Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Wang Ling never expected that his overly stable grades would conversely draw Teacher Pan’s attention. He thought his existence in class would fade with his average grades – he never ever thought that Teacher Pan would in the end still pay attention to him.
As a pioneer teacher at No. 60 High, Teacher Pan had guided countless students toward entering key universities, and her intuition told her that Wang Ling was an extremely easy-going student. To get the average grade in class every time – Teacher Pan even felt that in some sense, Wang Ling had talent.
Since he had talent, there was a lot of room for improvement.
But in previous years, a number of the parents and students had opposed the one-on-one tutoring. The parents were against them because there were times when a boy and girl who were paired up might develop feelings for each other during the tutoring sessions, which wasn’t a good thing to happen at this critical time. The reason why the students objected to it was that the one-on-one tutoring happened after class hours and used up a lot of energy beyond what they already spent on studying.
Why couldn’t the time for the one-on-one tutoring be spent on something they were interested in?
Thus, after giving the matter ample consideration, Teacher Pan decided to first do a test run with Wang Ling. If the results were good, the sessions could slowly be implemented on a wider scale; a roster system could even be set up.
For example, if Student A helped Student B’s grades to improve, Student A’s task was done, and it would then fall to Student B to tutor Student C. Not only would students learn something this way, but in helping others, they would also consolidate their own knowledge.
So, here was the question.
Who should tutor Wang Ling in his studies?
“Is there anyone here who would be willing to tutor Student Wang Ling?”
“…” Zhenyuan and Gu Shunzhi fell silent.
Tutor?
What could they tutor Wang Ling in? Wouldn’t that be like teaching your grandmother to suck eggs?
When no one responded, Teacher Pan’s gaze swept over the class committee members who were present. All of them had above average grades, and it was the two new students who had the best grades.
But considering that they had just joined the school, Teacher Pan felt that getting them to help Wang Ling right away would imply that No. 60 High didn’t have a great academic track record. In addition, she could tell from their conflicted expressions that they didn’t seem willing to do any tutoring.
Hence, Teacher Pan made the final decision after considering the overall situation.
“Student Lotus Sun, I’ll give the task of tutoring Student Wang Ling to you. Any questions?” As soon as Teacher Pan said that, everyone’s eyes lit up. They looked at Lotus Sun’s very red face before turning to look at the expressionless Wang Ling with extremely complicated feelings.
After the spirit sword exchange meet, all the rumors about this pair gradually subsided. Now that Teacher Pan had put them together again, it felt like a lifetime ago.
Teacher Pan naturally had her own reasons for pairing them up.
There had indeed been rumors around school before that Wang Ling and Lotus Sun were dating and that they liked each other. The issue, however, was that this news later disappeared. In the end, Teacher Pan heard that it was because Wang Ling’s temperament was too cold, and so they had drifted apart.
Cold was good!
In terms of feelings, as long as one side was cold, it was impossible for anything to happen!
Hence, Teacher Pan felt that there weren’t any problems with this pairing.
Wang Ling: “…” To hell with no problems!
…
Shortly after the class committee meeting, the whole class found out about the one-on-one tutoring sessions. Apart from that, the thirty-three PE lessons which they had been deprived of naturally became another hot topic of discussion.
“Why didn’t you fight for it?!” someone complained.
“You know what Old Pan is like – is there any use fighting?” Super Chen shrugged helplessly. His title as sports committee member had long become an empty one. They actually wouldn’t even get all thirty-three lessons; the PE teachers might go off on a research trip or might fall ill collectively – these lesson periods might be snatched away for all sorts of mysterious reasons… It would be a miracle if they could get twenty PE lessons this semester.
Since the second half of Senior Grade One was already like this, it was inevitable that everyone would start worrying about their days in Grade Two and Grade Three, and they distinctly felt the pressure. Once they actually reached Grade Three, they could forget about PE classes altogether… Usually, the school would just round up the students for intensive training before the PE exam.
As for the two whom Teacher Pan had roped together, Wang Ling and Lotus Sun had their own thoughts.
When it came to feelings, Lotus Sun knew she had run into an iron plate this time… Throughout the first semester, she had racked her brain for ways to catch Wang Ling’s attention, but in the end, all he ever did in class was rest his head on one hand and look out the window.
She thought at first that their relationship would progress after the spirit sword exchange meet, but who would have thought that Wang Ling truly didn’t plan to date anyone.
A melon that was forcibly split open wasn’t sweet; Lotus Sun of course knew this.
But no matter what, this one-on-one tutoring session was a very rare opportunity.
She felt it was time to let out what she had been hiding inside her heart for so long.
The outcome didn’t matter.
On the other side, Wang Ling seemed to have something on his mind at that moment.
…
School had ended and everyone had already left the classroom. Wang Ling and Lotus Sun sat facing each other over a desk.
She was flipping through his mistakes and test papers.
After all, her main task was to help Wang Ling with his studies and improve his grades; as for personal matters, they could wait to talk about it after the tutoring.
She examined each of his mistakes very conscientiously, and in the end was utterly astonished. “Classmate Wang Ling…”
“???”
“How are your mistakes so consistent?”
“…”
Lotus Sun checked Wang Ling’s test papers from beginning to end, and discovered that a lot of the mistakes which Wang Ling made were minor ones, such as missing units, deliberately leaving out some symbols, or getting the last step in solving a question wrong… Furthermore, his answer was very close to the correct value.
All of these were actually tricks Wang Ling tended to use to keep his scores down.
If he didn’t write down the units of measurement in a test paper, he could ensure that he lost ten marks for it.
There were times when he deliberately wrote the paper in a slovenly hand, and five marks or so might be taken off for it.
Wang Ling didn’t care about losing these sorts of marks at all.
On the contrary, units of measurement and whatnot were nothing more than a means of keeping his scores down.
Lotus Sun then copied down several questions in an exercise book.
She didn’t copy the exact questions, but changed some of the variables.
At last, she pushed the exercise book in front of Wang Ling. “Classmate Wang Ling, these are the questions you got wrong; can you do them one more time?”
Gazing at the exercise book, Wang Ling sank into silence.
