived.

Li Zhi rubbed her hands together. "Time to dig in!"

After the meal, the two of them went home.

On such a hot day, it was much more comfortable to go home, turn on the AC, and sleep.

Study?

’I’ve been studying for a whole week, can’t I just rest for a few hours?’

Shen Yuan flopped onto his bed, pulled out his phone, and played two matches. After losing two stars, he was too angry to sleep.

’Just one more game. I’ll sleep after I win. Just one win!’

"Fuck! One more game!"

"Last one!!"

After a seven-game losing streak, Shen Yuan silently uninstalled the game.

"Trash game, ruining my life."