My online dating circle has millions of followers, why would she put a collar on me?

On Saturday morning, sunlight streamed through the gaps in the dormitory curtains, casting a thin golden line on Jiang Yi's face.

His first reaction upon opening his eyes was to reach for the cell phone under his pillow.

The moment the screen lit up, he braced himself for a screen full of messages.

Surprisingly, Su Xiaoyue only sent two messages.

Little Moon: Good morning, honey! Have a happy day! (✪ω✪)

Little Moon: I'm going for a follow-up check-up. I'll let you know the results when they come out. Bye-bye, honey!

Jiang Yi stared at the two messages for a few seconds, and felt a rare sense of relief.

Review.

Yes, she said she's going for a final check-up this morning.

This means that for at least an hour or two, he won't be bombarded with messages from her, and he won't have to rack his brains trying to figure out how to reply to those sweet words that make his conscience ache.

He put down his phone, turned over, and planned to take a nap.

But my mind has already started automatically replaying today's schedule.

At 10 a.m., Gu Qingying's tutor.

I had a date with Xia Anmian at 2 PM.

I also had to find time to reply to Su Xiaoyue's messages.

Thinking of this, Jiang Yi sighed, threw off the covers, and sat up.

Wash up, change clothes, and go out.

I scanned a shared bike and rode towards Lanyue Mansion.

If it weren't for that 1.3 million yuan hole, and if Su Xiaoyue didn't exist, today would be such a wonderful day.

Saturday, the sun is shining brightly, and I have a date with my girlfriend in the afternoon.

How good.

He shook his head, banishing the unrealistic idea from his mind.

Upon arriving at No. 8 Lanyue Mansion, the wrought iron gate opened from the inside before I even rang the doorbell.

The nanny stood at the door, smiling as she welcomed him in: "Teacher Jiang is here? Miss Jiang got up especially early today, around six o'clock, and was waiting for you in the living room."

Jiang Yi was taken aback: "Around six o'clock? Waiting for me?"

"That's right." The nanny lowered her voice. "I couldn't sleep last night, tossing and turning. I got up to get some water and heard her talking to herself in the room, saying something like, 'When are those two ranked games going to end?'"

Jiang Yi's lips twitched.

He's clearly thinking about games, not studying.

He followed the nanny through the path into the living room.

Gu Qingying was wearing a white sweatshirt and light gray sweatpants today. Her hair was still short enough to cover her ears. She was curled up on the sofa, holding a game controller in her hand, while the TV screen showed the loading screen of a game.

Hearing footsteps, she turned around abruptly, her eyes lighting up for a moment, then quickly turned back, her tone deliberately indifferent: "You're here? Two minutes late."

Jiang Yi glanced at his phone.

9:58.

"I'm not late, you just got up too early."

"Who got up early? I get up at this time every day," Gu Qingying retorted stubbornly.

"Auntie said you got up at six o'clock."

Gu Qingying's face flushed instantly, a bright red that spread from the tips of her ears all the way to the base of her neck. She slammed the game controller onto the sofa, her voice rising an octave: "She's lying! I didn't!"

Jiang Yi couldn't help but laugh when he saw her flustered appearance.

"Okay, you didn't get up at six. Do your test first, then you can play games."

"Let's play a game first!" Gu Qingying argued with him, her neck stiff. "Just one game! After that, I'll do three practice tests!"

"You want to play games without even doing a test paper?" Jiang Yi sat down on the sofa, took out his textbook and test paper from his bag, and said in a tone that left no room for negotiation, "Finish this test paper, correct the wrong questions, and I'll play a couple of games with you. That's the rule, and it can't be changed."

Gu Qingying stared at him for two seconds, her lips pressed into a thin line, and finally reluctantly picked up the pen.

"You are a tyrant."

"Thank you for the compliment."

I wasn't complimenting you!

"Then there's even less reason to worry about it."

Gu Qingying was speechless, so she lowered her head and wrote her name hard on the test paper, so hard that the pen tip almost pierced the paper.

Jiang Yi found it amusing to look at her gritting her teeth.

This girl is stubborn but soft-hearted; her temper flares up quickly but subsides just as fast.

He shook his head to suppress these chaotic thoughts, opened his textbook, and began explaining the problems to Gu Qingying.

Today's questions were a bit more difficult than last time; they involved a comprehensive application of quadratic functions and quadratic equations in one variable.

Gu Qingying was initially sulking, biting her pen and refusing to listen properly, but after Jiang Yi spoke for a few minutes, her attention was unconsciously drawn to him.

It wasn't because Jiang Yi explained things so vividly, but because he could always break down the problems she got wrong into the simplest steps, showing them to her step by step, so that she would realize that she didn't actually not know how to do it, but that there was a problem in some of the earlier steps.

"Look at this problem." Jiang Yi pointed to a word problem on the test paper. "It says that the length of a rectangle is 3 more than its width, and its area is 40. Find the length and width. The equation you wrote is x(x+3)=40, and that step is correct."

Gu Qingying leaned closer, looked down at the question, and frowned slightly.

"Then you solved for x=5 and x=-8, and you chose x=5, so the width is 5 and the length is 8, which is also correct. But look at what you wrote earlier, your initial answer was 10 for length and 7 for width, but after calculating the area, it was incorrect and you crossed it out."

"I...I made a mistake," Gu Qingying said softly.

"It's not a typo," Jiang Yi said calmly. "You didn't understand the condition 'the length is 3 more than the width.' You set up the equation correctly, but after solving it, you forgot the condition and wrote down an answer based on intuition."

Gu Qingying remained silent.

"Gu Qingying, your biggest problem isn't that you don't know how to do it, it's that you're too impatient." Jiang Yi put down his pen, looked into her eyes, and said, "You always want to get rich quick, you see a question and want to write down the answer right away, skipping or omitting any steps in between. But with math, you can't skip a single step. If you skip one step, everything after that will be wrong."

Gu Qingying lowered her head, her fingers unconsciously picking at the edges of the test paper.

"Do you skip steps when you play games?" Jiang Yi suddenly asked.

Gu Qingying looked up, startled, and asked, "What do you mean?"

When you play games, do you skip farming and go straight to team fights? Do you charge into the enemy jungle without looking at the map? Do you start a dragon without checking your equipment?

"Of course not!" Gu Qingying said. "Wouldn't that be courting death?"

"Yeah, you know you can't skip steps when playing games, so why don't you know that in math?"

Gu Qingying opened her mouth, but was speechless for a moment.

Jiang Yi looked at her choked-up expression and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.

"Mathematics is like playing a video game; you have to take each step carefully before you can unleash your full potential. Your problem right now is that you tried to engage in team fights before you were properly developed, which resulted in you getting counter-killed by the enemy."

Gu Qingying stared at him for a few seconds, then lowered her head and picked up her pen again.

"Go on," she said, her voice muffled, but the resistance in her tone was noticeably less.

Jiang Yi smiled and continued speaking.

For the next hour, Gu Qingying quietly finished the entire test paper.

There were no complaints, no outbursts, and no wailing like "This question is too hard!"

She kept her head down and wrote carefully, asking questions whenever she encountered something she didn't understand. After asking, she would do it again herself, and if she got it right, she would put a small checkmark next to the question.

Jiang Yi sat next to her, watching her profile as she worked on her problem.

Sunlight streamed in through the window, casting a soft halo around her face. Her long eyelashes cast a small, fan-shaped shadow under her eyes when she lowered her head.

Honestly, this girl is quite pretty when she's quiet.

"What are you looking at?" Gu Qingying suddenly looked up, meeting his gaze. Her face flushed for a moment. "Never seen a beautiful woman doing homework before?"

"I've seen beautiful women solve problems, but I've never seen a beautiful woman blush after solving a problem correctly."

"Who's blushing! You're the one who's blushing!"

"Okay, I'm not blushing." Jiang Yi looked away, took her test paper and glanced at it.

I got seven multiple-choice questions right, half of the fill-in-the-blank questions right, and I answered most of the first sub-questions of the essay questions correctly, and even answered the second sub-question for some of them.

A rough estimate suggests a score of over sixty points.

You passed.

"You've made great progress." Jiang Yi put down the test paper and, unusually, genuinely praised him, "You scored more than twenty points higher than last time."

Gu Qingying was stunned for a moment: "Really?"

"Can't you do the math yourself?"

She looked down at the test paper, counted the questions she got right, then looked up, her eyes shining like two stars.

"Did I pass?"

"Hmm, I passed."

"Holy crap!" Gu Qingying slammed her pen down, flopped onto the sofa, and let out a satisfied sigh. "I, Gu Qingying, actually passed math one day! My dad'll be setting off firecrackers if he finds out!"

Jiang Yi's lips unconsciously curved into a smile as he looked at her overjoyed expression.

"Alright, don't be arrogant now that you've passed once. If you fall back next time, I'll have to criticize you."

"No, no, no!" Gu Qingying jumped up from the sofa and grabbed his arm. "Quick, quick, let's play games! You promised! Two rounds!"

"Let go of my hand first."

Gu Qingying looked down at her hand that was gripping his arm, then pulled it back as if she had been burned, her ear tips turning red again.

"Let's play games! Stop talking nonsense!"

Jiang Yi smiled and picked up the game controller.

Gu Qingying opened the game interface, selected a hero, and while on the loading screen, she suddenly remembered something and turned to look at Jiang Yi: "Hey, what's your rank in King of Glory?"

"King of Glory?" Jiang Yi was taken aback. "I don't play King of Glory."

Gu Qingying's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets: "You don't play King of Glory? Didn't you say you'd reached Master rank?"

"I'm talking about League of Legends, not Challenger."

"What about King of Glory? Have you ever played it?"

Jiang Yi thought for a moment and shook his head: "I haven't played it much, and I haven't downloaded it on my phone."

Gu Qingying stared at him for three seconds, then slowly grinned, revealing a malicious smile.

"Jiang Yi, you've finally met your match."

"What do you mean?"

"It means—" Gu Qingying quickly exited LOL, opened the Honor of Kings icon, and shoved the phone into his hand, "It's my turn."

Jiang Yi looked at the game interface on his phone screen, a game he hadn't played much, and his lips twitched.

"I won't."

"If you don't know how, then learn!" Gu Qingying said matter-of-factly. "You teach me math, I'll teach you King of Glory, fair trade."

Jiang Yi wanted to refuse, but looking into Gu Qingying's bright eyes, he swallowed his words.

Oh well, I've already finished my classes for today, so it won't hurt to play with her for a while.

"Okay, then teach me."

Gu Qingying immediately perked up and leaned over to point to the hero list on the screen: "Choose an easy one first, Arthur, that one. It's not difficult to operate and is suitable for beginners."

Jiang Yi selected Arthur and entered the game.

Gu Qingying chose an assassin hero and followed the same path as him.

"You follow me. I'll tell you to go up, and I'll tell you to back down, and you'll back down, understand?"

"I heard you."

Games start.

It was Jiang Yi's first time playing a mobile game, and he was extremely clumsy with the controls.

He often uses the wrong skills because he's not used to the controls.

In the end, he simply followed Gu Qingying. When Gu Qingying said "Go," he would rush up and press the skill button. When Gu Qingying said "Retreat," he would run backward.

"Go! Go! Go! Now! Unleash your ultimate move!"

Jiang Yi activated his ultimate skill, and Arthur leaped up with his sword, smashing it down on the enemy hero's head.

"Great! Press the first skill again! Basic attack, basic attack, basic attack!"

Jiang Yi pressed a few buttons randomly, and the word "Kill" popped up on the screen.

"Holy crap! You killed him!" Gu Qingying was even more excited than him. "You got a solo kill on your first try!"

"Didn't you tell me to press it...?"

"Well, you still have to be able to press the buttons accurately!" Gu Qingying turned to look at him, her eyes shining like searchlights. "Jiang Yi, are you a genius? You got a solo kill on your first try?"

"I really didn't, I did exactly what you said."

"Then you're a genius too!" Gu Qingying said decisively, "Much better than some trash who's been playing for three years and is still stuck in Gold rank."

Jiang Yi didn't know who she was referring to as "some useless people who have been playing for three years and are still stuck in Gold rank," but judging from her gritting tone, it was probably one of her friends who didn't want to reveal her name.

The two of them sat side by side on the sofa, each with a cell phone, talking for over an hour.

Gu Qingying taught diligently, and Jiang Yi learned quickly.

By the third game, he was able to roughly judge when to engage and when to retreat. Although his skills were still rusty, at least he wouldn't rush in at the first sight of anyone like he did in the first game.

"Look at the enemy jungler, he's showing up in the top lane, we can start the dragon." Gu Qingying pointed to the map.

Are you sure?

"Confirmed! Hurry, hurry, hurry!"

The two of them reached the dragon pit and began fighting the dragon. When the dragon's health dropped to half, Gu Qingying suddenly shouted, "Someone's coming!" Before Jiang Yi could react, three people rushed out of the bushes.

"Run! Run! Run!"

The two turned and ran, but it was too late. Gu Qingying's assassin was controlled and taken down with a combo. Jiang Yi's Arthur was left with a sliver of health, barely escaping back to the tower thanks to his passive health regeneration.

"Hahahaha—" Gu Qingying collapsed onto the sofa, laughing until tears streamed down her face. "You run faster than a rabbit!"

"You're dead and you're still laughing?"

"Because the way you run is hilarious!" Gu Qingying laughed so hard she could barely breathe. "That Arthur, with only a sliver of health left, ran incredibly fast, with three people following behind him—"

She mimicked Arthur's running posture, swinging her arms back and forth at her sides, which, combined with her face scrunched up in a laugh, made her look incredibly comical.

Jiang Yi couldn't help but laugh when he saw her like that.

"You're the one who messed up the game, and you still have the nerve to laugh at me?"

"Where did I mess up? Three of them were targeting me, what could I do?"

"You shouldn't have gone to fight that dragon. I told you I wasn't sure."

"You didn't object at the time!"

"Did I even have time to object? You just rushed in."

"But you didn't stop me!"

The two of them bickered back and forth, neither willing to give in.

The nanny came in carrying a plate of cut fruit. She paused for a moment when she saw the two people on the sofa laughing so hard they were doubled over, then quietly slipped out.

She had worked there for five years and this was the first time she had ever seen the second young lady smile like that.

After playing two more rounds, Jiang Yi glanced at the time: 11:40.

"Alright, I have to go." He put down his phone and stood up.

Gu Qingying's smile vanished almost instantly: "Huh? What time is it?"

"It's 11:40. I have things to do this afternoon."

"What is it?"

"Private matter."

"What personal matter?"

"It's none of your business."

Gu Qingying pouted and reluctantly sat up from the sofa.

"Okay, okay." Gu Qingying waved her hand, then added, "You... when you come next time, shall we play a few more rounds? You're really bad at playing Arthur, I need to teach you more."

Jiang Yi glanced at her: "Are you saying I'm bad at games, or do you just want to play more?"

"Of course it's because I think you're bad at games!" Gu Qingying said matter-of-factly. "Who wants to play games with you? You're not even good at it."

"Okay, then I won't play it next time."

"You—!" Gu Qingying exclaimed, "How could you be like this!"

Jiang Yi laughed, picked up his schoolbag and walked out: "Just kidding, I'll hit you again next time. Bye."

"Hmph!" Gu Qingying let out a muffled hum behind him, then her voice suddenly lowered, so low it seemed she was talking to herself, "Drive carefully."

Jiang Yi didn't hear it.

He had already left the living room, crossed the path, and headed towards the courtyard gate.

The nanny stood at the door to see him off, smiling and saying, "Teacher Jiang, take care. Miss Jiang had a very happy day."

"As long as you're happy."