Reborn with My Genius Husband

Chapter 196: Earning It Back with Her Top-Student Husband

Holly Winslow: "..."

When class was over, she went to Mortimer Quincy with a long face and whined, "Quincy the Puppy, it’s over. I’m on the professor’s blacklist."

The girl tilted her head up, her red lips parting and closing. Mortimer let out a low chuckle, holding an umbrella with one hand and wrapping the other around her waist.

His tone deepened slightly. "Let’s see if you dare to do that again."

"I won’t, I won’t. Your hubby is so sad."

Holly Winslow pitifully slipped a hand into his pocket, then tried to negotiate. "Can I have a cup of instant noodles?"

Mortimer: "..."

’So this was all just to set the stage for instant noodles.’

’Damn it.’ He was so annoyed he had to laugh.

He raised an eyebrow. "What do you think?"

Holly: "..."

She nodded. "I think I can."

A second later, Mortimer crushed her hopes with a single question. "Get into bed?"

She: "..."

’I could get on *you*.’

Back at the dorm, Serena Shaw tried to get back in her good graces by giving Holly a pile of snacks. Clasping her hands together, she said, "Holly, I’m so sorry about what happened today. I’ll cover your cleaning duties for the week."

Holly didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. "It’s fine. Just don’t skip class next time. The professor definitely remembers me now."

Bringing it up, Autumn Underwood couldn’t stop laughing. "When Holly’s boyfriend answered the roll call, I almost lost it."

Simone Quincy chimed in with a smile, "A boyfriend like that is marriage material."

Holly took a sip of water and said with great certainty, "We’re definitely getting married."

The three of them—Simone, Autumn, and Serena—were hit with a faceful of PDA. "..."

The next second, the three of them playfully ganged up on her. Holly was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe and threw her hands up in surrender.

Autumn sat back down on her stool, catching her breath. "Holly, how did you and your boyfriend meet? I’m pretty curious."

The other two nodded in agreement.

Holly thought for a moment, then blinked. "Because he’s handsome. I fell for him at first sight."

Autumn and the others: "..."

’What a shallow woman.’

’Ahem, but we’re shallow too.’

...

As a member of a student club, Mortimer’s bad attitude had gotten him called out on the school’s online forum. A whole post was written about it, full of exaggerations, and a bunch of mindless sheep followed suit in the comments, complaining about him.

The more Holly read, the angrier she got. She immediately started a new thread explaining what had happened that day, then called out the original poster by name: Please try to be a decent human being.

Just a few minutes after she posted it, her thread shot to the top of the school’s trending topics, and she started getting flamed too.

"..."

She was lying on her bed, getting ready to go full keyboard warrior,

When someone suddenly shared her post with the comment: "Why are you explaining things to morons?"

With a comment that sharp-tongued, it could only be that jerk Mortimer. Holly laughed out loud and didn’t reply to anyone else after that.

She’d originally thought the thread about Mortimer would attract a lot of hate, but surprisingly, it didn’t.

’Guess no one wanted to admit to being a moron.’

The club was still accepting sign-ups. Originally, not many people knew about the club’s event, but thanks to Mortimer’s trending topic, pretty much the whole school knew about it now.

The number of people signing up continued to rise, and in the end, the registration drive was a resounding success.

Mortimer and Holly signed up too. Winning awards during university was a good way to score points when job hunting.

Ahem. A big part of Holly’s motivation was the one-thousand-yuan prize. She’d spent a lot of money on clothes and needed to earn it back.

’Time to earn it back by relying on my genius hubby.’

Despite not being a finance major, she started searching online to learn about the relevant topics. Serena Shaw clicked her tongue and teased, "Holly, joining his ’house’ before you’re even married? Isn’t that a bit much?"

Holly: "..."

The drizzle continued into Saturday. While the others in the dorm were still sleeping in, Holly was already up, had her textbooks packed, and was heading out to her tutoring job.

Meanwhile, Mortimer had left for the construction site at seven.

It was now a little past nine. Sophia Zane had gone to work today, so the housekeeper opened the door for her. "Chloe’s in her bedroom."

Holly nodded to show she understood. She knocked and entered, only to see Chloe Hollis lying down and playing a game on her phone.

Chloe looked up at her, showing no intention of paying her any mind.

’I knew last week this student would be difficult, but with Sophia around, she was at least behaved.’

Holly pressed her lips together. She glanced at her watch—two minutes until ten. She sat down at the desk and took out the material she was going to cover today.

After two minutes had passed, Chloe still showed no signs of coming over for the lesson. She was even on a voice call with someone. "Over here! I’ve got an 8x scope."

Holly was getting a real headache. The girl was acting just like she used to. She had the urge to grab her by the ear and yell, "Study hard!"

’Just a thought.’

She sighed heavily to herself and reminded the girl, "It’s time for class."

Chloe didn’t even look at her, her tone dripping with teenage rebellion. "You’ll get paid either way. Just leave me alone."

Holly: "..."

’Are all rebellious teenagers the same? Ahem, I used to say the same thing back in the day.’

’No wonder Wyatt Winslow always looked so exasperated and helpless whenever he saw me back then.’

She walked over to watch. Chloe’s gaming skills were average at best. "I’ll play a round with you," Holly offered. "If I lose, I’ll leave you alone. If you lose, you listen to my lesson."

’Teenagers who love video games all have this mysterious confidence that they’re amazing at them.’

Chloe glanced at her, probably assuming that people who were good at school were terrible at games.

She asked disdainfully, "You know how to play?"

Holly: "..."

’This is child’s play for me.’

She smiled. "A little."

Chloe agreed. "Fine."

The 1v1 match was over in three minutes. Holly won. Seeing Chloe’s expression of disbelief mixed with anger, she couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, which she quickly suppressed.

"Time for class."

Chloe reluctantly put down her phone, got up, and sat at the desk. Holly asked, "Did you do the homework I assigned?"

"Did it." Chloe tossed the workbook at her.

Holly: "..."

’Teacher Winslow, don’t get angry. You must remain calm and peacefully instruct the future of our nation.’

After a few words of self-reassurance, she began checking Chloe’s homework. Her accuracy was actually quite high. The student was smart; her mind just wasn’t on her studies.

She pointed to one of the questions. "’Way of life.’ The preposition is ’of’. It’s a fixed phrase, and it’s a real shame to lose points on something like this."

"Tomorrow, I’ll compile a list of the most common fixed phrases in high school English. You can spend some time memorizing them each morning."

Seeing her pout and mumble a reluctant "Mhm," Holly thought for a moment, then put down the workbook and asked seriously, "Which is more fun, studying or playing games?"

"Duh. Games, obviously."

Chloe picked up her pen and wrote down the fixed phrase Holly had just mentioned.

Holly glanced at her and asked again, "It’s fun, but can you play for the rest of your life?"

Chloe didn’t answer. The hand she was twirling her pen with stilled.

Holly pointed to the book. "But you can learn for the rest of your life. Whether you’re in school or out in the real world, you’re in a constant state of learning and being taught."

"You learn different things at every stage. At your age, it’s mainly knowledge from textbooks. For someone like me, I have to learn from textbooks *and* from society."

"High school is a critical watershed. It largely determines the environment you’ll be learning in for your future."

"Don’t underestimate the importance of your learning environment. It can widen the gap between people more and more."

"If I hadn’t gone to college, I wouldn’t be sitting here comfortably, teaching you. I might be out in the cold, working some manual labor job."

"It’s the same for you. It’s the same for everyone. Effort and reward are directly proportional. There are no flukes."