Chapter 48: Recognizing Oneself

"Respected leaders, teachers, and dear classmates, good afternoon. I am Tang Wan, a student from Class 2 of Grade 10.

Today, I am deeply honored to stand here and share my study methods with you all. Although my methods might not suit everyone, I hope all my fellow students can extract some experience from them and find your own paths of learning..."

Tang Wan stood before the podium, reciting her prepared speech with great emotion and expression.

Lu You stood in the aisle of the auditorium, quietly watching her focused appearance as she delivered her speech. His small face was tightly drawn, and an occasional chilly breeze swept past, stirring the loose strands of hair framing her temples.

"Hello, classmate."

A voice sounded behind Lu You.

Lu You turned his head and saw a boy who seemed to be addressing him, so he responded politely.

"Hello. Is something the matter?"

"May I venture to ask..."

Before the boy could finish, Lu You directly interrupted, "If it's a venture, then don't ask." With that, he turned his head back to watch Tang Wan's speech.

Talking to you was far less enjoyable than stealing another glance at Tang Wan.

The boy had never expected such a response. All his words were choked in his throat, neither coming up nor going down, and he felt depressed enough to vomit blood.

The other three girls saw this situation, exchanged a glance, and signaled the boy to step back.

Soon, Tang Wan's speech reached its conclusion.

"I hope my presentation will be of some help to everyone's studies. My speech ends here. Thank you all for listening."

With that, she stepped down from the podium, bowed to the leaders behind her and the teachers and students in the audience respectively, and walked toward the auditorium aisle.

"That was a really great speech! A hundred points!" Lu You gave her a thumbs-up and praised her sincerely.

"Cut it out!" Tang Wan cast a sidelong glance at him, her hands rising to touch her slightly burning cheeks.

"I was almost nervous to death. Besides, I was just reading off a script; it can't even be considered a real speech. Back in junior high, people even cursed at me for it."

"If I were you, I'd tell them: 'If you have the ability, take the top rank yourself and give a speech on stage. Otherwise, even if I curse your entire family, you still have to sit down there and listen.'"

"Huh?" Tang Wan's eyes lit up. "You're right. In the future, if anyone curses at me, you'll help me snap right back at them."

At that moment, the host on stage announced, "Next, we invite Lu You from Class 3 of Grade 10 to come up and share his study insights with us.

In this mid-term examination, student Lu You achieved exceptionally outstanding results. He scored full marks in mathematics, physics, and English. For biology and chemistry, which remained, he also secured the top rank in the entire grade.

Let us welcome him to the stage with warm applause."

Thunderous applause erupted across the playground, with Class 3 clapping especially loud, and a few even hooting and calling out "male god" and "study god."

Tang Wan looked at Lu You with a peculiar expression and said, "How come the applause for you going up on stage is even louder than mine?"

"Is that so?" Lu You said nonchalantly. "It's probably because I'm a student from an ordinary class, yet my scores managed to surpass everyone in your elite rocket class."

Instantly, eight gazes focused on him all at once, burning so intensely they felt as though they could pierce right through him.

Li Yu listened from the side, the corners of his mouth twitching slightly as he said, "You really have no modesty at all, do you?"

"Just speaking the truth." Lu You didn't care about their gazes in the least. If they had an opinion, let their scores do the talking.

"No more chatting, I need to get on stage. See you later." With that, Lu You hardened his expression, summoning the aura he used to have when publishing academic papers in his past life, straightened his back, and walked out of the aisle with firm strides.

Everyone was stunned by his suddenly shifted aura, and Tang Wan's eyes were practically sparkling with little stars. She had never witnessed this side of Lu You before—confident, resolute, and sharply brilliant.

Seeing Lu You appear on stage, Meng Yi became so excited that he jumped straight up, practically wishing he could clap his hands to shreds. He kept telling the classmate next to him, "That's my former desk mate! He's insanely handsome and his grades are freaking god-tier."

The girls sitting near the front of the auditorium stage could more or less see what Lu You looked like, and they instantly grew excited, breaking into whispered conversations.

"Holy crap, it was totally worth it! This grade meeting actually paid off!"

"No wonder the school forum didn't leak any photos. If it were me, I wouldn't be willing to post them either!"

"What the people in Class 3 said is true! This guy's looks are simply outrageous!"

...

Lu You was a dozen meters away from the students in the audience, and coupled with the applause on the playground and their deliberately lowered voices, he didn't hear what the girls were saying.

He walked up to the podium and instinctively tapped the microphone, producing a humming sound across the venue.

Very well, the microphone was functioning normally.

"Leaders, teachers, and dear classmates, good afternoon. I am Lu You from Class 3 of Grade 10."

As he began to speak, the venue quickly quieted down.

"The teachers told me to come up on stage and share some personal study insights. Frankly speaking, there isn't really anything to share. Anything useful or worth saying has already been said by Tang Wan. If I'm asked to share again, it would just be rewording her words and repeating them.

Therefore, I decided to just chat with you all—let's talk about my views on learning.

Just yesterday, shortly after the grades came out, a classmate came to ask me a question. The gist of it was: why did they still score poorly despite seriously reviewing? How did I study, and could I share it?

I will answer that again right here. If you don't study and accumulate knowledge normally, and only try to study hard right before the exam, it is impossible to score well. Or rather, that shouldn't be called reviewing; that's just clutching Buddha's feet at the last minute.

If you truly want to achieve good results, then listen attentively in class and invest the time. Don't be full of grand ambitions while lacking competence; looking at a textbook and thinking it's simple without doing practice problems will only leave your eyes pitch black in the exam room, where you won't even know which theorem to apply.

As for how I personally study, and how I manage to score full marks in math, English, and physics—I can only say that you definitely won't be able to learn it. Even if I told you the specifics of how I study, you would just think I'm talking nonsense in a dream.

Some people might ask: why do you think others can't do what you can? But the truth is, there are some things that others can accomplish, while you might struggle with all your might and still fail to achieve them.

Usain Bolt can run under 9.60 seconds, but can anyone else in the world do that? Some people, at our age, are already competing in the Olympics. Can we do that?

We are all human beings, so we possess universal functions. For example, we all breathe, and our hearts all beat. However, every single person is also an independent individual. There are no two identical leaves in the world, nor are there two completely identical people.

Everyone has their own unique characteristics. How to master your studies requires you to find your own learning methods. Furthermore, don't use other people's standards to demand things of yourself; it easily creates a huge psychological gap. Your own standards should be comprehensively evaluated based on your personal learning ability and the time you invest.

Finally, I hope every single one of you can recognize yourselves clearly, tap into your own potential, and accept your own mediocrity.

My speech ends here. Thank you all for listening."

With that, Lu You nodded to the students in the audience, turned around, and walked into the auditorium aisle.

After quite a while, applause finally echoed across the playground.

In the auditorium aisle:

Yuan Wenliang looked at Lu You and said helplessly, "With a speech like that, you've left me with no idea what to say next."

Lu You shrugged and said, "You usually love reading history books, just talk about some historical stories."

"That actually sounds doable." Yuan Wenliang fell into deep thought.

Tang Wan looked at Lu You with admiring eyes and said, "What you said was much better than mine."

"Keep it low-profile, keep it low-profile. It was just average."

...

The rest of the grade meeting proceeded normally. Yuan Wenliang went on stage to share his study insights for Chinese, politics, history, and geography, followed by various students going on stage to receive recognition, collect certificates, and finally take a group photo with the school leaders.

What made Lu You quite happy was that he and Tang Wan took their very first photo together. Although the principal and Yuan Wenliang were also squeezed into the frame, as long as she was there, everything else was a minor detail.

As soon as the grade meeting ended, the head of discipline found Lu You, patted him on the shoulder, and said, "Aren't these grades of yours pretty good? You should be able to get into Class 1 or 2 next semester."

Facing an elder worthy of respect, Lu You remained very polite.

He lowered his head modestly and said, "It's all thanks to Director Zhong's help that I was able to come and study at Chunhua, otherwise I wouldn't have these grades."

Zhong Mushufeng was very gratified, nodding with satisfaction as he said, "As long as I could help. By the way, do your parents know about these grades of yours?"

"They said they aren't interested. They're afraid of losing face if they find out."

"Hahaha! That sounds like something your parents would do. Alright, head back to your class. I'll make sure to let them know about your scores."

"Thank you, Director Zhong. Goodbye."

With that, Lu You left the auditorium and walked back to his classroom on his own. As he walked through the playground, he saw a figure waiting for him in the shade of the trees ahead.

He was just about to quicken his pace when an unfamiliar girl suddenly appeared in front of him, blocking his path.

Lu You stepped to the left to avoid her, but unexpectedly, she also took a step to the left. Lu You then stepped to the right, and she continued to mirror his movement.

The two of them stood in a stalemate, blocking each other left and right for a moment, until Lu You couldn't take it anymore. Looking at the girl in front of him, he asked, "Classmate, is something the matter?"

The girl gazed calmly into his eyes and replied, "My name is Ye Hongshu. I hope you remember it." With that, she turned and walked away, clean and decisive.

"Huh?" Lu You scratched his head with a bewildered expression.

What just happened?

Was she hitting on me?

Then Lu You came to his senses and looked toward the shady spot across the way, but unfortunately, the figure was already gone.

"What's the situation here? A weird girl, and another one who slipped away without waiting for me. I really don't get it."

Since he couldn't figure it out, Lu You simply stopped thinking about it and walked back to the classroom by himself. It wasn't even four o'clock yet, and he still had to return to class for the last period.

...

As soon as Tang Wan returned to the classroom, she slumped directly onto her desk, completely wilted like a withered little sapling, lacking all energy.

Seeing her like this, Xu Nian was terrified that something might be wrong with her health and asked with concern, "Wanwan, what's wrong? Are you feeling unwell somewhere? Do you need to ask for leave to see a doctor?"

Tang Wan shook her head and said dejectedly, "No. There's nothing wrong with my body; my heart is the part that's broken."

"Huh? What's wrong with it? Can you tell me about it?"

"I feel like there's a knife digging into my heart. It's both sour and painful."

"Did Lu You do something?"

Upon hearing that name, Tang Wan immediately buried her face in the crook of her arm and muttered muffledly, "I... I don't want to talk about him."

"Did you two have a fight?" Xu Nian asked tentatively.

"No."

"Then what is it?"

"He... was hit on by a girl."

"Is that it? It's not like he was hitting on someone else, why are you overthinking it? Besides, you aren't even his girlfriend. Even if he was chatting up other girls, is that any of your business? By what right would you manage him?"

Tang Wan was poked right where it hurt and couldn't say a word.

Seeing her like this, Xu Nian didn't dare to speak harshly anymore and could only comfort her, saying, "I think you've fallen too deep into this. I suggest you go act spoiled with him and ask what his attitude is. If his answer is ambiguous, you'd better extricate yourself early on."

Hearing those words, Tang Wan abruptly lifted her head and said, "You're right. I'll go try it out during dinner later."

Right after that, acting as if nothing had happened, she took out the textbook for the third period and began studying.

Xu Nian slapped her palm against her forehead. Tang Wan's 'love-brain' had officially taken form, and she was practically a lost cause.