Recently busy with his vlog, Xie Xi had been in the recording studio, his phone connected to the sound system.
When Ye Qiusuo sent a link, Xie Xi didn't notice the text above it and casually tapped.
A serene, Buddha-nature-filled chanting sound slowly flowed out, and everyone in the recording studio turned to look.
Xie Xi: "..."
"Xixi, you want to use this material?" the musician beside him asked in surprise. "This is a bit novel. Combining it might just be a hit."
The people in the studio naturally assumed Xie Xi had played this on purpose and actually started enthusiastically discussing the feasibility of incorporating this Buddhist chant.
Xie Xi turned off his phone and said calmly, "I'll think about it, but I don't think it'll work. Let's forget it."
Someone even sounded a bit regretful: "Not using it? I thought the idea was quite good."
"Just stick to the original plan," Xie Xi refused immediately. He didn't want to chant scriptures in his vlog.
Even before leaving, a musician was still hung up on that "Heart-Calming Sutra": "Xixi, maybe you could give it a try, really."
Sitting in the car, Xie Xi opened Ye Qiusuo's WeChat, trying hard to make out what that one sentence she had sent was, based on his vague memory.
The more he looked, the angrier he got. He reached out and poked her profile picture hard, as if that could vent his emotions.
However, WeChat had recently updated, and tapping the profile picture twice would trigger a "You patted [person]."
Xie Xi watched helplessly as a line of small gray text suddenly appeared on the interface: 'I patted Professor Ye.'
!
How do you delete this?
To make matters worse, a voice message came from the other side very quickly: "Xie Xi, you patted me. Is something wrong?"
Clearly, Professor Ye on the other end didn't understand what this was either.
Xie Xi: "I... I'm submitting my homework."
At this moment, Xie Xi had to admire his own quick wit. He directly started chanting.
Although he had only heard it once in a hurry, he could recite it completely.
Professor Ye, listening to someone chant scriptures late at night, was uncharacteristically stunned. After he finished sending the long voice message, she thought for a moment and said, "This is not the homework."
"Okay, goodbye, teacher," Xie Xi replied briskly.
Zhang Dong in the front seat asked somewhat suspiciously, "Brother Xi, does Professor Ye usually just teach you to chant scriptures?"
Don't tell me he's joined some cult. I've heard those kinds of groups have infiltrated universities these days.
"Don't mention the word 'chanting' in front of me," Xie Xi said, covering his ears, lying back in the seat, wrapping himself in his clothes, and closing his eyes to rest.
He had none of the aura of a big star.
...
The tutoring time had changed, so the location naturally had to change. The main doors of the teaching building were locked by staff on weekend nights, so Xie Xi couldn't get in. Ye Qiusuo told him to come directly to her office.
"Brother Xi, that room ahead should be Professor Ye's office," Zhang Dong led Xie Xi all the way there.
"You go back first. Come pick me up in two hours," Xie Xi said and then walked into the office.
Zhang Dong looked at that office, scratched his head, and couldn't shake the feeling that late at night, the office carried a hint of a rosy, romantic shadow.
Ye Qiusuo was reviewing materials, wearing those silver-rimmed glasses with a chain. Under the lamp, the frames gleamed with a cold light. As she looked up at Xie Xi, the chain that had been resting on her collarbone fell and swayed gently.
Xie Xi was momentarily dazed but quickly regained his composure. He took out his homework notebook and placed it on Ye Qiusuo's desk: "Finished."
By 'finished,' he meant he had filled this entire notebook.
Surely there was no need to copy texts anymore, Xie Xi thought confidently. He hated copying so much; looking at the characters made him dizzy.
Ye Qiusuo reached into a drawer beside her and pulled out a new homework notebook: "Copy from this one from now on."
Xie Xi looked at the new notebook, somewhat incredulous: "Why do I still have to copy?"
This is something only elementary school students do.
Ye Qiusuo opened his old homework notebook and examined it carefully. Sure enough, although Xie Xi couldn't see the characters clearly, the fixed character structures were still presented in a different pattern.
"The first book was relatively simple. This later one has more complex characters."
"Then I'll copy one page every two days," Xie Xi, knowing he couldn't change the task, immediately started bargaining.
Ye Qiusuo's hand, which was flipping through the notebook, paused. She then looked up at him: "Fine."
Copying is indeed difficult and uncomfortable for someone with dyslexia.
That Xie Xi had persisted in finishing the first notebook was something Ye Qiusuo hadn't fully anticipated either.
He was more reasonable than imagined.
It was hard to dislike him.
There was only one desk in the office, but fortunately, it was large. Ye Qiusuo had Xie Xi sit across from her to copy.
Sitting face to face, each other's movements were clearly visible, leaving no room for slacking off.
Xie Xi wrote stroke by stroke with extreme seriousness and slowness, dragging out the time.
Almost an hour passed, and Xie Xi now understood why Ye Qiusuo could become a professor at such a young age.
She read at an incredibly fast speed, completely incomparable to ordinary people, and her concentration was extremely high. For such a long time, aside from the action of turning pages, she had basically not moved.
"This is bad for your neck," Xie Xi suddenly blurted out.
Ye Qiusuo finished reading the page in her hand before looking up at him: "Don't get distracted."
"Just a reminder," the big star Xie felt wronged.
At that moment, Ye Qiusuo's phone rang. She glanced at the screen, a flicker of surprise crossing her eyes.
Across from her, Xie Xi watched as Ye Qiusuo took her phone and stood up, answering the call by the window.
"You've arrived now?" Ye Qiusuo held the phone, looked up at the wall clock, and said to the person on the other end, "I'm at the university. It'll be another hour before I finish."
Listening to Ye Qiusuo talking to the person on the phone, Xie Xi suddenly pushed off with his feet, sliding his chair back to the window, and looked up at her: "Do you have something to do? Go ahead."
Ye Qiusuo covered the phone's receiver: "I promised you we'd have class today."
There's an order to things. She couldn't cancel Xie Xi's lesson just because the other person was her good friend.
"I'll sit here and copy. You go ahead," Xie Xi suggested.
Ye Qiusuo looked hesitant. Her friend hadn't returned to the country in a long time, and things had changed so much domestically that someone really did need to go meet her.
"I promise to write properly, no distractions," Xie Xi was practically raising his hand to swear.
Ye Qiusuo weighed the options for a moment and agreed to his suggestion: "I might not be back in an hour. After you finish writing, lock the door. I'll get it back tomorrow when I go to Gaoxing TV Station."
Xie Xi took the key from her hand, the picture of an obedient student. He watched Ye Qiusuo leave and even waved.
Once Ye Qiusuo was gone, he couldn't keep up the act. He lifted his hand, closed the homework notebook, sat in the chair, and spun around a few times by pushing off the floor with his feet.
He looked around the office. It was pitifully sparse: only one desk, a few chairs, and a bookcase behind it filled with A4-sized documents.
What a boring person.
Such a large office didn't even have a small potted plant. Xie Xi could even imagine Ye Qiusuo coming in and out every day, doing nothing but research and academics.
Xie Xi took out his phone and sent a voice message to his assistant: "Zhang Dong, when you come, buy me a few potted plants."
"Brother Xi, what kind of plants do you want?"
Xie Xi spun in his chair, thought for a moment, and said, "The kind that can live well without anyone taking care of them... like a cactus."
"Small ones or big ones?"
"Small ones, the kind you can put on a desk."
"Alright." After agreeing, Zhang Dong suddenly sent another voice message, "Brother Xi, don't you have class? Does Professor Ye allow you to use your phone in class?"
Xie Xi replied flawlessly, "It's break time right now."
His assistant, suspecting nothing, dutifully trotted off to the garden center late at night to pick out a cactus.
As class end time approached, Ye Qiusuo indeed hadn't returned. Xie Xi waited for his assistant instead.
"Where's the cactus?"
"Here." Zhang Dong took a small pot of cactus out of a box. The pot was clearly chosen with care.
Xie Xi carried the little cactus into the office and placed it on Ye Qiusuo's desk.
"Brother Xi, why isn't Professor Ye here?" Zhang Dong, who had followed him in, asked curiously.
"She had something come up and left early." Xie Xi pulled out a piece of white paper from nearby, tore off a small strip, wrote something on it, and finally stuck it onto the cactus.
After finishing this, he stood up. "Let's go back."
...
Ye Qiusuo drove to the airport. Her good friend was already waiting for her on a bench at the arrivals exit.
"Seems like this place hasn't changed much either." Rong Shiyun stood up with a smile upon seeing Ye Qiusuo.
"The airport really hasn't changed much." Ye Qiusuo looked at her friend. "Why the sudden return? You said you'd give me a heads-up before."
"Saw a cheap last-minute ticket and just came." Rong Shiyun pulled up the handle of her suitcase. "What were you busy with on Saturday night?"
"Tutoring a student."
"Tutoring? Even in university they need that now?" Rong Shiyun was somewhat shocked. How many years had she been gone? Was university tutoring a trend now?
Ye Qiusuo shook her head. "Not a student from the university."
Rong Shiyun remained puzzled. How much money could tutoring an off-campus student make? For people like them, it was a waste of time.
But clearly, Ye Qiusuo had no intention of explaining further.
"That glasses look pretty good on you," Rong Shiyun remarked after looking Ye Qiusuo over for a moment.
Ye Qiusuo: "..." She wasn't good at responding to comments like that.
Driving back, Rong Shiyun exclaimed the whole way about how much things had changed.
Because her friend had arrived unexpectedly, Ye Qiusuo took Rong Shiyun to her own home. By the time they settled in, it was already over an hour past the scheduled end of the tutoring session.
After some thought, she sent a voice message asking if Xie Xi had left.
"I've already left. There's a little cactus on the desk. Teacher, you must take good care of it." After saying this, Xie Xi even attached a photo of the cactus.
The tiny pot sat on the desk, looking utterly forlorn.
To think he could produce a cactus just because she was gone for an hour.
Next time, she'd have to make sure to watch him finish the entire lesson.
Professor Ye thought silently to herself, while Xie Xi, on the other end, remained completely unaware that he had just dug a pit for himself.
...
On Sunday evening, there was a program recording. Rong Shiyun was very interested upon hearing about it, but unfortunately, she had to have dinner with her former mentor.
"Qiusuo, I'm coming to watch your recording next week," Rong Shiyun said before leaving.
"Mhm."
Ye Qiusuo originally planned to find Xie Xi to get her key back before the recording, but they didn't run into each other, and the program recording preparations began.
This episode, the competition format had changed. The questions were no longer from a question bank; instead, top figures from various fields were invited to set questions related to knowledge points in their industries.
The difficulty instantly shot up.
In the previous episodes, Ye Qiusuo had consistently scored full marks, making the outcome too predictable. After discussion, the production team decided to increase the difficulty.
Just as the production team expected, Ye Qiusuo began to answer incorrectly. After all, she was human, with limited knowledge reserves. Moreover, there were some industries she had no contact with at all, such as knowledge about film and music.
Questions of this type were mostly scored by Wan Yurou.
"Please listen to the question: In 'Autumn Waters,' what was the final sentence Lan Yiren said while standing by the river?"
Professor Ye: "..." She didn't even know what 'Autumn Waters' was.
Wan Yurou on stage seized this question and successfully answered it.
"Yurou is amazing, you can even remember that!" The crosstalk actor beside her immediately chimed in with praise.
"I really love watching movies and singing," Wan Yurou finally regained her confidence, smiling faintly with pursed lips. "'Autumn Waters' is my favorite movie; I've watched it at least thirty times."
The host marveled, "Thirty times? No wonder Yurou remembers it."
Ye Qiusuo was experiencing a rare setback, and everyone present was pleased. They had been suppressed for too long and had started to doubt their own intelligence.
During the mid-show break, everyone was in high spirits. Ye Qiusuo stood up and went out, wanting to find Xie Xi to get her office key back.
Wan Yurou stood at the center of the group. Glimpsing Ye Qiusuo leaving, a smile touched her lips. She politely excused herself to those around her, saying she needed some fresh air.
Xie Xi was also on his break. He came out and returned the key to Ye Qiusuo.
Ye Qiusuo stared at the key in her hand for a long moment, almost not recognizing it as her own. After just one night, the key ring had transformed from an ordinary metal one into... a yellow soft rubber ring, with a little yellow duck attached to the side.
The entire key was a glaring, brilliant yellow.
"I gave it a little makeover," Xie Xi said, holding his fingers a tiny distance apart, looking utterly innocent. "Teacher, don't be mad at me."
He firmly refused to admit that he had broken the other's keychain out of sheer boredom and then replaced it with a new one.
Professor Ye stared at the dazzling little yellow duck in her hand for a long time before finally looking up at Xie Xi. She said seriously, "Xie Xi, you can't impose your own will on others."
Xie Xi was taken aback. "Are you angry?"
Ye Qiusuo wasn't angry because he had replaced her keychain. Rather, she was thinking about his behavior and how it led to his eventual withdrawal from the industry in the future.
There was... perhaps some element of regretting wasted talent involved.
His singing was so beautiful, his talent in that area unmatched. Yet, in the end, he was surpassed by Lu Mingzhe.
Moreover, Xie Xi's nature wasn't bad; in fact, he was considerably better than that original male lead.
"Don't do things like this in the future," Ye Qiusuo frowned, unsure how best to admonish him.
Xie Xi gave a low 'oh.' "I won't in the future. Don't be angry."
...
The two of them standing together talking, and Xie Xi handing over the key, were all seen clearly by Wan Yurou from around the corner of the corridor.
