Lin Zhixia's family background was completely different from what Jiang Yubai had imagined.
Jiang Yubai once thought that Lin Zhixia also lived in a manor and had many tutors to teach her every day. However, according to what Jiang Yubai saw with his own eyes, Lin Zhixia was born in an ordinary place. Lin Zhixia's parents did not indulge her - she wanted to eat a strawberry-flavored lollipop, but her mother ruthlessly refused.
Jiang Yubai's parents also restricted his snacks. Thinking of this, Jiang Yubai felt a sense of sympathy for Lin Zhixia.
The chefs in Jiang Yubai's family are good at making Chinese cakes. In recent days, the osmanthus trees in the garden have bloomed. The chefs picked fresh flowers and made a basket of "crystal osmanthus cakes". The main ingredients include Northeast premium rice, Hainan coconut oil, and Gansu Tianshui honey. These cakes are fragrant, soft, elastic, and not greasy, and are worth a try.
That morning, before going to school, Jiang Yubai found a clean lunch box, secretly put a dozen pieces of osmanthus cake in it, and brought it to school for Lin Zhixia to eat.
The morning reading class had just ended when Jiang Yubai placed the lunch box in front of Lin Zhixia.
Lin Zhixia was very confused: "What is this?"
"Osmanthus cake," Jiang Yubai pretended to be indifferent, "It's sweet."
Lin Zhixia opened the lunch box and was immediately filled with fragrance. She had never seen such beautiful pastries before and couldn't help asking, "Where did you buy it?"
"You can't buy it on the market," Jiang Yubai introduced honestly, "This is made by my chef..."
Before he finished speaking, Zhou Bufeng, who was sitting in front of him, turned around suddenly, grabbed two pieces of cake and stuffed them into his mouth. Zhou Bufeng took advantage of the situation and praised loudly: "Damn! This is so delicious... It's so delicious that I'm choking to death! Everyone, come and try it... Brothers from Class 1, Grade 4!"
Zhou Bufeng's deskmate was a girl named Gan Shuli. Gan Shuli had always been a quiet and introverted girl who didn't like to talk. She even drew a "38th parallel" on the desk with correction fluid to prevent Zhou Bufeng from contacting her. Normally, when Zhou Bufeng talked to her, she never responded.
And now, several classmates in the class came over and wanted to taste the osmanthus cake brought by Jiang Yubai.
Gan Shuli didn't have breakfast today. She couldn't help but reach out and grab a piece from the lunch box to respond to Zhou Bufeng's call.
Seventeen pieces of osmanthus cake were divided among everyone in a blink of an eye.
Lin Zhixia didn't even taste a bite.
Jiang Yubai was puzzled. He asked Lin Zhixia: "Why did you watch them snatch?"
Lin Zhixia said: "I don't want to eat anymore after I met Zhou Bufeng."
Jiang Yubai asked again: "If Zhou Bufeng and I fight, will the classmates report the teacher?"
"It's no use telling him," Lin Zhixia said calmly, "because the teacher will definitely help you. But I still think you shouldn't fight with him... Fighting won't solve the problem. If you hit him today, he will always remember it."
Jiang Yubai tried hard to suppress his anger. He threw the lunch box into the trash can, sat back in his seat, and wiped Lin Zhixia's desk with a tissue. At this time, Zhou Bufeng turned around and laughed at him: "Jiang Yubai, you are Lin Zhixia's follower, hehe."
Jiang Yubai remained silent.
Zhou Bufeng pushed Jiang Yubai's pencil case: "Jiang fart bug, Jiang fart bug, hehe."
Jiang Yubai adjusted his breathing. His cheeks flushed slightly, and his eyes became cold and serious.
Zhou Bufeng sensed the unusual atmosphere and couldn't help but tease: "You are the desk mate of a freak, a weirdo! Haha."
Jiang Yubai was disgusted when people described Lin Zhixia as a "freak". He grabbed Zhou Bufeng by the collar and lifted him up from his seat. Pencils, erasers, pencil cases, and correction tapes were scattered all over the floor, and the tables and chairs nearby were in a mess. Zhou Bufeng's face turned grim, and he grabbed Jiang Yubai's wrist and pulled it back hard. Zhou Bufeng's angry voice squeezed out of his nose: "What are you doing!"
Jiang Yubai twisted one hand forward and successfully shook Zhou Bufeng off. In the aisle formed by the desks, Jiang Yubai took a step back and suddenly raised his leg, his knee almost hitting Zhou Bufeng's abdomen.
Zhou Bufeng collapsed immediately, avoiding the attack, but his left leg was stepped on by Jiang Yubai.
Just at this moment, the math teacher came in.
The math teacher's surname is Qian, she is about forty years old, and she is a certified "senior primary school teacher." Teacher Qian always wears a pair of gold-rimmed glasses and observes the whole class through the reflective lenses.
Teacher Qian usually speaks softly, but today, as soon as she entered the room, she said angrily, "Who is fighting in the corner? You are fourth grade students! You are not children anymore! How can you still fight? Get out of here and go to the head teacher's office! The head teacher asked you to come back, and if you come back, no one can enter my classroom, just stand in the corridor! Let the whole grade see! Who dares to fight!"
As soon as she finished speaking, Zhou Bufeng ran out of the classroom quickly.
Jiang Yubai still stood there.
He had never been scolded by the teacher before. He was temporarily unable to react.
In the spacious and tidy classroom, Teacher Qian put down his ruler and compass, leaned on the podium with both hands, and criticized meaningfully: "Some students, in order to save your face, I will not name them. But you know who I am talking about... I tell you, don't think that just because your family is well-off, you have some money and some capital, you can do evil and bully in our school! Before you become a student, you must first learn to be a human being! I don't care if you returned from Singapore or New Guinea, as long as you use violence in class and pick a fight with others, you are wrong! I tell you, hey, do you understand? How old are you? When you encounter something, you can only solve the problem with your fists? Haven't you learned mathematics? Don't know how to think logically? Don't fight in the place where you study! I warn you! I will criticize you every time I see you! It's useless for you to complain to the principal! I have been teaching for more than 20 years, and I don't teach students who only know how to fight!"
Teacher Qian’s last words were very powerful.
Jiang Yubai's face was burning, as if he had been slapped. Especially the sentence "Don't fight in a reading place", he felt extremely ashamed.
He walked out of the classroom without saying a word and went to the head teacher's office.
Lin Zhixia stared at his back in amazement.
This class was very long.
After finally waiting until the bell rang, Lin Zhixia was the first to rush out of the classroom. She saw Jiang Yubai and Zhou Bufeng standing in the corridor as punishment, with a distance of four meters between them.
"Jiang Yubai?" Lin Zhixia called him.
But he ignored her.
Lin Zhixia whispered, "Mr. Jiang."
Jiang Yubai held onto the stainless steel railing: "Don't call me Mr. Jiang."
"What are you thinking about?" Lin Zhixia asked, standing beside him.
"I know Zhou Bufeng can't beat me," Jiang Yubai admitted frankly, "I want to beat him until he cries."
When Zhou Bufeng heard Jiang Yubai's words, he jumped up and ran further. Gradually, more and more students came to the corridor, and their soles rubbed against the plastic floor, making a series of "swishing" sounds.
Jiang Yubai turned around, looked at his classmates, and changed his words: "But, I learned martial arts... not to beat up my classmates."
"It's great that you think so," Lin Zhixia responded, "When you raised your leg to hit Zhou Bufeng, I expected your momentum to be very strong. It was no joke. I was also scared."
Jiang Yubai asked without shame: "What is momentum?"
"A vector that describes the cumulative effect of force over time." Lin Zhixia explained concisely.
Jiang Yubai stood straight and nodded frequently.
"Do you understand?" Lin Zhixia asked knowingly.
"No." Jiang Yubai said honestly.
Lin Zhixia was not discouraged and patiently told him: "Life is like a k-means clustering algorithm. We all randomly selected reference points at the beginning and didn't know where we stood. Later, the collected data changed, and our reference points began to be updated. We are at different reference points, observing the same things, and we will get different conclusions. People are constantly growing and adjusting their reference points... Just like you thought it was okay for boys to fight before this class, after this class, you might think twice before you take action."
Jiang Yubai looked at her and said, "K-means clustering algorithm. Thank you, I learned it."
Lin Zhixia smiled sweetly: "Mathematics can make people happy and also make us think about life."
As the Chinese representative of the class, Lin Zhixia went to the teacher's office to pick up a stack of homework books during the break. She walked happily to the door of the office. The door was half-open, and the head teacher's voice came from inside.
The head teacher smiled and said, "Teacher Qian, calm down. Jiang Yubai's father is a major taxpayer in our province. Their group contributes a lot of GDP every year and can also attract foreign investment. The principal told me that Jiang Yubai's family has connections in Beijing. Don't bother with him. He is still a child and is usually very polite."
Teacher Qian replied: "I'm not arguing with him. I just entered the classroom and saw him knock Zhou Bufeng down and step on his leg... Isn't this bullying a classmate?"
"Hey, Zhou Bufeng is always causing trouble in our class," the head teacher said in defense of Jiang Yubai, "Zhou Bufeng's parents work in Shanghai. He is being raised by his grandparents, and he has been stealing things for a long time."
Teacher Qian was a little surprised: "He stole something?"
The head teacher described: "Last year, your office was across the street, not with me. At that time, our classmates came to me to complain, but you didn't hear it. Zhou Bufeng stole the class monitor's pocket money and Gan Shuli's pen... He couldn't control himself. I talked to him and persuaded him, but it was useless."
Teacher Qian sighed: "Children nowadays are really amazing."
The head teacher added: "Jiang Yubai is okay. He has good family education."
The head teacher's protection of a student was summarized by Lin Zhixia as "Schrödinger's protection."
The so-called "Schrödinger state" is also quoted from "Quantum Mechanics", referring to a state that seems to be true and false, both like this and not like this.
Lin Zhixia fell into her own thoughts.
When she returned to her seat, Lin Zhixia called out, "Jiang Yubai."
"What's the matter?" Jiang Yubai replied.
Lin Zhixia pushed aside the stationery and books on the table and confided to Jiang Yubai very sincerely: "You are the only one in the class who is willing to listen to me talk about mathematics and physics, although you always don't understand what I say..."
Jiang Yubai always put on a serious attitude and listened to Lin Zhixia's thoughts, but she seemed to have known that he couldn't understand at all. He sat up straight with his whole body stiff, and said palely: "I will gradually understand."
Lin Zhixia said, "By then, I will have graduated from elementary school! I may never see you again."
Jiang Yubai's math notebook was almost torn apart. He held a Parker pen and asked cautiously, "Never see you again?"
"Yes," Lin Zhixia said sincerely, "Since we are deskmates now, I would like to formally invite you to be my human observation subject. I have always wanted to understand... how ordinary people think. For example, what is your first reaction when you see problems related to Hilbert space? Do you get a headache? Do you get timid? Hahahahahahaha."
A few minutes ago, Jiang Yubai was deeply moved by Lin Zhixia's comfort. Now, he just wanted to punch himself awake and open his eyes to look at Lin Zhixia! She was still the same!
Jiang Yubai asked calmly, "Why did you choose me as your human observation subject?"
Lin Zhixia was very honest: "I heard from the class teacher that your family is a major taxpayer in our province, contributing a lot of GDP every year, and your family also has foreign-funded enterprises. Your knowledge must be broader than others. My study of you is equivalent to studying many people at once."
Jiang Yubai thought for a moment, then reluctantly agreed to her request: "Okay."
"Thank you!" Lin Zhixia was overjoyed.
She said softly: "Jiang Yubai, you are really my good friend."
Jiang Yubai said nothing.
After this class, Ding Yan came to play with Jiang Yubai.
The sunlight from the window shone on the paper pages, and Ding Yan clearly saw that Lin Zhixia wrote a line of big words "A preliminary research review on the thinking patterns of ordinary humans" on a piece of draft paper.
Then, Lin Zhixia started a new line, wrote "Abstract", and then put two colons.
Lin Zhixia solemnly recorded: This article further explores the thinking patterns and limitations of ordinary humans by observing the author's deskmate, Jiang Yubai...
Ding Yan was surprised.
He put his hands in his pockets and called Jiang Yubai out of the classroom.
As soon as he walked out the door, Ding Yan asked, "Jiang Yubai, how can you tolerate this? Why don't you go find Teacher Wu and change seats?"
Jiang Yubai shook his head: "I have a battle plan. Let her have a taste of sweetness first and let her relax her guard."
Ding Yan didn't quite understand: "You want to be nice to her?"
"No!" Jiang Yubai denied, "I regarded her as a competitor."
Ding Yan looked confused: "Do you think you can compete with her? I heard that she only needs to read the text once to recite it. It takes me 30 minutes to recite the text, but she only needs 3 seconds."
She recites the text in three seconds.
Yes, the opponent is very strong.
Jiang Yubai clenched his fists slightly. He would not give up. He would prove himself in front of Ding Yan and Lin Zhixia, surpass Lin Zhixia by a long way, leave her behind, and regain the self-esteem that was crushed by her.
He said, "Lin Zhixia's birthday is coming soon."
Ding Yan looked nervous: "What are you going to do?"
Jiang Yubai stood behind a pillar, the staggered light cast on him, making his face half bright and half dark.
He was like the most handsome robber in the Hong Kong movie Young and Dangerous, carrying a heavy burden that did not belong to his age: "I will give her a gift."
Ding Yan shuddered.