Ethan Young sent a message, and that person immediately looked down at their phone.

After confirming, Ethan Young walked over with the test paper in hand, casually rolling it up, and from a short distance, tapped that person on the shoulder.

—And then Ethan Young was completely unprepared to come face-to-face with the boyfriend he’d agreed to only meet in his dreams.

Henry Howard's finger was still on the screen, the words “It’s me” hadn’t even been sent yet. The Quiz Masters Clash private chat interface was very eye-catching, with a ticker of formulas from various subjects scrolling on the side.

As soon as he turned his head, he was speechless.

“”

His little one—even if his whole face was covered, thrown into a crowd, he could still recognize him at a glance. That aura of “strangers keep away” all over, central air-conditioning, a walking powder keg.

Henry Howard almost dropped his phone off the railing.

The word “fuck,” so complex and intense, seemed extremely bland in this long stare.

Ethan Young's hand was still frozen.

Because he was afraid of the cold, he habitually kept half his hand tucked in his sleeve, only exposing his fingertips. The test paper rolled into a strip in his hand, the title facing right at Henry Howard, clearly reading “High School Difficult Problems Math A Paper.”

Ethan Young's mind went blank.

After a moment, all of Henry Howard’s past feats started popping up one after another, constantly reminding him: the person in front of him was the zero-score essay king Henry Howardsky, author of “My Back Looks So Damn Cool,” who once broke Liyang No. 2 High’s low score record with a ten-point math paper, forever the last in the grade.

With all this piling up, Ethan Young’s brain finally exploded.

Henry Howard was stunned too. When he jumped down from the railing, he felt like he was floating, almost missing a step.

Then he coughed and forced out a very awkward opening line: “Hey, you look kind of familiar.”

Ethan Young said, “Really.”

Henry Howard: “You look a lot like my boyfriend.”

Before Henry Howard could finish, Ethan Young calmly started rolling up his sleeves bit by bit.

This was just too much.

A pile of question marks blocked up inside.

The imagined dumb top student with glasses as thick as beer bottle bottoms suddenly turned out to be his own boyfriend.

The boyfriend he always worried would end up driving an excavator after the college entrance exam, the one who probably couldn’t even reach the passing line after a thirty-day course of magic smart pills.

“Pick a place,” Ethan Young said after rolling up his sleeves, “If you’re not embarrassed, here is fine too.”

Henry Howard: “”

Henry Howard was this close to dying on the spot.

If he hadn’t just heard someone nearby asking, “Excuse me, where do we enter for the Quiz Masters Clash offline meetup?” he might really have died.

Xavier Stone looked like he’d put effort into his appearance, with a layer of slightly greasy hair gel, looking much more energetic. Black-rimmed glasses, plaid shirt.

He was holding several books; Ethan Young glanced over and saw “Beautiful Chemistry” and “Happy Physics.”

Ethan Young: “”

Henry Howard: “”

After a pause, Henry Howard dumbly asked, “Run?”

“Run,” Ethan Young said, “What, you want to go up and say hi?”

The janitor uncle stopped by Xavier Stone clearly didn’t know much about the event: “Huh? What true dad?”

Xavier Stone: “Quiz Masters Clash, it’s a learning game, today is our study exchange meeting.”

The janitor uncle shook his head, bent down to keep sweeping, muttering as he went, “No idea what you young people are up to, us old folks don’t get it, never heard of it.”

Xavier Stone said, “Thank you, sorry to bother you,” then looked up again, catching a glimpse of two figures in his peripheral vision. By the time he tried to look closer, they’d already disappeared through the side door.

Even though they still didn’t really know what was going on, the idea of avoiding the class monitor was mutual. Ethan Young and Henry Howard seized the chance and ran in through the side door.

There were even more people inside Century City than outside. Just waiting for the elevator, there was a whole crowd; it’d probably take two or three rounds to get a turn.

Henry Howard made a snap decision, pushed open the emergency exit, and headed straight for the stairs.

The two of them took the stairs three at a time, holding the handrail as they ran up, moving fast, not even sure how many floors they’d climbed, turning so many corners it made their heads spin.

With this dizziness, Ethan Young suddenly remembered that Baidu Zhidao he’d searched a while back: What to do if your boyfriend doesn’t like studying. My boyfriend is one of a kind, but always comes in second to last.

The “Handsome Howard” who barely survived math class.

And on the bus, when Henry Howard said to the CCB grocery store, “I’ve been here before.”

Going back even further, Ethan Young even remembered that messy “one” on the paper crane.

It was a zero.

Ethan Young stopped, breathing lightly, raised a hand to take off one side of his mask, which hung down against his cheek, then leaned against the wall and said, “Alright, stop running.”

There was no sound in the stairwell above or below; everyone was waiting for the elevator, and even if someone took the stairs, no one would go up this high.

Henry Howard just sat down right on the steps, planning to finally face the issue between them. He hadn’t even remembered that string of garbled game IDs, so he could only ask, “So what the hell is x?”

Ethan Young shot back, “Don’t you have any shame?”

Henry Howard scratched his head. He always thought he was good at handling things, but now he was at a loss, so he changed the subject: “So who’s the class monitor?”

Ethan Young couldn’t think straight for now, so he just said, “No idea, could be anyone.”

Xavier Stone being a member of the Quiz Masters Clash game wasn’t surprising at all, thinking about it. In all of No. 2 High, no one could match the class monitor of Class 3 in terms of study attitude or effort.

Usually, if you saw him, he was either memorizing vocabulary or doing practice problems.

After they finished talking, they fell silent again.

Then Ethan Young pushed down all his emotions and handed over the test paper: “Did you bring a pen?”

Henry Howard was thinking the same thing. If they didn’t do a test right now, he’d never believe this bizarre coincidence.

This was just so fucking—

So fucking.

He took the test paper and tossed over the “Gaokao Selected Problems” book: “Yeah. Pick a set.”

When Ethan Young left the house, he never imagined that an hour later, he’d be sitting in the Century City stairwell doing test papers with Henry Howard, and that the perennial last-place Henry Howard would be doing problems while saying, “This set is way too easy.”

“This set is just stupid.” Ethan Young’s temple twitched hard.

------------

74. Chapter Seventy-Four

Henry Howard got the test paper and, out of habit, scanned through all the questions first, getting a rough idea of the difficulty, then started writing, drafting directly on the blank space.

His mind was a mess, and his handwriting was all over the place.

He sat on the very top step, Ethan Young sat at the landing, the two of them one above and one below, facing each other.

As he scribbled, Henry Howard tried to recall what he’d said to Ethan Young in the game under the ID “Quiz Master”.

Didn’t seem like any of it was good.

Henry Howard’s brain was slow to react. The pen tip touched the thin paper, wrote a square root of two, then stopped. The ink slowly spread, and after a while, he stared at the black blot and remembered the most infuriating thing he’d said, and for some reason, blurted out: “Should I give you a three-question head start?”

Ethan Young still hadn’t taken off his hat, it was pulled low, and from Henry Howard’s angle, he could only see his nose and chin, lips pressed tight, looking a bit upset.

Who wouldn’t be.

Ethan Young gripped his pen, thinking that meeting this idiot in a dream was probably more likely. Maybe this really was a dream.

Ethan Young exhaled slowly at the test: “Sure, you give me a head start. I’ll give you a ten-question head start.”

Henry Howard: “”

The two of them, who spent every class sleeping or playing games, single-handedly dragging down Class 3’s average so much the teachers wanted to jump off a cliff, who never even knew what page to turn to, were now sitting in the stairwell talking big.

Usually at school, their most common conversation was: Which question is the teacher talking about?

—No idea.

—Do you know how to do this one?

—Nope.

—Good, if you don’t know, I’m relieved. Did you finish copying the homework?

Now, after all that tough talk, even they felt a little dazed.