Bab 8: Pay Me More
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
As both Chen Mu and his sister walked into the school, there was an absurdly high rate of second glances thrown at them from the people they passed by. Chen Yifei's looks were superstar-grade after all. Why else would Chen Mu have gotten himself involved in so many fights for her sake?
Meanwhile, Chen Mu was rather attractive himself. He had a fringe that was longer than most senior highschoolers which gave him an even more unique look. However, Chen Mu did not keep his fringe for aesthetic purposes. He kept it so that he did not have to go on so many haircuts. Everything had gotten more expensive throughout the past few years, and it would cost him fifteen yuan for a trip to the barber. He could spend the same amount of money on a week's worth of breakfast. Chen Mu's reluctance to spend money was real.
Under normal circumstances, if it had been anyone else, their homeroom teacher would have given them a lecture whenever their hair grew past their eyebrows. Chen Mu was an exception. Instead, the homeroom teacher would always ask him in a concerned tone, "Won't your long hair get in the way when you're reading?"
Chen Mu's always answered with, "I was too caught up studying that I forgot all about it. I'll get it trimmed soon."
Therefore, everyone would receive a shelling if they did not trim their hair, but Chen Mu was made an exemplar because of his diligence. This pushed the flunkies to the edge. How they wanted to shout at Chen Mu and point out that they were different.
When Chen Mu arrived in the classroom, it was nearly time for his morning reading session. After getting seated, Chen Mu was about to get ready to memorize some texts when the System popped up again.
"Please familiarize yourself with all the champions and their respective thumbnails by today, sir. Please study them in all seriousness."
"You're trying to exhaust me to death!" Chen Mu felt helpless. It was way harder than studying in Year 3 Senior.
The System had already conjured a virtual screen in front of Chen Mu's eyes and displayed every champion in the game. Every time a champion appeared in Chen Mu's mind, he was able to check out the description of their skills on the spot. Chen Mu could not help but be impressed by how advanced the tech was.
Although it was all basic knowledge, normal players depended on playing countless matches to get to know all of the champions. For Chen Mu to memorize everything in a single day, he had to have some time to prepare himself since he was a complete newbie.
The screen was there throughout the entire morning reading session, and the option to turn it off only appeared during recess. Chen Mu stretched lazily and lamented about how tiring his life was as he struggled to keep up with his academics while at the same time improve his gaming skills.
Chen Mu did not actually think that the game itself was too hard. He was required to remember a dozen hotkeys to build structures in a Warcraft match. It took Chen Mu less than a week before he was able to challenge three hard bots. However, since he had yet been matched up against real players, Chen Mu had no idea what his skill level was at the moment. In his opinion, no game was too difficult for him as long as he calculated everything out. He could overcome many obstacles that way.
For example, based on the speed at which farmers mined for gold, Chen Mu was able to calculate how many seconds it took to create an item or how many farmers he should send to collect wood while being able to maintain the fastest rate to construct buildings. Last but not least, he was able to calculate the combat strength of his army and his enemies' army as well as their building speed. With that information, he was able to speed up killing the hard bots, avoid their main army from forming, and obtain an easy victory.
In League of Legends, each player only controlled one champion. There was nothing too difficult about that. Yet, Chen Mu was well aware that his greatest obstacle was the number of players.
Since his opponents were all humans, it would be hard for them if it was hard for him. Vice versa, they would have it easy if it were easy for him too. Even in a game of Tetris, one would have to beat hundreds of millions of people in a myriad manner in order to become number one in the world.
Based on the System's explanation, League of Legends would soon be all the rage in the world Chen Mu was living in. That meant that he would be up against hundreds of millions of people from all over the globe. Even in the best scenario, it would not be a bed of roses for him.
After recess, Zhuo Xiaobai who sat in the last row patted Chen Mu's shoulder before heading to the toilet.
Chen Mu understood what the former meant and followed him. After the two had met up and whispered about in the toilet, Zhuo Xiaobai took out a hundred and twenty yuan before placing it in Chen Mu's pocket. Zhuo Xiaobai then left for the exit. Chen Mu understood what he was implying.
Zhuo Xiaobai, more commonly known as Big Bro Xiaobai, was famous for being rich. His status as a student in one of the elite classes had naturally been obtained by pulling some strings. However, he was not exempted from a strict upbringing. His family loomed over his results strictly. If his results were good, they would reward him; if his results were bad, he would be as poor as Chen Mu.
The day before their exam, Zhuo Xiaobai had walked over to Chen Mu sneakily and negotiated with him. "Mu, my brother, I know you're in need of money. On the other hand, I'm in need of marks. Why don't we both combine our strengths, eh? Say, I want the answers to the multiple-choice questions in maths only. Five bucks for each question, what do you say?"
Chen Mu furrowed his brows as he thought about the deal. Five bucks were equal to one breakfast of rice vermicelli and
"Oh, Xiaobai, you know very well that what we're discussing here is immoral. What's the point of such a dirty trick like this? It might seem easy for me, but in truth, I study until four in the morning every day. Have you ever seen Chuzhou City at four in the morning? What you're doing right now is an insult to me!" Chen Mu spoke with righteous fervor and sincere passion that made Zhuo Xiaobai hang his head in embarrassment. At that moment, he realized how horrible his actions were to someone who had worked so hard.
"I'm wrong. You mean for me to get good results with my own effort. I won't cheat anymore," said Zhuo Xiaobai sincerely. He was deeply touched by Chen Mu's words.
"No, what I mean is, pay me more," said Chen Mu.
Zhuo Xiaobai was at a loss for words.
That started the price negotiation between Chen Mu and Zhuo Xiaobai. Eventually, the rates ended up at ten bucks per question, and Zhuo Xiaobai would get one question for free every twelve questions.
Initially, Xiaobai was very pleased with the arrangement. However, it was short-lived because once he obtained the test paper, he realized that there were exactly twelve multiple-choice questions in total! 'Chen Mu, you dishonest trader!'
Nevertheless, a promise was a promise, especially since all the answers Chen Mu gave him turned out to be right. Big Bro Xiaobai understood that a person like Chen Mu would turn out to be the creme de la creme of the future. Chen Mu was not only able to remain at the top of his year with his excellent academics, but he was flexible enough to adapt accordingly to each situation he encountered. There was no way Zhuo Xiaobai would lose out in befriending Chen Mu.
That was how the deal was able to exist. Chen Mu looked at the money in his hands and felt a chilly sense of pity in his heart. It was apt to say that "a penny was capable of overthrowing a hero" in the situation. Chen Mu wondered how many people in the world had already been defeated by money.
Oftentimes, Chen Mu was unable to come up with the money to buy practice tests. Whenever his mathematics teacher requested the whole class to buy practice tests in the past, only Chen Mu would raise his hand and voice out his objection, saying that he did not need the practice as he already knew how to solve all the questions.
Recognizing him at a glance, the mathematics teacher thought that Chen Mu's reason was absurd and gave him the teacher's copy. Whenever the teacher had to discuss the questions, the teacher would use Chen Mu's answers as the standard answers.
Whenever Chen Mu made a mistake, the teacher would explain it to him personally because he was the only student in the whole school that had even the slightest chance of enrolling at one of the top universities. The two top universities in Jiangnan Province accepted only a combined total of forty students. Chuzhou City's
Chen Mu's natural science subjects were accounted for but what about his social sciences? Therefore, the teacher had been breathing down his neck for Mandarin and English since nobody had ever been able to obtain full marks in the two subjects no matter what. Even if the teachers did the tests themselves, if they were not the ones marking their own work, it was a given that they would fail to obtain full marks for them as well.
The price of each practice test was fifteen yuan. Chen Mu's refusal to ask his parents for money had caused his current situation. Chen Mu had an excessively strong ego. Added with his stubbornness, he had sworn never to spend any money unnecessarily if he could because he knew his family was still in debt of several hundred thousand.
Therefore, he would stubbornly rage against all of his problems. At the moment, Chen Mu was truly fighting against his fate, and he had to win.
After returning to the classroom, Chen Mu's first period was mathematics. In this class, Chen Mu was quite an extraordinary character.
Firstly, Chen Mu would always fall asleep in the first period of mathematics class. Then, whenever the teacher woke him up to answer a question, he would show six types of workings to solve the question with a yawn before returning to sleep.
The teacher could not do anything about him as he always managed to solve every single question. Ever since Chen Mu managed to obtain a hundred and five marks in his first monthly Year 1 Senior exam, his mathematics teacher stopped waking him up from his sleep. Thus, Chen Mu gladly used his mathematics classes to fill his sleep quota.
Not even one made of steel would be able to withstand studying other subjects until late at night each day. Chen Mu only managed to survive because of his mathematics classes. However, he had no plans to nap that day due to the good sleep he had by the System's grace and mercy. Chen Mu felt recharged even though he had been simultaneously forced to look up knowledge related to League.
All of it led to Chen Mu staring at the blackboard extraordinarily. To be frank, the blackboard had transformed into a gigantic display in Chen Mu's eyes for the sole purpose of letting him pick up more knowledge on the game.
Streaks of tears fell down his mathematics teacher's cheeks. When was the last time he saw Chen Mu pay attention in his class? Undoubtedly, his teacher conducted the class with great passion and excitement until the point that his spit flew everywhere.
Even if Chen Mu only registered a single word of what he said, his teacher wanted nothing more in the world than to cram all the knowledge he had into that single class.
Several girls sitting at the back fawned over Chen Mu as they watched him with a hint of seriousness in their eyes. Chen Mu was good looking and excelled in his studies. Except for the fact that he was poor, he was perfect. Everyone knew how poor Chen Mu was. It seemed like he had outgrown his shirt, but he still had not gotten himself a new one. The two or three sets of clothes he possessed were worn by him throughout Year 1 Senior all the way to Year 3 Senior. Not to mention, he was still wearing the same pair of shoes even though they were starting to fade.
Since money was not as important to typical highschoolers, Chen Mu was rather popular among the girls.
Each day, Chen Mu had female classmates who wanted to confess their love for him. Nevertheless, they were held back by their lack of courage. That was the culture that had been instilled by Huaxia's education—it was rare for girls to make the first move. Since they were classmates—they would see each other either with their heads bowed or raised—there was a chance things would get awkward if their feelings were unreciprocated. The same fear was similar to the saying, "
-- Hadiah diterima