Chapter 155: You, You Don't Come In!

When Li Luo received Yan Zhusheng's gift, it was still early before evening self-study.

After the two finished discussing the weekend plans, Zhu Yufei and Zhang Guohuang walked in through the back door.

Chatting as they came.

"Have you been reading that celebrity one lately or not?"

"Nah, I'm hoarding it," Zhu Yufei said. "Too much of a cliffhanger, damn it—the female lead won't make a move in any chapter, it's killing me."

"That's not the point." Zhang Guohuang wagged his finger. "You don't know, lately this book is super hot in the circle."

"How so? It didn't write some toxic plot, did it?"

"Not really." Zhang Guohuang said, "Didn't the author write an original song before and even release it?"

"And then?"

"Last night when I saw my mom cooking and humming a tune, I actually heard her humming that 'Tree Rings'." Zhang Guohuang clicked his tongue. "At first I didn't react, then she turned on the TV and started watching a drama called 'Yaochi Immortal Fate'."

"The moment the theme song played, I finally remembered."

"Isn't this that song 'Tree Rings'?"

Zhu Yufei raised an eyebrow: "Someone actually bought that song?"

"Now this 'Tree Rings' is super popular." Zhang Guohuang said, "Seems like it's sung by a female singer called Yuan Wanqing, she was really famous over a decade ago, my mom even liked her for a while."

"All that talk and that's it?" Zhu Yufei rolled his eyes. "When the hell is this damn author gonna write more?"

"How would I know that." Zhang Guohuang looked speechless. "He's already not bad, writing six or seven thousand characters every day without fail, way better than those who take off every other day."

Yan Zhusheng listened to the two of them complaining with great interest, glancing at Li Luo from time to time as she listened.

Li Luo was stared at by her with a completely speechless expression.

This feeling of being discussed in person by acquaintances, while the person they're discussing is actually his own alter ego—really didn't know how to evaluate it.

After all, being praised still felt pretty good, but when being praised, these two guys kept blurting out "damn author" and "f***ing" every other sentence, really hard to keep a straight face.

The key was his alter ego had been found out by his deskmate.

Truly a death sentence.

Fortunately Zhu Yufei and Zhang Guohuang only chatted for a while, then shifted to other topics.

Evening self-study also started quickly.

Li Luo entered a studying state, flipped open the Gao Er textbook he borrowed from Xu Youyu, and started previewing first.

Ever since truly beginning to come into contact with the study methods of academic-god level figures like Ying Chanxi and Xu Youyu, and understanding their usual study progress, Li Luo truly touched upon this realm.

In his previous life when he attended high school, it was only around the Gao San first semester that he finished learning all the coursework, then entered the review phase.

But for an academic god like Ying Chanxi, when participating in competitions during middle school, she actually already had a lot of high school and even college-level content.

Once admitted to high school, the summer pre-class directly maxed out the intensity.

By the end of Gao Yi first semester, the key class students had basically finished all the high school material.

Even the slower learners could catch up by Gao Yi second semester.

By Gao Er, they completely devoted their time to competition matters.

By Gao San, even those students who failed in competitions, as long as they spent a few months reviewing high school content, could quickly return to normal level and take the college entrance exam with ease.

The gap between people really wasn't ordinary.

If not for a bug-level ability like the Memory Palace, even if Li Luo was reborn and did it again, he wouldn't have the confidence to have Ying Chanxi's learning progress and efficiency.

Fortunately Li Luo didn't deliberately pursue this, he had no interest in competitions, after all it took too much time.

According to his current progress, he estimated he could finish self-studying Gao Er's content this semester.

Next semester he'd aim to finish all of Gao San's content too.

This way, his Gao Er and Gao San study life would be much easier, and he could have more time to fiddle with other things.

After all, with the Memory Palace on him, anything learned once would never be forgotten, no need to worry about getting rusty over time.

"When you have time in the future, teach me to play piano." Li Luo suddenly said to Yan Zhusheng.

Ever since he figured out the "soul possession" function, he hadn't really used it yet.

Since high school studies no longer posed obvious difficulty for him, he might as well take time to learn more skills to have on hand, just consider it cultivating the sentiments.

Yan Zhusheng didn't think about why Li Luo suddenly asked her to learn piano, just froze for a moment, then nodded: "Okay."

Such a simple agreement was made.

The two continued with evening self-study.

Along the way Yan Zhusheng would occasionally pass over her exercise book or test paper, point at a certain question with her pen, and ask Li Luo for the solution.

Li Luo studied it for a bit, but actually directly found the detailed solution for the corresponding question in the Memory Palace's question bank, then carefully explained it to Yan Zhusheng.

Because Li Luo was seated in the corner by the window, speaking softly wouldn't affect the other classmates.

So not just Yan Zhusheng, occasionally other classmates who ran into difficult problems would also quietly slip over to this side to ask Li Luo for guidance.

After all, finding a teacher required climbing two flights of stairs, Li Luo's side was more convenient.

Especially since Li Luo never turned anyone away, when explaining problems, his solution process was exactly the same as what the teacher said in class.

Unlike Lu Jiahao, whose problem-solving approach was wildly imaginative and flexibly leaps, many people couldn't quite keep up with Lu Jiahao's thinking.

Especially for math problems, for Lu Jiahao, just reading the problem stem once, many conditions were subconsciously self-proven, ready to use directly.

For him it was as natural as instinct.

But other classmates couldn't keep up with that speed, always getting stuck on some condition derivations.

By comparison, Li Luo himself was a math weakling, so he could actually understand these classmates' difficulties, always able to peel back the layers and explain the problem clearly.

So over time, the classmates in the class actually preferred coming to Li Luo to ask questions.

When the second evening self-study session was about to end, Yan Zhusheng beside him gave Li Luo a signal.

Li Luo gladly understood, pretended to go out to the bathroom, but actually went all the way to the playground, and met up with Yan Zhusheng who came down the stairs after.

Yan Zhusheng skillfully slipped one earbud into Li Luo's ear and turned on his phone to play music.

Then the two began jogging slowly around the playground.

As a daily routine except on Saturdays, they had grown accustomed to each other's pace.

Every day they ran four laps downstairs, and afterward, their bodies were slightly warm.

Most of the time they didn't speak, simply listening to the songs in their earbuds and enjoying the rhythm of their bodies.

When the four laps ended, Yan Zhusheng took the earbuds from Li Luo's hand, put them away, and the two strolled slowly back to the classroom.

Yan Zhusheng returned to her evening self-study.

Li Luo packed his bag, waiting for Ying Chanxi to come find him in the classroom, then slung his bag over his shoulder and bid farewell to go home.

"Why are you in such a hurry?"

After meeting Xu Youyu on Houde Road, Li Luo noticed Ying Chanxi's steps were hurried, as if she were rushing for something.

"I—I—I just really need to use the bathroom, is that not allowed?" Ying Chanxi hurried on, pulled out her phone to check the time, then broke into a light run, "I'm heading home first—you two take your time!"

Li Luo: "...?"

It's not like there aren't bathrooms on campus—why does she have to go home to use one?

He exchanged a glance with Xu Youyu; both were baffled.

But Ying Chanxi was already nearly out of sight, so Li Luo let it go and turned to chat with Xu Youyu.

"Any news at school lately?"

"Nothing major," Xu Youyu thought for a moment. "The New Year's Eve party counts."

"What's on the program for our school's New Year's Eve party?"

"It's quite interesting," Xu Youyu smiled. "It should be announced at the student council in a couple of days."

"Simply put, it's divided into three sections: class activities, club activities, and school-wide group events."

"For example, our literature club organizes riddle-guessing and couplet-filling every year—small word-based games."

"Your rock band with Zhusheng also has a fixed performance each year; the gym will be your venue."

"Oh, by the way."

Xu Youyu suddenly remembered something and gave him a mysterious smile. "The reason it's called a 'party' is because we also have a bonfire party."

"What?" Li Luo paused, confused. "Does our school really do something this elaborate?"

"Haha~ You'll find out when the time comes," Xu Youyu patted Li Luo's shoulder, then remembered another thing. "Let's hurry back—I've got something for you."

"You're not giving me a birthday gift too, are you?" As they stepped out of the school gate and heard Xu Youyu say that, Li Luo asked curiously.

"Huh?" Xu Youyu blinked. "Today's your birthday?"

"... So you didn't know? That really hurts."

"You never told me—how was I supposed to know?" Xu Youyu rolled her eyes.

Li Luo thought about it and could understand.

After all, although he had added Xu Youyu on QQ, she didn't know that Chongran was him, so she couldn't learn his birthday from his QQ profile like Yan Zhusheng could.

"Then why did you say you had something for me?"

"Didn't I mention it to you last time?" Xu Youyu reminded him. "I bought you a new keyboard."

Xu Youyu never liked hiding surprises—she just said things outright.

Li Luo, reminded by her, suddenly recalled: "Come to think of it... did you buy a gift for Xixi too?"

"Yep," Xu Youyu grinned. "I got her a Doraemon plushie~ She'll probably like it, right?"

"Hmm... probably."

Back home, Xu Youyu eagerly pulled out the three parcels that had just arrived that afternoon and lined them up in a row on the living room desk.

At this moment, Ying Chanxi was doing something unknown and had locked herself in her bedroom again.

Xu Youyu, full of excitement, opened the parcels and took out two keyboards and a plushie.

"Here, this one's for you," Xu Youyu pushed one of the keyboard boxes toward Li Luo.

"Can I open it right away?"

"Go ahead."

Xu Youyu and Li Luo together opened their respective keyboard boxes.

Two keyboards, identical in model but one blue and one red, appeared before Li Luo's eyes.

His had cyan keycaps; Xu Youyu's had deep red ones.

"Your's is blue switches—they're crisper," Xu Youyu pressed his keyboard, then hers. "Mine are red switches—softer."

Li Luo pressed his keyboard; the crisp sound was pleasing. "Thanks—I really like it, and the color looks great."

"Right? I thought so too," Xu Youyu was pleased with her choice. "I spent a long time picking these keycaps—I chose them myself and had the factory install them."

Buying these two keyboards used up Xu Youyu's entire month's royalty income—it was quite a splurge.

"By the way, where's Xixi?" Xu Youyu, after seeing Li Luo accept the gift, glanced around. "Still holed up in her bedroom?"

"I'll go check."

Li Luo set down the keyboard and walked to Ying Chanxi's bedroom door.

He gently knocked and called her name, then heard a cry of pain from inside.

"Ugh..."

Li Luo had been about to wait for her to open the door, but hearing that sound, he frowned and pushed the door open, striding into the bedroom.

He looked closely.

Ying Chanxi was sitting on the bed in a duck sit.

On the bed lay balls of yarn in various colors.

In her hand was a knitting needle, and she was currently weaving a scarf.

Given its level of completion, it was already in the final stages.

But at this moment, Ying Chanxi was pressing her finger, her face twisted with pain, lips pursed and eyes glistening as she looked at Li Luo in flustered alarm: "Y-you shouldn't come in…"

"Your skin's broken already—don't talk nonsense." Li Luo frowned, walked to the bed, grabbed her wrist, and crouched down to examine it closely; Ying Chanxi's index finger had a tiny puncture, a thin drop of blood welling up.

It didn't look serious.

"It's all because of you…" Ying Chanxi pouted and complained, "You suddenly knocked on the door and scared me half to death."

"Alright, alright, it's my fault." Li Luo sighed, then turned and called out toward the doorway, "Senior! There's a box on top of the fridge in the kitchen—get me a bandage!"

"Oh! What happened to Xixi? Did she get hurt?" Xu Youyu heard Li Luo's voice and hurried to the kitchen to fetch it.

After calling out, Li Luo immediately bent his head and pressed his lips to Ying Chanxi's finger, gently sucking away the blood from the wound.

Suddenly having her finger enclosed by Li Luo, feeling the movement of his tongue, Ying Chanxi froze, instinctively clamping her thighs shut, her cheeks flushing crimson all the way to her ears.