Let's Do Some Questions - Chapter 57

How awkward.

Song Man watched Chu Fengqiu approach, only then belatedly realizing that Chu Fengqiu seemed only slightly surprised to see her.

At this point, Song Man couldn’t even care about the awkwardness anymore, looking at Chu Fengqiu with a probing gaze.

Did this sister already know, or was she just naturally this calm?

If she was just calm, Song Man would respect her composure. But if she knew beforehand, it would be utterly mortifying.

Especially considering the question she asked about the change a couple of days ago, Song Man was internally cursing herself for asking such a stupid question.

However, Song Man thought the former was more likely. After all, she felt her disguise was pretty good… no, not really good. With her sudden drastic improvement in grades, Song Man started regretting her passionate effort to raise her scores so quickly.

“Guess who I am?”

Chu Fengqiu leaned next to Song Man, her fingers gently smoothing Song Man’s wind-blown hair, her voice soft.

“Aren’t you Chu Feng… You’re Ah Q?!”

Song Man answered subconsciously, but then suddenly realized something, her eyes widening.

Holy crap!

Why hadn’t she thought of it before?!

Q was short for Qiu. She remembered when she played the MOBA game with Chu Fengqiu, that was her name. How could she not have thought of it?!

Song Man had never connected the two people. In her mind, Ah Q was a good brother she met online, very skilled, quite steady in personality, and she pictured him as a boy wearing glasses.

Chu Fengqiu was her good friend in real life, good at academics but not arrogant at all. Getting to know her, Song Man found her to be quite cool and reserved, but when they connected, she felt Chu Fengqiu was genuinely a great person, very comfortable to be around, and also beautiful.

So even though there were some subtle similarities, Song Man hadn’t thought in that direction at all, and naturally hadn’t connected them.

“You guessed right. Actually, at the very beginning, I thought you were very much like A Man, but later I decided you weren’t. I didn’t expect my initial guess was accurate.”

Song Man was still processing the fact that her online good brother and her real-life good sister were the same person when Chu Fengqiu dropped another piece of news, leaving her stunned.

“Wait a minute, you mean, you guessed I was A Man from the very beginning? When was that?”

When exactly was that “very beginning”?! Did she expose herself that early?! And she just arrived, she didn’t even say she was A Man! How did Chu Fengqiu pinpoint her so accurately?!

“The first time we met.”

Chu Fengqiu narrowed her eyes, seemingly recalling that slightly dazzling sunny afternoon. The fair-skinned, cool-faced girl threw a paper ball in her direction, and since then, the trajectory of her feelings had taken a turn because of that small paper ball.

Sometimes Chu Fengqiu would wonder, if she hadn’t passed by there that afternoon, or hadn’t picked up that paper ball, would she not have become curious about Song Man, and would she not have become like this?

Chu Fengqiu thought about it, then dismissed the idea.

It would have been the same. Even without that paper ball, Song Man would have appeared by her side, and she would have been drawn again by the light she emitted, falling deeply and uncontrollably once more.

“The first time we met? The time you knocked on my desk?”

In Song Man’s memory, her first meeting with Chu Fengqiu was when she was hunched over doing practice problems during morning self-study, her desk was knocked, and she looked up to see Chu Fengqiu.

Could it be that Chu Fengqiu saw her doing practice problems then?

Song Man was confused, but she should have exited the app by then.

“No, that was our third meeting.”

“Third time?”

Song Man’s voice rose, her face full of confusion.

She was genuinely bewildered. How could she not remember the first two times?

“But I don’t remember seeing you before.”

“It’s normal that you don’t remember. Maybe you didn’t even see my face clearly. The first time was in a park. You had just finished a problem, and the paper ball landed in front of me.”

Song Man remembered. Her initial impression of Chu Fengqiu was picking up trash.

The thing she clearly threw towards the trash can ended up with Chu Fengqiu. It was truly creepy, okay?

“The second time was when I saw you climbing over the wall.”

“Huh?”

Song Man fell into thought. She had climbed walls countless times; how would she know which time it was?

Chu Fengqiu, however, remembered perfectly and even stated the time.

“So that person standing like a ghost under the wall that day was you! You scared me back then.”

Song Man remembered it was already dark then. Turning around and seeing a dark figure standing silently below would scare anyone.

“You guessed it just based on that one piece of paper?”

Song Man was quite surprised. Chu Fengqiu’s observational skills were like a detective’s, and a bit mystical.

“Because the style of solving problems was somewhat similar.”

“It’s not like there aren’t similar people in the world.”

“I can’t really explain it, it was just a kind of intuition.”

“Women’s intuition is truly amazing.”

“Oh right, when you were at my place, did you lend your account to someone else?”

After this conversation, Song Man’s awkwardness disappeared. She sat down casually on a chair, completely avoiding the topic of her previous lie to Chu Fengqiu about going to an internet cafe. She was looking at the problems on the whiteboard very seriously, the scene so harmonious it was as if she had come with Chu Fengqiu from the start.

Chu Fengqiu didn’t disturb her, just watched her profile, her expression gentle.

Not guessing wrong made her very happy. Chu Fengqiu was happy to have new topics, new bonds, and new connections with Song Man. This meant their relationship could last longer.

Song Man wasn’t originally looking at the problems. She was thinking about what topic to talk about with Chu Fengqiu to get rid of this annoying subtle feeling, but she accidentally glanced at the problem and found it quite interesting. Then she threw the awkward feeling to the back of her mind and picked up a pen to write on the whiteboard.

The room was quiet, then footsteps sounded.

“This place is too hardcore, isn’t it? So many whiteboards, and problems on the tables. It really is an offline meeting just for exams.”

A boy in a blue hoodie walked in, looking around and clicking his tongue in wonder.

Xiang Ziling originally thought he was the only one in this innermost area. As he walked in, he even did a freestyle rap. Just as he was getting into it, he saw two girls looking at him.

Two girls with different styles, one looking gentle and reserved, the other looking beautiful and cool. They immediately made him shut up, and he even felt a little shy.

“Hello.”

Xiang Ziling was quite embarrassed.

Song Man and Chu Fengqiu both greeted him, then Song Man continued writing the problem, and Chu Fengqiu continued watching Song Man.

Xiang Ziling stood there, suddenly feeling a bit redundant for some reason.

“Uh, I’m Zhuazhua, how about you guys?”

Xiang Ziling was a hyperactive chatterbox. His main purpose for coming this time was to see his big brother A Man. Now there were only two girls in the room, meaning A Man definitely hadn’t arrived yet. And he was someone who couldn’t stay quiet, so he spoke up again.

Hearing this, Song Man glanced at her “little brother.”

She and Zhuazhua were relatively familiar. In her mind, Zhuazhua was a lively little boy about 1.6 meters tall, but clearly, reality was different. The boy standing there looked quite tall, quite well-behaved, and seemed very quiet when not talking. Then Song Man recalled the rap he was doing when he just came in.

Never mind.

“I’m Ah Q.”

Chu Fengqiu saw that Song Man hadn’t finished that problem yet and seemed not to want to talk much, so she introduced herself first.

“Holy cow, oh my god, you’re Ah Q, Q-Shen?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my heavens, if Brother Man knew his opponent was always such a beautiful girl, I wonder if he’d be overjoyed.”

Xiang Ziling had already pictured A Man exclaiming, “There’s such a good thing?” Although Brother Man was the most hardcore straight guy on the Question Bank, with this kind of looks, it was impossible not to be tempted.

“No, is A Man that exaggerated in your mind?”

Song Man stopped writing the problem. Was her image in Zhuazhua’s mind that lustful?!

“Of course it’s not exaggerated! It’s just, who doesn’t like pretty girls? Right?”

Song Man thought about it. What he said was right, who doesn’t like pretty girls?

“Besides, you’re also very pretty, miss. Oh right, who are you?”

“Your Brother Man.”

Song Man casually dropped this line, waiting to see Zhuazhua come over and call her “brother.” Instead, Zhuaziling burst into a frantic laughter.

“Hahahaha, miss, please don’t joke! How could you be Brother Man? Brother Man is such a hardcore straight guy, I even thought he was a big guy over 1.8 meters tall. How could it be you, hahahaha.”

Xiang Ziling kept laughing, then saw Song Man’s expression getting colder and colder, her eyes slowly filling with “killing intent,” and his laughter gradually weakened.

“Ha… ha… ha… Wuwuwuwu Brother Man, I was wrong, I was really wrong.”

Xiang Ziling couldn’t laugh anymore. Under that gaze full of killing intent, he burst into tears, repenting his mistake.

“I feel really weird right now.”

After calming down, Xiang Ziling looked at Song Man, wanting to say something but hesitating.

“How so?”

“It’s like I arranged to hang out with my brother, and he suddenly turned into a cross-dresser.”

It was truly terrifying.

Xiang Ziling had not expected that the big brother who had always guided him with a simple and rough style was the slender and beautiful girl in front of him. His worldview was completely restructured.

“Did you not do enough problems? Come here and PK.”

Song Man beckoned to Xiang Ziling, who immediately remembered the fear of being dominated and shook his head repeatedly.

“Lao Chu, want to compete?”

Song Man tilted her chin towards Chu Fengqiu. Chu Fengqiu readily agreed, chose a test paper from the table, and handed one to Song Man.

“You have the answers, right?”

Song Man looked at the staff member who had been standing nearby. The person nodded, indicating they could start the competition now and he would be the referee.

They sat on chairs facing opposite directions, backs against each other.

Song Man uncapped her pen and, at the staff member’s whistle, began to write.

The biggest difference between real-life PK and online PK was probably that Song Man knew the person was behind her. That feeling of tension and excitement was much stronger than online, especially since that person was Chu Fengqiu.

It was Chu Fengqiu.

She had always wondered when she could compete with Chu Fengqiu, only to find out that the other person was the opponent she had competed against many times and affirmed.

That feeling was magical. Song Man held her pen, writing the answers on the paper, completely focused.

Chu Fengqiu was equally focused. She knew that giving her all was the respect Song Man wanted.

They sat back-to-back, and without realizing it, even their breathing was in sync.