Two "he"s

Monday morning, 6:50 a.m.

The classroom of Class 1, Grade 11 at Linjiang No.1 Middle School was already more than half full. The scratching of pens on paper and the rustling of pages turning, mixed with the crisp morning air, created a typical scene of pressure.

Fang Chi sat in the fourth row by the window, his back ramrod straight, like a bamboo stalk that refused to bend. A book titled "Physics Competition Essentials" was open in front of him, but his gaze wasn't focused on the complex formulas. Instead, he used the faint reflection from the window to try and catch the movements of the person diagonally behind him.

Xing Jiayan.

That name, along with the person himself, was like a tiny thorn stuck in Fang Chi's heart. It wasn't fatal, but it constantly brought a hidden, tormenting sense of presence.

At this moment, Xing Jiayan was tilting his head slightly, listening to the class monitor next to him whisper something. The nascent afternoon sunlight was already impatiently falling on his well-defined profile, casting an overly perfect, ethereal shadow on his entire being. A familiar, nonchalant smile played on his lips, as if the classmates around him, engrossed in their studies, were merely the backdrop to his leisurely stroll.

Fang Chi subtly withdrew his gaze, his fingertips unconsciously tightening, crumpling a corner of the book page.

hypocritical.

He coldly uttered two words in his mind.

This almost instinctive hostility was not unfounded. From the time they were divided into classes in the first year of high school until now, Fang Chi's name has always followed "Xing Jiayan" on the report card. Xing Jiayan holds the top spot in the grade firmly, while Fang Chi is the eternal, closest yet most insurmountable "second place." When teachers mention them, they always say with a tone of satisfaction mixed with comparison, "Jiayan and Fang Chi are the twin stars of our class."

To hell with Gemini.

What frustrated him even more was that he lost the physics quiz last Friday by two points. He got stuck on the final multiple-choice question about kinematic connected bodies, wasting five extra minutes, which caused him to rush through the last major question and lose points unjustly for his steps. And Xing Jiayan's answer sheet, presumably, was as perfect, concise, and impeccable as ever.

That question was like a fishbone stuck in my throat.

He took a deep breath, trying to draw his attention back to the book, but his gaze involuntarily fell on the draft paper he had scribbled on the night before. Beside it was the copy of "Science Fiction World" that he had secretly brought with him, one he would never dare to openly read in the classroom.

Just then, a familiar scent approached from afar.

Fang Chi's back stiffened instantly.

A hand reached over his shoulder, long, slender fingers with distinct knuckles, and precisely pressed onto his copy of "Science Fiction World," or more accurately, onto the few lines of nonsense about time and space, and the draft of the physics problem that had left him frustrated.

“Here,” Xing Jiayan’s voice sounded above his head, not loud, but with a unique, slightly deep quality. “Applying Newton’s second law and then isolating and analyzing the point of sudden change in force would be simpler.”

Fang Chi's blood rushed to his head with a "boom," and his ears burned instantly. He could feel the subtle gazes cast upon him. Public, condescending "guidance"? Was he showing off? At his most vulnerable and vulnerable moment?

He suddenly raised his hand and slapped Xing Jiayan's hand away with a loud "smack," the movement so large that the students sitting in front and behind him turned to look.

"I don't need you to teach me." Fang Chi's voice was cold and hard, like ice crystals. "My problem-solving approach is fine."

He deliberately emphasized the word "mine," with a childish, stubborn insistence on drawing a clear line.

Xing Jiayan's hand froze in mid-air, then slowly withdrew and tucked into his school uniform pocket. The usual smile on his face faded slightly, and a barely perceptible hint of surprise flashed across his eyes, only to be replaced by a deeper, unfathomable emotion. He didn't immediately refute, but simply stared at Fang Chi for two seconds, his gaze carrying a tangible weight that made Fang Chi almost unable to breathe.

“The idea is correct,” Xing Jiayan spoke again, his tone calm and even, but his words were clear, “but the efficiency is too low. You should know what five minutes in the exam room means.”

He paused, his gaze seemingly sweeping over the few lines of scribbled writing about time and space, and added, "Moreover, while divergent thinking is a good thing, it's easy to go astray when using it to solve these kinds of normative problems."

Taking a detour...

These three words were like the last straw, completely crushing Fang Chi's reason. He felt that all his efforts and all his thinking had become laughable "detours" in the other person's eyes. Shame, indignation, resentment, and the pent-up frustration of being suppressed for so long converged into an uncontrollable torrent at this moment.

He stood up abruptly, the chair legs scraping against the ground with a piercing noise.

"Xing Jiayan!" he almost roared. "Do you think that everyone has to follow the most 'correct' and 'efficient' path that you've set? Do you think that every step I take in my thinking has to be approved by you?"

His voice trembled slightly with excitement, sounding particularly abrupt in the suddenly quiet classroom. All the students stopped writing and stared at them in astonishment.

Xing Jiayan frowned almost imperceptibly, as if he wanted to say something, but in the end he just pursed his lips.

Fang Chi regretted it the moment he shouted those words. He saw the shocked looks around him, and Xing Jiayan's tightly pursed lips and suddenly deep, intense eyes. He realized he had overreacted, like a clown putting on an unreasonable show in front of everyone.

He was overwhelmed with immense embarrassment.

He couldn't stay in that space for another second. He grabbed the damned "Science Fiction World" magazine and the crumpled draft paper from the table and practically fled out the back door of the classroom, leaving the silence and countless probing gazes behind, along with the source of his loss of control.

He could even feel that calm yet penetrating gaze following his back until he disappeared around the corner of the corridor.

---

The bell that signaled the end of evening self-study felt like a salvation.

Fang Chi dawdled until everyone in the classroom had left before slowly starting to pack his bag. The conflict from earlier that day replayed in his mind like a nightmare. What would Xing Jiayan think of him? What would his classmates say? He had made a fool of himself.

Back in his rented apartment, he tossed down his heavy backpack, as if shaking off his weariness and humiliation. Without turning on the light, he went straight to his desk and opened his laptop. The cold light from the screen illuminated his slightly pale face.

Only in the online world, in a corner where no one knows who "Fang Chi" is, can he breathe briefly.

He habitually logged into that obscure academic forum called "Observatory." Here, there was no real-world tension, only the purest pursuit of knowledge and intellectual exchange. His username was something he'd casually typed out during registration—Chaos.

Chaos. Disorder. This is a reflection of the turbulent sea within his heart that he didn't want others to know, a side completely opposite to the well-behaved "top student" Fang Chi in reality.

He opened the physics section and browsed the posts aimlessly. By some strange twist of fate, he found a discussion thread from a few days ago about "critical analysis of connected bodies in non-inertial frames." The core model of the problem raised by the poster was strikingly similar to the one that had stumped him the previous week.

A strange impulse drove him. He rapidly typed on the keyboard, and in the tone of "Chaos," he elaborated on the complete version of his initial "detour" of thought, including the bottlenecks, the various assumptions about the critical state, and even a touch of self-deprecation, writing: "...Of course, I know this may not be the optimal solution, and may even be scorned by some people who pursue ultimate efficiency as 'divergent thinking.' But isn't the charm of theoretical physics precisely the process of approaching the truth through different paths?"

Click send.

He leaned back in his chair, letting out a long sigh, as if pouring out all the pent-up frustration of the day with these words. He didn't expect much of a response; it was more like a silent catharsis and a form of resistance.

However, less than ten minutes later, the notification sounded.

A new reply came from an unfamiliar ID: Yan.

The reply was unusually concise, without any small talk:

"The approach is not a 'detour'. Your second assumption, which relates the pulley mass to the coefficient of friction to establish a dynamic equation, is feasible. The key point is that you ignored the instantaneous change in rope tension in a non-inertial frame, which caused a deviation in the subsequent acceleration integral. After adding this condition, your method can obtain the same answer as the conventional solution and is more helpful in understanding the internal mechanism of the system."

Fang Chi was stunned.

He read those lines over and over. The other person offered no condescending judgment, no sense of superiority like "I'll teach you," only terrifyingly precise criticism and objective, calm supplementary information. What alarmed him even more was that this Yan had seen through the most essential and subtle part of his thinking at a glance, and affirmed his direction.

A strange, understood tremor spread from the heart like a subtle electric current.

His fingers trembled slightly as he typed the reply: "Instantaneous change... You mean, in the critical state, due to the inertia of the pulley, the rope tension is not a continuous function as in the ideal model, but rather there is a step?"

Yan's reply was as quick and concise as ever: "Yes. We can introduce generalized coordinates to avoid the difficulties in describing Newtonian mechanics here. There is a related preprint paper attached, which you may refer to."

A file was sent to me.

Fang Chi opened it; it was an unpublished internal document from a university laboratory. The content was complex, but it pointed precisely to the core of his confusion.

Who is this Yan? His thinking is so clear, his knowledge is unfathomable, and he seems to understand my "unconventional" way of thinking?

The night outside the window was deep, and the city lights twinkled quietly in the distance. The light from the computer screen reflected in Fang Chi's eyes, gleaming with surprise and curiosity.

The sting from Xing Jiayan's words "too inefficient" and "taking a detour" in the classroom during the day seemed to be diluted by a subtle, indescribable emotion.

He had no idea that on the other end of the network, the ID "Yan" that had just given him precise guidance and valuable affirmation, the stranger whose thinking was so in sync with his, was the very person he had coldly rebuked and waved away in front of everyone in the classroom during the day.

Fang Chi took a deep breath, his fingertips hovered over the keyboard for a moment, and finally solemnly typed:

"Thank you. I've learned a lot. Also... you're right, the process of exploration itself is indeed more fascinating than the result alone."

He sent it out, and for the first time, the sea in his heart called "Chaos" rippled with a strange ripple, unlike the chaos of the past, because of a being called "Yan".