The luxury apartment outside the school gates was filled with the mouth-watering aroma of caramelized sugar and vinegar.
Ren sat cross-legged on the plush carpet, a small folding table set up in front of her. On the table sat a porcelain plate piled high with sweet and sour pork ribs, glistening with a rich, reddish-brown glaze. Next to it was a bowl of steaming, crystal-clear white rice.
She picked up a rib with her chopsticks and took a bite. The meat was tender, falling off the bone, with a perfect balance of crispy skin and juicy interior.
Ren narrowed her eyes, letting out a soft sigh of contentment.
Enduring the old Principal's nagging for twenty minutes at the school gate had been absolutely worth it for this meal.
Across from her on the sofa, Luke sat with his phone in hand, scrolling through the school's online forum. His expression morphed from shock to disbelief, and finally to a look of utter incredulity.
"No way... Sister Ren," Luke said, pointing a trembling finger at his screen. "Is the forum telling the truth? Did Old Man Xu—I mean, Principal Xu—personally drive his Maybach to block you at the school gate? Just to beg you to join the Physics Competition?"
Ren spit out a small bone onto a tissue and gave a noncommittal "Mmm."
"Holy sh*t!" Luke nearly fell off the sofa. "That's the patriarch of the Xu family! People in the Capital line up for months just to get a glimpse of him. He begged you? And you refused him the first time?"
The kitchen door opened. Juan walked out, carrying a bowl of soup. He was dressed in loose, comfortable loungewear that somehow made him look even more aristocratic and dangerous than his usual suits. He placed the soup in front of Ren, his long, slender fingers tapping the table lightly.
"Drink the soup," Juan said, his voice low and indifferent. "I saved the cartilage pieces for you."
"Yeah." Ren nodded, looking uncharacteristically obedient in the face of food.
Juan sat down next to her on the floor, stretching his long legs out. He leaned his head on his hand, watching her eat. "So, you agreed?"
"I agreed," Ren said, picking up another rib. "He said if I bring home a trophy, I can sleep in class whenever I want. No uniform, no homework, no detention."
Luke stared at her, his jaw dropping. "That's it? You sold your soul to the Xu family patriarch just so you could sleep in class?"
Ren looked up, her expression righteous. "It's a fair trade. Efficient."
The corners of Juan's lips quirked up in a faint, lazy smile. He reached out and naturally wiped a spot of sauce from the corner of Ren's mouth with his thumb.
"Indeed, it is efficient," Juan drawled. "However, since you agreed, don't bring back a silver medal and embarrass me. Old Man Xu is getting on in years; his heart can't take the disappointment."
Luke watched this interaction and felt like he wasn't just a third wheel, but a blindingly bright industrial floodlight. He looked at the bland takeout box in his own hand, then at the gourmet feast Juan had personally cooked for Ren.
The gap between humans, he realized, was wider than the Grand Canyon.
***
The next morning, the sun rose over Wolven High, bringing with it a new order.
The bell for the morning reading session rang through the halls.
In Class 9, students hurriedly pulled out their textbooks and began reciting English vocabulary. The sound of reading filled the room—except for the back corner.
In the last row, Ren pulled her school jacket over her head, created a nest with her arms, and went straight to sleep.
Ms. Chen, the homeroom teacher, clicked into the classroom on her high heels. Her sharp eyes immediately landed on the lump of sleeping student in the back. Instinctively, her frown deepened, and she marched toward Ren's desk, ready to slam her ruler down.
But three steps in, she froze.
She remembered the phone call she had received late last night from the Principal's office. The Principal's voice had been serious and commanding:
*"Student Ren is currently preparing for the Provincial Physics Competition. She is using a lot of brainpower. From now on, she is exempt from morning reading. Let her sleep. No one is allowed to disturb her."*
Ms. Chen took a deep breath, forced her eyes away from the sleeping figure, and turned to scold a boy in the second row for holding his book upside down.
The class noticed. They stopped reading, exchanging shocked whispers.
"What's going on? Ms. Chen didn't yell at Ren?"
"Usually, she'd be screaming by now."
"I heard the Principal talked to her yesterday. Ren has special privileges now."
"Is this the treatment of a god-tier genius? I want to join a competition too..."
"Dream on. You can't even recite Newton's Second Law without stuttering."
In the front row, Faye turned around. She watched Ren sleeping peacefully under the jacket, and her grip on her pen tightened until the tip pierced through the page.
*Privilege.*
So this was what Ren wanted? Using her "connections" with the Principal to act above the rules.
Faye gritted her teeth, a dark jealousy bubbling in her chest.
*The Physics Competition isn't a speech contest. You can't fake equations. You can't improvise laws of thermodynamics. I don't believe for a second that a village girl knows advanced physics. When the competition comes, we'll see how you hide your incompetence.*
***
After the first period, Ren hadn't even fully woken up before she was summoned to the Physics Department office.
The teacher in charge of the Provincial Physics Competition team was Mr. Yan. He was a legend at Wolven High—a Special Grade teacher known for his extreme strictness and for producing students who went on to top universities in the Capital.
Right now, Mr. Yan was looking at the girl standing in front of his desk. She was slouching, her jacket zipper was undone, and she looked like she would rather be anywhere else.
His blood pressure began to rise.
"The Principal insisted on shoving you into the competition group," Mr. Yan said, pushing his glasses up his nose. His tone was dripping with dissatisfaction. "I heard you did well in the speech contest. But let me tell you, English and Physics are two different worlds. This competition is not a playground for connections. It is a battlefield of pure intellect."
Ren leaned against the doorframe and yawned. "Teacher, if you have something to say, just say it."
"I don't care who backs you," Mr. Yan said, pulling a test paper from his drawer and slamming it onto the desk. "This is the final round paper from last year's Provincial Competition. It was known as the 'Death Paper.' I'll give you two class periods. If you can solve even one major problem correctly, I'll let you stay. If not, go tell the Principal yourself that you're quitting. Don't drag down my team's average."
The other teachers in the office looked over with sympathy.
That paper was infamous. The passing rate in the entire province had been less than five percent. Giving it to a high school senior with no prep was a clear message: *Get out.*
Ren glanced at the paper.
It was covered in dense circuit diagrams and complex mechanical models.
"Lend me a pen," Ren said, extending her hand.
Mr. Yan blinked, taken aback. He grabbed a red grading pen from his holder. "I only have red. Go sit at that empty desk over there and—"
Before he could finish his sentence, Ren took the pen. She didn't move to the empty desk. She didn't ask for scratch paper.
She simply leaned over Mr. Yan's desk, held the paper down with one hand, and started writing.
She stood there, casually filling in the blanks.
The red ink flowed across the page without hesitation. She skipped all the intermediate derivation steps that normal students would agonizingly work through. She wrote down the key formulas, substituted the variables in her head, and wrote the final answer.
*Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.*
The sound of the pen on paper was the only noise in the room.
Ten minutes later.
Ren capped the red pen and tossed it back into the holder.
"Done."
The office went dead silent.
Mr. Yan's eyes bulged as he stared at the paper.
Ten minutes?
She finished the entire final round "Death Paper" in ten minutes?
*She must have scribbled nonsense.*
He grabbed the paper, ready to tear into this arrogant student. However, when his gaze landed on the first answer, his pupils constricted.
*Correct.*
He looked at the second question. *Correct.*
He looked at the final, most difficult mechanics problem.
Not only was the answer correct, but the method...
She hadn't used the standard high school method, which would have taken three pages of calculation. She had used a Lagrangian mechanic equation—a method usually taught in university theoretical physics courses. It was elegant, brutal, and efficient.
Mr. Yan's hands began to tremble. He looked up at Ren, who was already turning to leave.
"Wait!" Mr. Yan's voice cracked. The disdain from earlier was gone, replaced by the fanatical look of a treasure hunter striking gold. "This mechanics problem... how did you think to use the Lagrangian?"
Ren stopped and looked back over her shoulder. Her eyes were still half-lidded with sleepiness.
"Because... it's the fastest way."
She paused. "Can I go back to sleep now?"
Mr. Yan held the test paper with both hands as if it were a sacred scroll. He nodded furiously. "Yes! Of course! Go sleep! Do you want my office sofa? It's softer than the desk!"
Ren waved a hand and walked out.
Mr. Yan stared at her retreating back, muttering to himself, completely forgetting that ten minutes ago he wanted to kick her out.
"A genius... Wolven High has picked up a god-tier genius..."
He turned to the other teachers, waving the paper. "Did you see that? Ten minutes! And she used university-level calculus! Who said she was a slacker? Who?!"
The other teachers exchanged glances. *You did, Mr. Yan. You said it.*
**[Chapter 46 End]**