70: Fumino, why don't you just die?

"Lin Luo, d-don't come any closer." Furuhashi Fumino's breathing was slightly ragged, her panic and shyness clearly audible in her voice. Tears welled in her eyes as she pleaded, "Please let me go. This is school; if we do that kind of thing, people will see!"

Lin Luo's voice was cold and unfeeling. He shook a water-based marker in his hand. "It's even better if people see it. Shame deepens memory; that's a scientific principle."

"No, no, no!" Furuhashi Fumino shook her head rapidly, tears flying. "That kind of thing... that kind of thing... it's too shameful!"

Lin Luo said, "If you feel ashamed, just close your eyes. You won't remember the answer anyway."

"Even if I close my eyes, other people will still see everything!" Furuhashi Fumino shivered, hugging her shoulders, tears welling up. "Lin Luo is so scary, a big demon, bullying people... I wish I could turn into a seashell. If I were a seashell, I wouldn't have to study physics, and I wouldn't encounter such terrifying things, right?"

Lin Luo was unmoved, closing in step by step. "It's too late to realize that now. Who told you that you got all the physics questions wrong again? This is a contract; you have to accept the consequences of your gamble."

"Leave Fumino alone." Ogata Rizu stepped forward, her small body blocking him. "I also got many of my paragraph analyses wrong."

"Don't worry." Lin Luo looked at the legal loli, his face expressionless. "It will be your turn soon. To perfectly avoid all correct answers in multiple-choice paragraph analysis questions is also a kind of talent."

Ogata Rizu took a step back, her right hand covering her chest. "S-so scary."

"Don't bully Rizu-chan!" Furuhashi Fumino closed her eyes in despair, tilting her pretty face upward, revealing her fair, slender, graceful neck. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, much like a swan offering its neck for slaughter. "If Lin Luo must do it, then... then come on... please be gentle."

"Umm... This is my first time having someone draw on my face, and it's in a place like school. I can't go home and face my dad."

Lin Luo, please be gentle..."

Furuhashi Fumino clasped her hands in front of her chest, tearfully leaning closer to Lin Luo.

"You talk too much."

Lin Luo, expressionless, decisively reached out his demonic claw to the delicate girl. The tip of the pen lightly touched her tender cheek, and soon, a cute cartoon pig's head, representing a "physics idiot," vividly appeared on her small face.

"Oh dear!"

Furuhashi Fumino leaned back, raising her hand to cover her pretty face, her hair trembling behind her. A shameful sound escaped through her fingers: "Ugh, to be played with like this in school, with so many classmates around, I can't go home and face my dad..."

"Don't run." Lin Luo grabbed Ogata Rizu, who was trying to slip away at the first sign of trouble. "It's your turn, 'literary illiterate'."

"No." Rizu struggled.

Lin Luo didn't care about Ogata Rizu's wishes. Similarly, a small turtle, vividly symbolizing "zero sense of direction in literature," appeared on her cheek.

Looking at the two girls before him, their faces adorned with "medals" and filled with shame and indignation, Lin Luo calmly put away his pen.

"This is the final decision. Since ordinary encouragement and supervision are ineffective for you two one-sided Geniuses, we can only take an unconventional approach."

"Remember this feeling of shame. If you fail the physics calculation questions next time," he looked at Furuhashi Fumino, "what's on your face won't just be a pig's head."

"As for you," he then looked at Ogata Rizu, "if you still mix up historical eras, this turtle will turn into a dorky, glasses-wearing turtle and be posted on the bulletin board."

"Now," Lin Luo slapped two study outlines on the table, "with your 'weakness marks' on your faces, supervise each other and redo the incorrect problems ten times. Do not erase them until you're finished."

"Demon... he's simply a demon!" Furuhashi Fumino threw her arms around Kato Megumi, who had been quietly observing the entire time, and tearfully accused, "Megumi, you have to control him!"

Kato Megumi, who had been suddenly embraced, gently put down her pen. Her calm face finally showed some lively expressions due to Furuhashi Fumino's erratic behavior. She slightly curved her lips, a hint of helplessness in her smile, but her gaze was gentle as she looked at Lin Luo and softly said:

"Lin Luo's method, while a bit excessive... you did promise before, didn't you?"

She paused, then turned her gaze to the two girls with "medals" on their faces, her voice soft but clear: "Besides, aren't you much more energetic now compared to how unmotivated you were before?"

Fumino and Rizu were both startled by her words.

Kato Megumi said no more, simply picking up her pen again and continuing her studies. Her serene profile formed a strange contrast with the small "commotion" beside her, like a stable anchor point.

Watching her being naturally relied upon by Fumino, and so calmly accepting this slightly absurd "study session," Lin Luo nodded slightly in his heart. Things were unfolding just as he had told Kato Megumi before—as long as she was willing to be there with them, they would naturally "cling to her" and become friends.

"Even Megumi has betrayed me..." Furuhashi Fumino wailed, yet subconsciously clutched Kato Megumi's arm even tighter, as if finding some kind of reliance.

Ogata Rizu also silently shifted her feet, standing on Kato Megumi's other side, and whispered in agreement, "Mm... it's a contract."

Lin Luo looked at the expected yet somewhat amusing scene before him—the two "punished" girls, by unspoken agreement, had hidden themselves beside their seemingly most unassuming companion.

"Alright, stop crying." His tone softened slightly, with a hint of "stick and carrot" meaning. "I'll treat you to drinks."

"Then I want iced tea!" Furuhashi Fumino immediately looked up, tears still clinging to her eyes, but already taking advantage of the offer.

"I... I brought my own water, so I don't need any." Ogata Rizu softly refused, maintaining her sense of social distance.

"Rejected." Lin Luo said unequivocally, "It's a special drink, to clear your minds, and it tastes pretty good."

As he spoke, his palm gently swept across the table, and four ancient, elegant wooden cups quietly appeared before everyone. These were the "cup of vitality" he had borrowed from Tōsu Mafuyu. The clear water in the cups looked ordinary, but it emitted a faint herbal fragrance, just smelling it calmed one's mind.

"Eh? What is this...?" Furuhashi Fumino leaned in curiously.

"It can help boost your immunity and relieve stress and fatigue." Lin Luo explained simply, without revealing more details.

The so-called balance of work and rest: since the active energy water exchanged by the "cup of vitality" could effectively counteract the mental fatigue caused by studying, they had no room to complain about the hardship of studying—after all, even "fatigue," a legitimate excuse for laziness, had been thoughtfully (and domineeringly) resolved by him in advance.

Kato Megumi was the first to quietly pick up a cup. After taking a small sip, she nodded slightly: "It's very refreshing."

Seeing this, Fumino and Rizu also picked up their cups, half-believing, half-doubting.

"Now," Lin Luo tapped the study outlines on the table, looking at the girls with cartoon patterns on their faces and holding ancient wooden cups, giving his final command, "after replenishing your energy, with your 'weakness marks,' start redoing the incorrect problems. Ten times, not one less."

Then, while there was still some time left in the lunch break, he redistributed the test papers, intending to strike while the iron was hot, capitalizing on the effect of the "cup of vitality." However, reality soon delivered a harsh blow.

"Fumino..." A moment later, Lin Luo picked up Furuhashi Fumino's test paper, his voice becoming unusually gentle and pleasant, his smile like a spring breeze, but the words he spoke were like swords and spears, "Why don't you just actually go die?"

"Th-that... resonance... no, conjugate? No, it's resonance..." Furuhashi Fumino's eyes were unfocused, as if her Soul was still lost in a vortex of numbers, her voice drifting. "When x approaches zero, the function doesn't approach a definite value, but... but dissipates into fragments of countless stars, following a sorrowful trajectory in the vacuum of thought, moving away from each other... Ultimately, all meaning collapses into a singularity of nothingness. This is no longer mathematics, Lin Luo; this is... a desperate prose poem written for the Universe."

"Your understanding of 'singularity of nothingness' certainly possesses philosophical depth." Lin Luo commented coldly, precisely shattering her poetic evasion.

Furuhashi Fumino whimpered, sliding off her chair and squatting on the floor, unconsciously drawing discontinuous curves with her finger, muttering, "Perhaps... I was born from a calculation error, my existence a loophole in the mathematical Law... an ant like me, I have no right to linger in this world..."

However, when Lin Luo picked up Ogata Rizu's test paper, his tightly furrowed brows instantly relaxed. "Ogata, you did well this time," he praised, comparing the two vastly different answer sheets in his hand. "All the multiple-choice questions for paragraph analysis are correct this time. Even if the analytical questions have slight flaws, the logic is clear. It seems my special drink wasn't wasted after all."

Doing the same test paper, which only had numbers changed and had been explained not long ago, resulted in one exceeding expectations, while the other completely plunged into the abyss of abstract concepts. Lin Luo looked at the literary girl squatting on the floor, trying to deconstruct mathematics poetically, and the science Genius beside her, who, despite having a turtle drawn on her face, stood tall. He took a deep breath.

He squatted down, looking directly into the eyes of Furuhashi Fumino, who was lost in self-doubt, and snapped his fingers crisply in front of her.

"Furuhashi Fumino," his voice seemed to take on a peculiar quality, clear and penetrating, "now, discard all useless thoughts in your mind and fully immerse yourself in the analysis of the incorrect problems..."

A trace of imperceptible "spiritual power" seemed to be mixed in his voice, transforming into a psychological suggestion directed solely at Furuhashi Fumino. Perhaps, this was no longer just a suggestion, but more like a direct command acting upon her mind.

The literary girl, who had been immersed in her self-constructed tragic poem, quickly lost the confusion and unfocused look in her eyes, replaced by a rare, highly concentrated clarity. She silently stood up, returned to her chair, picked up her pen, and focused intently on the math problems that should have given her a headache. Her entire aura became calm.

Ogata Rizu, beside her, watched dumbfounded, adjusted her glasses, and gasped softly, "Wh-what kind of method is this? Hypnosis?"

Lin Luo made a silencing gesture to her, lowering his voice to explain, "Don't disturb her yet. I'm just letting her overly active brain calm down temporarily so she can learn seriously for once. She's already very smart; her thoughts just tend to wander too easily, and she overthinks."

He looked at Furuhashi Fumino, who had finally gotten into the zone, and mused, 'Sometimes, extraordinary people indeed require extraordinary methods.'