Chapter 561 - 557: Goodbye, Wyatt Sherman

When Cecilia Sterling saw the message, she wasn’t annoyed at all. Instead, she was thrilled and typed back, "Can we swap someone out? How do I do that?!"

But all she got was a cold message from the team advisor: "No substitutions. Everyone, please welcome Cecilia Sterling back to the team."

The group chat went dead silent. No one said anything to welcome her.

Cecilia wasn’t angry, just a little bummed out that it seemed she really couldn’t get out of it.

After a moment, a student in the group asked, "Mr. Stone, should we find some time today to gauge everyone’s individual skill levels? It seems like some members don’t have experience with this kind of competition and need to get used to the problem formats ahead of time."

"I agree."

"I don’t have classes today, so any time works for me, Mr. Stone."

"My afternoon is free."

"..."

The group chat suddenly came to life. Staring at the screen full of messages, Cecilia felt a little dazed. ’And here I thought they were all naturally cold and quiet.’

It wasn’t until the teacher personally tagged her to ask for her availability that Cecilia finally chimed in, "Anytime."

In the end, the teacher set the meeting time for four o’clock that afternoon in a lecture hall in the North Experiment Building.

After a thoroughly unpleasant morning, Cecilia went to the cafeteria for lunch and ordered a large portion of braised pork belly.

"Ew..."

Estelle Goodman wrinkled her nose in disgust at the greasy, glistening pork belly on Cecilia’s tray. "What are you doing? I thought you said you were going to watch your weight."

In direct response to Estelle’s comment, Cecilia popped a piece into her mouth. "I have a feeling I’m going to lose my appetite for the foreseeable future, so I’m stocking up on some fats today."

"What’s wrong?" Estelle asked with concern. "It’s not the right time for your period, is it? Did it come early?"

Cecilia shook her head and told Estelle about having to represent the university in the Physics Olympiad. Estelle hated competitions more than anything, and halfway through the explanation, her face scrunched up.

"Oh, that’s awful. You should eat more," she said, moving two pieces of beef from her own bowl onto Cecilia’s plate.

Blair, who was sitting nearby, overheard and chimed in, "I think it’s a great opportunity. Placing well in an Olympiad like that could be a huge advantage."

"I really don’t need the advantage. If it weren’t mandatory, I absolutely wouldn’t be going." The more Cecilia ate, the better the pork tasted. ’Rich, saucy food is just too delicious. Dieting should be classified as one of the ten great tortures of the modern age.’

After a few more pieces of pork belly, her mood had indeed improved considerably.

’Maybe my bad mood wasn’t about the Olympiad at all,’ she even started to suspect. ’It was probably just because I haven’t had enough greasy food lately.’

Just as she was really getting into her meal, her phone buzzed inopportunely. Cecilia picked it up. It was a message from Wyatt Sherman, who had been silent all morning.

’I thought he would’ve gotten the hint and disappeared on his own, but I guess not.’

"Cecilia, I’m at your university’s entrance. I want to talk to you in person."

Reading the message, Cecilia thought, ’We might as well be talking in bed.’ But the thought was fleeting, and she quickly became serious. After a moment’s hesitation, she typed a reply: "There’s a Starbucks across the street. Go wait for me there."

In any case, they had been in that ambiguous "almost-a-couple" phase for two months. And even though they were just one step away from making it official, there was no denying that Wyatt Sherman was a decent guy.

Breaking it off with just a few cold words on WhatsApp was admittedly a bit too callous.

It was only right to say goodbye properly.

At Starbucks, Wyatt Sherman sat stiffly in a seat toward the back, his head slightly bowed.

The coffee in front of him was untouched, mirroring his vacant, lost gaze and making him seem all the more crestfallen.

Cecilia saw him from a distance and could feel it immediately. The usually sunny, cheerful guy seemed to have lost all his vitality, shrouded in a dark cloud of gloom.

With a silent sigh, Cecilia forced a smile and walked over, sitting down opposite Wyatt with practiced ease. "Hey."

Her relaxed, carefree demeanor left Wyatt slightly stunned. For a moment, he didn’t know how to respond.

Cecilia simply watched him with a smile. After a moment, Wyatt finally began, his voice slow and strained. "Cecilia, last night I..."

"I know." Seeing that he was about to launch into a long-winded explanation, Cecilia immediately cut him off. The outcome was already set; there was no point in discussing it further. She said decisively, "But the objective facts are that your mother doesn’t want you with me, and you are, in fact, preparing for your grad school entrance exams."

"That’s okay. I can handle all that."

"That’s not the issue." Cecilia shook her head gently. "To be precise, it’s not your issue. It’s mine. I’m the one who doesn’t want to take that next step."

Wyatt was taken aback. "I... I thought you liked me."

"I do," Cecilia admitted readily. "But my affection has its limits. I can like you, but I can’t do more than that for you. I can’t deal with your mother’s overbearing interference, and I can’t be the scapegoat in the future if you don’t get into grad school. It’s too much. It’s not what I want."

Wyatt was speechless. What Cecilia said was brutally pragmatic, and she delivered it without a shred of tact.

"Don’t be upset. Your mother’s methods might be a bit overbearing and extreme, but she was right about one thing: people need to make the right choice for themselves at every major juncture in life. We aren’t the right choice for each other. There’s no need to drag this out."

With that, Cecilia slowly stood up and offered Wyatt a faint smile. "Goodbye, Wyatt."

Wyatt watched her walk away, a sudden emptiness blooming in his chest. It was quickly followed by a wave of emotion that choked him, making it hard to breathe.

And yet, she was so completely unfazed.

「That afternoon」

In Lecture Hall 3 of the Experiment Building, the other members of the university team began to trickle in before four o’clock.

There were three men and one woman. Among them, one person was clearly the core of the group: Elias Warner. He was the vice president of the Lorcain Tech student union and the academic star of the mathematics department. Since high school, he had consistently achieved outstanding results in various national and international math Olympiads.

He had even been granted early admission to Lorcain Tech before the college entrance exams, and he remained a big name on campus.

So, the others naturally gathered around him to learn from his experience. After all, Elias had extensive competition experience, and with the added clout of being student union vice president, the others subconsciously gravitated toward the strongest member.

Elias wasn’t the least bit modest. As someone who had grown up surrounded by awards and praise, a certain arrogance was to be expected.

He held forth with ease, addressing everyone’s questions and concerns.

He covered everything from the competition’s scale and format to scoring differences and detailed problem breakdowns, essentially doing the teacher’s job for him.

The others listened with rapt attention, nodding along with expressions that showed they were learning a great deal.

Only halfway through his lecture did Elias realize something was off. He glanced at the people in front of him and asked, "Are we missing someone?"