Chapter 498 - 224: Reward for a Good Performance (3)

Chapter 498: Chapter 224: Reward for a Good Performance (3)

Shen Yuan: "..."

Shen Yuan’s scalp prickled under his mom’s beaming gaze. He quickly tried to cover up his unease. "Huh? What’s there to report? I was just doing homework."

He pushed Zhang Yuyan toward the dining room as he spoke, trying to force a change of subject. "Come on, Mom! Let’s eat, let’s eat! I’m starving."

At the dinner table, Old Shen held his bowl and just smiled, but Zhang Yuyan wasn’t about to let her son off the hook. "Don’t give me that! I just saw you grinning like an idiot at your phone. You were smiling from ear to ear."

"Hey! It was nothing, really! You’re not supposed to talk while you eat!"

Shen Yuan declared this righteously, but the tips of his ears were burning red.

He wolfed down his food, dropped his bowl, and bolted for the study. "Mom! I’m going to do my homework! I still have a few more worksheets to finish!"

Back at his desk, Shen Yuan didn’t start on the problems right away.

He woke his phone screen, his fingertip hovering over the chat with Li Zhi for a moment.

In the chat window were the corrections Li Zhi had sent him.

He had gotten some questions wrong.

Shen Yuan smiled as he looked at Li Zhi’s notes.

’Li Bao, oh Li Bao, you just wait and see.’

For the rest of the afternoon, Shen Yuan buried himself in his worksheets. His only contact with Li Zhi was through her written corrections.

Evening crept in. Outside the window, the sky faded from dusky yellow to black, and the light inside the study grew dim.

Shen Yuan remained focused on the worksheets before him.

Meanwhile, his phone was filling up with messages from Li Zhi.

"Shen Yuan, time for dinner, okay? (◕ᴗ◕✿)"

"It’s completely dark out. Did you turn on a light? Don’t strain your eyes!"

"Hey! Are you done with the worksheets yet? Show me your progress~"

But even though Li Zhi had sent a flood of messages, Shen Yuan hadn’t replied since their exchange at noon.

Her messages might as well have been dropped into the ocean. Li Zhi felt a little miffed, but then she remembered what happened at noon and how hard Shen Yuan was trying. She suppressed her complaints and just let out a little huff.

’This moron...’

Although Li Zhi forced herself to focus on her conversation with her grandparents, her fingers kept involuntarily swiping at her screen, hoping for a new reply to light it up.

Several hours slipped by to the scratchy rustle of a pen on paper.

At 9 p.m. sharp, the alarm on his phone, sitting on the desk, suddenly rang.

The crisp ringtone instantly pulled Shen Yuan from the sea of practice problems.

"Nine o’clock? Already?"

Shen Yuan stared at his alarm, not quite processing it for a moment.

But soon, once his Concentration ended, a familiar sensation washed over him again.

Feeling the ache in his brain, Shen Yuan hissed in a sharp breath. He snatched his phone, the screen showing several unread messages from Li Zhi.

Shen Yuan’s heart skipped a beat. He quickly unlocked the phone to reply, but just as he was about to type, he saw Li Zhi’s last two messages.

Li Zhi: "Video call me when you’re done with the worksheets. My parents and I are staying at a hotel."

Li Zhi: "Shen Yuan, you absolute moron, are you still doing worksheets? I’m so bored."

Reading her messages, he could almost picture her biting her lip as she jabbed at the screen.

Without a moment’s hesitation, he stabbed at the video call button.

The ringing had barely started when the screen suddenly lit up with a warm glow.

Li Zhi’s pretty face filled the screen, and the beautiful girl’s complaints soon followed from the phone’s speaker.

"Well, well, look who finally remembered he has a phone?"

Shen Yuan rubbed his nose. "I just finished the worksheets, that’s all."

"Hmph! Worksheets, worksheets! That’s all you care about! You just confessed to me yesterday, and today you’re already ignoring me, is that it?"

On the screen, Li Zhi puffed out her cheeks, intentionally putting on a stern face and even poking a finger toward Shen Yuan’s side of the screen.

"A whole day! You only talked to me for a second at lunchtime. I might as well have been at school!"

Listening to Li Zhi, Shen Yuan gave a sheepish laugh. "I’m just doing this so I can get a better score on the finals. The sooner I finish the worksheets, the sooner I can start reviewing my books."

Seeing his nervous expression, Li Zhi finally couldn’t maintain the stern face she’d been trying so hard to keep. She let out a "PFFT" and burst out laughing.

The girl’s eyes danced, filled with deep amusement and a hint of slyness. "Alright, alright, I was just scaring you! I’m just teasing."

The gloom on her face vanished, replaced by genuine tenderness and approval. "How could I be angry at you for studying so hard? You dummy!"

Shen Yuan was taken aback by her sudden turnaround. "Really? You’re not mad anymore?"

"Mad at you? As if! Focus on your studies!" Li Zhi shot him a mock glare, but she couldn’t hide the smile in her eyes.

"Hey, hey, hey, no more studying. I’m taking a break for today."

Shen Yuan propped up his phone and then showed Li Zhi his results for the day.

"Six worksheets, all done! Li Bao, isn’t your boyfriend amazing?"

Shen Yuan proudly showed off his achievement of finishing six worksheets in a single day.

Li Zhi listened to his report with a faint smile, then suddenly shot him a perfect eye-roll. "Hmph, don’t get too cocky! I’m keeping score, you know. How dare you leave me hanging all day?"

On the other end of the video, the beautiful girl’s voice held a slight hint of a threat, yet she couldn’t hide the undercurrent of sweetness.

"I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon! You’d better be a good boy and stay home doing your worksheets. I’m going to be checking them, you know. I could spot-check any one of them!"

"If I find out you just scribbled nonsense on them, hmph hmph! You’re finished!"

Shen Yuan held up the densely filled worksheets and waved them around, his tone turning a little more serious. "Come on, would I have spent this long on them if I was just messing around? I did them all properly, okay?"

After saying that, Shen Yuan paused, the smile in his eyes deepening. He deliberately lowered his voice to ask, "So... if you see tomorrow that I really did do my homework properly, shouldn’t there be some kind of reward?"

Li Zhi was caught off guard by his sudden forwardness, and the tips of her ears instantly flushed red.