Novel Full Chapter 981: Empty Sandglass
Chapter 981: Empty Sandglass
“So about your father’s birthday party… Is it fair to assume the invitation he handed to us during our last call still holds?”
Felicity’s voice, previously full of girlish amusement, suddenly spiked in alarm.
“AAAAH! Lord Black!! The time! The TIME!! I’ve been chatting with you guys this whole time, and the sandglass is almost EMPTY!! I’m definitely gonna fail now!!” she whisper-screamed in raw panic. “This is treason! I betrayed myself!”
Quinlan exhaled a small laugh.
“Business can wait,” he murmured, giving a glance around at the lounging women of the harem. “This is clearly a matter of utmost urgency.”
Lucille snorted. “You’re really going to organize an entire group of adults to help a child cheat on her math test?”
“But of course I am. Fuck math.”
He followed it up by giving a beckoning hand gesture, and like trained professionals preparing for war, the girls leaned in, surrounding the artifact on the table.
With his girls prepared, he spoke up once again. “Princess, list the questions. One at a time.”
“Ohthankyouthankyouthankyou,” Felicity gasped. “Okay! First one! If one merchant sells ten apples for four coppers, and another sells eight apples for three coppers, who has the better deal?”
<Depends on shipping cost,> Jasmine immediately began through the link. <And whether they’re fresh. Their type also plays an important role. But pure numbers-wise, the first one gives you 2.5 apples per copper. Second gives 2.666…>
“Miss Brown’s throat hurts a lot, she can’t speak loud enough to hear you… But she said…” Quinlan relayed and then gave his own thoughts on the matter: “Pure number-wise, it’s the second merchant, and as it’s a math question, I’m guessing that would be the correct answer. But, just to be safe, write down the rest as well in case he wants to play things tricky.”
“Miss Brown, I hope you’ll manage to get better soon! As for the answer to the question, I’ll believe you, for I have no clue at all!” Felicity cheered in triumph. “Okay! Next! This one is scary! Something about… triangles??”
“Be more specific,” Ayame said, already picking up a nearby notepad and drawing a basic triangle.
“If triangle ABC has sides A and B both 5 units, and angle C is 90 degrees, what’s the length of side C?!”
“Pythagorean theorem,” Aurora murmured. “That’s a right triangle. A² + B² = C².”
“So 25 + 25 = 50,” Lucille added, “and the square root of 50 is… roughly 7.07.”
“Sounds good to me! The test is so much more fun like this! Eat it, Lord Pythagoras!” Felicity whispered, writing furiously. “You thought you’d get to fail me this time as well?! You’ll have to think again!!”
“She is… quite spirited,” Serika said, watching the scene from the side with a crooked grin. She wasn’t dumb as a rock, not at all, but her past decades have all been about training her body and spirit. Furthermore, math as a subject had less prevalence in the world of Zhenwu to begin with. So, the woman let the others handle the questions.
Vex brought up a good point while giving Quin’s shoulders a good massage. She wasn’t a math-oriented woman, so just like Serika and Blossom, she sat this one mostly out.
“Hey, I’m all for having Felicity excel at her exam as she seems like a fun young lady, but don’t you think Mama Morgana will sniff some foul play being present if her daughter, who flunked three exams straight, gets all the questions right?”
“… That’s a valid point, Miss Yandere!” the princess yelped as realization hit her. “Make sure to make some believable mistakes in the next one!” Felicity whispered again. “Okay, this one’s a logic puzzle!…”
The questions came and went as the girls solved them together, working in sync, using each other’s areas of expertise. Ayame, Seraphiel, and Lucille had a high noble’s training, so they could chime in the most. But Aurora and Jasmine had their own specialties where they outshone the others. Even those who sat out most questions had some where they could chime in, mostly the logical ones.
After a bit, Felicity gasped in awe as Blossom’s quite ingenious problem-solving received some spotlight when the question was about food distribution.
“Genius! Literal geniuses! My brain is glowing right now! Okayokayokay last one!! A merchant- oh wait, this one’s about weights. Okay! If a box of enchanted ink weighs 3.2kg, and one case holds 12 boxes, how much does five cases weigh?”
“These questions are a bit elementary for your age, no?” Ayame asked all of a sudden, surprised by the ease of some of the test questions.
“!!! Miss Black, don’t do this to me, please!” Felicity cried with great alarm. “Don’t analyze the level of my math solving skills!”
“… My bad.” Ayame sighed with a little giggle accompanying the exasperated sigh. “Write this as a solution. 3.2 x 12 = 38.4. Then 38.4 x 5 = 192.”
There was a pause. Then a WHAM as something hit the desk on Felicity’s side.
“DONE!!” she gasped in a whisper-scream. “This is the first time I’ve answered all questions! Usually I just read the first few and then give up and start scribbling drawings on my exam paper.”
In the room, the girls exchanged smirks. Felicity was the little gem of the kingdom, so having such insight into the real her felt surreal to the women who grew up hearing tales about what a perfect angel this girl was.
A loud metallic clang echoed across the room Felicity was in.
*DING! DING! DING!*
The oversized sandclock to her right finished its final grain, sounding off the end of the allotted exam time with all the subtlety of a cathedral bell.
From somewhere nearby, a ragged voice exploded awake:
“-THE HYPOTENUSE IS IRRATIONAL! MERCIFUL MISTRESS, HAVE MERCY-!!”
A wheezing gasp followed. Papers fluttered. A chair creaked violently as the elderly Lord Pythagoras snapped upright from his slumber, wild-eyed and sweating.
He blinked.
Looked around.
“…Ah. Damnation!” he snapped, deeply disappointed. “It was just a dream…”
Quinlan, Vex, Aurora, Ayame, and the rest of the lounging squad heard the whole thing through the still-active artifact.
Ayame raised an eyebrow.
<The hypotenuse is irrational?> Lucille repeated, amused. <That man lives and dies for math.>
<He needs help,> Jasmine noted dryly.
<No. He needs retirement and a pretty little caretaker girl,> Aurora added.
<Sounds like he’d prefer a dominant mistress instead of a gentle caretaker…> Seraphiel snickered.
Meanwhile, back in the royal study, Lord Pythagoras groaned as he pushed himself up with a series of creaks and sighs, mumbling under his breath like a man many years older than his actual age.