Amateur talent show? Top mentors are my students.

At 6:30 the next morning, when He Xu opened the door, there was already someone standing in the corridor.

Sun Zhuohang was wearing a brand new tracksuit, a white sweatshirt with black sweatpants and a pair of shiny white running shoes, indicating that he hadn't run much.

He stood at the top of the stairs, warming up by jumping around a little, while muttering to himself and counting the beats.

Hearing the door open, he turned around abruptly, his expression like that of a puppy waiting for its owner: "Brother He Xu! I'm ready!"

He Xu leaned against the doorframe, looking him up and down: "What time did you get up?"

"...Six o'clock."

"So you've been jumping around here for half an hour?"

"Pretty much." Sun Zhuohang scratched the back of his head a little embarrassedly. "I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get up, so I set five alarms."

He Xu couldn't help but laugh: "Alright, go downstairs, let's warm up first."

The two had just reached the first floor when footsteps echoed down the stairs.

He Xu turned around and saw Lin Zhen coming down from the second floor.

He was wearing a dark gray sports jacket and black sweatpants.

Her hair, which she usually combed meticulously, was casually draped over her forehead today, and she wasn't wearing her glasses.

She looked several years younger than usual, but her "serious person trying hard to look casual" vibe was still undeniable.

"Lin Lu?" Sun Zhuohang spoke first, "You run too?"

Lin Zhen stood on the last step of the stairs, pushed up his non-existent glasses—he had obviously forgotten that he wasn't wearing them today—and then cleared his throat.

"I heard you guys talking about morning runs last night, and after thinking about it, I figured since we live together, we should try some group activities. And..." He paused, his expression revealing a frank seriousness, "I really need to exercise."

He Xu leaned against the shoe cabinet in the entryway, tilting her head to look at him: "You don't exercise usually?"

"My main form of exercise is walking from home to the parking lot in the morning and walking home from the parking lot after work," Lin Zhen said, clearly not finding anything shameful about it. "It adds up to about two thousand steps."

He Xu paused for a moment, then said, "...Okay, then you can come with me. But let me make this clear first, I won't slow down."

"No need to slow down." Lin Zhen's tone carried the certainty characteristic of a lawyer. "If I can keep up, I will; if I can't, I'll handle it myself."

Sun Zhuohang whispered from the side, "Lawyer Lin, Brother He Xu runs pretty fast."

How fast?

"About six or seven kilometers in forty minutes."

Lin Zhen paused for a moment, seemingly reassessing his decision in his mind.

But the words had already been spoken, and his professional habits prevented him from taking them back.

"Let's go." He Xu pushed open the villa door, and a cold wind rushed in, causing the three of them to shrink their necks at the same time.

The morning run route is still the same loop road. Starting from the villa entrance, it goes around the lakeside path twice, passing through a grove of trees, and takes about forty minutes in total.

He Xu's starting speed wasn't fast; it was probably his usual warm-up speed.

Sun Zhuohang followed half a step to his right, his steps were quite steady, which showed that he had a regular exercise routine.

Lin Zhen followed behind Sun Zhuohang. At first, he was able to keep up. Although his breathing was heavier than usual, it was still within a controllable range.

When I got to the lakeside trail, things started to go wrong.

He Xu didn't speed up; he maintained that steady pace, taking one step at a time, with the same stride and the same breathing.

But Sun Zhuohang's breathing had begun to change—from inhaling and exhaling through his nose to inhaling through his nose and exhaling through his mouth, and from inhaling every two steps to inhaling every three steps.

Although she was still keeping up, she was clearly using her willpower to persevere.

Lin Zhen's story is even more fascinating.

He started by breathing through his nose and exhaling through his mouth, but by the middle of the first lap he switched to breathing through his mouth, and by the end of the first lap he was panting heavily.

His footsteps were no longer running, but rather a third form of movement that he invented himself, somewhere between brisk walking and jogging.

He Xu turned his head and glanced at him: "Lin Lu, are you alright?"

"...Okay." Lin Zhen squeezed out a single word through gritted teeth.

"That's the second lap."

For the first 200 meters of the second lap, Lin Zhen was barely keeping up.

After two hundred meters, his speed began to drop, and the distance between him and the two people in front of him widened.

When they reached the second bend of the lakeside trail, He Xu looked back and saw that Lin Zhen was nearly twenty meters behind, bent over with his hands on his knees, panting heavily.

He Xu slowed down and stopped, and Sun Zhuohang stopped as well.

Lin Zhen looked up and saw the two people ahead of him stop and wait for him. He waved his hand and, panting, called out, "You guys... run first... I... need to catch my breath..."

He Xu looked at him for two seconds, but didn't go over or urge him. He just said, "There's a breakfast shop at the right turn at the end of the trail. We'll wait for you there."

Lin Zhen nodded, then bent over to catch his breath.

He Xu withdrew his gaze, glanced at Sun Zhuohang, and said, "Let's go, there's still half a lap left."

Sun Zhuohang took a deep breath, readjusted his rhythm which had been swayed by Lin Zhen, and finished the remaining half lap with He Xu.

When Sun Zhuohang stopped in front of the breakfast shop, he bent over and panted for more than ten seconds before straightening up. His face was covered in sweat, but he looked very excited.

"Brother He Xu... I actually... actually ran down."

"Hmm." He Xu handed him a tissue. "You didn't fall behind. That's good. You're better than I expected."

Sun Zhuohang took the tissue and wiped his face, his eyes crinkling with laughter.

The two walked into the breakfast shop, where the proprietress was carrying out a steamer. Seeing He Xu, she smiled and said, "Young man, you're here again? One more person today?"

"Yeah, there might be more every day from now on." He Xu pointed with his chin toward the door. "There's another one behind us, probably arriving in a bit."

They bought their own portions first—He Xu had a bowl of porridge and two steamed buns, while Sun Zhuohang had a bowl of soy milk and three fried dough sticks—and sat by the window to eat slowly.

About ten minutes later, Lin Zhen pushed the door open and came in.

He looked like he'd been pulled out of the water; his sports jacket was zipped up all the way, but the collar was still soaked with sweat.

Her hair was completely wet and stuck to her forehead; her face was red from her cheekbones to her ears.

He walked to the table, and without saying a word, pulled out a chair and sat down. He hunched over for almost half a minute before finally speaking: "...I...can't take it anymore..."

He Xu pushed the pre-ordered soy milk in front of him: "Drink something hot, calm down a bit."

Lin Zhen took the soy milk, took a sip, and then took a couple of breaths to calm himself down: "I've lived for twenty-eight years... and this is the first time I've felt that running is a form of torture."

Sun Zhuohang, standing to the side, almost spat out his soy milk from laughing: "Lin Lu, I felt exhausted just watching the second half of that."

"I don't even know if what I did could be called running," Lin Zhen said, still panting. "I think I was just struggling to move forward in place."

He Xu leaned back in his chair, a slight smile playing on his lips: "Will you come again next time?"

Lin Zhen took a sip of soy milk, thought for a moment, and said, "Here you go."

He Xu raised an eyebrow.

"But I'm not going to follow you guys," Lin Zhen said. "You run your way, I'll run behind you at my own pace. I'll go wherever it takes me, and when I can't run anymore, I'll just come to the breakfast shop and wait for you."

"Okay," He Xu said.

After the three finished breakfast, they packed three portions of steamed buns, fried dough sticks, and soy milk. He Xu specially replaced the steamed buns with porridge for Zhuang Wenmin's portion, Wu Jiayuan specially took freshly heated soy milk, and Jiang Yining took two extra meat buns for her portion.

He remembered that Jiang Yining had mentioned during their casual chat last night, "If I had meat buns in the morning, I could be happy all day."

He Xu carried two bags, Sun Zhuohang carried one bag, and Lin Zhen followed behind empty-handed.

As I pushed open the door to the villa, Jiang Yining was just coming downstairs, her hair half-tied up, yawning as she walked towards the kitchen—she didn't have an early class today and had deliberately slept in a little longer.

When she saw the three people carrying breakfast in, she paused for a moment, her gaze lingering on He Xu and Sun Zhuohang's still sweaty faces before moving to Lin Zhen's face, which was still flushed.

"...Where did you three go?"

"Running." Sun Zhuohang placed breakfast on the table. "Brother He Xu is taking us for a morning run."

Jiang Yining turned her head to look at Lin Zhen, her gaze lingering on his tracksuit and soaked collar for a couple of seconds before she couldn't help but laugh.

"Lin Lu ran away too?"

"They ran." Lin Zhen put down his breakfast and plopped down in a chair. "They ran about half of it, and walked the rest of the way back."

Jiang Yining couldn't help but laugh out loud: "What were you thinking?"

"I want to challenge myself." Lin Zhen pushed up his glasses, his expression serious. "I'll run again tomorrow."

Jiang Yining laughed even louder: "Then I wish you progress tomorrow."

When Wu Jiayuan came down the stairs and saw the breakfast on the table and the three people around it, her first reaction was, "What day is it today? Why are you all up so early?"

"He Xu led them in a run," Jiang Yining answered for them. "Lin Lu ran half the marathon, and Sun Zhuohang finished the whole marathon."

Wu Jiayuan said, "Teacher He, you're pretty ruthless! Making someone run the entire course on the very first day?"

"He wanted to come along himself." He Xu leaned back in his chair, picked up his bowl of porridge, and said, "Besides, I didn't slow down."

"He really didn't slow down." Sun Zhuohang immediately testified, his tone carrying a mixture of exhaustion and pride. "He maintained the same speed the whole time; it was already an extraordinary performance for me to keep up."

When Zhuang Wenmin came downstairs, He Xu had already placed the porridge in front of her usual seat.

She glanced at the bowl of white porridge, then at He Xu, without asking, "How did you know I wanted to drink porridge today?" She simply pulled out a chair, sat down, and picked up a spoon.

"Did you take your medicine?" she asked.

"Wait a minute."

"Um."

The six of them sat around a long table and had a lively breakfast.

While eating, Sun Zhuohang told Wu Jiayuan about the running process. When he mentioned that Lin Zhen was "struggling to move forward in place" in the second half of the race, Lin Zhen glared at him.

Jiang Yining almost spilled her soy milk while laughing, and Wu Jiayuan leaned back in her chair, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

Zhuang Wenmin slowly sipped her porridge, occasionally glancing at He Xu with a faint expression, but the corners of her mouth never disappeared.

He Xu sat at the edge of the long table and finished the last mouthful of porridge in his bowl.

Listening to the noisy chatter of the people at the table, I suddenly realized that taking two people out for a run this morning was much more interesting than running alone.

In the observation room, Fang Yiren watched the lively breakfast on the screen and remarked, "The chemistry between these six people is much faster than I expected."

Teacher Wei nodded: "Especially this part in the morning. I originally thought He Xu was the kind of person who would do things alone, but it turns out he was willing to lead everyone in a morning run to exercise. Even after breakfast, he would still stay on the sidelines and listen to everyone chat."

Wang Yi leaned back in his chair and slowly added, "Moreover, he brought Zhuang Wenmin congee, added hot soy milk for Wu Jiayuan, and even remembered the meat buns that Jiang Yining casually mentioned. This guy may seem cold, but he's more thoughtful than anyone else."

The host, Cao, laughed: "So the biggest discovery we've made so far in recording this show is that He Xu is a real gem."