Let's Do Some Questions - Chapter 55

It was only when Song Man picked up her phone that she realized the call she had hung up was from her dad. She quickly called him back.

“Hey, Dad, what’s up?”

“Where were you last night? Housekeeper Liu said you went out to play last night and haven’t come home yet.”

Xu Qinglang had a time difference with China. After hanging up with Housekeeper Liu, he immediately called Song Man.

No matter how Song Man used to mess around, Xu Qinglang never allowed her to stay out overnight. She had to come home no matter how late it was.

Moreover, Xu Qinglang had emphasized to Song Man that she must protect herself and not get involved in anything bad. He was genuinely worried about Song Man picking up bad habits from certain circles.

“I’m at Chu Fengqiu’s place. We hung out together last night, and it got too late, so I didn’t go home. I’ll call Chu Fengqiu over.”

Song Man got out of bed in her slippers, holding her phone, and looked for Chu Fengqiu.

Chu Fengqiu was getting something for her from the closet and responded when she heard the sound.

“Uncle, Manman is at my place, staying with me.”

“That’s good.”

Xu Qinglang breathed a sigh of relief. Song Man took the phone back from Chu Fengqiu’s ear.

“Dad, you still don’t trust me?”

“Isn’t this double assurance? Alright, I’m hanging up, your mom is calling me.”

“Okay, you two get some rest early.”

“Alright, do you want me to bring you back any gifts?”

“Anything is fine, I don’t really want anything. But you can bring something back for Chu Fengqiu as a token of appreciation. She’s helped me a lot.”

Song Man winked at Chu Fengqiu as she spoke, trying to get some benefits for her.

“Oh, our Manman knows how to be nice to people now? Dad definitely won’t forget Fengqiu. Nothing else, so I’m hanging up now.”

“Okay, bye Dad.”

Song Man hung up the phone, put it on the sofa, and stretched.

Only then did she have time to look around the place. It was a simple three-bedroom, two-living room apartment. The space didn’t seem cramped, perhaps because there wasn’t much stuff. The living room only had a TV, a sofa, and a coffee table. The coffee table was bare. The whole environment was clean and tidy, except for some scattered beer cans on the floor, which they had brought yesterday. There was nothing else, it looked almost uninhabited.

But Song Man didn’t ask. She took the toothbrush Chu Fengqiu gave her and went to wash up.

After washing up, the two of them tidied up the place. As they left, Song Man looked around the interior again. It really did look like no one lived there.

Song Man returned home and was happy to eat an extra bowl of rice when she learned that Song Qinglan would be away on a business trip for over ten days.

Yesterday, she had felt like confronting Song Qinglan, but today, that feeling was gone.

Song Man returned to her life of doing practice problems and playing games. As for that dream, she never had it again.

Song Man knew it was just an accident. She didn’t have any desire to be in a relationship at all.

It wasn’t that she had absolutely no desire, Song Man just felt that relationships were particularly troublesome. It was equivalent to tying another person’s life to her own, and her own life would be interfered with by that person. Song Man felt annoyed just thinking about it.

Doing problems was much better.

Outside the window, clouds covered the moon, with only a few stars scattered about.

Song Man lay on her bed in her room and opened the Question Bank app.

Chu Fengqiu had just left her room after teaching her today’s homework.

Song Man was still the same as before. She would understand a little of what Chu Fengqiu taught her, then deliberately make mistakes on some variations, seriously pretending to be a poor student.

As soon as Chu Fengqiu left her room, she would flop onto the bed and relax.

After entering the Question Bank, Song Man checked Lingnan’s profile. The last login time was nine days ago.

This situation was not good, because none of them knew when Lingnan might collapse. They were strangers connected through the internet, yet familiar with each other, completely unable to see her current state.

Song Man planned to play PK. She checked the list, Ah Q was not online, neither was Chuanlin. The other strong players were either in PK or in Do Not Disturb mode.

Song Man didn’t want to actively PK against people much weaker than herself; bullying others was boring.

After thinking it over, she could only do practice problems by herself.

Song Man put on her headphones, set up her small bedside table, took out paper and pen from the cabinet, and started doing problems.

After washing up, Chu Fengqiu also logged into the Question Bank. She checked Lingnan’s profile, and then Ke Lingyu’s profile.

Lingnan hadn’t been online for nine days, and Ke Lingyu had disappeared from the Question Bank even earlier, not seen for twelve days.

Chu Fengqiu had tried sending messages to Ke Lingyu on the third day of Lingnan’s disappearance, but received no response. Ke Lingyu’s moments hadn’t been updated either, as if she had vanished into thin air.

Chu Fengqiu was a little worried that something had happened, but she could only contact Ke Lingyu and was completely unfamiliar with her senior’s social circle and family.

Chu Fengqiu couldn’t figure out the situation, so she could only wait and see. She clicked into the Improvement Training section to do some thinking exercises, keeping the matter in her heart.

After forty minutes of practice problems, Song Man turned off Do Not Disturb mode and saw that Ah Q was online. She poked the chat box to talk to Ah Q.

After all, she and Ah Q were the only ones who knew about Lingnan. If Song Man wanted to talk to someone, she could only talk to Ah Q.

【A Man】: Lingnan hasn’t been online for nine days.

【Ah Q】: En.

【A Man】: I’m a little worried something happened to her. Although I know it’s not good to think in a bad direction, but…

【Ah Q】: Maybe she’ll be back tomorrow.

【A Man】: You’re right, maybe she’ll be back tomorrow.

【A Man】: PK?

Song Man actually wanted to say that it would be great if the person Lingnan liked could see her one more time, but thinking about it, that was a more complex emotion than simple liking or disliking. In the end, she didn’t say the words and instead pulled Ah Q into a PK to distract herself.

When Song Man and Ah Q were PK-ing, the audience in the bullet chat were also distracted.

【Although I know this is insensitive, I’m wondering when Lingnan will be back.】

【Sister above, let’s drop this topic. Constantly mentioning it makes it sound like something happened to her. Maybe nothing is wrong at all.】

【Let’s watch the PK. I’m betting on Man Shen again this time!】

【I don’t know why, but now when I open the practice app, I feel like crying.】

【I want to cry too. Damn, these problems are too hard.】

Song Man didn’t look at the comments below when she was doing problems. She didn’t care if anyone was watching. During a match, her eyes were only on herself and her opponent.

This time, among the problems she chose, there was a new type that Song Man hadn’t encountered before. She found it a bit novel. She quickly read through the problem, broke it down in her mind, and thought about which method would be fastest to solve it.

She had done Improvement Training before and chose a faster advanced formula. All her attention was drawn to the problem in front of her.

What Song Man wanted was far more than just getting a high score. She wanted to make sure she could truly learn the problem, whether it was solving it forwards or backwards, or handling variations of the problem type.

【Hey! I saw this problem type on an extra credit question in a test today, but I didn’t know how to do it. Maybe I watched too many top students doing problems and got overconfident, even daring to look at the extra credit questions.】

【Sister above, do you know how to do it now?】

【Hahahahahaha, no.】

【When Q-Shen solves this, I feel like I’m vaguely getting it, but when I look at Man Shen, I’m completely lost.】

【Cheering for everyone, I used to be terrible at math, but then I followed Q-Shen’s thinking. I didn’t miss any of her PKs, and now my math score has increased by fifty points and is stable. Let’s all charge forward! Effort pays off!】

【Those with quick and flexible thinking can follow our Man Shen! The number one steel-straight man in the Question Bank, simple and brutal. There’s nothing you can’t think of that he can’t do.】

The certain steel-straight man submitted her paper and waited for the score.

Song Man felt that her efficiency this time was higher than usual and she should be able to beat Ah Q, but after the result came out, she smiled, finding it interesting.

As expected of the opponent she valued, she could indeed give her surprises.

Among the problems chosen this time, there was one Song Man hadn’t seen, but she wasn’t sure if Ah Q had encountered it. However, there was a relatively difficult moving point problem, which was why she was confident she could win. She didn’t expect it to be a tie?

【A Man】: Nice, bro. You strengthened your weak points?

【Ah Q】: Since I know it’s a weak point, of course I have to strengthen it.

Chu Fengqiu was someone who didn’t like to leave weaknesses. In fact, she wanted to do everything as perfectly as possible.

【A Man】: Nice, brother. By the way, you’re definitely going to the offline meetup at the end of the month, right?

【Ah Q】: Of course, see you then.

【A Man】: OK. See you then.

Song Man felt that she should be able to become friends with this teammate, at least good study partners.

However, the other person always thought she was a guy. They would probably be surprised when they saw her.

It was now November 10th, and the midterm exams were approaching. On November 23rd, it would be the Question Bank offline meetup.

Time always passed quickly. Song Man felt like the last monthly exam wasn’t long ago, and now it was already time for the midterm exam.

Everyone still spread out their desks like last time. Although Song Man was always at the bottom of the class, no one nagged about it.

The reason was simple: the homeroom teacher didn’t bring up the class average.

Since the homeroom teacher didn’t mention it, everyone naturally wouldn’t deliberately compare themselves to the class next door, only caring about their own ranking.

Chu Fengqiu still predicted problems for Song Man like she did for the last monthly exam and had Song Man memorize them.

“Is this what it feels like to ride coattails?”

Song Man sighed as she held the problem book.

“If you can remember most of it, your score should improve significantly. The problems might be slightly different, but the core problem-solving approach remains the same.”

Chu Fengqiu leaned next to Song Man, telling her about some potential traps in the problems and where she should pay attention.

Chu Fengqiu was truly patient and dedicated to helping Song Man improve. Although it wasn’t exactly hand-holding and forcing her to study, it was very effective. Song Man was also fortunate that she wasn’t forcing her, otherwise she would be depressed. The current state where she could ask if she didn’t understand and not ask if she didn’t want to was quite good.

“Lao Chu, have you thought about which university you want to go to?”

Song Man looked at Chu Fengqiu, who was explaining next to her, and suddenly thought of this question.

“Most likely physics.”

“Huh? I thought you’d be more interested in math.”

For physics, a top university in the capital would be great.

“Actually, I like physics more. What about you, where do you want to go?”

“Of course, Capital University… after all, it’s the coolest, but I don’t think it’s very likely.”

Song Man laughed it off, almost letting something slip, but managed to turn it around at the end.

Chu Fengqiu, however, caught glimpses of the truth from her words and pushed Song Man’s water towards her.

“It will be possible.”

Song Man just took it as encouragement and was noncommittal to the remark. Following Chu Fengqiu’s movement, she picked up the cup and took a sip of water.

The water moistened Song Man’s lips into a deep red. Chu Fengqiu’s expression was restrained, hiding her desire for her, and she pretended to casually move the problem book closer, leaning next to her to look at the problems.

It was a distance so close that Song Man could kiss her if she turned her head, but Song Man, with her head lowered, was completely unaware of this.