Notebook of Fortune

Chapter 5: Lu Zihan Gives Up

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
“Okay, let’s do it!”

Knowing that Lu Zihan could really beat Liu Pengyue and get away with it, Shen Zhe could only agree. “However, we won’t compete physically…”

A student who performed poorly would be beaten by both the teacher and the monitor…

“What a terrifying world… I want to go home…”

“How are we going to compete then?”

“Studies…” Shen Zhe proposed.

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Shen Zhe… You do know what place you were last semester, right?”

“Someone wake him up! He must be daydreaming!”

…

Zhao Chen and the rest were stunned.

They knew their friend very well. Competing with Lu Zihan physically would result in him being beaten up, but nothing more. However, a competition of studies would only be a great humiliation for him.

Did he not know how bad his grades were?

The onlookers also burst into laughter.

The last place of the school challenged a top ten in studies…

Was it really not some kind of entertainment show?

“How are we going to compete?” Lu Zihan released Liu Pengyue and asked.

“It’s very simple!” Shen Zhe reached for a handful of coins in his pocket and laid them on another table, “We’ll toss the coins!”

“Toss the coins?”

“The rule is simple. We’ll have someone trustworthy toss those coins on the ground. Then, each of us will predict the number of heads and the number of tails. The one with the correct prediction will be the winner!” said Shen Zhe.

“Is this really… about studies?”

Everybody was stunned. Lu Zihan’s eyelids twitched, too.

Do you even know what studies mean?

This is gambling! A gamble!

“What is it? You don’t dare?” Shen Zhe looked at him.

The most important thing when competing with geniuses was to choose what they were the least capable of!

Gambling was all about luck…

The most likely result was that they would both fail.

Having been a weak student for years, he had come up with too many excuses for his teacher and his parents. Shamelessness had already turned into a habit of his.

He wasn’t scared of anyone when it came to coin flipping.

“Alright, let’s do it, but I have one condition…” Lu Zihan grew cold after he gathered himself. “It doesn’t matter who tosses the coins, but the coins must fall vertically from the table!”

Shen Zhe nodded.

Seeing that he agreed, Lu Zihan waved his hand. Soon, someone else came with two pieces of paper and two brushes. He smiled, “Write your answers!”

“Okay!”

Shen Zhe counted the coins on the table. There were thirty-seven of them.

Since it was all about luck, any random number would do. He was about to write the number with the greatest odds, when Zhao Chen approached him and said anxiously, “You will lose this game!”

“Only if I am unlucky, right?” Shen Zhe looked at him in confusion.

Who could tell the side of a coin when it fell to the ground?

“Look over there…” Zhao Chen pointed at Lu Zihan.

Shen Zhe looked at him, only to be shocked.

He saw that Lu Zihan was doing fast calculations on the paper; that piece of paper was swiftly filled up.

Shen Zhe suddenly had a bad feeling. “What’s he calculating?”

“He demanded that the coins fall vertically from the table. So, the height of the coins is fixed. Now that he knows the number and the current side of the coins, he will be able to calculate their flips in midair and their final status after they hit the ground based on the hardness of the floor, the speed of the coins, and their elasticity, considering momentum, elastic collision, and acceleration of gravity…”

Zhao Chen smiled bitterly.

“…”

“Shoot!”

Shen Zhe shivered and almost vomited blood.

“Are the geniuses all so omnipotent?”

What kind of world was he in exactly?

Lu Zihan had reached an answer. He wrote it on the paper and folded it, before he said, “I’m done. It’s your turn…”

Shen Zhe’s face trembled.

He had intended for the both of them to lose, but his enemy had found the result through calculation. What could he do?

“Fine…”

Writing a random number, Shen Zhe folded the paper.

He resorted to a guess rather than to calculate. His only hope was that his guess was correct…

Both of them placed their answers on the table and laid a cup on top of them. Then, another student slowly pushed the coins off the table.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

The coins fell and were sprawled everywhere. Soon, they all came to a stop.

“Twenty-two heads, and fifteen tails!”

The result was obvious.

“Alright, let’s verify the answers…”

Smiling, Lu Zihan asked the student who pushed the coins to unfold his paper where his answer was written.

It said: Twenty-two heads / Fifteen tails

“It’s absolutely correct!”

“As expected of a top ten! His calculation abilities are remarkable…”

“He’s already won…”

Everybody whispered.

Even though Shen Zhe gave the same answer, Lu Zihan would still win the game, because it took Shen Zhe more time to answer the question.

One could say that Shen Zhe was already a sure loser. There was nothing he could do.

Stiffened, Shen Zhe found the world becoming dark.

That was not a star student, but a God of Gambling…

“If you were on Earth, Chow Yun-fat [1. A leading actor in God of Gambling, which is a 1989 Hong Kong action comedy-drama film.] wouldn’t have gotten that part at all!”

There were so many coins, yet the guy calculated their final status so precisely…

Shen Zhe was rather bummed.

“It’s your turn…” seeing that his calculation was exactly as in reality, Lu Zihan smiled and said to Shen Zhe.

“Let’s check his answer.”

“It must be a random answer. I didn’t see him calculate at all…”

All the students in the cafeteria looked at him, wondering what the last place of the whole school had written.

Shen Zhe sweated hard, being the center of attention.

He didn’t expect that his face would be smacked in a game that he proposed…

“Wait… Isn’t the first page of my notebook capable of changing answers?”

Shen Zhe suddenly had an idea.

He had tested that the blank parts on the first page of his notebook could change answers. Since the real answer was already out, he could completely change the answer that he had just written…

As he thought quickly, the pencil in his head rose.

Huala!

After everything was done, the paper he just wrote on was opened.

“What’s this?”

Everyone was stunned as they checked the paper.

There were no written words or numbers; it was only a picture.

On the picture, there were thirty-seven coins with the tiniest details.

“In this… an illustration of the coins on the ground?”

“One, two, three, four… Twenty-two heads and fifteen tails…”

“The position of those coins is exactly the same as depicted by the picture…”

“That’s right. Even the dent on that coin has been drawn, and it’s in the identical position…”

…

Everybody’s eyes popped out as they looked at Shen Zhe as if he were a ghost.

It was already unbelievable to calculate the final status of the coins, but Shen Zhe had even calculated the exact landing points of those coins without any errors…

How did he do it?

Even Lu Chengze, first place of the grade, couldn’t have achieved that…

Not just them, Lu Zihan also trembled and almost went crazy.

He read the picture carefully and looked at the coins, shivering.

“Bro… Are you sure that you’re a bad student?”

“I can calculate the sides of the coins, but you have calculated the landing points of the coins and even illustrated them…”

“I’ll keep a distance from Ling Xueru in the future!” said Lu Zihan, who took a deep breath to calm himself down.

Even a fool would know that he had lost the game. It would be even more humiliating if he didn’t admit it. He gritted his teeth and left.

He felt lucky that Ling Xueru was not there. Otherwise, he would be too embarrassed to live anymore.

“Wait, don’t you need to compensate for the table you broke?” said Shen Zhe.

With his face cramping, Lu Zihan tossed a block of silver on the table. “This is worth three taels of silver. It should be enough…”

Then, he left the cafeteria in a hurry.

“Three taels of silver? This table is worth a hundred wen at most. Here’s a hundred wen. I’ll take the silver…” Shen Zhe then threw a hundred wen on the table.

One tael of silver equaled a thousand wen.

Having been there for three days, he was well aware of the prices for daily items. That ordinary table was worth a hundred wen at most.

Extravagance was not expected of a civilized young man.

Everyone’s faces cramped again.

“You’re from a major family, and you’re embezzling only a couple of taels of silver… Is it really worth it?”

“Shen Zhe, how did you get the answer?”

Zhao Chen and the rest surrounded him and asked him, their curiosity piqued.

The guy had been at the bottom of the school and bullied by everyone else just like them, but why had he improved so much in the blink of an eye?

It was too unbelievable!

“It’s just a lucky guess…” Shen Zhe waved his hand and dropped the topic. “Alright, it’s time I go back!”

“Back where? There are no classes in the afternoon. Aren’t you going out?”

Zhao Chen chuckled.

Generally speaking, there were only classes in the morning, and afternoons were given to the students to train themselves.

“Where to?”

“To play polo! I’m told that a few beautiful chicks have gone to the polo grounds. They’re very good…” Zhao Chen’s eyes glowed.

“I’ll pass. I have books to read…” said Shen Zhe.

He was interested in the game, but he had to weather through the difficulties first.

He was still under the threat of being beaten to death.

If Ms. Bai Yu found that his answer was wrong after the field trip, he would be doomed.

Besides, there was still a lot that he didn’t know about that world. He needed to get more knowledge in case he betrayed himself.

“You have books to read?”

Zhao Chen’s eyes bulged even wider.

He was surprised that his friend had defeated Lu Zihan, but he was frightened to hear his friend talk like that!

If the guy were really so fond of books, he wouldn’t have become one of the Four Gentlemen at all!

“I’m told that the library is full of gorgeous gals who love studying…” Wang Xiaofeng suddenly said.

“Oh…” Zhao Chen and Liu Pengyue, greatly enlightened, said, “Got it! Got it! You can go!”

“You’re unbelievable…”

Shen Zhe shook his head but didn’t explain himself. He walked to the library.

While their grades were terrible, they were indeed good friends to the former Shen Zhe.

It wouldn’t hurt if he could give them a hand in the future.

However, he had to make sure that he could survive first!

For survival, Shen Zhe had to become a good student!

…

While Shen Zhe was on his way to the library, a team of riders went to the gate of the school.

A middle-aged man got off from the horse and reached the gatekeeper.

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“I am Shen Qing, butler of the Shen family. I’m here to meet Shen Zhe and give him some training resources…”

He presented an ID badge to the gatekeeper.

“You can come in!”

The gatekeeper waved his hand.

Shen Qing strode into the campus with the horse behind him.