Yang Shuwen said quietly: "Lin Zhixia's acting skills are so superb, there is no sense of tension..."
Yang Shuwen carefully recalled Lin Zhixia's strengths and secretly sighed that he was too reckless before. He wanted to compare himself with her openly and secretly to see who was better. But how could she lose? She was not only smart, but also lucky.
Yang Shuwen was immersed in worry, as if he had just lost a game. He stood under a banyan tree in the courtyard, one hand behind his back, took a few steps, and thought of the undergraduates he had met a few days ago - they were all very good. He was confused and couldn't figure out what Professor Gu Likai saw in him and accepted him as his apprentice
Could it be that she was attracted by his innocence and simplicity
Or is it his great wisdom that appears foolish
If he mustered up the courage to tell the teacher that he had no "great wisdom" but only "stupidity", would he be expelled from the physics department
Thinking of this, Yang Shuwen suddenly stopped, paused, and looked into the distance.
A voice came from behind him: "Senior Yang."
He turned his head and saw Jiang Yubai.
Jiang Yubai seemed to be well prepared. He went straight to the point: "I understand you."
Yang Shuwen looked at him suspiciously.
Jiang Yubai said, like a man who had experienced it all, with a vicissitude and sophistication: "I used to work hard but got no reward and was crushed by talented people. I lost my confidence and didn't dare to get up in the morning or go to school..."
"What are you doing?" Yang Shuwen interrupted Jiang Yubai.
Jiang Yubai stood straight in front of Yang Shuwen and asked politely, "Can I talk to you?"
Yang Shuwen remembered that Lin Zhixia said that Jiang Yubai was her best friend. Jiang Yubai and Lin Zhixia teamed up in the Werewolf game, they trusted each other and had a tacit understanding - all these phenomena were enough to show that Jiang Yubai could get along well with Lin Zhixia, even though he was just an ordinary student in the second year of high school.
There was a smooth rock on the bank. Yang Shuwen lifted the hem of his windbreaker and sat upright on the rock, not revealing his sadness or guilt. He said, "Okay, let's talk. Sit down."
Jiang Yubai glanced around and found bird droppings on the stone.
Jiang Yubai often creates a "fearless" persona, but he actually hates dirty things. He slowly took a step back and said, "Stones are not clean."
Yang Shuwen glanced at it and didn't care at all: "A few pieces of bird shit? They've dried up and won't get on your clothes. Please sit down. What do you want to say?"
Jiang Yubai insisted on standing still. He said succinctly: "In this world, some people succeed at an early age, while others achieve great success late in life."
"Hey, you're pretty good." Yang Shuwen noticed Jiang Yubai's intentions. He put his hands on his knees, rubbed them twice, and couldn't help but confide: "Lin Zhixia is your friend, right? She puts a lot of pressure on me. The Physics Department and the Mathematics Department are full of geniuses, but she is only fourteen years old."
Perhaps because Jiang Yubai seemed very reliable and had nothing in common with Yang Shuwen's daily life, Yang Shuwen boldly spoke out his true feelings: "I stayed in the laboratory, working day and night, but there was no progress in scientific research and no results."
Jiang Yubai encouraged him from a different perspective: "Lin Zhixia mentioned you to me. She said that you are very focused and have a solid theoretical foundation."
Yang Shuwen waved his hand: "I collaborated with Tan Qianche on a paper, and he did my part of the work ahead of time, so I still couldn't figure it out. My experimental data is too ugly. What about Lin Zhixia's experimental data? It's so good that it looks fake... I didn't say she faked it, I was just making an analogy. She has talent and luck, and I wouldn't dare to fake it like that."
At this point, Yang Shuwen raised his head and looked at Jiang Yubai: "You are her good friend, have you ever been jealous of her?"
Jiang Yubai said honestly: "It's not jealousy, it's more envy."
"Envy?" Yang Shuwen questioned his choice of words.
Jiang Yubai stood firm: "Later, I came to terms with it. I don't have talent, but I have time and my own life. I made a mistake before. I used the depth and breadth of my knowledge to measure success or failure..."
"Hey, which book did you quote this from?" Yang Shuwen suddenly asked.
"Those are my own words," Jiang Yubai's tone became more casual. "If you want to read a book, I recommend psychologist Adler's "Inferiority and Self-Transcendence". I read this book twice."
The "back then" that Jiang Yubai mentioned refers to five years ago when he was only nine years old.
Yang Shuwen didn't realize this. He straightened his back and asked again: "What is written in the book?"
Suddenly, a cool breeze blew by the shore, and Lin Zhixia's voice sounded behind him: "That book is quite famous. Adler is the founder of 'Individual Psychology'. He believes that neither innate heredity nor acquired experience can determine your fate. Only your thoughts can bind you, senior."
Yang Shuwen didn't look back. He stood up and said with a smile: "Okay, thank you."
After saying this, he turned around and walked away at a very fast pace.
Lin Zhixia looked at his back and said Jiang Yubai's name: "Jiang Yubai, have you also read "Inferiority and Transcendence"? Do you feel inferior?"
Lin Zhixia's question hit Jiang Yubai's heart. Jiang Yubai turned around, facing the reservoir, and changed his words: "I don't remember clearly."
Lin Zhixia patted his shoulder gently. She acted so heroically, as if she was competing with him in terms of loyalty. She also said, "I haven't written the Human Observation Diary for a long time."
Jiang Yubai asked her: "Are there no suitable subjects around you to observe?"
Lin Zhixia shook her head. She whispered to herself, "When I was a child, I knew I was different from others. Now, I seem to be able to understand the way some people think. I have grown up."
When Lin Zhixia spoke like this, she sounded quite wise. But then she jumped up and circled around Jiang Yubai: "But I still want to continue observing you, mainly from the perspectives of biology, philosophy and psychology—why do you blush? Why are you sometimes afraid to look at me? Hahahahahaha, so interesting."
Jiang Yubai put his hands in his pockets and suddenly wanted to keep up with Yang Shuwen.
Lin Zhixia stood on a stone and tried to look Jiang Yubai straight in the eyes.
Jiang Yubai stepped on another stone and asked her, "How tall are you now?"
"One meter sixty-three." Lin Zhixia replied.
Jiang Yubai said truthfully: "I am 1.81 meters tall."
Lin Zhixia stood on tiptoe in defiance. The stone on the sole of her shoe slipped and she fell forward. Fortunately, Jiang Yubai held her up. The distance between them became closer. Jiang Yubai lowered his head and said to her: "You can write as much as you want in the Human Observation Diary. I have been your subject of observation since I was nine years old. I also want to know how I have improved over the years... Will you continue to study for a doctorate in Beijing? In a few years, if we separate, I will call you on time to provide materials for your Human Observation Diary."
Lin Zhixia held his arm. The long branches of the willow tree swayed nearby, and the eyebrow-shaped willow leaves floated in the autumn wind. The leaves brushed past him, and she tightened her fingertips, grasping his sleeves, and nodded randomly.
After the autumn outing, most of Lin Zhixia’s classmates focused on their studies.
The final exams of the School of Mathematics have always been terrifying, and have destroyed the youth of countless math scumbags over the years. In December of the first semester of the freshman year, invisible competitive pressure enveloped a group of students. Many students began to stay in the library from morning till night, and some even made a schedule that was accurate to every minute, from six in the morning to twelve at night.
But Lin Zhixia remains the same.
At ten o'clock in the evening, she would go to bed.
Her roommate Feng Yuan was similar to her. As Lin Zhixia's upper bunk bed, Feng Yuan and Lin Zhixia kept a highly consistent schedule. Feng Yuan was simply the roommate that Lin Zhixia had always dreamed of.
However, across from their beds, Yuan Wei and Deng Shasha were miserable.
Deng Shasha failed two subjects in the midterm exam. At first, she was not panicked at all because she did not study hard at the beginning of the school year. She was the only one in the dormitory who had never participated in any competitions in high school and entered the mathematics department based on her college entrance examination scores.
She calmed herself down and studied like crazy for half a semester.
A few days before the final exam, Yuan Wei and Deng Shasha came back from the library together and studied late into the night in the dormitory. If four students in a dormitory could work together to study late into the night, it would be a good story, but it was a pity that Lin Zhixia and Feng Yuan seemed to be the kind of people who didn't need to review at all.
At 10 o'clock at night, the lights in the dormitory were turned off. Lin Zhixia lay on her bed and slept soundly. Deng Shasha anxiously ate her midnight snack while checking her class notes, deciding to do a thorough review to fill in the gaps.
The results of checking for gaps and filling them have both good and bad sides - the good thing is that she found many gaps, and the bad thing is that she doesn't know how to fill them.
Deng Shasha thought about it all night.
The next morning, she hugged Lin Zhixia's thighs tightly: "Xia Shen! Save me! Do you have a notebook?"
This was the first time Lin Zhixia heard the name "Xia Shen". She knocked on Feng Yuan on the upper bunk: "Yuan Yuan, do you have any notes?"
Deng Shasha had already given up her dignity for the sake of the final exam score. She did not let go of Lin Zhixia, and said to Feng Yuan in a soft and coquettish voice, "Feng Yuan, it's half past six, you should get up soon."
Yuan Shen didn't get up. She leaned against the wall and said coldly, "You were so noisy when you were eating at night. I didn't wake up. I got up at eight o'clock."
The exam is in two days, but Feng Yuan is still so casual.
Lin Zhixia thought for a moment and took the initiative to suggest: "Let me tutor you! When I was at home, I often tutored my brother. His class ranking in the third year of junior high school dropped to around seventh or eighth. With the joint efforts of us, he ranked in the top 50 in the city in the high school entrance examination."
Deng Shasha and Yuan Wei agreed. The three of them sat in a circle and began to discuss the class content in a low voice.
Lin Zhixia adopted the method of "catalog review" to help them consolidate every knowledge point. Lin Zhixia seemed to have a vast ocean of questions in her mind, as well as very clear and concise ideas. She was very patient. No matter how many times Deng Shasha asked her, she was willing to unravel the meaning of the questions, breaking them down sentence by sentence and then teaching them to Deng Shasha.
Deng Shasha was so moved that she almost cried: "I really regret not coming to you to study earlier, Xia Shen, as long as I can pass the final exam, I will treat you to meals in the cafeteria for half a month."
Yuan Wei sighed: "You were in the top ten in your grade in high school. You only need a passing score to enter college..."
"I'm lucky enough to be alive!" Deng Shasha yelled at her.