Journey to the West: The Mountain Shaker

Chapter 57 Public Display

"Hero Cai, divination is so difficult... If this continues, no one will understand. You can't just focus on Yu Qianqian; you have to see this through to the end!" Li Fengping interrupted Cai Fei, gesturing to the girls around them, "We can always pay for it, one spirit stone each per night, how about that?"

Several girls immediately surrounded Cai Fei, tugging at his clothes and shaking his arms, pleading, "Hero Cai, please have mercy..."

"This question is so difficult, I can't understand it at all..."

"Please help us! Money is no object, you can have anyone you need..."

The girls from Aolai were inversely proportional to their fighting prowess in their ability to act coquettishly. It was like a tough guy wielding a knife dancing in silk, or a rural auntie standing on the street pretending to be a prostitute soliciting customers. Cai Fei got goosebumps all over and couldn't take it anymore. He could only surrender: "Okay, okay, I'll help, I'll help, I'll help, okay?!"

The women laughed and pulled Cai Fei back to Shiping.

Cai Fei glanced around. Yu Qianqian stood to one side, smiling silently, while Feng Xiangguo, Wei Yiye, and several other boys stood nearby, looking at him with great interest.

It seems I have no choice but to help, but I really have limited free time and can't just throw myself into it.

After thinking for a moment, Cai Fei said, "Yu Qianqian's materials were hard to come by, and making copies will cost money, so everyone should just pay as she asked. I'll skip the money. How about this: you write down the questions you want to ask on paper, and I'll write out the answers in detail and post them on the surrounding trees. Everyone can look at the answers first, discuss them with each other, and mark any questions you don't understand on the paper so I can address them. I'll tutor Yu Qianqian individually every night for the materials she contributes. The others shouldn't look at the materials; I also need to prepare for my exams and don't have that much time to answer questions."

Everyone agreed, urging, "Please be as detailed as possible; no step can be omitted."

"More or less." Cai Fei smiled and pointed at Li Fengping, saying, "Take care of any questions you don't understand first. You guys write down the questions you don't understand on paper, write big, one question per sheet, and give them to me when you're done."

Everyone agreed and took out their own papers to write down their thoughts.

Feng Xiangguo walked over to Cai Fei, patted him on the shoulder, and said sincerely, "Brother, you're really good. I owe you a favor."

"You're so capable, it makes me, the class monitor, lose face, bro!" Wei Yiye followed behind, a hint of embarrassment on his handsome face. He patted Cai Fei on the shoulder as well, "If there's anything I can do for you, just say the word."

Cai Fei just smiled. It's not easy to get a man to say a sweet word in Aolai. It only takes a little time each day. As long as you can bring a few over, this little effort is nothing.

That afternoon, dozens of sheets of white paper were pasted on the trees around Shiping, with detailed solutions and processes for each difficult problem written on them. Many of them included two or three methods, as well as various standard and variant solutions. Some problems even had hints such as "This problem is not worth thinking about too much" or "This problem is too difficult; those who know how difficult it is should give up."

Yu Qianqian kept her promise and made dozens of copies of the data she obtained each day, selling them for one spirit stone each.

That night, four or five magic lamps shone brightly around the stone platform, and a dozen or so young cultivators were scattered in front of the big tree, some sitting cross-legged, others standing with paper and pen in hand, studying these divination problems diligently through the night.

The next day, before her divination class, Fang Yingyue saw the large stickers as soon as she landed on her flying sword. After glancing at a few, she felt both surprised and embarrassed.

Because many of the problems on the paper have two solutions. The first solution is the one she taught in class, and the second solution is naturally from Cai Fei. Those solutions have novel ideas and concise answers. Just by looking at the word count, they are only half or even a third of the first solution, which is obviously superior to the first solution.

Another teacher might be proud to have such a student, but Fang Yingyue is not.

She achieved Foundation Establishment at a young age and has always been regarded as a genius by those around her. She also considers herself a genius and has long been arrogant. This time, she came to Aolai to teach entirely for the money, and she has never had any sense of being a teacher.

She could still somewhat appreciate the elites of the top-tier class, but she never even considered the trash of the bottom-tier class.

Her attitude of leaving without answering questions a while ago should have been imprinted in the minds of every student in the Earth Class. Her five-minute insulting lecture in every class was even more touching. Now that Cai Fei has posted a solution that is far superior to hers on the big tree, Fang Yingyue feels that it is deliberately slapping her in the face.

The smiling faces of the students around her were proof of this; Feng Xiangguo and his group even held up paper and pens, earnestly asking her for advice.

"Teacher Fang, is Cai Fei's solution correct? He solved such a difficult problem in just six or seven lines of text. Is he lying?"

"Difficult my foot! Even trash like Cai Fei can solve this problem, and you call it a difficult problem? Can't you guys even speak properly?"

"It's definitely easy, just think about it! The real challenges are those taught by Teacher Renfang in the top-tier class, our bottom-tier class is utterly rubbish, completely unworthy of it..."

A bunch of scoundrels, all spouting weird and sarcastic remarks.

Fang Yingyue had the urge to storm off, but leaving after losing was definitely not in her nature.

Endure.

Classes proceeded as usual, and thankfully, the group remained disciplined, with no gossip or rumors circulating in the classroom.

Fang Yingyue first listed a few example questions. While everyone was thinking about the questions, she walked over to Cai Fei and leaned down to look. She found that the boy was actually looking at the "Great Wilderness Guide" information. She gritted her teeth and reached out to pull out a page and tapped it on Cai Fei's desk.

"Since you're so free, why don't you try these questions?"

After saying a few words, Fang Yingyue walked back to the front of the class and didn't call on Cai Fei again for the entire class. She only went straight to Cai Fei after class to see how he did.

"The paper wasn't big enough, so I had to skip some steps..." Cai Fei handed over the sheet of paper, looking embarrassed.

The paper was a foot long and wide, with only three questions written on it. The cinnabar pen used by the cultivator to answer the questions was different from a brush pen; it was a hard pen, which allowed the characters to be written very small. Logically, the paper should have been large enough, but the solutions to the three questions were all complicated, and each question had an accompanying illustration. The three questions filled the entire paper.

They actually finished it all!

Fang Yingyue was shocked, but she was good at maintaining her composure and quietly put away the paper. She then patiently walked around the stone platform and carefully examined the stickers around it.

Cai Fei's answer is extremely detailed, with many details going back to the most basic common sense. Each step is also marked with the numerological principles involved. With such a page of answers, teachers can save a lot of time answering questions.

The good thing was that the questions that provided several solutions made Fang Yingyue grit her teeth in frustration.

Posting these answers here is practically like hanging Fang Yingyue's incompetence on a tree for all to see!

This is so embarrassing!

That damn Cai Fei!