I'm A Math Idiot, So What? - Chapter 11

I sat back in my seat as my phone vibrated; it was a reply from the dorm leader, Zhang Ziqin, to the photo I had just sent.

Zhang Ziqin: Wow! So handsome!

I looked at the blurry photo on my phone where even the facial features were indistinguishable, and quietly closed the chat window.

Then, my phone completely ran out of battery and the screen went black.

Putting down my phone, I deeply inhaled as I felt a jab at my back once again.

Does he think that good-looking people really can do whatever they please?

Honestly, my anger right now could completely be described with the phrase “my hair stands on end in rage.” I wish I could mount a Zhuge Crossbow on top of my head, transforming each of my hairs into sharp arrows to shoot that lunatic behind me into a sieve!

I’m willing to trade my baldness for the peace of the world.

How much courage did Fish Leong give him that he still dares to harass me!

I raised my book to block the professor’s view in front and turned my head, speaking in a voice controlled with difficulty to remain calm: “Hey, classmate, stealing small things like needles leads to stealing bigger ones like gold. You jabbing my spine now—if I don’t scold you or beat you up, it’s tantamount to enabling you to jab people’s eyes out in society later.”

Fang Congxin seemed to listen with interest and said nonchalantly, “Ah, I just wanted to return your pen and paper. But since you mentioned the issue of stealing little to stealing big, why don’t we discuss it now?” He leaned on his hand and said, “Don’t you think Professor Fang misunderstood me earlier? What I was talking about wasn’t just you providing answers to others; the main issue was actually exposing your vile behavior of copying others’ answers. I’ll explain this to the teacher after class, and I’m sure he will act fairly, cancel the penalty, and restore the original mark.”

Pfft!

Allow me to wipe the blood I just coughed up.

I chose a balanced decibel level between intimidating the enemy and being discovered by the teacher, and shouted emotionally, “You’re talking nonsense!”

He leisurely twirled my Carrot Pen and looked at me, saying, “Then tell me, what is the answer to the last question?”

My phone was dead, so I couldn’t check Xu Zheng’s original answer. I had to go with the number I remembered and said, “52.”

He laid down the pen and said slowly, “Think again.”

Are we playing a bigger or smaller game here? “52. You can ask me a hundred times, and it’ll still be 52.”

He chuckled and said, “Actually, the answer is √2.””You started with the second-to-last step, changing √2 into 52.”

He drew a square root sign in the air and then traced a 5, looking at me with meaning.

I understood. The handwritten forms of the square root sign and the number 5 are quite similar. If you don’t pay attention while copying, it’s easy to make mistakes. Just like in high school when I copied q/b as 9/6, and when something seemed off at the end, I smartly changed it to 3/2. This resulted in over a dozen people in class having the mysterious 3/2 in their answers, and eventually, the math teacher, becoming a Conan-like detective, traced it all back to me as the original mischief maker and hung my homework on the wall for public display for several days.

Memories from the past that are too painful to recall are now vivid again. It felt like someone hit my weak spot, and I couldn’t say anything. After holding back for a while, I feebly repeated, “You’re talking nonsense!”

He shrugged, “Well then, I’ll discuss it with the teacher later. At that time, I suggest you redo the problem along with your original thought process. Although even if you do it, it would still be wrong and meaningless, at least it’d be self-evident, right?”

Damn it.

It’s the first time I’ve seen a report treated like a sports match with separate halves and a “preview of the next round”!

I said, “Do as you please,” while internally panicking as if the Eight-Nation Alliance had just swept through.

One of the reasons I chose this class is because the daily grade accounts for 20 points. Although I lack innate talent for math, I do have the brute force needed to learn it. Let’s put it this way: even if I got hit by a car today, I would crawl into the classroom with a limp to earn my attendance points.

Superstitions didn’t deceive me; my eyelids kept twitching today, indicating that trouble indeed came out of the blue. The uncalled-for deduction of 10 points already left my grades hanging by a thread. If it’s 15 points, then it’s like an official stamp certifying my direct descent into academic purgatory.