Class 5, Senior Year 3.
Shen Yixiao walked into the classroom right as the bell rang, looking like he'd lost all hope in life, and slumped back into his seat.
He noticed that his desk, which had been a mess, had been cleaned spotless by his old man, and there was even a class schedule neatly stuck on the corner.
"It's English this period, listen carefully!"
Shen Yixiao had just sat his butt down when his old man muttered this under his breath.
"Got it."
Shen Yixiao replied perfunctorily, then gazed out the window with a sigh in his heart: When will this kind of life ever end?
At that moment, the homeroom teacher of Class 5, Senior Year 3—who was also the English teacher—Chen Xiangyu walked into the classroom with a stack of test papers in her arms.
English teachers were usually the trendiest ones—Chen Xiangyu lived up to that proud tradition. Today she was wearing a pale blue silk blouse, the soft fabric hugging her slender figure. The neckline was slightly open, revealing her delicate collarbone, and a classic four-leaf clover necklace hung around her fair neck.
She paired it with dark gray straight-leg suit pants, the clean lines making her legs look long and straight. She walked with a light, confident stride, her slim waist accentuated by a simple black leather belt.
"Stand up!"
The class president, Wu Ruohan, shouted in a resounding voice.
Classmates immediately stood up in a jumble, all shouting in unison, "Good morning, Teacher!"
Shen Qiushan stood up too, but he didn't join in the shout—mainly because he'd been out of school for so many years, he wasn't used to this anymore.
For Chen Xiangyu, this was just a regular part of her day, but when she saw Shen Qiushan in the back row, she suddenly wanted to laugh for no reason.
They were lovers, but now they're teacher and student!
Back when they were "playing poker," Shen Qiushan always loved to tease her by calling her "Teacher Chen"!
Now look, it's really teacher-student for real.
Art really does imitate life.
The plotlines from those Japanese movies have come to life.
"Sit down."
Chen Xiangyu waved her hand casually, then split the papers into two stacks and tossed them to the students sitting in the front row. "Hand these out."
While the papers were being passed out, Chen Xiangyu frowned and said, "Yesterday's test wasn't that difficult, but a lot of you still did poorly. I can't believe some of you didn't even get 70 points on a test of this level. If you keep that up, you'll only get around 50 on the college entrance exam!"
"I keep saying this: as long as you memorize the required vocabulary for the college entrance exam, getting 90 points is a breeze!"
"It's just 3500 words. Even if you start now and memorize 50 a day, you'll be done in 70 days!"
"Is that so hard?!"
Chen Xiangyu launched into her usual tirade.
Just then, the student passing out papers handed one over to Shen Yixiao.
Shen Qiushan took it and glanced at it.
68 points!!
So when the old flame said some people didn't even get 70, she was talking about his own son!
Shen Qiushan lifted his foot and kicked his son's calf, muttering under his breath, "You hopeless little brat!"
Shen Yixiao bared his teeth but didn't dare make a sound.
Once all the papers were handed out, Chen Xiangyu started going over the questions.
"The word for 'increase' has come up how many times now, and some of you still get it wrong."
"Shen Yixiao!"
"Increase—spell it!"
Chen Xiangyu suddenly called Shen Yixiao's name.
"Uh..."
"Increase… increase…"
Shen Yixiao stood there repeating "increase" for ages, but he couldn't even think of the first letter.
Watching his son flounder was making Shen Qiushan frown non-stop.
If he hadn't come to be a transfer student, he never would've understood just how useless his own kid was!
"Wu Ruohan, tell him!"
"a-d-d-i-t-i-o-n"
"addition!"
Class president Wu Ruohan spelled it out fluently.
"Shen Yixiao, write 'increase' fifty times. When you're done, bring it to my office."
"Next question…"
Chen Xiangyu continued going over the test.
Meanwhile, Shen Qiushan gave his noob son a death glare full of disappointment.
How embarrassing!
It'd be one thing if he, as a dad, wasn't around—but now, every time Shen Yixiao embarrasses himself, Shen Qiushan feels like he's getting full-on faceplanted with shame!
Ding!
Listening to an Intermediate Teacher's class!
Scholar Index +10!
Just as Shen Qiushan was thinking about urging Shen Yixiao to memorize vocab, a system notification suddenly sounded in his mind.
Uh!
Intermediate Teacher!
Xiangyu actually got recognized by the system as an Intermediate Teacher!
Not bad!
One rank higher than Sun Xing from before!
Feeling sentimental, but also secretly pleased, Shen Qiushan thought to himself.
His old flame was an Intermediate Teacher, so from now on, he could totally ask her for some private tutoring sessions!
Watching his Scholar Index shoot up, Shen Qiushan went straight to the System Mall and exchanged for one "Memory Capsule"!
He'd wanted to test this thing out since last night, but with only about a thousand Scholar Index points, he didn't want to waste any.
But now things were different. Just one lesson with Chen Xiangyu, the Intermediate Teacher, earned him around 400 points. She was the homeroom teacher, so with her regular schedule plus evening self-study, she'd be in class a lot every day.
Barring any accidents, just listening to her classes all day could net him over a thousand Scholar Index, and that's not even counting other subjects!
So now Shen Qiushan was bold enough to spend those points.
Ding!
Memory Capsule activated!
Duration: two hours!
With the mechanical chime, Shen Qiushan felt all his meridians open up—everything Chen Xiangyu explained seemed to be carved right into his brain, impossible to forget.
Even better, as she lectured, every word in his English textbook would get etched into his memory whenever his gaze swept over it.
This is awesome!
Having a cheat really is a different life altogether.
At his age, his memory should've already started going downhill.
But now, he'd basically gotten a super-brain's memory powers!
He felt unstoppable—he might even be able to compete with an AI now.
At the podium—
Chen Xiangyu kept stealing sidelong glances at her old flame.
At first, Shen Qiushan had looked completely out of place, like a teacher attending a demo lesson, not fitting in with the classroom vibe at all.
But after a few minutes, she noticed he really seemed to be listening; he was laser-focused, even ignoring her glances, with an utterly serious expression on his face.
Is he actually understanding what I'm saying?
No way!
Back in high school, he was doing even worse than Shen Yixiao right now!
Whatever English he'd learned back then should've been long gone by now!
So why's he listening so intently?
Because she was too focused on her old flame's state, Chen Xiangyu got a little distracted herself, and after finishing question ten, skipped to question twelve.
"Teacher, you haven't gone over question eleven yet."
The student in the front row reminded her.
Snapping back to attention, Chen Xiangyu glanced at question eleven and said, "This question actually overlaps a bit with question three. Which answer do you think it is?"
"C!"
"success!"
As soon as Chen Xiangyu finished her sentence, a voice rang out from the back row.