Chapter 4 — A True Academic Ace Has No Time for Love

As for me, the person directly involved, I stared blankly at the bizarre scene unfolding before my eyes, a single thought echoing relentlessly in my mind: Has this lunatic finally lost his absolute mind? Was he some sort of masochist? Had that slap I delivered him the other day somehow sparked a twisted sense of romantic affection in his corrupted brain? Thuyet Thac had always been a man of his word. Once he declared his intention to pursue me, he launched an earth-shattering campaign that made sure the entire school knew about it. He would plant exorbitantly expensive imported chocolates inside my desk drawer, creep his roaring super car at a snail pace behind me all the way home, and personally fund streetlamps to illuminate the pitch-black alley leading up to my front door. He composed original melodies and dedicated them to me, even changing his social media profile picture to a candid silhouette of my back. During the school broadcast hour, he would serenade the entire student body with a love song, finishing off with a casual, devastatingly arrogant sign-off: "Dedicated to Tham Chieu Chieu." Such courtship was overwhelmingly public and utterly unapologetic. Ninety-nine percent of teenage girls would have crumbled under that kind of relentless, high-profile siege. Unfortunately. I happened to belong to the remaining one percent. Whatever Thuyet Thac lavished upon me, I promptly listed and sold on secondhand online marketplaces. When he crooned his pathetic love songs through the PA system, I simply jammed noise-canceling earbuds into my ears and focused on my calculus homework. When he trailed behind me like a lost stray dog trying to escort me home, I conspired with the local mechanic down the street to scatter sharp iron nails all along his chosen path. Within a single week, the profits I made from his vehicular misfortunes were quite substantial. Besides, I simply lacked the idle mental bandwidth to entertain his childish antics. Our long-term financial enterprise was running into some rather troubling turbulence. Lam Tran had completely exhausted her private allowance. Perhaps she realized that I no longer posed a lethal threat to her coveted top rank in the grade, so she abruptly decided to sever her financial collaboration with Giang Tu. But how could we possibly allow that to happen? We certainly had not milked her dry yet. And so, when the final monthly examinations of the semester arrived, I effortlessly coasted back to claim the premier spot on the leaderboard. Standing before the gleaming notice board, Lam Tran clutched her fists so tightly her knuckles turned ghostly white. Meanwhile, I adopted an exquisite expression of utter devastation, playing the part of a heartbroken maiden to absolute perfection. "Having lost true love, I have no choice but to bury my sorrow in my textbooks," I sighed dramatically to anyone who would listen. The moment the final bell rang, Lam Tran immediately sought out Giang Tu. Gnashing her teeth in bitter fury, she hissed her revised terms: "Go back to her. I will pay you the exact same monthly retainer as before. But this time, you must pull out all the stops. Not only must you cause her grades to plummet catastrophically, but you must also ensure that Thuyet Thac loses interest in her entirely once and for all!"

When Giang Tu recounted this conversation to me later, every single hair on my body stood up in pure disgust. There were only six months left until the grueling university entrance examinations, yet Lam Tran was actively plotting to manipulate Giang Tu into tricking me into a compromising situation, snapping explicit photographs, and leaking them across the internet. Once those images circulated, my reputation would be utterly obliterated, and there was a high likelihood I would face immediate expulsion, robbing me of my right to sit for the national exams. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that someone who grandly prided herself on being a lady of noble upbringing could conceive of such a wretchedly sordid scheme. Even Giang Tu furrowed his brows deeply, disgust flashing in his eyes. "Let us drop this. We are not taking her blood money anymore." "Why on earth would we stop now? We must bleed her for every single penny we can squeeze out." If I had previously felt even a shred of moral hesitation about profiting off Lam Tran, that fleeting guilt had now entirely evaporated. After all, she was actively scheming to ruin my entire future. Extracting a bit of financial compensation from her for her troubles was hardly unreasonable. On Friday evening after dismissal, Lam Tran sat quietly in her car, tailing us at a distance until she spotted us ducking into a twenty-four-hour convenience store. Giang Tu stepped up to the counter and purchased a small, rather scandalous box containing items that defied polite conversation. Afterward, wearing a brilliantly executed mask of bashful reluctance, I allowed him to lead me into a sleek hotel room. Convinced her master plan was unfolding precisely as desired, Lam Tran quickly snapped a photograph of our backs as we entered the lobby and forwarded it directly to Thuyet Thac with a glooming caption: "Ah Thac, it is time to wake up. Is this truly the innocent, pure girl you thought she was? See for yourself." Inside the hotel suite, Giang Tu and I casually dragged the study table into the center of the spacious room, pulled up two chairs, and dumped heavy stacks of past papers and reference books out of our backpacks. "I am still somewhat hazy on these three-dimensional spatial geometry formulas. Walk me through them one more time." "Very well. Have you finished the problem set from yesterday?" ... Lam Tran remained blissfully unaware that every single one of our supposed romantic rendezvous was, in reality, a rigorous, grueling tutoring session where we hammered out mock exams, mended academic loopholes, and drilled difficult concepts together. Movie theaters, amusement parks, quiet cafes—as long as the venue provided a flat surface and a chair, we could transform it into our private study hall. For the most part, I acted as his tutor, but since his command of the English language was exceptionally strong, he effortlessly helped me polish my linguistic nuances as well. At this stage, Giang Tu's academic standing was fully capable of securing him a spot in the top ten of the entire grade. However, in order to successfully maintain our elaborate charade of "sliding down the slope together," he deliberately suppressed his test scores, hovering stubbornly around the one-hundred-point mark. When you have no comparison, you suffer no pain. Remembering how I had once worked myself to the bone like an obedient beast of burden trying to tutor Thuyet Thac, only for him to stubbornly anchor himself to the absolute bottom of the grade, I truly found myself wondering just what kind of sawdust and cobblestones were rattling around inside his skull. The exact moment Thuyet Thac kicked the heavy hotel door off its hinges and stormed into the room, Giang Tu had just finished grinding through a punishing mock exam and was sprawled flat across the bed, trying to restore his circulation. Thuyet Thac lunged forward, seized the collar of Giang Tu’s shirt with savage force, his eyes burning an ominous shade of crimson: "Where is Tham Chieu Chieu?!" "I am... I am just washing some apples in the kitchen..." I emerged from the kitchenette holding a pristine porcelain plate laden with freshly rinsed, chilled apples, only to freeze in utter horror as I watched Thuyet Thac pin Giang Tu to the rug and rain savage punches down upon him. I stood rooted to the spot, entirely dumbfounded.

At the hospital emergency ward, I aggressively billed Thuyet Thac for Giang Tu’s medical expenses, compensation for emotional distress, and nutritional recovery supplements, the total coming out to a clean, unyielding sum of fifty thousand. Though Thuyet Thac wore an expression resembling a thundercloud, he had no choice but to wire the funds. Watching me buzz around anxiously to tend to Giang Tu’s bruises only made his complexion grow darker and more volatile by the day, until he finally cornered me on the stairwell. "Tham Chieu Chieu, you were the one who deliberately initiated contact with me in the beginning." My memory flashed back to the distant past when, driven purely by the financial incentives dangled by the Thuyet family, I had brazenly plastered myself to his side like a stubborn medical plaster, desperate to drag his abysmal grades up into passing territory. Sighing, I decided to offer a clean, uncomplicated apology: "Very well. I apologize." "I do not want your damn apology!" Thuyet Thac snarled, his voice shrouded in absolute gloom. He grabbed my wrists with crushing pressure, his eyes burning into mine with desperate accusation: "You wormed your way into my life and now you just toss me aside like trash? Did you treat me like some kind of sick joke?!" "What does that bastard Giang Tu have going for him besides a pretty face? Where on earth do I fall short compared to him?!" If Thuyet Thac was utterly determined to extract a definitive reason so he could finally let me go, I decided to deliver the brutal, unvarnished truth: "He excels academically." Thuyet Thac’s features locked into a rigid mask of sheer disbelief. "As far as I am aware, your admission to this elite high school was entirely secured because the Thuyet family made a generous monetary donation to construct a brand-new science building. Ever since our freshman year, you have consistently anchored the absolute bottom of the grade rankings. Your academic record... is truly abysmal." Thuyet Thac’s grip slowly slackened, his hands dropping limply to his sides as all the fight drained out of him. I turned and walked away at a brisk pace, failing to notice how he clenched his fists behind my back until his fingers turned white, his teeth grinding together with lethal intent: "It is just studying, is that it? You just wait." Following that explosive confrontation, Thuyet Thac mercifully ceased his childish public antics. However, he immediately transformed into a spectacle of an entirely different magnitude. The notorious playboy heir who had spent his entire high school career snoring through lectures suddenly stopped sleeping in class. He began frantically completing assignments, hired private specialist tutors for every single subject, and voluntarily stayed late after school to grind through remedial problem sets. The final examinations of the semester arrived with terrifying swiftness. For the first time in my academic career, I intentionally slipped outside the top one hundred students in the grade. As for Thuyet Thac, he miraculously shed his permanent crown at the absolute bottom of the ladder, clawing his way upward through sheer, brutal perseverance to land... eighth from the bottom. When his father wired the agreed-upon bonus payment straight into my account, my brain hadn't even begun to process the transaction before my phone buzzed with an incoming call. The old man’s voice vibrated with unabashed, booming pride: "I knew my boy was never destined to linger at the bottom forever! Young lady Tham, your contributions to this miracle are nothing short of monumental!" From my perspective, occupying the very bottom position or resting at eighth from the bottom held virtually no discernible difference. Besides, the person who had actually tortured himself tutoring the boy was not even me; what did his sudden academic ascension have to do with me in the slightest? I voiced this exact sentiment bluntly, fully prepared to initiate an immediate transfer to return the unearned funds. But Elder Thuyet merely laughed heartily: "No, no. Regardless of who physically sat across from him, every ounce of that effort was channeled because of you." "Pardon?" "Lately, every single night, he buries himself in those practice tests. When I sneaked into his study to check on him, his scrap paper was literally covered edge-to edge with your name. Your position on the school rankings has become his absolute north star. He is desperately trying to close the chasm between the two of you, so you have more than earned every cent of this sum." Since the payer himself had delivered such an elaborate justification, what conceivable reason did I have to refuse the money? However... a persistent prick of suspicion nagged at the back of my mind. Normally, whenever the old man interacted with me, he maintained an impeccably polite facade, yet his gaze and posture constantly radiated the condescending hauteur of social superiority. Why, then, was he suddenly so utterly cooperative about his precious heir entangling himself with a penniless girl like me? Almost immediately, Elder Thuyet offered a transparent clarification: "Young lady Tham, let us establish a formal business transaction." "Once the university entrance examinations are completely over, I kindly ask that you continue to function as A Thac’s motivational anchor. The future heir of the Thuyet family cannot afford to graduate with a shameful academic record; those old foxes in the corporate sphere will never grant him their respect if he does. Once the exams conclude, I will personally finance your studies abroad at any institution of your choosing, covering every single tuition and living expense in full, on the sole condition that you sever all romantic contact with him permanently." I barely needed a fraction of a second to weigh the proposition: "Transaction successfully accepted. However, as for the destination I wish to reach, I am fully capable of traveling there on my own two feet. Would it be possible for you to convert those overseas tuition fees directly into a cash payout instead?" Elder Thuyet fell into a stunned, profound silence.

As for the clandestine transaction brokered between myself and Thuyet Thac’s father, the young master himself remained entirely oblivious. He acted as though he had sworn a blood oath to bridge the distance between our academic standings by any means necessary. Aside from burying his nose in textbooks during every waking hour, he also somehow found the spare energy to continuously sabotage my supposed romance with Giang Tu. Whenever Giang Tu and I secured a table in the school library to plow through revision packets, Thuyet Thac would deliberately drag a chair over and sit directly across from us, glaring daggers. When we purchased our meals in the bustling cafeteria, he would march in carrying takeout from an upscale western restaurant and aggressively wedge himself right between the two of us. Even on the walk home from school, the pampered young master chose to abandon the cool, air-conditioned luxury of his family’s super car, forcing himself to trudge along the pavement wedged tightly between our footsteps. I was beginning to strongly suspect that the boy was genuinely, clinically afflicted with some deep-seated masochism. The less I acknowledged his existence, the more frenzied and unhinged his efforts became. Lam Tran, meanwhile, attributed every single erratic shift in Thuyet Thac’s behavior entirely to my wicked influence, glaring at me with an intensity that bordered on murderous hatred with each passing day. Yet every time she glanced at the school bulletin board and noted my steadily dropping grade rankings, a flash of malicious glee would light up her eyes. The final mock examinations preceding the national college entrance trials arrived with the weight of a falling anvil. My official rank dropped to two hundred and forty-eighth in the entire school. Giang Tu landed at three hundred and seventieth. Lam Tran proudly claimed the number one crown yet again. And Thuyet Thac achieved a personal milestone that shattered all his previous records—surging upward to break into the top eighteen hundred students. That very evening, Thuyet Thac was waiting directly beneath my apartment building. I made no move to go down and confront him. Instead, he simply tilted his head back and began roaring my name at the top of his lungs right beneath my balcony, creating such an unbearable racket that neighboring residents quickly began pounding angrily on their doors to register complaints. With a heavy sigh, I had no choice but to throw my window open and demand to know what absurd drama he was attempting to orchestrate this time. Thuyet Thac lifted his face, his eyes shining with an almost manic intensity in the amber glow of the streetlamp: "You have been staying by Giang Tu’s side, yet your grades continue to plummet, which clearly proves he is entirely incapable of bringing out your best. But look at me—I am steadily closing the gap, drawing closer to you day by day. Tham Chieu Chieu, wouldn't it be infinitely more logical for you to walk toward a brighter, more prosperous future right beside me?" I let out a soft, noncommittal laugh, keeping my thoughts entirely to myself. Thuyet Thac was, at his core, a creature defined by staggering arrogance and boundless selfishness. If his affection for me had possessed an ounce of authenticity, he would have desperately urged me to halt my academic decline the moment my scores began to slip, rather than secretly rejoicing in my regression simply because it meant his relative position grew marginally closer to mine. True devotion did not operate in such a twisted, transactional fashion. He remained blissfully unaware that my ranking of two hundred and forty-eighth was a meticulously calculated position I had chosen for myself to fulfill a contract. And his own position at eighteen hundred... was merely the hard limit of his actual, unvarnished intellectual capability. "A brighter future, you say? I will certainly arrive there."