I am Really a Superstar

The rippling rays of the evening sun shone as it set.

At Jiaomen East, Zhang Ye’s rented apartment.

Standing in the open kitchen, Zhang Ye sandwiched his phone between his shoulder and cheek while his hands prepared dinner. He placed the processed fish-flavored pork slices which he had bought from the supermarket into the pan, added some seasoning, then mixed and stirred it all about with the spatula. This person did not know how to cook, but he made do with whatever he could anyway.

Zhang Ye said: “Mom.”

“I was still waiting for you to come home for dinner,” his mother said.

“Didn’t I already send you a text?” Zhang Ye asked.

His mother said: “I just saw it. So you won’t be back for a few days?”

Zhang Ye said: “Yes, I’ll be staying in Jiaomen for now as my landlady needed to go away for some time. And I have to help her take care of the kid. Ugh, don’t bring it up. Just talking about it makes me angry. The kid’s school called me up to ask me to make a trip to the school today. When I was there, a group of teachers criticized me about her behavior. What a loss of face I suffered! Hmph, seeing kids behave in this way these days has given me mental trauma and severely impacted this bro’s passion for children should I get married in the future. If my children turn out to be so naughty and uncontrollable in the future, I would totally get tired out.”

His mother said: “You don’t even have a partner yet, and you’re already thinking about children?”

Zhang Ye laughed and said: “Don’t force my hand, or else I might just suddenly bring someone home on one of these days as your daughter-in-law. If she turns out to be too beautiful for you, don’t be shocked. You’d better be prepared for it.”

His mother happily said: “Yes, continue bragging all you want.”

Zhang Ye said: “Whether I’m bragging or not, you’ll find out in the future.”

His mother said: “Alright, alright, your mom will wait and see.”

“I need to stop talking now. I still have to prepare dinner.” Zhang Ye used the spatula to stir the food in the pan.

His mother said: “Whoa, you even know how to cook now? Make sure the food is well-cooked. Don’t let the little one get a stomachache.”

“Got it.” Zhang Ye hung up and put his phone onto a clean area on top of the refrigerator before he did a taste test on the saltiness of the dish he was preparing.

Chenchen, sitting on the sofa and looking very glum, said, “Zhang Ye, I’m hungry.”

Zhang Ye grumbled under his breath, “What are you in a rush for? Just wait.”

Chenchen’s stomach had already been rumbling for quite some time now. After she had the argument in the afternoon with the teacher, she did not eat much of her food either. She shouted, “Zhang Ye! I’m hungry! Zhang Ye! I’m hungry!”

“What are you rushing for? It’s almost done!” Zhang Ye turned off the heat, put the food onto a plate, and brought it to the table.

Chenchen did not wait for him and picked up the chopsticks and began eating. When she had eaten a mouthful, she inadvertently gave a look of dislike. She said, “Zhang Ye, it’s not good.”

Zhang Ye said, “Oh, is that so?”

“It’s not good,” Chenchen insisted.

Zhang Ye gave it a taste and said, “It’s not bad.” Then he scooped out two bowls of rice and sat back down at the table. Picking up his chopsticks, he started eating happily and said, “Your Uncle Zhang’s standard is just that. It’s good enough that you have something to eat. It’s definitely cooked, so don’t worry about getting food poisoning.” Saying that, he picked up a large portion of the food for Chenchen and put it into her bowl with his chopsticks. “Quickly eat. Your aunt definitely won’t be back this week, and I don’t know if she will be back next week either. You’ll be sticking around me for a while, so let’s just make do with whatever we can. If this is not good enough, then we’ll order takeout or buy frozen dumplings tomorrow.”

Chenchen thought about it for a long time before unwillingly picking up her chopsticks to continue eating.

Zhang Ye spoke as he ate, “These next several days, I will be taking care of you, so you have to listen to me. Let’s have an agreement beforehand. First, you have to eat your meals at the right time and in the right quantity every day, so that when your aunt comes back, she will not see that you have lost any weight and blame me if you do. Second, you have to do your homework after dinner, if you don’t have any homework or have finished it already, then you have to do your own revision until 8 PM. Your form teacher gave me a dressing down today; I don’t even know how to face her. You’d better buck up so that it doesn’t become necessary for me to make another trip to your school again. Oh, then third and last point, you have to go to bed by 10 PM, so no late night of watching cartoons. Did you hear all of that?”

Chenchen did not say anything.

Zhang Ye looked at her and asked again, “I’m asking you. Do you understand?”

Chenchen eventually voiced her acquiescence.

Only then was Zhang Ye satisfied. With the landlady auntie not around, the full responsibility in taking care of the child rested on his shoulders. Not only did he have to take care of her meals, he had to oversee her learning and extracurricular activities as well. Hai, it was only after taking charge that he knew of the responsibilities; taking care of a child was really tiring to the soul.

After the meal.

“Shoo, go and do your homework.”

“OK.”

“Don’t just say OK, you have to do it physically as well.”

“—OK.”

Chenchen sat herself down on Zhang Ye’s sofa, opened her schoolbag and took out a book, pencil, and eraser. She slowly started to do her homework and paused every so often.

Zhang Ye sluggishly dragged his feet to the kitchen to wash the dishes. After a long time of not doing chores, he really did not have any motivation to move at all. Laziness was a kind of habit; once you got into the rhythm of this habit, it was extremely difficult to get out of it. This was the situation Zhang Ye was in right now. Old Wu had taken great care of him—and when he was at his parents’ house, they would not let him do any chores either—so having not stayed alone for a very long time now, it was really difficult to get accustomed to this life again.

After washing all the dishes, Zhang Ye went to take a look on Chenchen. However, when he saw that she had only written a single line in her workbook, he angrily said, “What have you been doing here for so long?”

Chenchen said, “Doing my homework.”

Zhang Ye said, “Why did you take so long just to write almost nothing?”

“Zhang Ye.” Chenchen pushed her workbook to him and said, “Help me write.”

Zhang Ye stared at her and said, “Write it yourself. If you don’t finish it, then I won’t let you watch cartoons later. When it’s time, you will go directly to bed.” After that, he ignored her and went to lie down on his bed while watching the news on TV.

Central TV news…

Entertainment news…

He was watching it with enjoyment. In the past, Zhang Ye was never too interested in the news as he found it really dry. But after he had become a celebrity, he took a liking to it, part of it being that keeping up with the news was necessary for his career. He had to be updated about the social topics and current affairs so that he could be in step with the times.

Chenchen looked up with the pencil with her hands. “Zhang Ye, you’re disturbing me.”

Zhang Ye impatiently grabbed the remote control and said, “I’ll lower the volume, continue doing your homework.”

Chenchen said, “It’s still noisy.”

Zhang Ye lowered the volume even more and said, “It should be alright now.”

“It’s still noisy, Zhang Ye. Turn it off,” Chenchen said unhappily.

Zhang Ye smacked his lips and turned off the television in annoyance. He said, “You’ve been working for quite a while now but that’s all you’ve written? You’re so troublesome. Alright, alright, the television’s off now.”

Chenchen continued to work on her homework.

Zhang Ye looked around and decided that he could only use his cell phone to browse Weibo for now. After a short time browsing, he noticed the math problem he had given at No. 2 Experimental Primary School this afternoon was posted onto Weibo. It had even attracted a heated discussion in the afternoon as it received a lot of attention from the netizens. This was something Zhang Ye had not expected. But after thinking a bit about it, when this wondrous math question was brought out in his previous world, it had also created quite a stir from many people on the internet. It was widely discussed at the beginning. Not until when everyone had gotten used to the existence of this problem did the hype die down. And so, when this wondrous “brain teaser” math problem that had not existed in this world largely filled with traditional and regular math questions appeared, it naturally attracted a lot of interest and attention from people since it was a “new style” of a math question.

They were also denouncing him?

On Weibo, many people cried out with anger, as though Zhang Ye’s elementary math question from the afternoon had inflicted damage to the self-esteem of these adults. They were all calling for him to give them a chance to make up for their loss of face!

“@ZhangYe!”

“Teacher Zhang, you better appear right now!”

“Zhang Ye, you’re so wicked and mean!”

“Give us another question! I refuse to believe that I can’t solve it!”

“Right, this time we’ll definitely get it right!”

“If you’re so good, give us another elementary math problem! I was just too careless before! It ended up with my girlfriend making fun of me for the whole afternoon! She even said that my IQ is lower than a primary school student’s! I’m so furious!”

“That question was made to trick people, it was phrased to baffle us. But if we knew what was going on beforehand, then no matter what questions you posed us, we wouldn’t have any trouble with it for sure as long as it is really just an elementary math problem.”

“Right, as long as it’s restricted to elementary math questions, we’ll solve them in a glance for sure.”

Some were calling for a challenge while others were making a scene.

Peking University’s Teacher Su Na also came forward to comment: “I suggest that Teacher Zhang start a class on Weibo and post some elementary math problems for everyone to try out.”

Since Zhang Ye was not busy with anything, he immediately replied to Su Na: “Sure.”

And so, Zhang Ye posted a separate Weibo post: “Due to popular demand and requests for a challenge, in today’s ‘Zhang Ye’s Classroom’, I shall share several questions for discussion. The same rules apply. I guarantee that it will be an elementary math problem that is meant for second or third grade students. We will see who can answer them. The time limit is an hour after I post the problem. If someone can answer all of them correctly, then I will even add a prize as a reward. If there are too many people, the prize will be given out as a lucky draw. If there aren’t that many who can answer correctly, then all those who get it right will get a prize. It can be my autograph or my calligraphy pieces, we can always discuss that later, hur hur.”

When the netizens saw this, they all gathered together over at Zhang Ye’s post!

“Wah! There’s even a prize?”

“Zhang Ye’s calligraphy works sound really good!”

“That’s great! Give us the question then! I can’t wait!”

“Count me in!”

“Me too, I’m here as well!”

At this moment, the long unseen Big Saber Bro also made an appearance: “My large saber is again again again again again again again again again unable to endure the thirst! Give us the problem quickly! Mathematics happen to be my forte!”

Yao Jiancai also appeared and said: “What’s up again?”

A Peking University teacher who was verified on Weibo joined in too. He could be considered Zhang Ye’s colleague, but as Zhang Ye had not officially been given any classes before at the Math Department, he wasn’t too familiar with this teacher. He didn’t even know him by name, but would probably know him if he saw him. The teacher said: “Let me give it a try too.”

Even a Peking University teacher had been forced to make an appearance??

In the end, many other Peking University students—whether they were Chinese Department or Math Department—also joined in. They were all eager and ready to solve the question as they were not in time this afternoon to catch the first question and had only seen it for the first time when Dean Pan’s Weibo discussed it. As such, they already knew the answer to it before they saw the questions, so there was no chance for them to even think about it. As such, many of them did not find the question to be difficult at all. After all, this was just an elementary math problem!

People from everywhere started popping up!

With the momentum from the previous wondrous math problem—and the addition of gimmickry, goading, as well as prizes as encouragement—, many Weibo users had already arrived at this post of Zhang Ye’s in no time. Everyone wanted to see what kind of an elementary math problem Zhang Ye would pose to them, and if it was really going to another wondrous question. Surely it couldn’t be more baffling and trickier than that earlier question, right?

1000 people…

5000 people…

10,000 people…

More than ten thousand netizens had arrived to join in the fun here. Before the questions were even given, the post had already been forwarded 3000 times. The scene was very grand as everyone went crazy, wanting to give the questions a try for themselves! No one believed that they could not do it!