I'm A Math Idiot, So What? - Chapter 78

Chapter 78: No Retreat (4)

I followed him into the honeymoon suite, noticing there were no rose petals scattered on the bed. So much for TV clichés, I thought. Or maybe the hotel’s just being cheap.

Just as I was getting lost in these random thoughts, Fang Congxin suddenly jumped out of the bathroom.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He pointed at the glass. “There’s no shower curtain here.”

He was referring to the clear glass partition between the shower stall and the main room.

When we checked in earlier, the front desk had said they were out of honeymoon suites and asked if a honeymoon room would do.

A suite would just be a waste on me anyway, I’d thought. Economy rooms offer much better value for money. So I’d happily agreed. Little did I know the only “honeymoon” feature of this room was that glaringly transparent glass door.

I picked up the landline and asked the front desk if we could switch rooms.

According to rom-com logic, the answer should have been a resounding “no.”

But the receptionist said they had plenty of rooms available, just no king-size beds left, and asked if that would be a problem.

I hung up and Fang Congxin asked what the front desk had said.

“There are no other rooms available,” I replied reluctantly.

I mean, creating a cliché-ridden scene myself wouldn’t be that hard, I thought. No need to blame fate for a lousy plot.

Though I’m shameless enough, I still didn’t have the courage for a couple’s shower or watching a grown man bathe. So we turned off all the lights and took turns showering in the dark.

After our showers, the awkward tension in the air had thickened to the point where it felt like it was about to rain awkwardness.

I sat on the edge of the bed, tense as a drawn bow, thinking, Well, we’ve gotten this far. Just grit your teeth, close your eyes, and get it over with. Just then, Fang Congxin reached out and gently tugged my hand. My nerves were so taut I flinched violently, and before I knew it, some random circuit in my brain fired off the question: “Your mom… how did she pass away?”

Bringing up deceased elders at such a moment was a serious mood killer. Fang Congxin’s hand paused slightly before pulling me into his arms. He switched on the bedside lamp and began to tell me about his mother.

“She was the one who brought you into my life,” he said.

“My mom was born and raised in Taixi. They say she fell for my dad back in high school and chased him all the way to Beijing.

Dad dodged her for years, but she eventually wore him down.”

He chuckled. “Mom was such a lively person. She loved learning different dialects—her favorite was Sichuanese. She’d show off a few phrases whenever she was happy.

She also loved gardening, her favorite plant being the mimosa, the touch-me-not.

And she adored swimming—” He paused, as if searching for the right words, before finally saying, “Do you remember Old Lin and Sister Mei’s story?”

I nodded.

He continued, “My mom’s story is a bit like theirs—though not really.

One winter, while photographing in the suburbs, my mom witnessed a car blow a tire and plunge into a lake.

Without hesitation, she dove in to rescue the occupants.

The car held three adults and two children, none of whom could swim. My mom had to make multiple trips to pull them all out, one by one.

I sensed there was more to the story than he was letting on, so I leaned against his chest and listened until he finished.

Afterward, my mom and the rescued family were taken to the hospital by ambulance.

The family recovered quickly and was discharged before my mom. At the hospital, they showered her with gratitude, and after their release, they took turns visiting and personally tending to her meals.

Unfortunately, my mom’s recovery was far from ideal.

At first, she could still smile and chat with them, but her condition gradually deteriorated. The doctors diagnosed pulmonary emphysema, which progressed rapidly, showing signs of organ failure.

Eventually, the family’s visits became less frequent. One day, when my mom was having a relatively good day, she asked the visiting children where exactly they lived.

The adults sharply pulled the children back, and after that, the family stopped coming altogether.

I’ll never forget the look of heartbreak on my mom’s face that day.

Afterward, my mom spent a long time in Beijing undergoing treatment, enduring immense suffering, but her condition remained unstable.”

One day, Mom told Dad she missed the flowers in Taixi. So he took her back there for palliative care.

I knew she didn’t have much time left. I wanted to drop out of school, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She insisted life had its own order.

We finally compromised: I’d go back to Taixi to study, and she’d stay there to recuperate.

I had no idea back then that when he transferred to Taixi, he was going through such a painful time. My heart began to ache again.

Back then, I was filled with utter loathing for the world.

I couldn’t make sense of cause and effect. I felt it was unfair to my mother, and I was trapped in bitter resentment, unable to shake it off. I had absolutely no interest in studying.

I went to the new school in a daze. On my first day, I heard rumors about you from my classmates.

The news of your injury was all the rage at the time.

In your story, I saw another version of my own suffering self. That’s why I kept an eye on your every move.

I couldn’t help but glance up at him.

He smiled gently. “I thought you’d be just as angry and disillusioned with the world as I was. But even when the rumors online were so distorted, you still had the mind to ask your deskmate to copy homework. Though, I guess even that ended with me getting called to the principal’s office.

Oh, right—you were even confident enough to give others science answers. And after making a fool of yourself, you calmly went onstage to read a self-criticism speech.”

I always thought your brain cells must be pretty simple, unable to handle complex thoughts.

But then I saw your award-winning essay and all that original thinking in the homework you let me copy. It made me really curious about what kind of person you really were.

He paused, looking at me with obvious embarrassment. So I… followed you for a few days.

Huh?

I didn’t even realize I was stalking you at the time. I was just silently trailing behind you, letting my curiosity guide me.

It wasn’t until Yellow Hair beat me up that I realized what I’d been doing. I figured he’d figured out I was tailing you. I felt I deserved it and didn’t fight back.

I limped home all bruised, scaring my family half to death. I told Mom about you, and she was really happy to hear it.

Ever since that family disappeared from our world, Mom had been so gloomy, but that day she laughed for a long time.

She said she probably wasn’t as open-minded and clear-sighted as this Lin Meng girl.

A few days later, Mom passed away.

She left me a ring and told me that maybe one day, when I find a girl like that, I should give it to her.

“I didn’t know about that ring—” Fang Congxin shook his head. “Back then, I didn’t understand what my mom meant.

Later, my dad got his job back, and I transferred back to Beijing to study. My secret days of observing your life came to an abrupt end.

I felt an empty, aching void.

This discomfort didn’t fade with time; instead, it swelled, sometimes becoming so oppressive it made my head throb.

To alleviate it, I would occasionally check online to see what foolish things you’d been up to recently.”

…

“It wasn’t until one day in my senior year of high school, while self-studying calculus and revisiting Euler’s formula, that I finally understood.”

…

“When I first saw Euler’s formula as a child, I found it utterly perplexing. But after learning calculus, I was suddenly struck by its elegant simplicity, as if the clouds had parted to reveal a new world.

In that newfound world, the first person I encountered was you.”

I waved my hand dismissively. “I’m afraid you didn’t see the real me.

I have absolutely nothing to do with Euler or Aurora.”

Fang Congxin burst into laughter. “Come on, I’m just describing the feeling!

It was like a sudden epiphany in a wuxia novel—I instantly understood the reason for the heartache I felt when I couldn’t see you.”

I sat cross-legged, watching him. “Hey, you didn’t have any friends in high school you could confide in, right? If you’d just made a few more friends, you wouldn’t have needed to seek enlightenment from old Euler.”

Fang Congxin suddenly tugged my ear. “What’s your point?”

I swatted his hand away and rubbed my ear. “What point?”

Fang Congxin helped me rub my ear. “When I desperately needed to reconcile with the world, you rescued me from my caged-beast existence. You guided me, taught me how to love living in this awful yet hopeful world again—a world with interesting people like you.”

His words made me blush. “Am I really as great as you make me sound?”

He flicked my nose. “Absolutely. You’re my own little hero.”

I pouted. “Tch. They weren’t saying that about me in The Beauty of Mathematics class back then. ‘Steal a needle as a child, steal gold as an adult’—”

“I was furious back then.”

“What were you so mad about?”

“Mad that I’d been avoiding you for so long. Why did you come and bother me again?”

He paused, then added, “Also mad that you hadn’t come and bothered me sooner.”

I couldn’t possibly take responsibility for that, but his exasperated expression under the lamplight made him look especially endearing.

I couldn’t resist kneeling forward to kiss him.

He pulled me back into his arms, lowering his head to meet my lips. He licked me teasingly, like a cat playing with its prey. The tickling sensation made me want to scratch, but he pinned my hands down, cupping the back of my head as he kissed me recklessly.

At this point, in a cheesy idol drama, the scene would cut to the next morning.

The camera doesn’t linger for two reasons: partly to avoid corrupting young viewers, and partly because the actual process isn’t as simple or easy as I’d imagined.

Before our warm skin grew accustomed to the familiar scent of our love, we went through several rounds of me kicking him off, him climbing back on, and me kicking him off again.

Fang Congxin said, “It’s just like solving math problems. The more you practice, the better you get.”

He should have kept math out of it. As soon as he mentioned it, I kicked him off again.

But he was probably more determined than me in everything. So the problems that needed solving got solved, and the things that needed doing got done.

The next morning, when I woke up and stretched, I noticed a giant heart drawn with the hotel’s ballpoint pen over the scar on my left hand.

On the ring finger of my right hand was a new ring.

A slender silver band shimmered faintly in the sunlight.

Days drifted by at a leisurely pace.

Preparations for our school’s centennial celebration finally kicked into high gear.

Our guerrilla task force went from idleness to frantic activity overnight, without any transition period.

Poor me—my salary was halved while my workload doubled. I was running around like a headless chicken all day, yet still couldn’t keep up.

Fang Congxin, seeing how stressed I was, brought coffee for everyone in the office and urged me to step outside for some fresh air.

After this happened a couple of times, the others caught on. Whenever they wanted coffee, they’d ramp up their demands, exploiting me even more.

Ugh, what a bunch of heartless jerks!

Aunt Yuan’s years-long grudge gradually dissolved during her argument with Yuan Chongfeng. After inspecting his dormitory, she immediately dragged my mom to look for a new place.

To make it easier for the two families to support each other, Aunt Yuan specifically chose an apartment building across from our complex, complete with all the amenities.

Both moms spent the entire winter break holed up in Changning.

My mom wanted to mend her relationship with her sister, while Aunt Yuan aimed to reconcile with her son. They also took turns brainwashing each other about Teacher Fan, making their time quite eventful.

As the peacemaker, I often brought home Aunt Yuan’s chicken soup, occasionally letting Fang Congxin have some.

Fang Congxin would devour every drop. After finishing, he’d remind me to visit less often, claiming Aunt Yuan always looked at me with ulterior motives.

I’d retort, “Aunt Yuan knows about us, you know. Besides, Brother Fengfeng still has feelings for Teacher Fan.”

He mentioned he already knew about Xu Zheng and me back then. A villain’s ambitions rarely die easily until the very end; even a dead end can be turned around. One can never be too careful.

He also said he’d find time to “work on Teacher Fan’s thinking,” using mathematical logic to help her untangle her rigid mind.

“Why have you been so free lately?” I asked.

“It’s the same reason we helped North Korea fight America back in the day,” he replied.

Everyone at Mumu Tech knew Su Xu liked Wang Ziqi. I was quite tempted to “help North Korea fight America” myself, but Fang Congxin said it wasn’t necessary.

“Why not?” I asked.

“When Su Xu grows up a bit more, many of these problems will resolve themselves naturally,” he said. “If we try to solve them for him now, we’ll only create more problems.”

“It’s like interfering in another country’s internal affairs,” he added. “We’re better off staying out of it.”

I should learn more history from him when I have time.

But starting this semester, I need to pursue another degree in education.

I’m still not sure if I’m cut out to be a teacher, but Fang Congxin believes I can do it, so I might as well give it a try.

Let the days drift by slowly.

MEMO from Fang Congxin: Went out today.

Saw clouds hanging on bare branches like cotton candy.

Remembered her surprise kiss that morning.

Returned the sweetness with a kiss of my own.