“Little Mi, we’re rich now!”

Lin Beixing lay on the bed, holding her phone up with both hands.  
She sent two emojis to Lu Yu, but he didn’t reply—probably because class had already started on his end.  

She really was worried about him.  
But that was all she could do. They were so far apart that Lin Beixing felt utterly helpless.  

So she accepted things as they were, picked up the little black cat beside her, and had just given the still-unnamed kitten the temporary name “Xiao Mi” (Little Mi).  

“Time to go out for food!”  
“Oh, by the way~ Cats love fish. What kind of fish would you like, Xiao Mi?”  

“Meow?”  

The little black cat didn’t understand human speech—only sensing that its owner had been unusually affectionate today, constantly hugging it. On this sweltering day, the cat was utterly exasperated.  
It pressed its tiny black paws firmly against Lin Beixing’s face, refusing to let her kiss it.  

Lin Beixing’s mind wandered back to what she should eat for lunch.  
She planned to treat herself well today, then go back to sleep.  

She vaguely remembered seeing plenty of shops along the way the last time she’d traveled from school to Lu Yu’s house.  
But most places here were dingy, hole-in-the-wall eateries. If possible, she wanted something clean—her stomach simply couldn’t handle unhygienic food...  

“Ah!”  

Suddenly, her eyes lit up.  

“I’m ‘Lu Yu’ now…”  

She looked down at “her” own strong, sturdy body and suddenly realized something.  

“With Lu Yu’s body, I can eat anything without getting sick!”  

Her eyes sparkled with unprecedented excitement.  

“I’m going to eat fried chicken, drink cola, and chew on ice cubes!!”  

Thrilled, Lin Beixing jumped out of bed. The black cat, sensing its owner had clearly lost her mind, let out a wary “meow” and swiftly escaped from Lin Beixing’s grasp.  

Lin Beixing stepped into Lu Yu’s sneakers, glanced once more at herself in the mirror on the closet door before leaving, and waved goodbye to the little cat by the entrance.  

“Bye-bye, Xiao Mi~”  

“Meow.”  

The door creaked shut behind her, accompanied by the cat’s lazy call.  

………………  

Inside the quiet study room—  

Following Lin Beixing’s instructions, Lu Yu sat focused on the textbook in front of him.  
Cool air blew steadily from the air conditioner. Beside him, the private tutor watched him in silence.  

At first, Lu Yu had been tense and fidgety, unused to being scrutinized—but after a while, he’d grown numb to it.  

The elderly woman glanced at him again.  

Lu Yu pretended to concentrate intently—gripping a pen in one hand, pressing the other flat against the desk, his back straight, feet firmly planted, chest a fist’s distance away from the table.  

Thankfully, the original Lu Yu had once pushed himself hard in his studies. He remembered what genuine focus looked like and how a diligent student should sit.  
Faking this posture wasn’t difficult at all.  

In front of him was a thick exercise book.  
Among the piles of study materials, Lu Yu had deliberately chosen the easiest one to slack off with: “Chinese Reading Comprehension.”  

Unlike math problems that demanded real thinking, these exercises only required skimming a short passage.  
If the tutor decided to ask him a couple of questions, he might even manage to answer them—after all, he wasn’t completely clueless. Back in school, he’d simply never bothered to pay attention. But now? With reading comprehension, he could wing it with some plausible-sounding interpretation.  

“Finished?”  

The old tutor had been waiting a long time. Seeing Lu Yu lift his eyes, she assumed he was done.  

“Yes, teacher,” Lu Yu nodded gently, setting his pen down.  

The passage was only a few hundred characters—any longer, and he’d raise suspicion.  

He still didn’t know the tutor’s name. Lin Beixing hadn’t told him in time, and her mother hadn’t mentioned it either.  
Judging by her appearance, she was probably a retired teacher—her wrinkled fingers neatly trimmed, nails smooth and rounded.  

She tapped the book firmly with a finger.  

“Draw a vertical line to divide this paragraph into two sections, and explain the meaning of each.”  

Lu Yu thought carefully, then confidently drew the line with his pen.  

Verbally explaining? That he could handle.  
But writing? Absolutely not—the difference between his and Lin Beixing’s handwriting would be a dead giveaway.  

He split the paragraph into two parts and began analyzing them logically:  
the first part served as setup, the second conveyed the core message.  

It had been a long time since he’d applied himself this seriously. The tutor watched his eyes intently—and when he finished, she gave a slow nod.  

Her expression suggested he’d passed this test.  

But before Lu Yu could even relax, the old woman straightened in her chair, her sharp eyes fixed on his face.  

“Are you tired?” she asked.  

Lu Yu froze for a split second.  

Of all the things he’d prepared for, he’d forgotten one crucial detail: Lin Beixing’s body was utterly exhausted.  

No matter how hard he tried to stay alert, the fatigue in her eyes was impossible to hide.  

“A little…” Lu Yu admitted softly.  

Denial was pointless—the weariness had already seeped deep into her body.  
Despite his best efforts to embody Lin Beixing convincingly, it was all futile before this old woman’s piercing gaze.  

She studied him like an interrogator, then spoke with stern authority:  

“At your age, you should be giving it your all. Just grit your teeth and push through.”  

Here we go again.  

Lu Yu gave a bitter smile.  

How much of this toxic “motivational” nonsense had he already swallowed in his life?  

Maybe it was the exhaustion clouding his judgment—but he found himself blurting out a question he’d never dared ask before:  

“Teacher… do you think I’m happy right now?”  

The old woman looked slightly taken aback.  

Her shrewd eyes swept over his face, then she let out a cold laugh.  

“I don’t know if you’re happy or not. But this I do know—if you don’t work hard now, you’ll regret it later.”  

She’d never seen Lin Beixing talk back like this.  

Though they’d only known each other for less than a year, in the tutor’s memory, Lin Beixing was always silent, obedient, and fiercely driven.  
This kind of defiance? It was completely out of character.  

…Was this some delayed teenage rebellion?  

“You push yourself now so you’ll have more choices in the future. You absolutely cannot slack off—otherwise, you won’t even get a chance to regret it.”  

Future, future—always the future.  

But how many possible “futures” were there, really?  

Lu Yu admitted that studying might be a shortcut—but it was certainly not the only path.  
And definitely not worth sacrificing a young, vibrant life for.  

His jaw clenched; his hand gripping the pen trembled slightly.  

In the end, he swallowed his anger and stifled the urge to argue.  

The old woman didn’t care about his state of mind anyway. She simply flipped to the next page of his book, pointed at a dense block of text, and said flatly:  

“Next question.”