Don't underestimate the poor and elderly; I was thrilled to refuse the class beauty's adva

Shen Zhiyi nodded, said nothing more, and turned to walk towards her class.

Her ponytail swayed twice on her shoulder, but her steps remained quick and steady.

But if you look closely, you'll notice that her walking pace is a bit lighter than usual, as if she has accomplished something she has been planning in her mind for a long time.

Zhang Yifan stood at the top of the stairs, watching her figure disappear around the corner of the corridor. He scratched his head and turned back as well.

When I returned to the classroom, the chemistry teacher was on the podium, going over the questions I got wrong on the last mock exam.

Zhang Yifan quietly slipped back to his seat through the back door.

As soon as I sat down, Zongwen's head peeked over as if it had been fitted with an automatic tracking radar.

He lowered his voice, speaking rapidly like a machine gun, his eyes gleaming with a thirst for knowledge:

"Yifan, what does the school beauty want with you again? Did she challenge you to another competition? Didn't you two already have a competition in the last joint exam? Why is there another challenge? Or is this not a challenge, but something else...?"

"They didn't do anything special, just asked me a few math questions."

"A math problem?"

Zong Wen's voice rose half an octave, then he quickly lowered it again, his face filled with disbelief.

"All you two talk about when you're together is studying? It's already this late, and the college entrance exam is only a little over ten days away. What new topics can you come up with if you keep talking about this? You already know what you're supposed to know, and it's too late for what you don't know."

"Of course, it's not just about studying."

As Zhang Yifan flipped to the page on the chemistry test paper that the teacher had just covered, he casually remarked.

She also said she wanted to come to my house to play the piano.

Zongwen's mouth opened into a perfect "O" shape.

This O-shaped gesture lasted for about two seconds, then he suddenly leaned closer, his voice extremely low but his tone incredibly excited:

No!

Brother Fan, do you have a piano at home? I've known you for three years and I never knew you had a piano at home.

Your old house's living room isn't even as big as my bedroom, and you're talking to me about a piano? Where did you get your piano?

wrong!!!!

The school beauty visited your house?

How did she know you had a piano? When did she go there? Why didn't you tell me?

Zhang Yifan then realized that he had let something slip.

He hadn't mentioned that villa in Yujingyuan to anyone, and Zongwen knew nothing about it either.

He coughed and vaguely brushed it off: "That's not the point. The point is, I have something I'd like you to analyze for me."

Zong Wen glanced at him suspiciously, but he was clearly more interested in the fact that the school beauty had been to his house than inquiring about the origin of the piano.

He moved his chair half an inch closer to Zhang Yifan, adopting the air of someone who had been there all along. He crossed his arms, raised his chin slightly, and his expression shifted from shock to a mysterious smile that said, "I saw through everything long ago."

Zhang Yifan briefly recounted what had just happened.

Shen Zhiyi asked him a few math questions that weren't actually that difficult. After asking them, she didn't leave immediately. Instead, she walked silently with him in the corridor for a while before finally saying that she wanted to come to his house to play the piano.

After he finished speaking, he looked at Zongwen with a genuinely confused expression: "You mean if I wanted to play the piano, I had to go through all this trouble? Couldn't I just say what I wanted to say? Why did I have to go through all this trouble?"

Zongwen looked at him.

The complexity in his eyes was comparable to seeing someone holding a key in their hand but searching the whole house for it.

He took a deep breath and said in a tone of disappointment, "Yifan, I finally understand why you were able to pursue Lin Wanqing for a whole year."

"What do you mean?"

Are you genuinely unaware or just pretending?

The school beauty asks you for a math problem. The problem isn't difficult, but she insists on asking you.

She didn't leave after asking the questions; she's waiting for you to start a conversation.

Since you didn't say anything, she had to find a topic to talk about herself!

She's a girl and she's already taken the initiative to this extent, and you're still asking me if she has something to tell you?

She wants to spend more time with you! You really think she's only after the piano?

Zhang Yifan paused for a moment. Then he slowly said, "What if she really wants to play the piano? My piano is quite expensive. She's been practicing since she was little, so it's normal for her to feel itchy fingers when she sees a nice piano, isn't it?"

Zongwen buried his face in his hands.

Several seconds passed before he looked up again, giving Zhang Yifan a "you win" expression.

"Brother Fan, are you pretending to be stupid or are you really stupid? Why doesn't the school beauty go to someone else's house to play the piano? Why does she have to come to your house?"

Isn't this just another way of saying I want to spend more time with you?

Playing the piano, playing the piano, doesn't it just turn into talking about love?

If you don't get it, you'll spend your whole life working on exercise books.

Zhang Yifan leaned back in his chair, Zong Wen's words, "Won't playing together eventually turn into a romantic relationship?" exploded in his ears like a thunderclap.

He joked and bantered with Zongwen, but in his heart he was already going through several ups and downs.

The system said that Shen Zhiyi contacted him after the college entrance examination results were released, inviting him to apply to the same university.

In that timeline, Zhang Yifan refused and went to an ordinary second-tier university with Lin Wanqing. From then on, the two never crossed paths again.

Shen Zhiyi waited a long time, until she graduated from university, until she became an entrepreneur, until she said in a TV interview, "Even he can change, so who can't?" In the end, she got nothing.

But it's different now.

He rejected Lin Wanqing, returned to being first in his grade, beat Shen Zhiyi by one point in the joint exam, and added her on WeChat.

None of these things happened on that timeline.

Shen Zhiyi in that timeline could only watch him fall further and further down the list from afar, watch him revolve around another girl every day, and watch him waste all his talent and future on someone who wasn't worth it.

There was nothing she could do but stand at a distance and watch, waiting for a return that would never come.

Now, Shen Zhiyi adds him on WeChat, holds his hand and runs halfway across the campus by the West Lake, goes to the entrance of Class 9 to ask him a few math problems she clearly knows how to do, and stands silently in the corridor accompanying him for so long, just to ask, "When can I go to your house to play the piano again?"

None of this happened in that timeline, but in this timeline, she is slowly, clumsily, and with all her courage, getting closer to him.

The system kept giving him the worst possible timeline, the one in which he missed her.

And every day he experiences now is deviating from that worst-case scenario.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yifan suddenly felt a tightness in his chest.

How long did Shen Zhiyi in that timeline wait before finally giving up?

"What are you spacing out for?"

Zongwen poked his elbow with the cap of his pen, pulling him back from his thoughts.

"Did you even hear what I just told you? The school beauty likes you! Likes you! Why don't you give her some reaction?!"

Zhang Yifan composed himself, turned his head expressionlessly, looked at Zong Wen's face which screamed "love guru," and muttered:

"You've been single for eighteen years, always playing with your right hand, what do you know? Yet you're analyzing this as if it were a perfectly reasonable analysis."

Zong Wen, stung by the attack, clutched his chest and leaned back, his face a mask of indignation: "I kindly offered to be your strategist, and you attacked me personally!"

"Zhang Yifan, can you please stop talking so rudely! What do you mean I'm a lifelong single and I'm a right-handed solo player?"

My approach is called "better to have nothing than something bad!" It's called "waiting for true love!" Although I lack practical experience, my theoretical knowledge is solid!

I've watched at least eighty or a hundred romance anime, and I know all the tropes by heart. The school beauty's move today is absolutely—"

"This is love!" Zongwen clenched his fists, his eyes burning, his tone firm and powerful, as if he were proclaiming some sacred declaration.

"I love you, Mom, for selling twisted dough sticks!"