My anime/manga fandom can't be that lazy.

The second-place book most likely rose to the top through 'special means'. It's probably because the author was unwilling to let a newcomer suddenly take their first place, so they did this.

"Oh."

Dongfang Bai let out a mocking laugh. Did he really think he could get away with just being clever? The editors weren't stupid; they had obviously seen that the book's sales figures were unrealistic, but they simply chose not to say anything.

The reason they didn't say anything was because they wanted to see just how much potential their 'Fate' book had, and whether it was enough for them to invest their maximum resources to cultivate a book that could crush its contemporaries and solidify its dominant position.

After glancing at it casually, Dongfang Bai put his phone away. Then he heard a very steady and gentle breathing sound. Turning his head, he saw Fumino Furuhashi sleeping soundly on the table.

Her face was slightly flushed, her eyes were tightly closed, her long black eyelashes trembled from time to time, and her left hand was still tightly gripping a mechanical pencil. It seemed that she had fallen asleep while doing her homework.

That's understandable, since this was her most difficult math class. She had actually collapsed while she was thinking about something, so she probably just couldn't handle math.

A few strands of her blue hair fell down, landing on her face and rosy lips, making her frown slightly as if she were in great discomfort. Dongfang Bai's obsessive-compulsive disorder made him unable to resist staring at her.

Then, she opened her eyes!

Chapter 54 You should learn more from Dongfang! [Requesting flowers and ratings]

"Eh...!"

As soon as Fumino Furuhashi opened her eyes, she saw Dongfang Bai's face. Those dark eyes were staring at her face without blinking. If a normal person woke up and found someone staring at them the whole time, they would definitely get chills.

Fumino Furuhashi almost forgot that they were in class and nearly cried out. Luckily, Dongfang Bai waved his hand and pointed with his index finger at the blackboard and the teacher on the podium.

"At the corner of the mouth."

Dongfang Bai pointed to his own mouth, then to Fumino Furuhashi's face. Fumino, realizing what was happening, immediately blushed. It was one thing to fall asleep in class, but to be caught drooling was another!

This is a huge taboo for a young girl! She is very conscious of her image, and she was so embarrassed that she wanted to kill herself. It was just too shameful.

She quickly wiped her mouth with her hand, but suddenly realized there was nothing there, and then she realized that he had tricked her!

"Where's the drool?!"

Fumino Furuhashi said softly to Dongfang Bai with a hint of embarrassment and annoyance, her flushed face looking very cute.

"puff."

Dongfang Bai couldn't help but laugh out loud, but he immediately suppressed it, covering his mouth and chuckling to himself. He hadn't expected that the girl would think he was drooling. In fact, Dongfang Bai was just trying to remind her about her hair.

“I didn’t say saliva, I just said your hair.”

Dongfang Bai waved his hand innocently, making Fumino Furuhashi feel both embarrassed and annoyed, yet helpless. After calming down and thinking about it carefully, she realized that it was indeed the case, but she had simply misunderstood his meaning.

Fumino Furuhashi blushed and quickly brushed her hair aside, tidying up the messy strands. She patted her cheeks to cheer herself up.

The two had no worries whatsoever during their conversation; they even seemed like a couple flirting. Luckily, they were in class; if they had been seen, rumors would have been flying everywhere in less than a day.

Who is Fumino Furuhashi? She's a popular character in the academy, known as the 'Sleeping Beauty of the Literary Forest'.

However, the title 'Sleeping Beauty' is quite fitting; Dongfang Bai finds her sleeping appearance rather adorable.

In less than a class period, the two became much more familiar with each other, at least much better than before. Fumino Furuhashi was very happy about this, as she had gained another good friend.

The other boys all seemed to have some ulterior motives, but the black-haired, black-eyed boy next to him, who appeared to be older than him by months, seemed to simply want to be friends.

Dongfang Bai doesn't dislike making friends, but he dislikes having too many friends because it's too troublesome. He values ​​quality over quantity when it comes to friends, and he completely ignores those whose personalities don't suit his taste.

When Dongfang Bai was teasing Furuhashi Fumino, Kato Megumi, who was sitting behind him, saw it all clearly, seemingly forgetting that there was someone sitting behind them...

However, Kato Megumi is not the kind of person who would spread rumors. If it were someone else, the rumors would probably have already spread through her phone by now.

Rumors will circulate about things like a new transfer student being particularly close to the Sleeping Beauty of the Forest, or even more exaggerated rumors like the Sleeping Beauty of the Forest actually having a boyfriend.

"Waaah..."

Fumino Furuhashi looked at the books on her desk with a very troubled expression, and Dongfang Bai glanced at them out of curiosity.

The first thing I saw in the book was a short passage: "How can we learn math well? We need..."

Dongfang Bai's lips twitched involuntarily. So why were you reading a book about how to learn math well during math class?

"Alright, then let Dongfang answer this question."

The teacher on the podium seemed oblivious to what was happening. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she called out Dongfang Bai's name.

"Yes, this question is the square root of two to the power of seven."

Dongfang Bai glanced at the questions on the blackboard and immediately gave the answer. He had seen far too many questions like this before he transmigrated. The difficulty of exams in Japan was incomparable to that in China.

These kinds of questions are so easy that even junior high school students in China who have had some tutoring can solve them, yet they're being used as high school level questions.

"Correct answer! Gu Qiao, look up! You should learn a lot from Dongfang!"

The teacher on the podium nodded, seemingly quite satisfied with Dongfang Bai's speech, but Fumino Furuhashi was still looking down at her book, so she slightly raised her eyes and began to speak.

"Yes!"

Although Fumino Furuhashi didn't know why she was being scolded by the teacher, she still reflexively shouted it out.

"Ugh."

Fumino Furuhashi looked somewhat dejected, her face showing a look of wanting to cry but having no tears. There was nothing she could do; she simply couldn't learn math.

She couldn't understand the lessons, and she couldn't learn math if she didn't listen. She didn't know what to do.

Suddenly, she seemed to have a good idea, and her eyes lit up as she looked at Dongfang Bai beside her.

[PS: The contract I signed suddenly had a problem. My editor told me it couldn't be used, so I ran out late at night to reprint it. I searched six different places before finally finding one that wasn't closed. The owner even came all the way from nearby, I was so touched QWQ. I have final exams next Monday, after which I'll speed up updates and try to get it published soon!]

Chapter 55 This isn't something you can learn casually. [Seeking flowers and ratings]

"Cough cough."

Dongfang Bai coughed lightly twice, indicating that Fumino Furuhashi's gaze was too dazzling.

At first, she didn't mind being stared at for a while, but she kept staring at her for the rest of the class, which made her feel a little uncomfortable.

She kept tapping away on her phone with both hands. Her gaze, which had been fixed on her face, gradually shifted to her hands as she watched herself tap on the screen.

"What is Dongfang doing?"

With a big look of confusion on her small face, Fumino Furuhashi looked at Dongfang Bai with great curiosity. She had just observed him carefully, and he didn't seem to be looking at study materials.

It felt strange because he seemed to be typing on a document using a virtual keyboard on his phone, rather than chatting with someone else.

"Write a novel."

Dongfang Bai replied calmly, which made Fumino Kohashi pause slightly. If there were any virtual effects, a big question mark would probably appear above her head.

Is it a novel like Osamu Dazai's "No Longer Human"?

Dazai Osamu? Dongfang Bai's lips twitched when he heard this name. She really was a princess of literature, reading only real literary works, which had nothing to do with the light novels he wrote.

"No, I write light novels."

"Light novels?"

Fumino Furuhashi was clearly taken aback. Even if she hadn't read the light novel, in Japan, where ACG culture is so developed, she must have heard of it.

Light novels and literary novels are very different, both in terms of writing methods and literary expression.

A large part of the content of light novels consists of dialogues between characters. The author uses a fast-paced approach to narrate a story, and people with good imaginations can even directly imagine the corresponding scenes. In addition, there are a lot of illustrations to help readers fill in the blanks.

Moreover, light novels are novels that are easy for people to read and are a popular form of entertainment.

Novels tend to be more literary, emphasizing structure and having far less dialogue than light novels. They focus more on allowing readers to experience the beauty of written language and often contain profound meaning and lessons.

"A little disappointed?"

Dongfang Bai's lips curled up slightly as he asked Fumino Furuhashi beside him a question, clearly indicating that she wasn't the type to read light novels.

"No, no, I just think it's amazing..."

Fumino Furuhashi explained somewhat flusteredly that even though she was a light novel author, she was still an author, and in Japan, writers held a very high status and were highly respected.

However, many people believe that light novels are devoid of substance and are only good for killing time when you're bored. Many of these people are literary novelists.

"Wait a minute, Dongfang, have you been writing novels during class?"

Fumino Furuhashi suddenly realized something was wrong. She discovered that Dongfang Bai either slept or wrote novels during class and basically didn't pay attention in any class.

Aside from Kirisu Mafuyu-sensei's classes, which he rarely pays attention to, he spends most of his other classes idly... but he can answer questions very easily when called upon by the teachers in other subjects.

But when he was called on in Kirisu-sensei's class, he acted like he didn't know anything at all, which Fumino Furuhashi couldn't understand...

"Yes."

Dongfang Bai replied casually, his slender fingers still typing rapidly on the keyboard. Despite his efforts over the past few days, he had not yet reached the word count for a light novel.

A light novel volume is usually around 100,000 words, but Dongfang Bai has only managed to complete 60,000 words in the past few days. The editor, Kagurazaka, said that this needs to be finished as soon as possible, otherwise even if he gets first place, it won't be able to be published directly in a short time.

Dongfang Bai clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction, but in his heart he thought that as long as he finished writing this volume, he could relax and do nothing. Ten thousand words was too easy for him.

Before transmigrating to this parallel world, he had experience writing online novels, with a mere 100,000 words being the most basic requirement.

However, many writers still can't finish their work in a month and are still late with their manuscripts, which leads to them being put in a "black room" by their editors to write more. See Yamada Elf for details.

"You write novels every day and don't pay attention in class at all, right? How would you know how to answer the questions..."

"Isn't this something you can learn easily with a little practice?"

Dongfang Bai gave a casual reply, as he didn't have time to chat leisurely with the beautiful girl right now. His thoughts were racing, and his fingers simply couldn't stop moving.

Since Fate/StayNight doesn't have an original novel, Touhou Haku basically wrote the story himself, relying on the plot and descriptions from the original game.

Sometimes, when that feeling of writing comes, you can really ignore what the people around you are saying and just keep writing in one go.

"You can learn it easily... with just a little practice?"

Fumino Furuhashi raised an eyebrow; those words were indeed quite hurtful.

Chapter 56 Approachable Kato Megumi [Requesting flowers and ratings]

What do you mean by "you can learn it with just a little effort"? Have you considered how I feel sitting next to you?