Chapter 35: I Don’t Want to Calculate Anymore—You Should Kiss Me Now
“Done answering already?”
“I just took a moment to watch two elementary schoolers bicker, and Movie King Shen has already finished thirty convoluted questions?”
“Wait, is he really a genius?”
“He really is. The system doesn’t show wrong answers, but every single one of his responses was correct…”
“@Fang’s fans, the clown—what now?”
…
Shen Jixing stepped out from the second door.
“Welcome to the lounge, player. Here you may rest, enjoy some delicious food, and quietly wait for your fellow contestants to clear their levels,” said 02 (the assistant director behind the scenes).
“What if they can’t make it?” Shen Jixing asked in return.
He genuinely doubted those oddly-haired kids. None of them seemed particularly bright…
“It’s fine, really, it’s fine, probably… fine!” Ling’er (the director behind the scenes) replied.
Hearing her sweet, lively voice, Shen Jixing lifted his gaze to the camera.
Honestly—
He still couldn’t fathom how the director ever managed to say, “I’m straight.”
Still, Shen Jixing was always tactful, knowing not to probe into personal matters on camera.
But he was bored—
“If you had to use a song to describe the relationship between the two directors, which would you pick?” Shen Jixing asked absentmindedly, popping a grape into his mouth.
“There it is, the tables have turned.”
“Star’s wife’s cool, languid poise, all that composure—ah, it gets to me!”
“Damn, why didn’t anyone tell me actors eat this well?”
“If Shen Jixing still needs a prompter, what’s he been doing all these years? If his eyesight’s bad, who else can he blame?”
“Why are your fans always so hostile to us?”
“Excuse me? Every time your Zhou fans show up, it’s a wall of curse words—don’t pretend to be innocent flowers. Of course we’re bitter rivals!”
“But, we’re not here to break you up—we want in… Wait, the wife can see this!...”
Shen Jixing could see.
With both eyes, he could see.
He could see every single comment.
The lounge not only displayed each guest’s camera feed, but also a cascade of scrolling comments—only these were nothing like the ones he’d confronted before.
After a brief lull.
Suddenly, the comments began to race across the screen—
“Ahhh wife wife wife wife wife wife wife!!!”
“Can you really see us? Wife, look at me, look at me (taking my pants off)(pants flying)(I’m Harry Potter flying across the sky with my pants)”
“Star baby, have you been well lately? We’ve been worried about you~”
“I’m doing well.”
Seeing that sincerely written message, Shen Jixing replied calmly, “Worry less about me and more about your own final grades.”
“Damn, how did you know I got a 19? Wait, I mean 91, QAQ.”
“Wife wife wife wife wife answer me?”
Shen Jixing, seeing the endless stream of “wife” fly by, furrowed his brows and stepped closer to the screen.
His aura was icy, distant; his features sharp and beautifully sculpted, carrying the cold, fragile beauty of porcelain shattered in ink.
For a moment, not a single “wife” dared to appear.
Instead, they were all stunned by his glare.
Shen Jixing felt it was necessary to set these girls straight, so, in an especially cold, indifferent tone, he enunciated:
“Don’t call me wife.”
The comments froze for five solid seconds.
Satisfied, Shen Jixing turned away—only for the entire screen to suddenly erupt, wild hands hammering keyboards with two words—
“WIFE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
The director hurried to switch off the comments before Shen Jixing sat back down.
Close call.
Just another day surviving by the skin of their teeth around Movie King Shen.
“What’s the song you’d use?” the assistant director suddenly asked.
Shen Jixing raised his eyes to the camera as well.
“Of course it’s—”
The director answered confidently, “The Condor Heroes!”
“Not for 02 and Ling’er, for you and me,” the assistant director corrected. “Besides, that’s not even a song.”
Shen Jixing arched a brow. “?”
“Oh, us?” The director thought for a moment. “Brothers in Arms?”
Shen Jixing resumed his calm. “…”
“And you, Assistant Director?”
In the short time he’d had his phone, Shen Jixing had already learned that the assistant director’s surname was Gong. Both of them had started from scratch in their youth, become Forbes-listed genius entrepreneurs through software development—in fact, they’d even been university roommates at Qinghua and Beida.
For the first time, he wondered about his own intelligence. Truly, a beautiful misunderstanding.
The assistant director replied, “For You.”
The director was taken aback. “What does that mean, what language is that?”
The assistant director said no more.
Shen Jixing curled his lips faintly, said nothing, and turned his gaze to the ever more surreal scene on the screen.
Qi Yan was still at it, slapping a sticky note that read, “Zhou Yili: Salary 2,000, Tax 150,000” onto Zhou Yili’s forehead.
Maybe he wanted to pin him down.
“Give it up, young master,” Qi Yan’s voice, for the first time, wavered… or perhaps pleaded.
Zhou Yili spread his hands, subconsciously glancing in Shen Jixing’s direction.
That spot was empty.
If the comments hadn’t been switched off, Shen Jixing would have seen them drift by:
“Fifteenth time, you little deviant.”
“yOyOyOyOyO, what are you looking at~”
“I know this one—Zhou Yili wants to copy the answer.”
“Hey! You go play in the mud too.”
“Teacher Shen, a viewer asks: When you paused for those few minutes before answering, what were you thinking? Were you organizing your thoughts to answer all thirty questions smoothly?” the assistant director asked.
“No.”
Shen Jixing answered instinctively, “I was thinking of someone.”
For a moment, the whole room seemed to fall silent, not even the pillow fight in the next room could distract anyone.
Would someone as aloof as Shen Jixing actively miss another person?
“Who?” The director’s voice trembled, already smelling a headline in the making.
Shen Jixing answered slowly, “Euler.”
A great mathematician.
…
Shen Jixing truly had been thinking of someone.
Time’s river flowed backward before his eyes; it was another bright summer day, the breeze against his face fresh and clear.
He stood silently by the desk, picking up the test paper to review it.
A young man lounged backward in his chair, idly biting his necklace, occasionally lifting lazy eyes to sneak a look at his expression.
“Mr. Zhou asked me to tutor you in your major, not to let you fill your test with jokes and amuse yourself,” Shen Jixing said, his voice calm, his sunlit hair clear as glass.
“Rewrite it all.”
“What jokes? I was serious!” Zhou Yili sat up, necklace between his teeth, pulling the test paper over and pointing at the densely filled answers.
“I’ve never written so much for anything, not even an essay.”
“This is a math test.”
“…”
“I don’t need that many words. I want the correct answer.” His pale fingers tapped a spot on the paper, his tone impassive. “The question asks for the number of people. What does ‘two-thirds’ mean as an answer?”
His voice was chilly, stern, laced with icy interrogation.
Zhou Yili’s enthusiasm faltered.
“I kept calculating, and it came down to half an old lady. What was I supposed to do?”
“…”
Shen Jixing was exasperated; in that instant he even let out a helpless, fleeting laugh.
Sunlight scattered across his hair; behind him, the pink mimosa blossoms swayed like a mist. For a moment, Zhou Yili’s gaze went blank.
He tossed the pen aside. “I don’t want to do it anymore.”
Shen Jixing looked at him, his eyes quiet.
Zhou Yili nudged him with his knee, his languid, well-cut eyes trailing a hint of mischief.
“You should kiss me now.”