After Gu Ci finished saying this sentence, Wolf who had originally been lying down suddenly stood up, trotted all the way to Yan Luqing’s legs, and even let out a soft bark toward her. It carried no aggression, but as if echoing Gu Ci, it seemed to be saying to her, “I really understood.”

Too insulting. Was this really the dog raised by the Yin-Yang Princess? Truly of the same bloodline.

It had to be said, this damaging technique of insulting people was actually quite effective on her. Yan Luqing felt deeply humiliated, and her drowsiness instantly vanished.

She widened her eyes and looked at Gu Ci, “swish”—she snatched the textbook from under his hand, and muffled her voice to say: “I will first study it myself.”

After that, she buried her head in the electrical engineering textbook.

The entire morning, this was the time she was most concentrated. With one glance, one could see she had the stance of “if I don’t study something out, I will not rest.”

Gu Ci let out a laugh, and after a moment, said lightly: “Keep it up.”

While Yan Luqing studied on her own, he was on the side silently teasing the dog, just right for enjoying leisure.

When Big Black knocked and entered, this was the scene he saw.

Between Gu Ci and Yan Luqing was a desk. Yan Luqing buried her head in serious study, while Gu Ci used hand gestures to give commands to the border collie. Coincidentally, Yan Luqing wore a very homely white hoodie, Gu Ci’s body was clad in pure black, and Wolf’s fur was black and white intermingled. The two people and one dog looked quite matching.

Before, Miss Yan had also taken tutoring classes in high school. Each time ended with the tutor fleeing in defeat, sometimes even accidents happening midway.

Even if this time the tutor had been changed to Gu Ci, when Big Black came in he truly had not expected it to be so harmonious.

Hearing the knock, Yan Luqing turned her head and was the first to ask: “What is it?”

Big Black answered as usual: “Lunch is ready.”

“You go eat first,” she poked Gu Ci’s arm with her pen, “I will go down in a bit. It’s rare that I feel like I’m about to figure something out.”

“You’ll only eat after you’ve figured it out?” Gu Ci slowly smiled. “Then just don’t faint from hunger.”

Yan Luqing swished her head up, glaring at him: “You promised not to scold me! Gu Ci, the words ‘cannot scold me’ don’t just mean not using dirty words, it also includes ‘cannot humiliate me’—!”

“Oh.” Gu Ci stood up, both hands leisurely propped on the desk, looking down from above into Yan Luqing’s upturned face. “Then next time you remember to say it in full.”

“Hey! You really are—”

On the side, Big Black heard the two’s conversation, and watching their interaction, suddenly for a moment was stunned.

When did it begin?

It seemed to have been from the very first day Gu Ci came to this villa.

That day he had originally received the order to give Gu Ci an injection, and also bound him back to the villa. He had thought once again he would suffer the condemnation of his conscience, but unexpectedly, after seeing the psychologist, Miss Yan actually seemed as if she had completely become another person.

At first he thought this must be an act, perhaps Miss Yan’s new method to attract Gu Ci, or maybe she was simply playing. He also kept reminding himself: she was a mental patient, so there was no need to take it seriously.

But he did not know from when it started—perhaps when she called back Little Black yet did not punish him, perhaps when she asked the doctor to treat Gu Ci’s illness… on this girl, he felt something beyond obedience and fear.

It was as if… not just because of money was he forced to be tied to this place, he began to like this house, and liked many of the people within it.

He liked scenes like this now.

He knocked on the door, and the young man and young woman together with a dog of beautiful fur color turned their heads neatly toward him. The noonday sunlight enveloped them, its golden hue appearing warm, harmonious like a painting.

Gu Ci went downstairs for twenty minutes, yet still did not see Yan Luqing’s figure.

Under the frequent suggestive looks from her two gatekeepers, Big Black and Little Black, he rose again and went upstairs, walking to the study door.

His hand rested on the doorknob, just about to call her out, when he suddenly heard a familiar voice from inside—

“Wolf, did you really understand just now?”

Then came a soft dog bark.

Gu Ci: “……” What was this.

Before he could think further, he heard the person inside continue: “Impossible…”

Inside the study, the girl was talking to herself with great enthusiasm. “Although a dog is a dog, and a border collie is a border collie, I still don’t believe you can learn this stuff.”

“Like this—if you really understood, give me a howl?”

The next second, from within came another “awoo.” It had no intimidation, on the contrary, it was very cute.

But clearly, someone’s focus was not on that.

The girl exaggeratedly cried out in shock: “—No way, you’ve become a spirit??”

Gu Ci: “…………”

He could not listen any further. Pressing down the doorknob, Gu Ci pushed open the door, and at once saw Yan Luqing squatting on the ground, earnestly making eye contact with Wolf.

Their gazes met. Yan Luqing, a little embarrassed, parted her lips: “You… what are you doing here?”

Right now Yan Luqing really found Wolf unpleasant to look at.

—Even though after Gu Ci went downstairs, it still chose to stay in the study to accompany her in studying.

Once Gu Ci left, she found it a little hard to focus. After trying to study for a while, she wanted to tease Wolf and talk to it. Unexpectedly, he appeared so suddenly at the door.

“If you don’t eat, it will get cold,” Gu Ci replied with no expression.

“Oh… coming.” Yan Luqing propped her knee to stand up, dragging her steps slowly to the door. She wanted to say something but hesitated, still unable to hold back: “Why do you have this expression? Did you… hear just now?”

Gu Ci cast her a faint glance, the black pupils unreadable.

“You mean when you asked the dog whether it learned physics and electrical engineering?” After he finished, he nodded to himself. “Rest assured, I heard everything, not missing a single word.”

“……”

At once Yan Luqing felt she could save herself this lunch—she had eaten enough bamboo shoots¹Eat bamboo shoots – slang meaning “being shamed/teased.” the whole morning to fill her stomach.

Gu Ci and Yan Luqing’s appetites were both not large, and moreover, their stomachs both had some problems. Usually the food they ate was plain and light.

Yan Luqing could no longer count how many times, after transmigrating into this body, she had sighed over the importance of health.

She had not originally been considered a glutton, but her tastes had never been this ascetic. What was even more frightening—her soul wanted to eat, yet her body had no trace of appetite.

So every time Yan Luqing swallowed these stomach-nourishing dishes, she would comfort herself: the stomach would eventually heal, the appetite would eventually return, and there would surely come a day when she could eat big fish and big meat without worry.

Lunch quickly ended.

Yan Luqing had consumed too much mental energy in the morning. After greeting Gu Ci, she returned to her room and slept for a while. When she woke and came downstairs again, she once more saw a scene as if the one from Dieye Mountain Hotel had reappeared—the princess teasing the dog: Gu Ci was seated on the sofa, the wolf squatting by his leg obeying his commands.

Yan Luqing made herself a cup of health-preserving tea, held it in her hands, and walked to the sofa. She sighed, “Gu Ci, actually you’re really quite suitable to be a teacher.” As she spoke, she sat down beside him and pointed at the border collie. “Look, you’re not only teaching me, in fact you’re teaching Wolf every day too.”

Gu Ci gave a soft “mn”: “Teaching it is quite simple, but teaching you…” He paused, perhaps recalling the battle in the morning, and then said: “I’m not sure whether I’m suitable.”

“……” Yan Luqing had just woken up, and upon being hit with this yin-yang remark, she replied without thinking: “But you also have to divide what subject it is, right? If you teach me this stuff, of course I will also know—!”

Gu Ci turned his head, just in time to see her glaring wide-eyed at him with a face full of defiance.

Although her eyes were wide, inside them still lingered the drowsiness of just waking. Her long hair was messy from sleep, yet in such a scene it only added a kind of natural cuteness.

After Yan Luqing said this, she vaguely felt something was off. By the time she realized it, Gu Ci had already started laughing.

In the past when she made a fool of herself, Gu Ci would also laugh, but most times he stopped at a point. But this time, his laughter was more excessive than any previous one.

Yan Luqing only hated that time could not flow backwards.

She blushed, watching Gu Ci finish laughing, watching those beautiful eyes of his seem to be covered with a faint mist, becoming all the more dazzling. Then his gaze met hers once more—

“Classmate Yan Luqing,” Gu Ci’s voice still carried unabated laughter, sounding in quite good spirits, “I hadn’t expected, you were actually seriously competing with it?”

“……”

Yan Luqing furiously took a sip of her health tea, then pulled out her phone, opened the short-video app, and uploaded a clip she had casually recorded of Wolf before, attaching the caption:

“Today was tutoring university physics and electrical engineering, didn’t learn it, laugh to death, my tutor actually thinks this dog can learn it.”

Then she clicked publish.

Previously, because she had been too active under all sorts of trending videos, she had gained a large wave of followers, but Yan Luqing had always felt those follower numbers were dead. Unexpectedly, after this first video went out, it very quickly received likes and comments—

【Ah this, you actually don’t know it’s in the physics department? [doge]】

【Aiya, this dog was my classmate in university, during postgrad exams it sat in front of me～】

【Oh, border collie? I’ve always wanted to raise one, nothing else, mainly just to learn something from it.】

“……”

Yan Luqing was completely speechless reading them.

But what she hadn’t expected was that this video afterward was actually very fortunately assigned a considerable number of plays, gaining some heat. Just as her comments could level up, the videos she posted naturally could too—so although it made her feel stifled, she still decided not to delete it for now.

Facts proved, Yan Luqing’s dead-on battle in the first morning was useful.

That afternoon, under Gu Ci’s constant alternation of mocking her and earnestly guiding her, she finally began to show a faint sign of enlightenment, starting to understand that kind of framework which to her seemed very mysterious. By the second day, the two of them could finally reach the point of fluently going through the textbook, no longer stumbling every sentence.

The first day was an “unworded heavenly book,” the second day became a “heavenly book with words,” the third and fourth days then turned into a “book that could be looked at.”

Footnotes

• 1
  Eat bamboo shoots – slang meaning “being shamed/teased.”