Ninety-nine. I miscalculated...

Nancheng No. 1 High School.

After the long weekend, the atmosphere among the seniors had grown even more tense. The college entrance exam was only a month away, and a holiday at such a time had left the teachers so anxious they seemed to be wearing their worry raw. Because everyone was desperate to review, they had not even collected the problem sets assigned for the break. Since first period of the morning, they had been taking turns explaining the tests, racing the clock and pushing the pace as hard as they could.

“Brother Yan, I still do not really get this one. Can you explain it to me again?”

During the break, Ma Yunan hugged his worksheet and plopped down in the seat in front of Bai Jinyan.

“Why do we use conservation of momentum here instead of conservation of kinetic energy? I do not think my answer was wrong!”

“Of course it was wrong.” Bai Jinyan traced a line across the problem statement with his left hand. “If they stick together after the collision and move off with the same speed, that means mechanical energy has been lost. In that case, you can only use conservation of momentum, not conservation of kinetic energy...”

Ma Yunan was clearly muddled on this topic. After listening for a long while, he could only let out a frustrated sigh.

“I completely blank out whenever I see problems like this. I never know whether to use kinetic energy or momentum. There is only a month left until the exam. What am I supposed to do?”

Ma Yunan was worried, and so was everyone else. Even their genius class ace, Kai, could not avoid fretting; he idly doodled with his pen on the desk and kept crumpling scrap paper into balls to relieve the pressure. Compared with them, Bai Jinyan was doing fairly well.

“Hey, Brother Yan, lend me your paper later so I can take a look.”

Ma Yunan asked, and after Bai Jinyan agreed, he grabbed Bai Jinyan’s test and set it beside his own, comparing the two in a methodical, line-by-line fashion. Before long, Ma Yunan gave a soft exclamation and flipped Bai Jinyan’s paper over, then back again.

“Brother Yan, did you bring the wrong one? Is this really your paper?”

“What is it?”

“The handwriting looks off.” Ma Yunan stared in confusion at the writing on the page. “I have copied your homework for a year; I would still recognize your handwriting. This...”

Then realization dawned on him. He leaned in like a thief and lowered his voice.

“Did someone else do your homework for you? Do not worry, I definitely will not tell Old Wu. But Brother Yan, the exam is right around the corner. You should really write your own assignments from now on!”

A faint trace of embarrassment crossed Bai Jinyan’s face. He coughed lightly and took his paper back.

“I injured my right hand. During the holiday I had to write everything with my left hand, so of course the handwriting is a little different.”

“You got hurt? Are you all right?” Ma Yunan asked quickly. After Bai Jinyan assured him that he was fine, Ma Yunan wiggled his brows and studied the handwriting in greater detail. “I never would have guessed you could write with your left hand too. The style is still pretty wild, but looking closely, it really does resemble your usual handwriting by half.”

The two of them exchanged a few more nonsense remarks before Ma Yunan finally returned to his seat to wrestle with the problems. Bai Jinyan let out a quiet breath, then snapped a photo of his paper.

“Good thing they did not collect the homework today. Even Ma Yunan could tell at a glance that this is not my handwriting.”

He sent the photo to Chen Ruowen along with the message.

A reply came back almost at once.

“I studied him so carefully, and he still recognized it?”

“Looks like Ma Yunan is the one who truly loves you.”

Inside Guangxun Tower, Chen Ruowen held her phone, her expression touched with a trace of confusion.

She and Bai Jinyan had learned handwriting from the same copybook, and under normal circumstances, even if one teacher produced two different styles, they should not have differed that much. But the two of them were almost opposites: Bai Jinyan’s script was neat and disciplined, every stroke precise and severe, while Chen Ruowen seemed determined to turn regular script into flowing cursive. Her pen moved with such free-spirited ease that even when she wrote formulas, it looked as though she were practicing a signature.

When she had written Bai Jinyan’s tests, she had already forced herself to slow down to the lowest possible speed and tried her best to make each character look proper and square. She had thought she had done a decent imitation, and Bai Jinyan himself had not said a word. And yet Ma Yunan had picked it out at a glance?

It was truly vexing.

“Chen Ruowen.”

A familiar male voice cut through her thoughts. Without even looking, she flung the folder beside her toward the sound, never even lifting her head.

“Not going.”

“I have not even said what I am here for...” Gao Tang rubbed his nose in mild annoyance and tossed the folder back into Chen Ruowen’s arms.

“I am not going for anything. Stop bothering me.”

These past few days, Gao Tang had been coming to Guangxun as though he had no classes at all. Every time he came, he would try to drag her out to play. When she refused, he would go out of his way to say things like, “Has Bai Jinyan not come looking for you?” or, “Your temper is so awful. No wonder Bai Jinyan does not like you. But it is fine, I like girls with a bit of personality,” and so on, every time infuriating Chen Ruowen beyond belief.

“Oh? New phone?”

Only when Gao Tang came closer did he notice what Chen Ruowen was doing. He dropped into a seat on the edge of her desk and glanced sideways at the screen. The clearly visible chat window darkened his eyes.

“Well, well. Bai Jinyan soothed you over that quickly?”

“What business is it of yours?” Chen Ruowen finished replying with complete unconcern right under Gao Tang’s nose, not once lifting her eyelids.

“Of course I cannot be bothered to care. I am not that busybody Bai Jinyan, always sticking his hand into everything.”

At last Chen Ruowen looked up, only to glare at him.

“You are not allowed to badmouth him.”

Gao Tang shrugged it off. “So how exactly did he make it up to you?”

“He did not.”

“Did not?” Gao Tang was genuinely surprised. “Come on, Chen Ruowen, you... you have no spine at all. You let something this serious go that easily? Let me tell you, men are like this: if you do not keep them in line, they start climbing onto the roof and tearing tiles off. The more you indulge him, the worse he gets. If you let him off easy today, tomorrow he will be cheating and fooling around, impossible to manage.”

To his surprise, Chen Ruowen did not get angry at all. She only lowered her head and looked at the screen of her phone, a trace of tenderness appearing in her eyes, something rarely seen in her.

“You do not understand.”

Gao Tang’s gaze grew complicated. “So something happened that I do not know about...”

Chen Ruowen’s reaction was far beyond what he had expected. By Gao Tang’s calculations, after the little stunt he had pulled a few days ago, Chen Ruowen should have made a tremendous scene according to her usual temper. Even if Bai Jinyan had been unable to hold back and confessed, Chen Ruowen would not necessarily have been all that happy.

His plan had been to force the two of them to come together early and break apart early.

Now it seemed he had miscalculated.

Could it be that because the other person was Bai Jinyan, she could break her own rules again and again for him?

In the office, Liu Shaopeng, who had been secretly watching the exchange, nudged Wu Mingkai’s shoulder and asked in a low voice, “Let me ask you this: between the one from today and the one who came before the holiday, which one do you think is Chen Ruowen’s boyfriend?”

Wu Mingkai raised his head from a pile of documents and, with a blank, innocent look, glanced toward Chen Ruowen before replying honestly, “Brother Peng, did you not say that as an adult man, one only needs to manage his wife and his mother, and that female colleagues are the kind of creatures one had better not touch?”

“Uh...”

Wu Mingkai adjusted his glasses. “You also said last time that when it comes to women’s business, men should not interfere, not even ask.”

Liu Shaopeng covered his face, then nodded in grave seriousness.

“That is right. I was planning to test you a little. Looks like you remembered everything I said. Promising, very promising. Heh heh.”

Wu Mingkai suddenly understood and sighed, shaking his head.

“Ah, the workplace really is full of traps...”