Ever since the day he helped Chen Yuanyuan shake off that dreadlocked guy, Bai Fan had a vague feeling that the way she looked at him had shifted slightly.
Every time the bell rang and the crowd outside the classroom started to stir, she’d appear at the door, smiling and waving at him.
On the way back at night, they shared a short stretch of the road, and she’d naturally walk over to him, pacing alongside under the streetlights.
He still couldn’t forget that day when he knocked her out and stole her identity.
Over the past few days, guilt had weighed on his heart like a stone.
But seeing her smile more and more these days, he suddenly felt that maybe some things didn’t have to trap him forever.
On a side note.
Last time, Lin Xincheng’s pop quiz nearly wiped out the entire class.
The reason was simple: the questions he put together were actually his own original work.
He didn’t use past exam banks—he designed the questions on the spot.
So all those little tricks the class used—taking photos to search online, looking up answers on the web—failed completely.
Before, they could rely on the “invisible hand of Bing Web” to squeak by during exams, but this time they were utterly screwed.
When the test papers were handed back, the classroom was full of groans.
Of course, Bai Fan was the exception.
Even he hadn’t expected to come in first.
It had been a while since he’d really reviewed seriously.
He stared at his own name for a long time, and finally could only sigh inwardly: ‘Looks like some people’s scores before were a bit inflated after all.’
But more than the grades, the change in the class’s attitude toward Lin Xincheng was more noticeable.
At first, the Social Specialty Class had disliked him—who could put on a good face after the first lesson where he laid down the law?
But yesterday, when he stood firmly on the side of the Social Specialty Class in front of the Vice Dean and Dean of Students without backing down, everyone slowly realized.
That first day, their discipline and attitude had been really terrible.
“No matter your identity, if you show a personality worthy of respect, I will give you that respect.”
It wasn’t just lip service.
Tonight at Night School, Lin Xincheng was teaching again.
Bai Fan initially thought he’d just come to the school as a formality—since he wasn’t a real teacher, he probably wouldn’t take teaching too seriously.
But after listening to his lectures this week, Bai Fan discovered that this guy really had substance in his teaching.
He wasn’t the kind of teacher who chewed up all the knowledge and fed it to the students.
Instead, he guided you to think for yourself.
But as long as you were willing to follow his train of thought, you’d find that he could always grab the core of the problem instantly.
Like now—
“Bai Fan, please stand up and answer this question.”
Bai Fan’s eyelid twitched.
Sure enough, he was calling on him again.
A very ordinary function problem. He glanced at it and answered, “D.”
“Why?”
“The constant conditions are all positive. Even if the variable approaches zero, the extreme point won’t fall between A and B. C is negative, so it can be eliminated directly.”
Lin Xincheng nodded.
“Using elimination by substitution to avoid complex calculations. Good line of thinking.”
Bai Fan breathed a sigh of relief and was about to sit down.
But then Lin Xincheng shook his head.
“However, that’s just a problem-solving technique, not what I really wanted to ask.”
Bai Fan: “…”
Then what did you call me up for?
“What I want to ask you,” Lin Xincheng looked at him, “is why did the test maker create this question?”
Bai Fan froze on the spot.
Who knew that kind of thing!
Seeing his reaction, Lin Xincheng simply changed a few parameters on the spot and wrote a new problem.
“Now the function properties haven’t changed, but the numbers are trickier. Can you still solve it quickly with the same method?”
Bai Fan looked at it for a couple of seconds, and his brow furrowed.
No.
The numbers were too nasty; elimination by substitution wouldn’t work well.
“See?” Lin Xincheng put down the chalk. “If the test maker deliberately turns the numbers harsh, your technique fails. So the point has never been the numbers, but the properties of the function itself.”
Bai Fan was stunned. A thread seemed to connect in his brain.
“So… the point is monotonicity and symmetry?”
“Correct.” Lin Xincheng finally showed a hint of a smile.
“Exams aren’t about memorizing answers. Every question has a purpose from the person who made it. Only by going back to the essence through the question can we grasp the core.”
Bai Fan nodded.
“Take this Federal Unified Exam question for example,” he pulled out a test from a previous year’s federal higher education unified exam. “Its source goes back to the general education textbook…”
“Wait!” Suddenly a student raised their hand.
“Go ahead.” Lin Xincheng wasn’t upset by the rude interruption.
“Teacher Xincheng keeps talking about how the questions are made. But how can you be sure… the Federal Unified Exam’s question makers think the same way as you?”
Lin Xincheng adjusted his glasses.
“I had the honor of working as an assistant in the midterm unified exam question committee and exchanged some ideas with the teachers there.”
The whole class felt a silent stir of heat in their eyes.
Even though the midterm unified exam didn’t count much toward graduation, the people responsible for making the questions… most of them were the teachers of the entrance unified exam.
Understanding how those question makers thought would be a huge help for future exams.
But on second thought, a teacher who could get into a committee at that level… how could he be ordinary?
Bai Fan felt that as he spoke, the atmosphere among his classmates subtly became more excited.
“…So we can use the method of drawing inferences from one example. First analyze the original problem’s properties, then generalize… For instance, if we turn this problem into one with variable values, coordinates, or incorporate angle, eccentricity values, etc., what essence can we return to in order to handle it…”
Bai Fan sincerely admired that Teacher Lin was really dedicated. He did everything thoroughly and hadn’t given up on this group of “slacking off” “society students.”
The Social Specialty Class students had also never seen a teacher try so hard. Many of them were infected by his attitude and became much more disciplined in class.
For Bai Fan, the gains were considerable… before, he could solve many problems but never thought about what the act of solving was meant to test.
But Lin Xincheng explained all of this clearly.
While other teachers were still talking about “answers,” he was already talking about “the meaning of the question” and “what the question maker was thinking.”
No wonder more and more people in the class were warming up to him.
Especially some of the girls—when they looked at Lin Xincheng, their eyes practically sparkled.
Bai Fan totally understood that.
A young, handsome teacher whom even the Dean treated with courtesy—who wouldn’t like him?
Put him anywhere, he’d be campus heartthrob material!
If he were an ordinary high school student with someone like that in the class, he’d probably be both envious and secretly jealous.
Thinking about it, he couldn’t help but smile.
—
School ended at eleven at night.
The stars were faint. The two walked side by side.
“Actually… I don’t really get it…”
“Hm?”
Bai Fan scratched his hair.
“I mean… there’s no need to bother with them. They’ve already given up on themselves.”
In the thin light, a faint shadow covered the young man’s face. Hearing this, he raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“You mean those Social Specialty students?”
He shrugged.
“Yeah. Some of them say they know what they’re made of. Since they chose to give up, just respect their decision, right?”
The atmosphere grew quiet for a moment. The young man seemed to think seriously.
“Xiao Fan thinks… that some people are worthless by nature, and it’s fine to abandon them—is that right?”
“Huh?” Bai Fan scratched his head awkwardly. “Saying that… isn’t it a bit ‘incorrect’?”
Lin Xincheng shook his head lightly. “Xiao Fan can speak his mind honestly.”
“Mm…” Bai Fan hesitated, slowing his pace slightly. “Although it’s ‘incorrect,’ it’s the truth, isn’t it? People are born different.
Some people just have no talent, and their attitude is terrible. The way most of them are now didn’t happen overnight. If they’re abandoned, they deserve it…”
Bai Fan stopped talking because Lin Xincheng’s eyes were quietly fixed on him.
A cool breeze brushed past, sending a slight chill across his skin.
Bai Fan suddenly regretted saying it. He knew it was “incorrect,” so why did he say it?
His current “identity” was a teacher. There’s no way he could accept this…
“Maybe Xiao Fan is right.”
“Huh?” Bai Fan was slightly stunned.
Lin Xincheng nodded. “Even the best teacher can’t change what a group of people has been like for over a decade in just a few months.”
He actually admitted it outright?
“Even if I do my best, most of their grades won’t change much three months from now.”
“Then Captain, you…”
They were approaching a fork in the road. The dark clouds seemed to have scattered, and moonlight fell again, softly illuminating the young man’s brows and eyes.
“When I was little, all the adults denied me. Then a little kid came up to me, took my hand, and said, ‘The adults who deny you don’t deserve to be believed.’
I said, ‘I don’t care anymore. Don’t disturb my sleep in the Good Night.’”
He paused, then smiled.
“He said, ‘You can’t believe those adults, and you can’t just give up on yourself. If you think you can’t, then temporarily entrust your confidence to me.
He recognized me when everyone else denied me, even when I denied myself.’”
Bai Fan’s eyes slowly widened.
“‘Good Night’ is the silence after giving up on yourself. One day it will come, but before entering the ‘Good Night,’ you should know that you were once burned by the light.”
They had reached the fork in the road, where two young women were already waiting.
The girl with wine-red hair waved at Lin Xincheng—they were heading back to the dorms together.
Chen Yuanyuan smiled at Bai Fan. These past nights, she had always been waiting to walk back with him.
Lin Xincheng waved goodbye to him.
“Rest early.”
Bai Fan paused for a moment.
“Captain, did you…”
“I cannot fail his promise,” the young man turned, his brows lifting. “So I watch others, too, and go gently into that good night.”