SEC Chapter 142 The Apprentice's First Harvest
Chapter 142 The Apprentice's First Harvest
Li Jing slumped into the chair, as if all her strength had been drained.
The store was eerily quiet.
After a long while, Wang Minyu finally spoke: "I have a prescription, but you might not dare to use it."
"What prescription?" Li Jing looked up, hope rekindling in her eyes. "I'll do anything to cure him!"
"Really, anything is fine?" Wang Minyu stared into her eyes.
"real."
"Okay." Wang Minyu turned to Li Siyuan and Zhao Na and said, "I have a task for you. Go to No. 1 High School and find a student named 'Wang Dachui'."
"Wang Dachui?" Li Siyuan and Zhao Na exchanged a glance; the name didn't sound like that of a good student.
"Yes, he's from Class 7 of Senior Three, consistently ranking last in the grade." Wang Minyu's lips curled into a mischievous smile. "He sleeps in class, plays basketball after class, and his only hobby is figuring out how to make paper airplanes fly farther. It's said that the paper airplanes he folds can fly from the third floor of the teaching building to the cafeteria across the playground. Starting tomorrow, have Lin Hao tutor Wang Dachui for two hours every day after school."
"What?!"
This time, it was Li Jing and Li Siyuan who screamed.
"Are you crazy?" Li Jing stood up abruptly, her high heels clattering on the floor. "My son is first in his grade! You want him to tutor a good-for-nothing? Isn't that a waste of his time? He can barely manage his own studies, how can he have the energy to care about others! And what if that bad student leads him astray?"
"Master, this...this doesn't make sense." Li Siyuan also felt that this prescription was too outrageous. "Putting a highly anxious student in the shoes of a student who might not even want to study is like adding fuel to the fire. It might even irritate him and worsen his condition..."
"Who said this was tutoring?" Wang Minyu rolled his eyes at them. "I'm sending him to 'help others'."
"Ferry people across?" Everyone was stunned.
Wang Minyu walked to the window, looked at the passersby outside, and slowly said, "A person who only knows how to acquire knowledge has a closed, introverted world that consumes himself. All his attention is focused on 'I want to learn this,' 'I want to be number one,' and 'I can't lose.' In this state, his spirit is like a balloon that is constantly being inflated, and it will burst sooner or later."
He turned to look at Li Jing: "But when he starts to try to 'give,' to share his knowledge with others, his world opens up. When he sees that so-called 'poor student' solve a difficult problem because of his words, when he sees a look of sudden realization on his face because of his explanation, the sense of accomplishment he gains is much stronger and healthier than when he gets a perfect score. This is called 'altruistic therapy'."
"Moreover," Wang Minyu paused, looking at Li Jing with a sharper gaze, "most importantly, let him see what a person who doesn't live for grades or rankings is like. Let him know that not getting into Tsinghua or Peking University won't bring the sky down. There's more to life than just cramming for exams. Let him understand that he's not living for your sake, he's living for himself."
The store fell silent again.
Li Jing's expression changed repeatedly. She opened her mouth, wanting to refute, but didn't know what to say.
"I disagree!" Finally, she exploded. "This is ruining my son! He's already in a bad state, and you're making him waste his time tutoring a poor student? What if his grades drop? What if he doesn't get into a good university? Are you going to take responsibility?"
"I'm not responsible," Wang Minyu replied curtly. "But I can tell you, if you continue to pressure him like this, he won't even have to wait until the college entrance exam; he'll break down right now. At that point, forget about Tsinghua or Peking University; he might not even be able to walk out of the mental hospital alive."
"you……"
"Whether you ruin him or save him, we'll find out in a month." Wang Minyu sat back in his recliner, picked up the book "Postpartum Care of Sows" again, and dismissed them, "I've already written the prescription; whether you listen to it or not is up to you. The consultation fee is five hundred, scan the code. Take care, don't bother seeing me out."
Li Jing was so angry that she was trembling all over. She pointed at Wang Minyu and kept saying "you you you" for a long time. In the end, she gritted her teeth, took out her phone from her bag, scanned the code, and paid.
"I will go find that Wang Dachui, but if anything happens to my son, I will never let you off the hook!" She said this harshly, then slammed the door shut as she walked away in her high heels.
The door slammed shut, and everyone in the shop breathed a sigh of relief.
"Master, she...she definitely won't listen," Zhao Na said with some worry. "How could someone like her let her precious son tutor struggling students?"
"She will." Wang Minyu turned a page of his book without looking up, his tone resolute. "Because she's more afraid than anyone that her son has really gone mad. A mad, top-ranked student is worthless to her. Besides, she has no other options. The hospital can't cure him, the psychologist can't cure him, she can only try anything now."
"But what if something really goes wrong?" Li Siyuan was still a little worried.
"No, that won't happen." Wang Minyu closed his book, looked out the window, and his eyes became deep. "I've seen that kid named Wang Dachui."
"Huh?" The group looked at him in surprise.
"His father brought him to see a doctor last month," Wang Minyu recalled. "His father is a construction foreman who felt ashamed that his son wasn't studying hard enough and wanted me to prescribe some 'smart medicine' for him. I refused, but I observed the boy. He wasn't stupid; he just wasn't interested in exam-oriented education. His eyes were bright and intelligent; he was the kind of person who truly loved life. This kind of person is the 'medicine' Lin Hao needs most."
Just as Wang Minyu had predicted, that very evening, Li Jing used her connections to get the contact information for the student named "Wang Dachui".
She even went to Wang Dachui's house in person, stuffed a large red envelope into his parents' hands, saying it was for "tutoring fees," and begged them to let Wang Dachui cooperate.
When Wang Dachui's parents heard that the top student in the grade was going to tutor their son, they were so excited that they almost knelt down before Li Jing.
They've always dreamed of getting better grades for their son, and now that this opportunity has fallen into their laps, how could they refuse?
The next afternoon after school, two boys with completely different styles met for the first time by the playground of No. 1 Middle School.
A man with a pale face, as if he had never been in the sun, and eyes filled with exhaustion, resistance, and an indescribable emptiness.
He carried a bulging backpack filled with various exercise books and test papers, which made his shoulders hunch over.
The other one had dark skin and eyes full of sunshine, energy, and... impatience. He wore a faded basketball jersey and twirled a worn-out basketball in his hand, exuding a wild freedom.
"You're Lin Hao?" Wang Dachui tucked the basketball under his arm, looking the "genius" up and down with a mixture of curiosity and disdain in his eyes. "I heard you're going to tutor me? My mom said you're the top student in the grade, really amazing."
Lin Hao nodded, pulled a thick workbook from his bag, and said in a voice so soft it was almost a mosquito's buzz, "Let's... start with functions. My mom said functions are a key part of the college entrance exam. If you can master functions, your math score can improve by at least twenty points..."
When he spoke, he didn't dare to look at Wang Dachui; he just stared at the ground, his fingers tightly gripping the exercise book until his knuckles turned white.
Wang Dachui rolled his eyes, threw the basketball to the ground with a thud, and said, "Tutoring is fine, but you have to follow my rules."
"What...what rules?" Lin Hao looked up, a hint of panic flashing in his eyes.
"Play a game of basketball with me first, one-on-one." Wang Dachui pointed to the basketball hoop on the playground, grinned, revealing a set of white teeth, "If you win, I'll do whatever you say, whatever you tell me to learn. If you lose, you'll do whatever I tell you to do. How about it, dare you?"
Lin Hao stared blankly at the basketball bouncing on the ground.
His life consisted only of exercises, formulas, and rankings.
Basketball? What's that?
He didn't even know the rules of basketball, how to dribble, or how to shoot.
All he knew was that physical education class was for memorizing vocabulary, the ten-minute break between classes was for doing practice problems, and the playground was a distant place that had nothing to do with him.
In the basketball court of No. 1 Middle School, the evening sunlight casts long shadows of the basketball hoops.
Wang Dachui's dribbling moves are very flashy, with crossovers, behind-the-back moves, and spin moves all done in one smooth motion.
He looked at the "genius" across from him who didn't even know how to hold a ball, and felt like he was bullying a kindergarten kid.
"Hey, Lin Hao, right? Do you even know how to play?" Wang Dachui easily changed direction, got past the defense, and casually tossed the basketball, which drew a beautiful arc in the air and swished through the net.
Lin Hao stood there, his face flushed red.
He felt like a fool, and the stares from the classmates passing by made him feel utterly ashamed.
From childhood to adulthood, he has always been the center of attention, the teacher's darling, and the "other people's child" that parents always talked about.
When had he ever suffered such "humiliation"?
"No... I'm not playing anymore." Lin Hao threw the ball on the ground and turned to leave. He felt that his mother and that quack doctor were both playing him for a fool.
"Stop!" Wang Dachui picked up the ball and blocked his way in a few steps. The previous mockery in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a hint of seriousness. "Giving up already? When you're doing practice problems, do you give up this easily when you encounter difficult ones?"
Lin Hao was stumped by the question.
"Playing basketball and doing math problems are essentially the same thing." Wang Dachui dribbled the ball at a leisurely pace. "You have to understand the rules first, then find the opponent's weaknesses, and finally use your strengths to attack them. If you don't even know the rules and you say you're not playing, that's not playing badly, that's stage fright."
He tossed the ball to Lin Hao: "You're taller than me, and your arms are longer. Your advantage is defense. Don't worry about how I dribble; just focus on the ball and use your long arms to disrupt it. Come on, try again."
Lin Hao looked at the basketball in his hand, then at Wang Dachui's clear eyes, which held no mockery, and nodded as if possessed.
The next hour became the longest and strangest hour of Lin Hao's life.
He was faked out seventeen times by Wang Dachui with all sorts of unbelievable feints, nutmegged eight times, and hit in the face three times by a basketball.
He was covered in sweat and looked disheveled, but he never thought of giving up again.
Because he realized that Wang Dachui was right.
When he stopped thinking "what should I do" and focused on "how should I stop him," the hallucination of seeing the monster pounce on him didn't occur.
His mind was occupied by a purer, more direct confrontational way of thinking.
"Stop!" Wang Da-Chui called for a halt, he himself was exhausted. "That's enough for today. You... are alright, more resilient than I expected."
Lin Hao, supporting his knees, was panting heavily, sweat dripping from his chin onto the rubber track.
He felt like he was about to collapse, but strangely, the heaviness that had been pressing on his chest had dissipated considerably.
"Can we have tutoring now?" Lin Hao asked, panting.
"Screw that." Wang Dachui plopped down on the ground, pulled a strange object out of his backpack, and said, "Let's get down to business."
That was a catapult made of cardboard and plastic bottles?
"This is my newly designed 'vortex paper airplane launcher,' which theoretically can increase the gliding distance by 30%." Wang Dachui proudly displayed his work. "Come on, take a look and see if there's a problem with the counterweight. I think I can use your... Bernoulli principle."
Lin Hao stared in disbelief at the simple yet ingenious device.
So, physics... can be used like this?
……
A week later.
Li Jing, carrying a basket of fruit, walked into Renxin Pharmacy with a complicated expression.
"Dr. Wang..." She placed the fruit on the counter, hesitating to speak.
"What? Your son's gone even crazier?" Wang Minyu was using a small file to "maintain" Guan Shan's nails, which were as hard as iron.
"No...no." Li Jing shook her head, her face showing a mixture of relief and confusion. "He...he's changed."
"Oh? Tell me about it."
"Yesterday, he voluntarily tore down all the motivational slogans in his room and replaced them with... a poster of a basketball star. At dinner, he ate two bowls of rice and even told me a joke. Although it wasn't funny at all." Li Jing said, her eyes reddening again. "Most importantly, this morning, before he left, he actually said to me, 'Mom, don't overwork yourself, take care of yourself.' He hasn't said something like that to me in three years."
Li Siyuan and Zhao Na, who were standing nearby, both smiled knowingly as they listened.
"This is just the beginning." Wang Minyu blew on the crumbs on Guan Shan's fingernails. "He's only just gotten rid of a little bit of the water in his brain. When he can smile and say to you, 'Mom, I failed the test this time, but I tried my best,' then he'll be completely cured."
"Dr. Wang, I... I misunderstood you before." Li Jing bowed deeply to Wang Minyu. "Thank you. This... this is the consultation fee."
She took a thick envelope out of her bag.
Wang Minyu didn't take the medicine, but pointed to Li Siyuan and Zhao Na instead: "Thank them. They prescribed the medicine and found the people. I'm just the gatekeeper."
Li Jing paused for a moment, then understood what Wang Minyu meant. She handed the envelope to the two still somewhat bewildered young men and said sincerely, "Thank you, young doctor."
Li Siyuan and Zhao Na took the envelope; it was heavy.
They knew that what was inside was not just money, but also a weighty sense of recognition.
This was their first real "harvest" as "doctors".
That feeling was even more exciting than receiving a scholarship.
[System Notification: Team members Li Siyuan and Zhao Na have successfully completed their first independent "harvest". Team experience points +500. New feature unlocked: "Apprentice Mode".]
[Apprentice Mode: The host can share some basic skills (such as basic visual diagnosis and basic pharmacological identification) with team members and can reclaim them at any time.]
Wang Minyu looked at the system panel and nodded in satisfaction.
The chive field is too large; one gardener is not enough.
It's time to train a few qualified "workers".
After Li Jing left, the clinic returned to calm.
Wang Minyu was preparing to continue his "nail art" business when the clinic door was suddenly slammed open from the outside.
A deliveryman in a uniform stumbled in, carrying a violently shaking cardboard box. He was deathly pale, as if he had seen a ghost.
"Dr. Wang... Dr. Wang! Help! There's a monster in this box!"