vstars Chapter 91 I want you to become better.
Chapter 91 I want you to become better.
The next day.
After the bell rang to signal the end of the last exam, Song Che packed up his pencil case and walked out of the classroom. The tension in his heart finally eased.
In the two days leading up to the results, the school atmosphere had already shifted into holiday mode. Students in the corridors walked with a more relaxed pace, and the topics of discussion changed from homework to how to spend the Spring Festival.
Song Che didn't stay at school for long.
He wrapped his coat tighter around himself and walked home into the cold winter wind. The familiar, old-fashioned smell of the stairwell made him feel more at ease than he would have in the classroom.
As you push open the door, a faint scent of home wafts out.
The living room was quiet, with only the scratching sound of a pen nib gliding across paper.
Xia Li sat at the table—which had now become her regular study corner. A math workbook lay open in front of her, with several sheets of scratch paper scattered around. She sat ramrod straight, but her silver hair almost brushed against the paper. One hand pressed down on the edge of the workbook, while the other held a pen, slowly moving it across a line of equations.
Song Che quietly changed his shoes, put his backpack against the wall, and walked behind her.
He didn't say anything, just watched quietly.
It is a quadratic equation in one variable.
Xia Li listed the steps very clearly: first, rearrange the terms, then convert the coefficients, and then apply the quadratic formula.
The pen paused at "b²- 4ac" for a moment, she frowned slightly, glanced down at a notepad filled with formulas next to her, and continued writing.
Take the square root to get two solutions, and then neatly write them in the spaces "x₁=， x₂=".
After finishing this problem, she turned the page. The next page contained ten practice problems of the same type of equations. Song Che glanced at them; the first nine were all checked off, except for the last one, which had a small red circle drawn next to it, with the steps corrected.
One out of ten questions was wrong.
Two weeks ago, Song Che wouldn't have dared to imagine such an accuracy rate.
Back then, Xia Li would hesitate for a few seconds, counting on her fingers, when faced with "3+5", and she looked at word problems as if she were looking at runes.
Now, she can derive the formulas herself.
Xia Li seemed unaware that someone was behind her.
She started working on a new page of exercises, not very fast, but each step was steady. When she got to the third question, she suddenly stopped and tapped her chin with the pen—a new little habit she had developed when thinking.
Song Che watched that action and the corners of his mouth curved slightly.
He didn't disturb her and turned to go to his room.
He took a brown notebook out of the drawer.
It's not the kind of notebook you use for taking class notes; this one is thicker, and the cover has no labels.
Opening the book, one finds notes he's taken over this period. The handwriting is messier than his classroom notes, with many corrections, and some pages even have clipped fragments of information printed from the internet.
At the top of the first page, written in bold, is the following: A Conception of Identity Resolution Pathways
The following are several points:
1. Fabricating past experiences (details required, including location, time, and witnesses)
2. Acceptance by welfare institutions (conditions? procedures? required documents?)
3. Family adoption (legal procedures, time frame and obstacles...)
Each item then branches out into more sub-items, question marks, and to-do lists.
Some parts are circled in red and marked with an asterisk.
Some were marked with lines and labeled as requiring verification or high risk.
Song Che's gaze fell on the words "orphanage".
He picked up his pen and added a few more lines to the blank space:
Address and phone number of the district social welfare center.
Procedures for receiving homeless/lost minors.
Health certificate.
The most crucial question: How can Xia Li be made to reasonably become Tao Xiang's older sister in the orphanage without triggering a deeper investigation?
The questions were one after another, like a tangled ball of yarn. He stared at the words, his brows slowly furrowing.
It's easy to talk about it on paper, but to actually walk this path, every step is fraught with risk and uncertainty. The issue of household registration and such kept popping into his head.
And there's that "bad woman," the gold coins, and the knife from my dream...
The pen tip poked a faint black dot on the paper.
Song Che exhaled, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.
Don't rush.
The more rushed you are, the more likely you are to make mistakes.
We need to take it one step at a time, first gather information, and find the most likely point of contact...
"Song Che".
A sound came from the doorway.
Song Che opened his eyes and saw Xia Li standing at the door of the room at some point. She was still holding a pen in her hand, her blue eyes falling on his face, then moving to his open notebook.
"You've been back for a long time," she said.
"Okay, I'm watching you do your homework, I didn't want to disturb you." Song Che sat up straight and closed his notebook halfway.
It wasn't that he wanted to hide it from her, but he hadn't figured out how to sort out all those questions and anxieties with her yet.
Xia Li walked in and naturally went to his desk. She glanced at the closed notebook cover, didn't ask what it was, and turned her gaze to the furrowed brows on his face.
"Did the exam not go well?" she asked.
"Not bad. I've finished all the questions." Song Che smiled, raising his hand to rub his temples. "Just a little tired."
Xia Li looked at him quietly for a few seconds, then suddenly reached out and touched the faint crease between his eyebrows with her fingertips.
"It's wrinkled here," she said, then rubbed the area with her fingertips, trying to smooth it out.
The movements were a bit clumsy, and the pressure wasn't well controlled, making Song Che feel a little itchy from the rubbing.
He grabbed her hand: "Okay, okay, if you keep rubbing it, you'll break the skin."
Xia Li withdrew her hand, her gaze returning to the notebook: "Is this the new 'study material'?" She used a word that Song Che had taught her before.
Song Che paused for a moment, then decided to tell the truth.
"I guess so. But it's not something the school requires for the exam." He opened his notebook fully, flipped to the first page, and pushed it between the two of them. "It's about... how you're going to stay here from now on."
Xia Li's gaze swept over the words.
She read much faster now, and although she might not understand some of the terminology, she could grasp the general meaning. Her gaze lingered a little longer on words like "orphanage," "adoption," and "procedure."
"These are all... things to do?" She looked up at Song Che.
"Yes, there are a lot of things to do." Song Che nodded, pointing to the items on the to-do list. "It has to be done like solving a math problem, step by step, and each step has to be calculated correctly."
Xia Li seemed to be deep in thought.
She looked at the entries for a while longer, then pointed to "Health certificate requires Tao Yao" and asked, "What does this mean?"
"It's just... we might need Tao Yao's help, to use some of her abilities to make the test results look normal," Song Che explained, "but I don't know if it will work."
"Oh." Xia Li understood. She was silent for a moment, then suddenly said, "I can help."
Song Che was taken aback: "Help?"
"Yes." Xia Li's expression was very serious. "I've learned how to solve equations. This—"
She pointed to the notebook, "Although it's more complicated, it's still about 'problem solving.' I can learn from it."
Song Che subconsciously wanted to say, "You don't need to worry about these things," and "Leave it to me."
But she doesn't need to be hidden behind someone, a porcelain doll who knows nothing.
She is Xia Li, a former witch who once ruled over magic. Even though she has lost her power, the qualities of facing problems and solving troubles in her bones remain.
Moreover, this was originally about her.
"...Okay." Song Che finally nodded. "Let's figure something out together."
He pulled the notebook back a bit, flipped to the last few pages, where he had jotted down some fragmented legal provisions and possible contact persons.
"But first, we need to clarify the situation. For example, how exactly does the welfare home operate, and what conditions are required..."
He began to speak little by little, trying to use language that Xia Li could understand.
Xia Li listened attentively, occasionally asking questions that went straight to the heart of the matter, sometimes even making Song Che stop and think again.
When the conversation reached the point where it might require fabricating some "past stories," Xia Li suddenly asked, "So, what kind of past do I need to 'recall'?"
Song Che paused.
Looking at Xia Li's calm face, he realized that this matter might not only be about "solving a problem" for her, but also about how to fabricate a "life" that she didn't actually have.
"...a past that won't arouse suspicion, but is also impossible to trace." Song Che said slowly, "It might have to be set up as coming from a very remote place, having no one at home, wandering all the way... and finally 'coincidentally' being noticed by the relevant agencies."
Xia Li listened without showing any expression on her face.
"That means I need to 'become' someone else. Someone without Hit, without temples, and without magic."
"It's not about becoming someone else," Song Che corrected her, his tone serious. "You are still you. It's just... in order for others to accept you here, we need to give a reasonable explanation for 'why you are here.' That explanation may be false, but you are real."
Xia Li looked at him, and after a few seconds, she nodded: "I understand. It's like... using 'x' and 'y' to replace real numbers to set up an equation, but the relationship you get after solving it is real."
This analogy made Song Che laugh.
"Yes, that's pretty much the idea."
The atmosphere relaxed a little.
Song Che continued speaking, and Xia Li occasionally jotted down a few keywords on her own draft paper—using the back of the mathematical calculation sheet.
The sky outside the window gradually turned a warm orange hue, and the shadows in the room lengthened.
When Song Che mentioned that a specific process might take months or even longer, he stopped and rubbed his sore neck.
"...That's about it. There are still many uncertainties, we'll have to find out more gradually."
Xia Li put down her pen and looked at the messy keywords and arrows on her draft paper.
She was silent for a moment before speaking, "It will take a long time."
"Um."
"During this time, I might... continue to cause you trouble." As she said this, her eyes were on the paper, and her fingers curled slightly.
Song Che reached out and, on a whim, flicked her forehead.
"You're only bringing this up now? Too late." His voice held a hint of amusement. "We've already caused enough trouble; one more won't make a difference."
Xia Li covered her forehead and looked up at him.
"Oh," she replied, putting down her hand and tidying up the draft paper. "So, what should we do next?"
Song Che glanced at the darkening sky outside the window.
"That's enough for today. You can't digest too much information." He stood up. "It's time to make dinner. Have you finished your math problems?"
"Two pages left."
"Now that we're done, let's think about the specifics of the first step while we eat."
Xia Li nodded, stood up, grabbed her draft paper and pen, and prepared to return to the dining table to continue working on the last two pages of exercises. As she reached the door, she suddenly turned back.
"Song Che".
"Um?"
"Thank you," she said.
Before Song Che could react, she turned and left.
The road is difficult, and there are many problems.
But at least, he wasn't alone in groping in the dark.
He put away his notebook and locked it in a drawer. The sound of Xia Li chopping vegetables came from the kitchen.
Song Che also went out.
Dinner can be made a little more substantial.
They celebrated the end of the exams, and also celebrated... that they had taken another small step in a difficult but necessary direction.
If they really decide to be together, he wants to marry Xia Li in a grand and glorious way, and he wants Xia Li to be able to boldly do things that require a certain status.
He wants Xia Li to change for the better.