novelraw Chapter 162: You Guys Didn’t Break Up Peacefully, Did You?
Chapter 162: You Guys Didn’t Break Up Peacefully, Did You?
Pantheon, who had been attacked out of the blue: "..."
He shot Holly a look. ’Hey, look! Mortimer is sticking up for another girl.’
’Tear him a new one. School him. Make him understand the treacherous game of love.’
’Make him cry, even better.’
But Holly was destined to disappoint him. She was obviously going to side with her man. "She’s very pretty."
Pantheon: "..."
’He comes back from the New Year holiday, and the whole world’s turned upside down.’
’Mortimer, who’d always kept girls a mile away, was now sticking up for someone other than Holly.’
’And Holly, his actual girlfriend, wasn’t even mad.’
For some reason, a scene from a novel popped into his head, and he blurted out, "Don’t tell me you two broke up amicably?"
Holly: "..."
Mortimer kicked him, displeased. "We wouldn’t break up even if *you* got divorced."
Ahem. This was probably his biggest verbal blunder. Later on, whenever he thought back on it, he’d claim he never said it.
He paused, then added mercilessly, "You’re on blackboard duty this week."
Pantheon: "..."
’Fuck, I don’t even have a girlfriend, and he’s cursing me to get a divorce.’
’Mortimer, are you even human?’
Zeke, who knew the truth, shot him a look that said, ’You’re being so dramatic.’ A second later, he revealed the truth. "That’s Mortimer’s genius older cousin."
Pantheon: "..."
’I’ll be seeing her around all the time now.’
He figured he should try to salvage the situation. Lying through his teeth, he praised, "Your cousin’s actually pretty good-looking."
Mortimer couldn’t be bothered to respond. No, that wasn’t right—he disdained to respond.
During the first quiz of their final semester of senior year, Pantheon and the others felt like they had met a female version of Mortimer—another freakishly talented student. Cynthia Owens scored a 741.
She got perfect scores in everything except English and Chinese.
A second person had emerged with a perfect score in math.
Pantheon, who had been knocked out of his spot as the second-best in math and fourth-best in their year, was twisted with bitterness.
Zeke had known about Cynthia’s scores, so he’d been mentally prepared. He wasn’t the least bit surprised to land in fourth place.
In fact, Holly had barely managed to snag third place. The exams in the final semester had gotten much harder, and she was finding it a bit of a struggle. This time, her score was only 0.5 points higher than Zeke’s.
She let out a small, internal sigh. ’At my level of intelligence, I can’t afford not to work hard.’
She circled the math problems she’d gotten wrong and started redoing them in a scratch notebook. Mortimer glanced at her from the corner of his eye. Not wanting to disturb her, he simply turned his head and shot a death glare at Chase Hawkins and Paul Powell, who were talking.
Chase Hawkins and Paul Powell: "..."
The two of them shut up.
Gabe Chaucer had known from the start that Cynthia was Mortimer’s cousin. When he got the new grade report, he couldn’t help but brag to the other teachers. "That Quincy trio is incredible! They’ve locked down the top three spots for the year."
The head teacher of Class One was green with envy. "Teacher Chaucer," he said, half-joking, "go ask Mortimer if his family has any more younger siblings. Let me have one for the next incoming class, I want to see what it’s like."
Gabe Chaucer was grinning from ear to ear. "I’ll go ask for you."
He then called Cynthia’s parents. After showering them with praise, he added at the end, "All three of the kids’ grades are excellent. You’ve raised them very well."
’Three kids?’
Ruby Quincy, on the other end of the line, paused for a moment. Then, seeming to realize something, she chuckled. "That’s wonderful. I’ll have to ask you to continue looking out for them, Teacher."
"Don’t you worry, we’ll definitely look out for them," Gabe Chaucer promised cheerfully.
And that’s how the parents inadvertently cemented the "fact" that Mortimer and Holly were cousins.
At least, that was the excuse a future Gabe Chaucer would use for his own oversight.
...
Holly spent the entire study hall period redoing the problems, but to no avail. They were still wrong. She tugged at her hair in frustration and let out a small, "Argh."
Mortimer gently tapped her hand away and let out a low chuckle. "If you keep pulling like that, you’re really going to need hair plugs."
Holly’s biggest fear about her future career as a teacher was going bald.
Whenever her students misbehaved, she’d get angry, then go home and ask: "Honey, am I going bald?"
Holly’s face fell, and she pouted. "Then I’ll pull on yours."
Mortimer: "..."
’Damn it all. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.’
He lowered his head, saying indulgently, "Go on, then."
Holly huffed, but instead of pulling his hair, she pinched his cheek. She gave him a clever look that said, ’Nice try.’ "I’m not pulling your hair. Then I’d have to spend *my* money on your hair plugs."
"My dear wife is already learning how to pinch pennies."
Mortimer couldn’t help but smile. He slid his stool over to explain the problem to her. "If you’ve tried a problem like this a few times and it’s still not coming out right, you need to change your approach. Hmm. Generally, for these major problems, the answer won’t be the square root of some large number. If you get something like that, you should work backward and see if you made a mistake somewhere."
Holly listened intently.
Pantheon, who had also been stumped by the math test: "..."
’No genius boyfriend to explain the problems to me.’
He glanced around the room, his eyes finally landing on the only other person besides Mortimer with a perfect score.
The plain-looking Cynthia Owens.
Without hesitation, he picked up his test and went to ask her. "Hey, Cousin, can I ask you about a problem?"
Most of the class had started following Mortimer’s lead and calling her "Cousin."
Cynthia’s gaze shifted from the Math Olympiad problems she was working on to the test in his hand. "Ask."
Her tone could rival Mortimer’s. Pantheon was already used to it, so he immediately unfolded his test. "This one."
Cynthia was a much better teacher than Mortimer; she explained things in great detail.
Once Pantheon understood, he nodded. He suddenly noticed that Cynthia’s skin was quite nice, and she was actually rather easy on the eyes.
Cynthia met his gaze, raising an eyebrow. "You can go now."
Pantheon: "..."
He picked up his test and walked away. After Mortimer finished explaining the problem to Holly, Pantheon couldn’t help but turn around and ask, "Mortimer, is everyone in your family like this?"
’Aren’t you afraid you’ll all just roast each other to death?’
Mortimer raised an eyebrow and shot back coolly, "We’re different from you, yes. We don’t have your low IQ."
Pantheon: "..."
Zeke uncharitably chimed in, "You’re always just feeding them kills."
"Our friendship is over." Pantheon glared, moving a stack of books to the middle of their shared desk to draw a dividing line.
Zeke just shrugged, unconcerned. Then he took the roll of tissues from the desk and put it in his drawer.
There were two hot commodities at school: pens and tissues.
Seeing this, Pantheon immediately changed his tune, fawning, "Hey, bro, don’t do that! I was just kidding."
As he spoke, he moved the books back. "C’mon, man. Good things are meant to be shared."
"Pay me two-fifty, then. You never buy your own tissues," Zeke said, giving him the side-eye.
Pantheon rubbed his nose and chuckled sheepishly. "My own stuff just isn’t as good as other people’s."
"Then you can just use your hand," Zeke said, ignoring him.
Pantheon: "..."
...
In math class, they were, unsurprisingly, going over the test. The math teacher created a more advanced problem based on one of the multiple-choice questions and asked for students to come up to the board to solve it.
He scanned the classroom and picked a few of his top math students. "Mortimer, Holly, Pantheon, Cynthia. Come on up."
Holly, caught completely off guard at being called on: "..."
’Don’t I look like the cream filling in a three-layer genius sandwich?’
She put down her pen and slowly made her way to the very end of the line at the blackboard, hoping to attract less attention.
Mortimer raised his eyebrows, seeing right through her. He broke a piece of chalk in two, handed her half, and leaned down to whisper, "Don’t be nervous. I already went over this one with you. You know how to do it."