Xie Lan didn’t know how Dou Sheng had screened the candidates.

When he rushed to the training building on Wednesday, Rong Xinxin and several old members were listening to a lecture given by new members, taking notes as they listened.

The speaker was a girl with a high ponytail.

“…So, being tit-for-tat is not conducive to winning. It must be avoided during free debate. Getting bogged down in a confrontation won’t lead to any conclusion, and the audience will also feel tired. What should be done at such times?”

Rong Xinxin looked up. “Save the nation by a curve (indirect approach)?”

“Right!” High Ponytail clapped her hands. “Face the problem squarely, but counterattack from the side. You can be humorous, or turn it into an abstract concept, using analogies to persuade.”

Rong Xinxin and the others suddenly understood.

Another new member added, “Or disrupt the opponent’s logic and trap them in it. In short, you can’t be like you and the senior just now, arguing for dozens of sentences over whether a single point is correct or not.”

Xie Lan stopped at the door, turned his head, and asked gloomily, “Are these the people you screened in?”

Dou Sheng smiled. “They all won school-level debate awards in junior high. The girl who spoke just now was the third debater of the city champion team, and the boy was the fourth debater on her team.”

Xie Lan: “…”

Then what use am I as president!

Rong Xinxin took a deep breath and eagerly scanned those tender faces. “Since you are all so amazing, I can rest assured handing the position of president to Xie Lan.”

High Ponytail suddenly perked up. “Don’t worry, Senior. We’ll choose the debate topics ourselves, do the exercises ourselves, and arrange the competitions ourselves. We won’t let Senior Xie Lan worry about anything, nor let him feel even a bit of pressure.”

Xie Lan couldn’t help but speak up, “Then my task is mainly…?”

The training room was quiet for a moment.

Everyone said in unison, “Spiritual Leader!”

Rong Xinxin added an explanation: “Only by not bringing you pressure can we use your name until graduation, benefiting the next recruitment.”

Xie Lan: “…”

High Ponytail thought for a moment and said, “You can also provide us with inspiration. Argument organization must originate from life observations; otherwise, it’s all empty talk. Senior returned from the UK, so your perspective on things must be different from ours. You can come listen to our training more often.”

“This is good.” Dou Sheng laughed, casually resting his hand on Xie Lan’s shoulder, lifting his fingers as if playing the piano. “The debate competition for this semester is scheduled for two days after the final exams. You guys come to practice every Wednesday; Xie Lan and I will come to listen.”

A few low gasps came from the crowd.

Xie Lan thought Dou Sheng’s arrangement was reasonable and didn’t quite understand what those gasps meant. He glanced at the source of the sound; several girls hurriedly shifted their gaze away from his shoulder.

Only then did he suddenly realize something.

Xie Lan’s back stiffened. Dou Sheng hadn’t reacted yet, pondering while continuing to unconsciously play piano on his collarbone.

“It seems we two spiritual presidents can’t be too useless either. How about this, I’ll give you the topic for the first week’s practice.”

Rong Xinxin was quite amazed. “When did you also become a spiritual president?”

“Vice Spiritual President, appointed by Xie Lan.” Dou Sheng smiled with curved eyes. “Begged me to come, couldn’t refuse.”

“…”

Facing a crowd of shocked faces and ambiguous smiles, Xie Lan turned his head away and said irritably, “Shut up, annoying.”

As he spoke, he took the opportunity to brush Dou Sheng’s hand off his body, frowning somewhat coldly.

Dou Sheng sighed lazily and said to the room full of excited people, “Be careful, your President Xie Lan is fierce.”

Everyone’s eyes showed excitement: “Okay!”

Xie Lan: “…”

The first week’s topic Dou Sheng assigned to everyone was “Is poverty wealth or suffering?”

After dismissing and going out, Xie Lan put away his cold face and sighed, “With this topic, what can we add to them?”

Dou Sheng was calm and breezy. “My insight into poverty will be very rich by then.”

“Wake up, you young master.” Xie Lan was speechless. “What insight into poverty can you have?”

Dou Sheng smiled. “I said, by then.”

“Hmm?”

Dou Sheng smiled. “You just focus on preparing for the competition and finals. Just showing your face occasionally in my videos is enough.”

Xie Lan was even more confused.

The voting for Youth on Strings continued. After finishing his competition homework in the dorm at night, Xie Lan casually scrolled through his feed.

The top post was published by Ah Ze a few minutes ago.

@ViolinAhZe: Is there anyone who hasn’t voted yet? My heart really aches. Xie Lan has been suppressed by almost 100,000 votes again, while my votes actually increased by 20,000. What are you 20,000 people thinking? Vote for Xie Lan, how many times do I have to say it??

The comment section was full of curses.

• Do you have no independent personality?
• Ah Ze has been possessed for too long, can’t want him anymore.
• Abandoned you long ago, watching those two gods fight every day, exciting!
• Voted, voted, it’s him, it’s him, damn it.

Xie Lan was speechless. Switching to his main account, he commented: Really unnecessary.

Refreshed two minutes later, Ah Ze replied: Idol replied to me!

Xie Lan: …

Overly enthusiastic people made him feel mentally tired.

He could only scroll past quickly, clicking open the voting page. Scanning down roughly, he found the organizers had actually added additional clauses.

• After popularity and professional interview, those who obtain creator qualifications and perform excellently in cooperation have the opportunity to join the Sesame Pictures OST arrangement team, obtaining a special invited seat.

Dou Sheng passed by behind him holding a washbasin. “I asked around. The additional clause has very high value.”

Xie Lan gave a hum, dragging the page down again, looking at Jiada’s lead of 100,000 votes.

“You should canvas for votes,” Dou Sheng said again. “Jiada has been urging daily recently, and it really works.”

Canvassing was fine, but he didn’t know how to start.

Xie Lan tried editing a few words in the status bar—”Can you help me vote? Link: …”

A bit weird, deleted.

“Please help me vote, thank you. Link: …”

Not quite right either.

He struggled for a while, then cleared the editing bar.

For some reason, he always felt a sense of humbleness like begging for food. After pondering for a moment, he pulled over his tablet, quickly made a few pages of PPT, screen-recorded the presentation, casually added a violin piece he recorded before, exported, and posted the status.

@Xie Lan_em: Organized some math competition information for everyone, hoping to exchange for a vote in your hands.

Click play. A serious owl head hung above each page, with the voting link attached next to the owl.

Below was the syllabus for the high school math competition: Pigeonhole Principle, Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion, Mathematical Induction… one item per page. Below each exam point was a casual photo of an example problem from Old Ma.

Comments flooded in quickly.

• You seem to have updated a video, yet seem not to have.
• OK, pretending I also study for competitions.
• Long time no see, Lan-zai!!
• [Equivalent Exchange]
• Master of Trading.
• Pigeonhole Principle: Put infinitely many plus objects into n drawers, then at least one drawer has infinitely many objects. By analogy: Distribute infinitely many plus Xie Lans to n enthusiastic viewers, then at least one viewer can obtain infinitely many Xie Lans.

Xie Lan was just preparing to reply to a couple of comments when he suddenly heard a crash from the direction of the water room outside the corridor.

Dai You pushed the door open. Noisy voices drifted in, Dou Sheng’s voice mixed in but very clear.

“Is it worth it? Such a small thing. Go back to your own rooms.”

Xie Lan quickly got up and went out, only to see Dou Sheng accompanying Wang Gou back from the water room. Wang Gou held a pair of wet shoes in one hand and his glasses in the other, the temple arm suspected to be loose.

Dai You was shocked. “Got into a fight?”

“No.” Dou Sheng entered the room and rolled his wrist. “He was scrubbing shoes there. Raised his hand and the shoe brush hit his glasses. The frame opened, screw fell out, and he was looking for it there. The person waiting behind got angry, and they quarreled a bit.”

Dai You asked, “With whom?”

“Xu Tianyang from All-Subject A.” Dou Sheng pulled out a stool and sat down, looking for snacks while speaking casually. “Finals are coming up, everyone is irritable. Tianyang spoke a bit aggressively too.”

Xu Tianyang had been split out from the original Class 4. Hearing this name, Dai You breathed a sigh of relief and pressed on Wang Gou’s shoulder. “Don’t take it to heart.”

Wang Gou sighed. “Didn’t take it to heart. It was indeed wrong of me to occupy the space.”

As he spoke, he carefully placed the glasses on the desk, crumpled a few pieces of unused composition paper to wipe the water off the shoes, then pulled out a tube of glue and started applying it to the sole.

The sole had come off that shoe. The dust in between had been cleaned, so glue could be applied directly.

The whole process of gluing the shoe took no more than twenty seconds. After gluing the shoe, Wang Gou got up and pulled out a small floral cloth bag from behind the bookshelf. Inside was another pair of glasses, lenses and frame all shattered. He used a small knife to carefully pry the screw on that frame, trying to get the small screw down to use for the glasses in hand.

Dai You watched, dumbfounded. “Go to the glasses shop outside the school to fix it. Usually, they don’t charge for installing a small part.”

“I know.” Wang Gou leaned in, concentrating on turning that tiny screw, speaking softly. “High probability they won’t charge, but it’s also possible they’ll charge five yuan. That’s five yuan.”

Dai You: “…Is your screw the same model?”

Wang Gou reached the critical step, held his breath for a while, then said, “Slightly smaller by a pinch. I’ll use glue to fill it in later.”

An unremarkable little genius at saving money.

After a while, Dou Sheng suddenly asked, “What are your monthly living expenses?”

“Excluding meals, at least fifty or sixty, at most a hundred. Buying books is separate. My meal card has three hundred subsidized by the school. If I eat frugally, I can cash out the balance with classmates at the end of the month, basically covering other expenses without needing to supplement money myself,” Wang Gou answered casually.

As soon as the voice fell, the three people in the room were shocked.

Dai You gave a proper thumbs up. “Living in the 21st century, yet your quality of hard work and plain living is not inferior to 1998.”

Xie Lan instinctively asked, “What is the 1998 meme?”

“In that era, a normal person’s salary was only one or two hundred yuan a month.”

“Oh.”

Dou Sheng’s eyes lit up. “Then do you think, if I live like you, how much money would I need a month?”

?

Xie Lan skillfully began to be confused. “What are you planning?”

Wang Gou thought for a moment. “Short term, not considering video production expenses, our basic expenses are about the same. However, your food is a bit too good, not really necessary.”

He stood by Dou Sheng’s open cabinet door and scanned it twice. “Look at you. Besides three meals, a box of cream puffs a day, chewing shredded beef while doing problems, drinking cocoa milk like water. How much does this cost? On top of this, running out to buy milk tea every afternoon…”

Xie Lan couldn’t help but say, “The milk tea is mine.”

“Oh.” Wang Gou casually pressed on the back of Xie Lan’s chair. “Then that’s treating guests every afternoon.”

Xie Lan: “…”

Buying milk tea for a boyfriend doesn’t seem to count as treating guests; it sounds weird somewhere.

Dou Sheng said, “All these can be cut. Do you think I can live on one hundred and fifty?”

Dai You sprayed out half a mouthful of coffee, dripping all over the floor.

“Are you crazy?” He wiped his chin with a tissue. “Doggy needs three hundred, and you want one hundred and fifty? What kind of madness is this?”

Dou Sheng pondered to himself and waved his hand. “Nothing, just asking casually.”

Dai You continued studying speechlessly. Xie Lan packed the papers to bring tomorrow. Wang Gou, however, didn’t leave.

Xie Lan pricked up his ears slightly, eavesdropping on the whispers between Dou Sheng and him.

Wang Gou whispered, “Bro, actually I think it’s possible. After coming to the city, I spend money a bit loosely. If really saving, one hundred and fifty is about right.”

Xie Lan looked at Dou Sheng expressionlessly.

Dou Sheng asked humbly, “Any secrets?”

“Mainly two points. First is to resist consumption premium. For example, drinking alcohol. Palace Jade Liquid Wine is one hundred and eighty a cup, easy to drink. But switch to the unbranded Erguotou at the school gate, you can also get drunk. Second is acquiring daily resources. Of course not stealing or robbing. For example, free porridge and tea bags in the cafeteria, discarded test papers printed wrong by the grade group. You have to be good at observing.”

Dou Sheng showed a realization he had never had during class. “Understood.”

“Listening to my words is better than working for ten years.” Wang Gou patted him with a smile.

After the person left, Xie Lan said numbly, “What exactly are you going to do?”

It was impossible for Dou Sheng to save money. Used to the young master lifestyle, Xie Lan had only felt he was wasteful since knowing him. Buying things, eating two bites, throwing them away if not tasty; too lazy to return clothes if they didn’t fit after trying; taking a taxi if he could avoid walking; buying whatever fun things he saw. The storage room at home was full of messy gadgets he bought, saying he wanted to record videos, but never finishing recording.

Dou Sheng lowered his voice: “Stirring things up.”

Xie Lan: “…”

How could someone say these three words so righteously, like saying “Study hard to serve the motherland,” revealing a bit of pride amidst the low profile.

In the following days, when Xie Lan did the math problems Old Ma stuffed him with until he almost vomited, he would look back and see Dou Sheng burying his head writing bitterly in the planning notebook.

Xie Lan was hooked by curiosity. It wasn’t until school let out on Friday that he asked seemingly casually, “Script for a new video?”

“Mm.” Dou Sheng stuffed the notebook into his schoolbag. “Dual performance by us two. You have no script, just react normally.”

Xie Lan asked, “Filming for how many days?”

“Until before the final exams, nearly a month.”

“…” Xie Lan looked at him like he was a ghost. “Video theme?”

“Sublimated theme is: To what extent does poverty reduce happiness.”

Xie Lan paused subtly. “Then are there unsublimated themes?”

“Yes.” Dou Sheng smiled, leaning into his ear and whispering, “Also known as: Relying on Boyfriend’s Rewards, Can a Fallen Young Master Be Happy?”

“…” Xie Lan went expressionless in a second. “Forget me, go find a new boyfriend.”

---

At the provincial training on Saturday, Old Ma distributed the schedule for this year’s H Province High School Math Competition.

At the end of the month was the preliminary round of the H Province Math Competition, followed immediately by final exams for each school. Two weeks after the exams, provincial training would continue. Students from other cities would join, totaling 120 top students from four cities, led by provincial math competition coaches for three weeks of training.

The official league would be held in early September, divided into first and second tests.

“Whether you can get recommended admission or bonus points qualification will basically be revealed in the league. First prize winners participate in the recommended admission qualification exam. The best performers among first prize winners can also be selected for the provincial team to participate in the winter camp to compete for the national competition. This is something that can be met but not sought; don’t have too much pressure.”

Old Ma quickly finished explaining the arrangements and continued lecturing.

The atmosphere of the last two provincial training sessions was a bit oppressive. The difficulty was becoming more and more outrageous, and the problem-solving ideas were abstract to a heinous degree. Sometimes after Old Ma explained patiently once, at least half of the elites below still stared blankly at him.

Xie Lan also began to struggle a bit. He vaguely felt that although Old Ma said not to force it, in essence, he was trying hard to lift everyone towards the highest goal. Before, he would only start to feel tired after hearing the lecture until 6 or 7 PM. Today, just at lunch time, his brain was about to stop turning.

“Turning on ‘not listening to class’ mode next week. I need a week to heal the brain damage received today.” Dou Sheng announced righteously, lying on the table and poking open the mobile game he was addicted to recently.

Xie Lan glanced sideways, just in time to see the moment he paid with face recognition.

Ding-dong. 328 yuan.

Dou Sheng exited the payment page, checked another gift pack, and continued face recognition.

Ding-dong. 648 yuan.

Xie Lan was numb.

Experiencing material poverty? Pure bullsh*t.

Enduring until school was over in the evening, Old Ma distributed two new sets of papers.

Amidst wails of anguish, Xie Lan silently took the papers and walked out.

“Xie Lan.” Old Ma stopped him from behind, instructing in a low voice, “Focus on the few questions about recursion and characteristic equations in the paper. These two areas are your weakness.”

“What mint (Bo He)?” Xie Lan was confused. “Teacher, speak louder, my brain is tired.”

“Weakness (Bo Ruo), weak as in small and weak.” Old Ma laughed in exasperation, took out a piece of chocolate and gave it to him, whispering, “The quota for direct recommended admission from the provincial math competition is narrowing year by year. Be prepared for there being only one spot. There is a very strong student in D City; you have to hold on.”

“Oh.” Xie Lan nodded. “Okay.”

Dou Sheng couldn’t help clicking his tongue beside them. “Why not give me this special treatment? Looking down on the second place?”

Old Ma frowned. “Stop acting here. You know in your heart how much thought you spent on the competition. Xie Lan is more solid than you and willing to do more questions than you.”

Hearing this, Dou Sheng curled his lips lazily. “That’s true. My scores in all subjects are so high. If I really take the recommended admission, wouldn’t Yinghua lose a science top scholar? Considering the school, I can’t study too seriously.”

Xie Lan cast a knife-like glance sideways.

Dou Sheng immediately restrained himself. “I was joking.”

Xie Lan was expressionless. Only after walking out of the experimental building did he elbow a certain someone.

“Annoying to death,” he frowned.

Dou Sheng looked around to see no one, took Xie Lan’s schoolbag over, and hung one on each shoulder.

“Don’t feel pressured.” He smiled. “See the highs and lows in the preliminary round. What D City elite? We crossed hands in the provincial quality inspection in the first year of high school. Screw him.”

Xie Lan immediately asked, “Result?”

“I won by a slight margin of two points.” Dou Sheng smiled faintly.

After eating a late-night snack at home, Xie Lan continued to grind questions.

In the past few days, Old Qin, Hu Xiujie, and Old Ma had all talked to him explicitly or implicitly. His total score improvement had basically reached a bottleneck. Whether he could get full marks in physics and chemistry mainly depended on whether he encountered questions with difficult phrasing. Chinese quantity had reached the top, and qualitative change was far away. Although there was still a year before the college entrance exam, no one could afford to gamble.

The unified opinion of the grade teachers for him was: Math competition must qualify. He thought so himself.

This was the closest path to his mother, to that purple acceptance letter.

He wanted to win, and win beautifully.

After getting home, Xie Lan hurriedly ate a bite of late-night snack and continued to grind questions.

His phone was set up on the side, live streaming. He hadn’t posted videos recently, and fans were howling with hunger, so he switched to the study room route.

Second Cat’s Silent Study Room. No chatting, only showing hands and desktop. A small timer was placed on the corner of the table. BGM played forest rain sounds. Every forty minutes, a violin piece would be inserted as a break, and he would bring some snacks in to eat.

Xie Lan almost never looked at the bullet comments, just quietly doing those math problems.

Hundreds of thousands of viewers were students, preparing for exams quietly with him.

Finally enduring until Sunday afternoon, Xie Lan greeted everyone, turned off the stream, and planned to rest for a while.

He went out to ask Dou Sheng what to eat for dinner, when he suddenly heard music coming from the crack of the door ajar next door.

“Little cabbage ah~ Yellow in the field ah~ At two or three years old~ Lost my mom ah~”

The music paused. Dou Sheng muttered, “Ms. Zhao Wenying will strangle me.”

Then, the song switched.

“Shoes are tattered! Hat is tattered! The cassock on the body is tattered!”

“This works.” Dou Sheng clicked his tongue. “This is it.”

Xie Lan was shocked and pushed the door open. “What are you listening to?”

The computer showed audio tracks. Dou Sheng had just dragged that “this works” song in, then saved and shut down.

Xie Lan was attracted by his outfit.

A pair of casual pants. If he remembered correctly, bought during the persona video period. The pants weren’t long enough, reaching above the ankles. The fabric was visibly poor, wrinkling all over after sitting for a while.

At that time, Dou Sheng’s principle for buying clothes was “down-and-out and decadent,” but these pants only accounted for down-and-out, not decadent. It was said to be 9.9 yuan free shipping, so they were discarded with disdain at the time.

The top seemed to be a brand of decent quality, but judging from its cut and deformation, Dou Sheng had worn this clothes to fight for at least half a year.

But as luck would have it, Dou Sheng still looked good wearing these tattered clothes.

The old, loose clothes highlighted the boy’s distinct contours even more. From hair to skin, that feeling of being clean enough to be insulated from dust was engraved into his bones.

Xie Lan was confused for a good while. “What does this mean?”

“Poverty challenge, starting today. Monthly living expenses 150, persist until the final exam.” Dou Sheng smiled faintly. “Boyfriend, don’t feel sorry for me too quickly.”

“…”

Xie Lan was numb. “Can I beat you to death immediately?”

Dou Sheng smiled confidently. “I thought about it carefully. If I dress normally and only save on living expenses, it doesn’t count as truly experiencing material poverty.”

Xie Lan was silent for a moment. “I just want to ask, do I still have milk tea to drink every afternoon?”

“This, you have.” Dou Sheng laughed. “I reserved milk tea money for boyfriend from the living expenses.”

Seriously?

One hundred and fifty a month.

“No need.” Xie Lan squeezed out a few words with difficulty. “I don’t want to get poisoned before the exam.”

“Status update posted, no regrets after placing a piece.” Dou Sheng strapped the familiar GoPro to his arm, bent down to pick up the rotten schoolbag on the floor, and hung it on his body.

“Leaving first, see you at school.”

“Ah?” Xie Lan instinctively looked at his watch. “Still two hours before Uncle Ma comes to pick us up. Where are you going?”

Dou Sheng looked innocent. “Who is Little Ma? Do I know him?”

Xie Lan: “Ask again?”

Dou Sheng smiled. “Stop messing around. I want to save two yuan on bus fare and walk to school.”

Walk?

Xie Lan fell into unprecedented shock facing his back.

“Crossing the river?” he couldn’t help asking.

Dou Sheng waved dashingly at the top of the stairs. “There’s a bridge.”