Overprotected By My Tsundere CEO

Chapter 471 - 278: Marcus Shaw, Doomed to Be Single [Part 1]

Nora Scott spoke up, and Marcus Shaw had to pause his work and obediently tidy up.

Ten minutes later, he changed his clothes and walked out of the bedroom.

In the living room, Nora was nowhere to be seen. He thought she might be in the master bedroom, and just as he was about to head over, he glanced into the study on his way and saw Nora standing by the desk, leaning slightly, holding a few test papers and flipping through them casually.

His eyelid twitched.

Holding those test papers, Nora looked up and met his gaze, "Are these all your assignments?"

Marcus replied, "Half and half."

Every time there’s a holiday, the school piles up assignments. However, for those who truly study, these assignments are obviously not enough, and they have to find additional practice papers to work on.

No matter how good one’s studies or talent are, to ensure good grades, one has to go through a battle with endless exercises.

"To get first place?" Nora asked.

Even though she hadn’t interacted much with Marcus, from what she understood about him, he didn’t seem like someone obsessed with getting first place.

Otherwise, in the past exams, he wouldn’t have only chosen to do the difficult problems.

Clearly, Marcus’s principle was: knowing one’s own strength is enough; there’s no need to show it off to others.

"...Yeah."

"Why?"

Why?

Most people evaluate a student’s worth by their grades.

Nora wasn’t like that; she didn’t care.

He didn’t care either.

—— "Our family may not all be successful, but we certainly won’t go astray."

For some reason, every time he thought of that sentence from Nora, he had the urge to prove himself, to take the first place, so no one could use his grades to mock Nora.

After a moment of silence, Marcus put a hand in his pocket, lifted his eyelids, and seemed to say casually, "Just to have some fun."

"After having fun, relax a bit." Nora tossed the papers onto the desk and reminded softly, "Do fewer exercises and go out more."

Young people should be out socializing, being tempered by society, and enjoying the thrill of youth, rather than staying at home doing exercises all day.

Marcus responded with an "oh," feeling a bit embarrassed.

*

Marcus couldn’t figure out what Nora considered shopping.

Initially, he defined "accompanying Nora shopping" as: carrying things and giving blind praise.

He had been dragged along twice by Crystal Hughes, who taught him this way.

However, the only task he had when shopping with Nora was — to take photos.

Food, photos.

Buildings, photos.

Artworks, photos.

He took more photos in just two hours than he had in all his ten-plus years combined.

"Marcus."

Nora, who was browsing in the mall bookstore, called out to Marcus following closely behind.

Marcus was busy confirming the books he wanted to buy with Andrew Hughes. Upon hearing her, he instinctively exited WeChat and was about to open the camera when he heard Nora instruct, "Go buy a cup of milk tea across the street."

"...Oh."

He glanced outside, agreed, and put his phone away.

He asked, "What to drink?"

"Burnt grass jelly."

Nora wasn’t picky about milk tea and always stuck to the same flavor.

"Oh."

Marcus turned to leave, but Nora called out to him, "Wait."

He stopped, looking over with curiosity.

Sizing him up, Nora leisurely asked, "Can you say anything besides ’oh’?"

"..."

Marcus felt puzzled, furrowing his brow slightly.

Nora waved her hand, "Forget it." She gave up with a chuckle.

As Marcus walked away, Nora received a message from Pedro Langley.

[Pedro Langley]: How’s the shopping going?

[Nora Scott]: Boring.

[Nora Scott]: Even more boring than shopping with you five years ago.

[Pedro Langley]: ...

Thanks to Marcus, Pedro realized that shopping with him was boring for Nora.

[Nora Scott]: With him like this, it’ll be hard for him to find a girlfriend, right?

[Pedro Langley]: No worries, I found one.

Pedro’s reassurance didn’t ease Nora’s concerns, since finding someone like her wasn’t easy.

[Nora Scott]: Did you give the gift to Flora Loughton?

[Pedro Langley]: I did.

[Nora Scott]: How did she find it?

[Pedro Langley]: She was touched and told me to prepare the betrothal gifts, just in case you agree to marry me one day.

Seeing yet another glib response, Nora didn’t take it seriously.

[Nora Scott]: Did you tell her I sent it?

[Pedro Langley]: Yeah.

Nora paused slightly, a bit embarrassed.

[Nora Scott]: Does she like it?

[Pedro Langley]: She loves it and can’t put it down.

Nora sighed with relief.

She didn’t have the talent to impress Flora Loughton with her skills, but she had the props to make her happy...

Looks like she needs to get along well with Julian Linfield in the future.

*

In the past two years, the short video industry has been on the rise, and wherever you go, there are influencers filming with phones and cameras.

These people have all sorts of methods for sourcing their material.

Marcus watched as a young man ahead of him used an enormous iron pot to carry away a whole pot of burnt grass jelly.