I'm A Math Idiot, So What? - Chapter 4

I took out my notebook and opened to the first page, where it was filled with red ink saying “No Sleeping Allowed.” The last few characters started to trail off.

I wrote that during my first class. I had intended to emulate the ancient scholars who hung their heads on beams and stabbed their thighs with awls to stay awake. To remind myself not to fall asleep too quickly, I inscribed those four characters while listening to the teacher talk about metaphysics.

But things didn’t go as planned. The crumpled area in the bottom right corner is where I drooled back then. Ah, no, it was tears of regret.

On the second page, it also says “No Sleeping Allowed.” It wasn’t as filled as the first page because I fell asleep even faster than in the previous class.

I turned to the blank third page. What makes a person human is the ability to strive forward. I swear to the heavens, in this class, no matter what, I need to fill two pages before I can sleep!

The math professor’s surname is Fang. He looks around his forties, tall and fit, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with a touch of an old Hong Kong star’s vibe. If he were twenty years younger, he’d definitely be one of those trendy youthful heartthrobs. Perhaps then, I wouldn’t be pondering how to sleep less during math class.

I should be figuring out how to sleep with him, right?

Amitabha, what a moral decline!

Hehehe.

Professor Fang seemed to be in a good mood today, smiling pleasantly and looking quite approachable. When he talked about something he found amusing, he even threw in a few sentences in dialect, adding a bit of humor.

At this moment, he drew a perfect circle on the blackboard freehand and marked four points inside it, labeling them with four letters: P1, P2, P3, and P4.

I’m not very fond of P; it darts here and there like ADHD, sometimes seeking areas, other times looking for tangents. Half the issues in mathematics are sparked by it, making it the equivalent of Su Daqiang in the math world.Professor Fang then began to analyze the relationship between these four moving points. He drew a web over them, and after finishing, he mentioned an incredibly long theorem name. I felt that the word was like the sticky cowhide candy my mom used to buy when I was young, which could be stretched into a long, thin thread.

The candy thread seemed to stick onto the newly drawn spider web under Professor Fang’s chalk, forming a thin membrane that floated up lightly, drifting along with the air conditioning, and slowly settled over my head, covering my entire face. I could vaguely see Professor Fang moving around the podium through this layer, but his voice was as indistinct as the mist rising over the ocean.

I tried to focus and wrote the characters “No” before my face accidentally landed on the desk with a thud.

No, no, I cannot sleep.

I propped my eyes open and wrote “Sleeping,” only to have Professor Fang’s words come at me like a soft yet powerful blow, knocking me down.

Based on my biological clock from the past two mathematics classes, I was supposed to wake up after class ended. But today, perhaps my brain was jolted awake by the strong survival instinct of my nervous system—like a sudden electric shock—I abruptly returned to reality from the dream.

The moment I opened my eyes, I was a bit dazed by the rapid scene change, groggily trying to grasp what day it was.

Then I heard the amiable Professor Fang casually drop a bombshell: “Let’s do an impromptu quiz now so I can gauge everyone’s level and adjust future lessons. Don’t worry, this assessment won’t count toward your grades; just perform according to your actual ability.”

I sat bolt upright like a sick patient on the brink of death. Teacher, you appear so kind and gentle, yet secretly you’re about to pounce on unsuspecting prey! Whether the test counts towards grades or not, like a Western duel, it should be announced with time and place beforehand. Improvising a free-style like this could kill us!

The three questions on the slideshow weren’t the sweet little multiple-choice ones or the cozy little fill-in-the-blanks. Instead, they were three major questions without any subdivisions, giving no step-by-step points and belonging to the cold-blooded assassin category.

Professor Fang wasn’t here to assess; he was here to bare all.