Chen Zhi looked at Zhao Xiaolong with the caring gaze one might reserve for the mentally impaired.
"Ten," Chen Zhi replied weakly.
"Ha! Too easy, right?" Zhao Xiaolong looked triumphant, feeling that his opponent had already fallen into his trap. "Then listen carefully, what is twenty minus eight?"
This was two-digit subtraction! And it required borrowing!
For a kid in the junior class, this was absolutely out of the syllabus.
Zhao Xiaolong smugly crossed his arms, waiting to see Chen Zhi embarrassingly count on his fingers.
"Twelve."
Chen Zhi answered almost instantly, without even blinking an eye.
Zhao Xiaolong's smile froze on his face.
That fast?
He must be guessing, right?
"You... don't be too proud!" Zhao Xiaolong was getting a little anxious. "Then I'll test you on multiplication! What is seven times eight?"
"Fifty-six."
"Nine times six?"
"Fifty-four."
"Eight times nine?"
"Seventy-two."
No matter how fast Zhao Xiaolong threw out the questions, Chen Zhi's answers followed immediately, without any pause in between.
The murmurs from the surroundings grew louder.
"Oh my god, doesn't he even need to think?"
"He's faster than a calculator!"
"Zhao Xiaolong seems to be sweating..."
Zhao Xiaolong was indeed sweating.
Fine beads of sweat seeped from his forehead, and the feeling of unease in his heart grew stronger and stronger.
This wasn't how the script was supposed to go.
Wasn't this kid supposed to be crying for his mommy?
"Three digits!" Zhao Xiaolong gritted his teeth and decided to bring out his trump card. "One hundred and twenty-five multiplied by eight!"
This was a Math Olympiad question his dad had taught him, and it took him a long time to memorize the calculation method.
The whole place went dead silent.
Even the teachers watching the drama unfold from the sidelines couldn't help but take two steps forward, wanting to see how Chen Zhi would handle it.
Chen Zhi yawned.
He raised a hand to rub his slightly sore neck, his tone full of impatience.
"One thousand."
W-what? Even elementary school students might not be able to figure this out, yet he answered so quickly.
Zhao Xiaolong was starting to sweat profusely.
"Is there anything else? If not, I'm going back to sleep."
After saying that, Chen Zhi turned around to leave.
"Stop right there!"
Zhao Xiaolong roared, his face turning the color of pig liver.
Being publicly ignored by a brat from the junior class, how was he going to survive in the senior class from now on?
He had to win back his dignity!
Since arithmetic couldn't stump this kid, he would switch to something else!
Zhao Xiaolong suddenly remembered the bilingual cram school his mom had signed him up for.
Right! English!
The junior class kids couldn't even recognize all the pinyin, how could they possibly understand English!
"I'm going to test your English!" Zhao Xiaolong blocked Chen Zhi's way, a confident smile reappearing on his face. "So what if you know arithmetic? Elites nowadays all need to know international languages!"
Chen Zhi stopped in his tracks, looking at the little chubby kid blocking his way, and frowned slightly.
Why was this kid so stubborn?
"What is your name?" Zhao Xiaolong asked loudly, his pronunciation quite off. "Wa-te yi-si you ni-mu?"
The surrounding kids looked bewildered.
What kind of spell was this?
Chen Zhi rubbed his temples in some pain.
This botched pronunciation was sheer auditory pollution for someone like him who already possessed an IELTS band 8 proficiency in English thanks to his system.
"My name is Chen Zhi," Chen Zhi replied casually, his pronunciation as standard as a BBC broadcast.
Zhao Xiaolong was stunned for a moment.
This kid actually understood?
And... he sounded even better than the foreign teacher at the cram school?
No, this must be an illusion!
Unwilling to concede, Zhao Xiaolong racked his brains for the most advanced sentence he knew.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration hit him.
This was the mandatory dialogue practiced at the beginning of every English class, and also his forte.
Zhao Xiaolong took a deep breath, struck a pose he thought was very gentlemanly, and asked loudly:
"How are you?"
After speaking, he stared intently at Chen Zhi, having already preset the standard answer in his mind.
As long as this kid answered "I'm fine, thank you", he would immediately follow up with "And you?", and then confuse the heck out of him!
The air seemed to freeze.
Everyone held their breath, watching this pinnacle showdown that crossed age boundaries.
Chen Zhi looked at Zhao Xiaolong's large, expectant face and suddenly found it somewhat amusing.
Is this childhood?
Filled with meaningless competitiveness and ridiculous pride.
Since you want to play, I'll play along and make it big.
Chen Zhi cleared his throat and did not give the textbook standard answer.
He tilted his head slightly and fluently spat out a string of long sentences in a lazy and pure London accent:
"Honestly, I'm a bit exhausted dealing with this childish nonsense. I'd rather go back to my nap than entertain your fragile ego. Is that clear enough for you?"
(To be honest, dealing with this childish farce is making me a bit tired. Rather than satisfying your fragile ego, I'd much rather go back and take a nap. Did you understand that?)
His speaking speed was extremely fast, his liaisons were perfect, and his intonation was elegant.
Every word was like a round pearl, pattering as they hit the ground.
The entire venue fell into a dead silence.
Even the sound of the wind blowing through the leaves could be heard clearly.
Now, not only were these little kindergarten brats shocked, but even the teachers nearby were shocked.
Zhao Xiaolong opened his mouth wide, his jaw almost dropping to the ground.
His mind went completely blank.
Wh-what was this?
This wasn't "I'm fine"?
This long string of gibberish, which planet's language was it anyway?
Separated, he didn't seem to recognize a single word, and strung together, it sounded like an alien tongue.
He felt the kind of frustration a rogue cultivator might feel when encountering a genius from a top-tier sect.
The English he was so proud of was nothing but a joke in front of this brat who was three years younger than him.
Chen Zhi looked at the dumbstruck Zhao Xiaolong, the corners of his mouth curling up into a mocking smile.
He switched back to Chinese, considerately translating a sentence:
"I said, I'm fine, thank you."
After saying that, he ignored Zhao Xiaolong, who was petrified on the spot. With his hands in his pockets, he walked through the crowd, leaving behind only a back view that concealed his merits and fame.
"Wow!!!"
A few seconds later, an earth-shattering cheer erupted in the hallway.
Although they didn't understand what Chen Zhi had said, just looking at Zhao Xiaolong's expression, which looked like he had eaten a fly, they knew who had won.
"Chen Zhi is so cool!" Lin Wanwan was so excited that her face turned red, her eyes filled with little stars.
Li Zihan straightened his back even more and made a face at Zhao Xiaolong: "Blegh! I told you my big bro is the number one little genius of Sunflower Kindergarten! Did you get that? That was advanced English you couldn't understand!"
Zhao Xiaolong stood where he was, the Transformer in his hand dropping to the ground with a clatter.
He looked in the direction Chen Zhi had left, his eyes turning red and his mouth pouting.
"Waaah! I want to go home and find my mommy! He's bullying me! He scolded me in bird language!"
The tyrant of the senior class had his Dao heart shattered in this very moment.
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
transmigrates into the world as the sect master of the Heavenly Yan Sect, which is on the verge of being wiped out. He binds a system that grants him cultivation power based on the number of disciples he has: for each disciple, he automatically gains a year's worth of cultivation every single day! Take one disciple: every day he gains 1 year of cultivation power. While others struggle through a year of bitter training, he gets the same just by sleeping through a single night. Take ten disciples: every day he gains 10 years of cultivation power. Foundation Establishment, Core Formation, Nascent Soul—he breezes through all bottlenecks without lifting a finger. Take one hundred disciples: every day he gains 100 years of cultivation power. Even a Soul Transformation Venerable before him can’t survive a single blow. Take ten thousand disciples: every day he gains 10,000 years of cultivation power! With a wave of his hand, he topples empires. With a single step, he crushes the sacred grounds of the universe. ... While others fight tooth and nail for secret techniques, Lin Yan casually hands out Nascent Soul-level cultivation manuals as beginner textbooks. While others strain to find talented recruits, Lin Yan opens his doors to anyone—so long as they’re human. In just three short years, the Heavenly Yan Sect went from a backwater sect made up of three crumbling huts to a sacred land that every cultivator under heaven would kill to enter. ... One day, otherworldly demon gods invade, with a million demon soldiers pressing down upon the realm. Lin Yan, yawning, rises from his lounge chair and glances at the system panel: [Current Disciples: 1.28 million] [Daily Cultivation Increase: 1.28 million years] He waves his hand casually, and the countless demon soldiers are reduced to ashes in an instant. “So noisy… interrupting my fishing.”
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
