I'm A Math Idiot, So What? - Chapter 61

Before leaving Zhao Xianhu’s office, I leaned in close and, in a rapid-fire burst, blurted out, “The female lead in that drama later commits suicide!”

Then I slipped away amidst Zhao Xianhu’s enraged howl, “Lin Meng, I’ll kill you!”

Since I was already at the Information Management Center, why not check on Fang Congxin?

I bought an Americano downstairs and strolled leisurely to his office. Peeking through the window, I cupped my hands to block the glare and saw the room was empty.

I ambled over to the conference room door. Before I could even ask, the half-bald young man I’d met before opened the door. Seeing me, he muttered, “You finally came,” then turned to shout excitedly, “Chief Fang, Lin Meng is here to see you!”

The massive conference room held only Fang Congxin and Little Baldy. Without looking up, Fang Congxin said tersely, “Busy. Tell her to wait.”

I called out from the doorway, “How long do I have to wait?”

Fang Congxin ignored me.

Little Baldy whispered to me, “It shouldn’t be long. We’re almost finished here.” Then he turned to Fang Congxin and asked, “Chief Fang, will five minutes be enough?”

Fang Congxin retorted, “Make her wait the time it takes for an incense stick to burn.”

“Oh,” Little Baldy said, then glanced at me with a gossipy air. “Did you two have a fight?”

“No, we didn’t,” I said, feigning a loud voice. “Did we argue?”

Fang Congxin remained silent, neither looking up nor responding.

Little Baldy gave me a particularly sympathetic look. “You two definitely had a fight. Little Chief Fang has been radiating low pressure all week.”

“So what if your Little Chief Fang’s in a bad mood?” I retorted. “What does that have to do with us arguing? Besides, we really didn’t argue.”

I sat by the conference room door for a while.

Brother Sun came over again, phone in hand, asking me to help him play Candy Crush. Bored, I played a few rounds. Brother Sun casually remarked, “Want to hear some gossip?”

“You’re a tech guy—since when did you become so gossipy?” I asked. “Did Little Tiger teach you?”

“So, you gonna listen or what?”

“Fine, tell me.”

“A few days ago, some old guy came looking for Xiao Xiao. They were arguing by the stairs when I happened to see them while smoking in the hallway.”

“Really?” I said, nonchalantly clearing a row of colored blocks. “What did the old man look like?”

“Kind of shabby and mean-looking. Xiao Xiao seemed pretty flustered, but she didn’t call for help, so it didn’t look like she didn’t know him.”

“Beauty in distress—why didn’t you play the hero?”

“I wanted to, but Little Chief Fang beat me to it. He was apparently on a call downstairs near the staircase and heard the commotion.”

“What happened next?”

“Later, Little Chief Fang seemed to have gotten into a fight with that old man. Xiao Xiao burst into tears and clung to Little Chief Fang, sobbing against his chest.

“Then Little Chief Fang said, ‘Let’s go somewhere no one can see us,’ and they left.”

“You didn’t go with them?”

“I’m not that naive.”

Brother Sun paused, lowering his voice to confide, “Recently, seeing you bring meals here day after day and getting so cozy with Little Chief Fang, we all thought something was brewing between you two. But who knew—sigh—Little Chief Fang is young and accomplished, a technical genius, but when it comes to his personal life… well, let’s just say he’s a bit of a playboy.

“Lin Meng, there’s no point in stubbornly waiting for Little Chief Fang here. He’s already dumped you for someone new. You’re not the kind of woman who can be summoned at will and discarded like trash. Have some dignity. Just give up. The entire System Group is waiting for you to choose someone. Don’t hang yourself on a single branch.”

I finished my game and looked up at Brother Sun. “With so many people in the System Group, who should I choose?”

“Pick anyone you like.”

“How about you, Brother Sun?”

“Keep looking.”

“I think you’re pretty great, Brother Sun.”

“Don’t be so subjective. Think about other options.”

“Ah, they’re calling me to a meeting. Gotta run!”

I waited alone outside the conference room for a while longer.

Little Baldy had just poured a glass of water and was about to go back inside when I called out to him, “Could you ask him how much longer he’ll be?”

Clutching the water glass, Little Baldy shouted, “Chief Fang, Lin Meng wants to know how much longer you’ll be!”

Fang Congxin replied, “Tell her she can leave if she can’t wait. Nobody’s forcing her to stay.”

Little Baldy gave me a look that said, I didn’t hear anything, but I hope you did.

I smiled at him and said, “Then I’ll trouble you with one more message. Tell him I can’t wait any longer. I’m leaving. This coffee’s gone a bit cold; feel free to drink it if you don’t mind. Thank you.”

With that, I pushed open the fire exit on the other side of the room and descended the emergency staircase.

As I reached the corner, I paused, thinking, This is probably where Tong Xiao leaned against Fang Congxin.

Tch, why are you taking your anger out on me?!

I sent you those photos of Tong Xiao and Su Xu, so why are you blaming me? Besides, I even retracted them because I was afraid you’d misunderstand. Yes, I saw you were “typing,” so you definitely saw the photos. But their secret rendezvous was real, not something I fabricated out of thin air. Did I deserve this treatment?

Killing the donkey after it grinds the mill? Couldn’t even wait a little longer?!

Fuck you! I’ll never like you!

You and your Tong Xiao can fuck off.

The world will keep spinning without you, and I’ll still pass math.

I’m not going to cry.

I cried all my tears when I couldn’t play the piano anymore.

And you have the nerve to tell me, “You can cry”? Pfft!

Waaaaaaah!

Sobbing, I ran home, slammed my bedroom door, and reflexively turned on my webcam. Sniffling, I started my homework.

There are too many fickle people in this world. Math might be more reliable than any of them.

After solving two problems, Xu Zheng called, urging me to come out and hang out. “I saw the candle you left me online,” he said. “You finally remembered my birthday this year! Come cut the cake and blow out real candles with us.”

I glanced at the calendar, noticing the cake doodle beside the date, and realized it was indeed Xu Zheng’s birthday. “I can’t come,” I said. “I didn’t get you a gift.”

“As if you ever did in previous years! I specially ordered a hotpot-flavored cake just for you. Same place as always, Wang Ziqi’s coming too. Hurry up!”

With the birthday boy insisting like that, I had no choice but to go.

Xu Zheng’s birthday party was at a bar in Changning, near the consulate district. It was the same bar Fang Congxin had scoffed at—the one where he’d said, “What are college students doing in a bar?”

Tch.

Back then, I thought going to bars made you seem so mature and worldly, but I never dared go alone. So Xu Zheng booked a small private room at a bar for his birthday party, just to give me a taste of it.

I’d already had three “tastes,” and stepping into a bar again this year, all I saw was garish lights and deafening noise.

“Why do you look so out of it? Are you sick?” Xu Zheng asked as soon as he saw me.

Wang Ziqi, who had arrived earlier, chimed in, “Yeah, you seemed fine this afternoon!”

I rubbed my nose. “The office AC was blowing right on me for a while, and now I have a headache.”

“Feeling awful?” Xu Zheng asked. “I’ll go get you some medicine.”

I grabbed his arm. “No need. I’ll just drink some water and leave early.”

“Then lie down on the sofa for a bit,” Xu Zheng suggested. “There’s a pillow there, and I’ll ask the server for a blanket.”

I took his advice and lay down. Soon, more of Xu Zheng’s friends trickled in.

We’d all met before, so I nodded hello and listened to their casual chatter for a while before they started playing Werewolf.

At first, I managed to join in, but before long, I must have drifted off. It wasn’t a deep sleep—just a hazy awareness of someone pressuring Xu Zheng to drink.

I don’t know how much Xu Zheng had drunk, but he kept lamenting that his postgraduate entrance exam prospects were likely doomed.

Wang Ziqi teased, “Hey, are you applying to our school just for Lin Meng?”

Xu Zheng retorted, “If I were after Lin Meng, I’d apply to the History Department. Why would I bother with the Department of Mathematics?”

The others chimed in, daring him to apply to History. “If you’re so tough, tell us the name of China’s last emperor first!”

“Wasn’t it Sun Yat-sen?” Xu Zheng blurted out.

Everyone pounced on him, beating him up while yelling, “This is what you get for disrespecting the Father of the Nation, Mr. Sun!”

After the beating, Wang Ziqi pressed him again, “When are you finally going to confess your feelings for Lin Meng? Wait any longer, and you’ll miss your chance forever. You might as well give up now.”

Then Wang Ziqi started singing: “You wanted to break up, so we broke up. Now you want to win me back with your ‘true love’?”

Soon, everyone joined in the chorus.

Before drifting off to sleep, I thought, “No wonder Xu Zheng strictly forbids us from singing ‘Love Is a Transaction’ at KTV, yet Wang Ziqi always insists on it. So that’s why.”

I’d always thought Xu Zheng had refined taste. Turns out he just had a crush on me. Clearly, his taste isn’t as refined as I thought.

After all these years, someone actually likes me.

Someone’s singing “Open the door, little rabbit” outside my heart again.

But this time it’s different. My house already has someone inside.

By the time I woke up, the party was winding down.

Dazed, I joined them in blowing out the candles, took a bite of the strangely flavored cake, and was forced to down a few shots of liquor before finally heading home.

Under the knowing glances of everyone else, Xu Zheng was specially assigned to escort me back.

I walked with a heavy heart, dreading he might use my birthday as an excuse to confess his feelings.

As we neared my neighborhood, Xu Zheng said ominously, “Walking like this, heads down, not saying a word, we look like hell’s messengers escorting a ghost to the Underworld.”

His words made my hair stand on end. I jumped and smacked him hard. “Why did you scare me like that?!”

Xu Zheng grinned mischievously and grabbed my hand. “Lin Meng, if you’re scared, I’ll hold your hand from now on, okay?”

You’re even scarier than ghosts, I thought, struggling to pull away. “Xu Zheng—” He immediately released my hand. “I know you heard me.”

“What did I hear—” I stammered under his gaze, my heart racing. “I might have caught a sliver of something.”

Xu Zheng sighed. “Ah, I guess this is me paying my dues. I’ve always felt like such a jerk for making you cry so publicly at Taixi Plaza all those years ago.”

“You—you saw me crying?!”

Even though it had been years since that embarrassing, tearful scene, the thought of someone having witnessed it still stung.

“I wasn’t crying because of a broken heart,” I protested. “I was just mortified.”

“And later, you went to such lengths to help me, Lin Meng. You’re truly a kind person. What’s that saying again? ‘God kisses me with pain, and I repay Him with song’? That’s you, isn’t it?”

“Oh, shut up with the ‘repay Him with song’ nonsense,” I retorted. “With my singing skills, God would probably think I was trying to get revenge on Him!”

Xu Zheng burst into uproarious laughter that went on for a long time. It struck me as a little excessive, and the way he ended the laugh felt forced.

He wiped his face and said, “Lin Meng, I was going to tell you all this after the graduate school entrance exam. But on the way back, I decided not to take it after all.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah. The first word in the fourth-level vocabulary list is ‘abandon,’ and your famous quote is, ‘Nothing is too difficult in life, as long as you’re willing to give up.'”

“Hey—” Xu Zheng chuckled. “I just figured it out. Studying and confessing are the same—you can’t force either.

I’m just not cut out for academics. I only considered grad school as a way to work up the nerve to confess to you. Honestly, I had no idea what I’d even do with a degree, and let’s face it, I’d never get in anyway.

I’ve always been a procrastinator, putting things off until the last possible moment.

It’s the same with English, and it’s the same with my feelings.

That’s how I was then, and that’s how I am now.”

He pulled a faded movie ticket from his wallet and showed it to me. “Lin Meng, I don’t know why, but I kept this ticket for Big Fish & Begonia—the movie we almost saw together all those years ago.

Look, last year you could still faintly see the title, but now the thermal paper is completely blank.

If you ever had even the slightest bit of hope for me, by now it’s probably faded away without a trace, just like this ticket, right?

So, I’m not taking the exam, and I’m not confessing either.”

“Oh,” I murmured, lowering my head.

Xu Zheng spread his arms wide. “Aren’t you going to give me a hug?”

I stepped forward and patted his shoulder. “Xu Zheng.”

“What’s wrong?”

“We’re still friends, right?”

“Of course.”

“Then you’ll still transfer my monthly meal money, right?”

“Fuck you, you old bastard.

I’m leaving now. Drink plenty of water and don’t catch a cold.”

“Mm.

Xu Zheng, thank you for everything.

Happy Birthday!”

“Get lost! Don’t ever speak English to me again!”

He grumbled, “Why the hell did I have to be born on this damn Singles’ Day?!

Forever alone!”

I smiled wryly. “Sayonara.”

Fang Congxin’s Memo:

Tell yourself ten times: She’s so wonderful, she deserves to be loved by many.

But every time I see those people, I get angry and think, “Why does she have to be so wonderful?”