Young Sword Heart Bright Moon was very good to watch. The protagonist, Sword Seven, not only resembled Dou Sheng in temperament in the anime, but the faint chivalrous tenderness shown in the original novel was even more similar, making Xie Lan unable to stop.

He had never been exposed to the Xianxia genre before. Once he started, he was addicted, quickly catching up to the latest progress of the anime. Finding there was an original novel, he enthusiastically started gnawing on the text version.

Seven million words, semi-classical Chinese. Reading the novel while checking the dictionary, he completely went off the deep end, reality and fiction on the verge of confusion.

On the opening day of the provincial training camp, Xie Lan ran behind Dou Sheng to the classroom door, once dazed looking at Dou Sheng’s back.

—He thought demonically: Clearly he has broken through, why don’t I see Dou Sheng flying on a sword?

There were over eighty students in the provincial training this year. The large classroom was packed, but two seats in the front row were empty.

Standing in front of the podium was a male teacher in his forties, wearing square-rimmed glasses, square face, looking serious and reserved.

He only nodded at Xie Lan and Dou Sheng. “Sit according to rank.”

According to rank, Dou Sheng and Xie Lan, one first and one third, had to be separated. The other two in the top four of the province were both from D City, sandwiching them exactly one in front and one behind.

Dou Sheng glanced at the name tags on the front and back desks. The province’s fourth place, Li Yuening, was already sitting in the second row. He greeted him and asked, “Do you know Geng Rui? Shall we swap seats?”

Geng Rui was the top student from D City tied for first with Dou Sheng. Not tall, wearing a pair of slightly flashy purple-rimmed glasses.

Hearing this, he turned back to confirm, “You are Dou Sheng?”

Dou Sheng hummed.

“Pleasure to meet you.” Geng Rui stood up and pulled the table. “Yuening and I are both from D City Experimental. Then Yuening, come over.”

Li Yuening stood up and smiled politely at Xie Lan. “Are you Xie Lan?”

Hearing his name, Xie Lan came back to his senses from Dou Sheng’s realm breakthrough. Stunned for two seconds before nodding, “Hello.”

Everyone’s provincial training materials were already placed on the table, sealed in kraft paper bags, two per person, labeled “Day 1”. The posture was a bit scary.

Names and school names were printed on the bags. After Li Yuening moved to the front, he swapped materials with Dou Sheng.

Dou Sheng casually pinched his own, then looked at the two bags Xie Lan placed by the wall, muttering, “Why do I feel yours are a bit thicker than mine?”

Xie Lan didn’t make a sound, staring at him thoughtfully. A moment later, his gaze slowly moved up to the hair on top of his head.

“…” Dou Sheng raised his hand and waved it in front of his face, whispering, “Boyfriend, time to return to the real world.”

Xie Lan snapped back to reality. “Hmm?”

Dou Sheng picked up the kraft paper bag in front of him and patted it on the table. “Provincial training. Your recommended admission.”

“Oh.”

Xie Lan’s gaze fell on the kraft paper bag. After a long time, he focused on the material bag labeled “Morning” and sighed lightly.

Approaching class time, the noisy classroom quieted down automatically. The male teacher cleared his throat.

“Hello everyone.”

“Glad to meet you all. I am one of the leading coaches for this year’s H Province League. My surname is Kang. There is another coach named Fu; we will take turns teaching.”

Coach Kang spoke in a very low voice, looking down at the podium table while speaking, picking up a chalk end on the table, moving it from left to right, then from right back to left.

“Last year I remember the provincial training was in D City, right? This year it’s in H City, our provincial capital… mm, Yinghua High School’s conditions are indeed good… indeed good… Hope everyone focuses on the provincial training without distractions and gets good results in the league. Coach Fu and I also discussed, estimating about fifteen or sixteen students in H Province can fight for recommended admission in the league this year. Top two universities recommended admission estimated around 3 people. Of course, this is hard to say, just an estimate. For the vast majority here, just need to rush forward as much as possible to get better policies in independent recruitment. This is the most important.”

The teacher rambled as if talking to himself, but his words were direct. Everyone took out pens to note the important information he said.

“Our training intensity this year has also increased. Lecturing on exam point examples every morning, distributing questions for speed-doing and speed-critiquing in the afternoon, and conducting a daily quiz before ending at night. This… Yinghua’s provincial training Teacher Ma is your class teacher. Organizing materials for you every day, grading papers. Daily quiz scores should come out the next morning, then we take the papers to critique. It’s this rhythm.”

Since he said there would be a quiz every day, the wailing below never stopped.

Amidst whispering, Dou Sheng leaned over and whispered, “Old Ma is working too hard. Exam at 9 PM, scores out at 7 AM the next day. Over eighty people.”

Xie Lan looked at him for a while and sighed quietly. “If only you could transfer a breath of true qi to Old Ma.”

Dou Sheng was stunned. “?”

Coach Kang instructed, “Provincial training is different from regular classes. Everyone must follow my progress, don’t do your own thing. Now everyone open the material bag for this morning.”

Amidst the chaos of everyone flipping through materials, Dou Sheng quickly reached out and patted Xie Lan lightly on the forehead.

“Return soul, Daoist Friend Xie Lan, return soul.”

Xie Lan gave an “oh” and took out the materials from the bag.

He tried hard to steady his mind and flipped through the materials.

The morning materials were example problems organized around the geometry part of the syllabus, a total of 8 pages. Judging from the thickness, the terror level was far lower than the afternoon bag.

Xie Lan tried reading the first example problem. The difficulty was slightly elevated compared to previous training. The auxiliary line connection for this problem wasn’t very intuitive. He frowned slightly, adjusted his state quickly, picked up a pencil, and tried to solve it.

“Knowledge points were covered mid-semester. We’ll lecture directly from examples. Everyone look at the problem.”

As Coach Kang spoke, he picked up the chalk and landed it on the blackboard.

He seemed nonchalant, yet with one stroke from start to finish, in the blink of an eye, he drew a textbook-level regular octagon freehand on the blackboard.

The classroom was dead silent for a moment.

Xie Lan heard Geng Rui in front gasp exaggeratedly, “As expected of a provincial training coach, is this hand made of a ruler?”

Coach Kang remained expressionless, pointing the chalk casually in this direction. “This student, tell us your thoughts on this problem.”

“Damn… didn’t he say speed-doing and speed-critiquing in the afternoon?”

“I haven’t had time to read the question yet.”

“Who is so miserable, picked on right at the start.”

“The big shot sitting in the second row, provincial third or fourth, Xie Lan and Li Yuening?”

“Then it should be Xie Lan. Li Yuening is in my class, moved to the front.”

“How much did provincial third get in the prelim?”

“Ninety-two.”

“Then it should be the last questions of number theory and recursion not solved.”

Xie Lan froze for a moment. Coach Kang made eye contact with him and lifted his chin again. “It’s you.”

Xie Lan reacted, nodded, and stood up.

Fortunately, he had just tried connecting a few lines and had an idea for the next step.

“I haven’t looked particularly carefully yet. This problem should first construct any inscribed equilateral triangle within the regular octagon that meets the conditions, then…” Xie Lan paused, scanning the stem quickly again. Concise and clear expression, easy to understand. His pen tip traced on the paper. “Calculating the sum of target segment lengths, essentially calculating segment lengths in a linear shape. I estimate using Ceva’s theorem to calculate a constant, then counting the number of target segments…”

Someone below sighed that big shots were indeed different. Coach Kang remained expressionless. “How many?”

Xie Lan paused, pen tip moving quickly between vertices. “Finally should be 15 plus 3, 18 target constants. Polygon side length 6, then…”

The classroom was very quiet. As Xie Lan deconstructed, he had already connected all the auxiliary lines. Feeling the calculation volume wasn’t large, he quickly listed a few expressions on the paper. “Target segment length should be half root three, times 18. Answer is nine root three.”

The classroom was silent; whispering ceased. Coach Kang looked at him seeming a bit dazed. After a while, he nodded. “Correct. Sit down.”

Xie Lan sat down. Geng Rui immediately turned back and asked, “Bro, your thinking is a bit fast. Geometry big shot?”

Xie Lan gave an “ah” and perfunctorily whispered, “Did something similar.”

His volume of problem-solving was too large. Whether he had done the question type or not, it looked familiar at a glance. Not only could he immediately think of other questions on the same exam point, but sometimes he could even imagine how the question setter modified the question.

Geng Rui breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh oh. That’s pretty impressive too. My functions are better, help each other out.”

Hearing this, Dou Sheng glanced up at him, gaze somewhat cold. “Watch how the teacher lectures.”

Coach Kang turned his back to connect the auxiliary lines on the blackboard in a few strokes, then turned back. “You are Yinghua Xie Lan?”

Xie Lan nodded.

The coach pointed at Dou Sheng smoothly. “You are D City Experimental Li Yuening?”

Li Yuening raised his hand in front. “Teacher, I am.”

Dou Sheng said, “I am Yinghua Dou Sheng. Li Yuening and I swapped seats.”

Che Ziming said from the back row, “Must swap. Teacher, these two in our class are conjoined twins.”

A burst of laughter suddenly erupted in the classroom. Xie Lan was startled by the bizarre laugh points of this group of math elites and inadvertently looked back.

Dai You sat right behind him. Maybe due to provincial training pressure, his expression was quite numb. Seeing him look back, he forced the corners of his mouth to twitch.

Xie Lan looked at him like seeing a ghost for a good while before turning back.

“What’s wrong?” Dou Sheng asked casually.

Xie Lan shook his head. “Nothing.”

Just felt Dai You was a bit strange… just recently, facial nerves always twitching.

Coach Kang spoke slowly, but his thinking was extremely agile. When Xie Lan answered on the spot just now, everyone complained he was non-human. As a result, Coach Kang explained problems at basically the same speed. Opening his mouth to point out ideas directly, calculating key numbers verbally, or scratching on the blackboard, then giving results directly.

When he occasionally called people up, he also stuck to calling the top few in the province, probably afraid others couldn’t solve it and would slow down progress. Xie Lan stood up four times in a morning. The other four in the top five of the province also stood up about twice each, making this group of top students who usually loved to fly solo and not listen to examples miserable.

Xie Lan was forced to mentally leave the cultivation world for a morning. Finally enduring until lunch break, while queuing, he hurriedly pulled out his novel again.

“Lan-ah, what are you reading?” Che Ziming leaned in, eyes drilling onto the screen. “Holy sh*t, you still read novels?”

Xie Lan hummed twice, dodging his pushing to continue reading.

Dou Sheng sighed lightly behind him. “Already about to go off the deep end (Qi Deviation).”

Wang Gou stood in front, suddenly nudged Xie Lan, and said excitedly, “The food for provincial training is too good!”

“Hmm?” Xie Lan looked up blankly. Someone in front just finished getting food. The tray still had those dishes from the Yinghua serving window, but added a small portion of ice cream he hadn’t seen before, and a brownie cake.

Dai You tiptoed to scan inside the window. “Visual inspection reveals an added dessert window. Fruits, cakes, ice cream. Oh, says each person can choose one for free, more costs money.”

“Free?” Wang Gou’s eyes went straight.

Yu Fei pursed his lips with a bitter face: “Probably afraid we’ll be abused silly, giving some sugar.”

Hearing this, Che Ziming cursed low, “F*ck, I think you hit the truth.”

Having desserts was a good thing. Xie Lan didn’t eat spicy food; he was long tired of the few edible dishes left in the window. Plus, no appetite for hot food in the big summer anyway. When he got food, he ordered a bowl of fruit ice jelly, three kinds of dim sum, plus a coconut.

Coconuts were kept in ice, cool and sweet taste, easy to consume.

Xie Lan sat down at the round table with everyone, holding the iced coconut and sucking two big mouthfuls, exhaling a long breath.

Phone suddenly vibrated.

[The UP host you follow @Ren Jian Jue Shuai Dou_dm just posted a new update]

“What did you post?” Xie Lan asked biting the straw.

Dou Sheng put down his phone, casually putting the extra egg tart he took into Xie Lan’s plate.

“Just giving everyone a preview. My next video will submit to the platform’s new activity.”

“Oh.”

Xie Lan didn’t take it seriously, drinking while spacing out holding an iced coconut. Drinking to the bottom, he freed a hand to poke open the update.

@Ren Jian Jue Shuai Dou_dm: For this year’s Top 100, can’t miss a single theme submission. No matter how outrageous the topic is, I plan to force my way in head-on! Preview: I decided to participate in the #Pretend I Have A Boyfriend# theme. Stay tuned.

?

Several people at the table also clicked open their phones and saw this update.

Five confused faces.

Che Ziming found his tongue first, shocked: “You, pretend to have a boyfriend? Male? Male??”

Dou Sheng poked his phone nonchalantly. “Yeah, official topic.”

Xie Lan’s heart pounded. “How are you… going to pretend?”

Dou Sheng thought seriously for five seconds.

Frowned again, pretending to struggle for five seconds.

“Just with you,” he said.

As soon as the voice fell, only a clatter was heard. Che Ziming knocked over an empty tray for desserts and rolled onto the floor himself. Laughing loudly while awkwardly cleaning up those plates, tables and chairs banging ping-pong-pang, students around looked over.

Geng Rui laughed. “What are you guys happy about?”

“Nothing nothing.” Che Ziming wiped a tear, reaching back to grab his waistband that was almost hooked off by the edge of the stool. “Domestic shame should not be made public! Damn it!”

Dou Sheng clicked his tongue. “I think you’re just asking for it.”

Just as he finished speaking, a pfft sound came from the side.

Everyone looked over. Yu Fei put away his smile in a second, returning to the dead dog look.

“You and Xie Lan really are sick.” He paused, then couldn’t help revealing a mournful smile again. “You two read too many dangerous comments from sand sculpture netizens, right? I think you two will bend yourselves sooner or later.”

Che Ziming couldn’t help spraying again, pounding the table while laughing. While pounding, his fist turned a corner, giving Wang Gou a punch with a thud.

Wang Gou looked frightened. “What are you doing?”

“Are you fcking stupid? Am I the only one at this table?” Che Ziming laughed until coughing, tongue almost coughing out. “Dou Sheng wants to film a pretend-to-have-boyfriend video with Xie Lan, holy sht!”

“Ah…” Wang Gou instinctively looked back at Dai You. Dai You blossomed with laughter on the spot. “Hahahahahaha so funny…”

Wang Gou’s brow twitched. Xie Lan thought he was going to be scared to cry, but fortunately, he soon followed with hahahaha.

“…”

Xie Lan turned to look at Dou Sheng expressionlessly. Dou Sheng paused chewing, lowering his voice. “I told you last night, you agreed.”

Last night?

Xie Lan frowned recalling. After a long time, he dug out a segment from memory—last night seeing Sword Seven break through the Nascent Soul stage, Dou Sheng came over and crackled a big pile of words to him, something about being his boyfriend. He used his clumsy single-threaded Chinese parsing ability to grab keywords quickly, feeling it was all the old routine, so he nodded perfunctorily.

Xie Lan: “…”

Novels harm people.

“Okay or not?” Dou Sheng pinched his phone and observed his face for a while, hissing. “If not, I’ll delete it now, it’s fine.”

Xie Lan stared at him for a long time, finally sighing. “Whatever, don’t go too far.”

He knew Dou Sheng was genuinely trying hard to follow official activities, not missing a single issue. The more explosive the data this year, the more he had to ensure getting Top 100, otherwise it would be harder to answer to himself.

And he also said before, wanted to use videos to boil… Auntie Zhao in warm water bit by bit.

Xie Lan paused and instructed, “Emphasize to netizens, it’s pretend.”

Dou Sheng nodded with hmm-hmms. “That’s for sure.”

---

Lunch break was only forty minutes, just enough to eat and go back to nap for a bit. When class started in the afternoon, everyone’s spirit was listless. Geng Rui in front lay directly on the table not getting up. Li Yuening called him for a long time before he struggled to lift his head from the table, face flushed red, eyes closed, feeling around for glasses.

Dai You asked his D City deskmate from behind, “Is class usually tiring over there?”

“Rhythm is about the same.” That person yawned. “But intensity is different. Usually even in top classes, half the time is self-study away from teachers. Not like now.”

Coach Kang knocked on the podium table with a chalk end.

“Quiet down everyone. Speed-doing and speed-critiquing in the afternoon. Snake formation from the front to back. Each person says a key step, stop, next person continues. Moderate pressure can train everyone’s efficiency in establishing problem-solving ideas. Five or six people per question. Within the same ranking segment, the students further ahead bear greater pressure. This is a set of tactics Coach Fu and I have tried for so many years and feel is not bad.”

He explained quickly. “Thirty seconds for everyone to look at the question, then start from Geng Rui backwards.”

Students below scrambled to open the afternoon kraft paper bag. Xie Lan weighed it and was shocked, thinking how many questions is this.

He pulled a thick stack of materials out of the paper bag, inadvertently glanced beside him, and froze.

Dou Sheng also froze.

The bound exercises in Xie Lan’s hand were about twice as thick as Dou Sheng’s.

Old Ma’s shy smile suddenly appeared in his mind.

Xie Lan’s heart tightened. He hurriedly scanned the first question.

【Qing Dynasty Emperor Qianlong wrote in the poem “Flying Snow”: One flake, one flake, and another flake; two flakes, three flakes, four, five flakes; six flakes, seven flakes, eight, nine flakes; flying into the reed flowers, all unseen. If Emperor Qianlong continues counting, construct a regular polygon with the next number, choose ruo gan (a certain number of) vertices for coloring. Known that the color of ruo gan vertices comes from the ancient saying “Blue (Qing) comes from indigo (Lan) but is superior to indigo” – the Qing (Cyan/Blue/Green). When ruo gan is even (Shuang), find the number of isosceles triangles whose vertices are all non-Qing. Coincidentally when it takes what value, the number of isosceles triangles with three points of the same color is the most micro (Wei)? Explain the reasoning in detail (Xi Shuo Li Zhi).】

Xie Lan: “…??”

Coach Kang glanced calmly at Geng Rui. “Geng Rui, stand up and state your thinking.”

Geng Rui stood up hurriedly, hesitating. “This question… I… too rushed, Teacher. I can’t think of any ideas for a moment.”

Coach Kang wasn’t too surprised, still looking down at the materials on the podium. “Can think about the general direction of solving the problem first. Doesn’t matter if wrong; students behind can correct if they have different opinions.”

Geng Rui lowered his head to ponder for a while. “Definitely count the vertices satisfying the conditions first.”

“Said equals didn’t say.” Coach Kang said, “But indeed… fine, next one continue.”

Geng Rui smiled a bit embarrassedly and sat down quickly.

Li Yuening stood up and hesitated for a moment. “This isosceles situation is a bit complicated; I have to calculate.”

Coach Kang sighed. “Sit down, behind.”

Xie Lan: “…”

Save me.

He stood up with difficulty, pausing. “Teacher, I haven’t finished reading the question.”

“Hmm?” Coach Kang looked up at him then. “Report the counting formula directly, don’t get stuck here, hurry up.”

“…”

Count what formula?

Xie Lan’s mentality collapsed. Ballpoint pen pointing at the question, attempting to read again, lips moving fast: One flake one flake and another flake, two flakes three flakes four five flakes. Six flakes seven flakes eight nine flakes, flying into…

“Oh!” Xie Lan looked up sharply. “Is it counting the inscribed isosceles triangles of a regular decagon?”

Coach Kang frowned. “Don’t stop at the first sentence of the question. Look back, look back. Count vertices satisfying conditions, look at the question.”

I am looking at the question. Xie Lan despaired inside.

He could only try looking down again—Choose ‘ruo gan’ vertices for coloring. Known that the color of ‘ruo gan’ vertices comes from the ancient saying… What the hell? When ‘ruo gan’ is… Shuang (even/pair)?

Xie Lan was gone. Taking a deep breath, he looked up. “Teacher, I completely don’t understand. Was my material swapped by someone?”

Laughter erupted below. Geng Rui laughed until his shoulders shook. “Genius is indeed genius, how come I couldn’t make up such an excuse.”

Xie Lan: “…”

Coach Kang sighed. “Alright, sit down. Next, Dou Sheng.”

Dou Sheng was still in shock, eyes glued to Xie Lan’s paper, mouth not opening for a long time.

“What’s wrong with you students? Lost your souls after lunch?” Coach Kang looked obviously displeased. “Next, Dai You right?”

Dai You hummed. Gained more time earlier. He narrated the idea of calculating vertices while pondering, sorting out the thinking by talking to himself, then breathed a sigh of relief and reported the formula, finally smoothing Coach Kang’s agitation temporarily.

Everyone continued down the line. Xie Lan waited until no one paid attention to him, expressionlessly pulling over Dou Sheng’s paper.

【Color k vertices of a regular decagon green. When k=2, how many isosceles triangles have vertices all non-green? For what value of k are the isosceles triangles with three vertices of the same color fewest?】

Very concise, clear. He could understand in ten seconds.

Xie Lan took a deep breath, angrily picking up the kraft paper bag.

There was a five-pointed star on his bag, the kind Old Ma drew casually when marking materials.

Below the five-pointed star was a line of extremely tiny characters, hidden in the natural fuzz of the kraft paper. Xie Lan wished he could stick it to his face to see clearly.

“Others’ meaninglessness, your great meaning. Jiayou.”

Xie Lan: “…”