Madam, Please Behave
Chapter 445: A Unique Study Method

A new week began.

As the alarm clock on her bedside table rang, Liu Xiazhi, still curled up in bed, reluctantly tugged the half-covering sheet upward with great displeasure.

Pulling it over her head.

But this self-deceiving act couldn't silence the noisy alarm. After about twenty seconds of resistance, Liu Xiazhi finally admitted defeat.

She threw off the sheet with one hand, rolled over, and turned off the alarm clock on the nightstand.

Lying sideways on the bed.

Her face was slightly distorted from the pressure, and her hair, left undone last night before sleep, was now a complete mess.

Her half-lidded eyes stared blankly at the second hand of the clock ticking away, as if her soul had left her body. Liu Xiazhi remained motionless.

Before long.

"Xiazhi, get up for school!"

Only when An Yuanyao's voice came from outside the room did Liu Xiazhi, who had fallen back asleep, jolt awake. With a slight tremble, the startled girl reluctantly sat up in bed.

Staring blankly ahead.

After a long while, she finally interlaced her fingers and stretched her arms high above her head.

Yawning widely.

Unlike her elementary school days, Liu Xiazhi, now the eldest daughter of the Liu family, had developed quite a figure. Combined with her striking looks, even casual shopping trips with her mother during holidays often drew admiring glances from strangers.

This kind of attention gradually made her, who used to love showing off in front of strangers as a child, grow weary of it. Coupled with the harassment from too many admirers in middle school, the once somewhat naive little girl slowly learned to put on a facade.

To disguise herself as an aloof ice queen.

Of course, this was just Liu Xiazhi's wishful thinking. In reality, her current personality mostly stemmed from her poor academic performance, which led to frequent ridicule behind her back. Over time, she became less talkative.

But because of her looks, her reticence was often mistaken by classmates for aloofness.

Once the popular girl in elementary school, by middle school and now high school, her only remaining friend was Feng Shuyan, who had grown up with her.

This relationship should have continued unchanged—they had attended the same school and class since elementary school—until high school changed things.

Due to their vastly different academic performances, Feng Shuyan was placed in the top class immediately upon enrollment based on her excellent grades.

Liu Xiazhi could have joined her, but unlike in middle school, her father didn't pull strings to arrange it. Instead, he let her enter an unfamiliar class, claiming it was to "train her independence."

Because of this, Liu Xiazhi had sulked at home for a while before the school year started.

But it had little effect.

Clearly, as she grew older, her father was no longer as indulgent as before...

After getting dressed.

Liu Xiazhi left her room and headed to the bathroom to wash up.

Then she went for breakfast.

Once everything was ready, Liu Xiazhi stood before the mirror, examined her outfit, and silently gave herself a perfect score in her mind.

Then she walked out the door.

After arriving at school in the car that took her to and from school daily, Liu Xiazhi entered her classroom.

Sitting at her desk, she prepared to half-heartedly flip through her English textbook during morning reading. But as she pulled out the book, she inadvertently noticed her deskmate sneaking glances at her.

The reason it counted as "sneaking" was because the girl seemed to think she was being subtle—holding up her textbook to hide her face while peeking at Liu Xiazhi from behind it...

Whenever Liu Xiazhi looked back, the girl would quickly avert her gaze.

Even Liu Xiazhi sensed something odd about this behavior, but being socially awkward, she didn't call it out. Instead, she pretended to focus on her English book and began reciting.

Her pronunciation, however, was... strange.

As if... she had annotated the words with Chinese phonetic equivalents.

At least, that's how it sounded to Chi Xiaoxiao, her deskmate. The girl was so surprised that she forgot she was supposed to be sneaking glances and lifted her head fully from the book, staring in bewilderment at Liu Xiazhi's bizarre English recitation.

She was baffled.

But Liu Xiazhi seemed completely unbothered, continuing her unique study method undisturbed.

Soon, the first class began.

Facing the formulas and key points written on the blackboard by the teacher, Chi Xiaoxiao diligently took notes. It should have been an ordinary class... until a soft giggle came from beside her.

Distracted, she instinctively turned her head.

And saw... Liu Xiazhi doodling in her notebook.

Chi Xiaoxiao's eyes widened slightly as she stared in surprise at her deskmate stifling laughter while drawing what looked like a pig-donkey hybrid in her notes.

Then Chi Xiaoxiao glanced up at the blackboard.

And back down at her own half-page of meticulously copied key points.

"......"

Her gaze returned to Liu Xiazhi.

Even Chi Xiaoxiao could tell something was off.

Connecting her deskmate's behavior, she suddenly... had an epiphany.

Could this... be the study method of a genius?!

Clearly, Liu Xiazhi disdained conventional teaching—she must have self-studied the material in advance, which was why she remained so calm, completely ignoring the teacher's key points...

At the same time, Chi Xiaoxiao recalled the odd English pronunciation from morning reading.

Now it made sense... that must have been a superior learning technique!

Phonetic annotations probably made memorization easier, right?

So... impressive!

Meanwhile, Liu Xiazhi continued doodling in her notebook. Only after finishing her artwork did she remember she hadn't taken any notes.

Flipping to a fresh page, she looked up at the blackboard.

But... when she saw how much the teacher had written, she froze.

She didn't move for a long time.

Her eyes filled with confusion.

How... how did so much appear in such a short time?

She couldn't... understand any of it!

But Liu Xiazhi didn't despair. After a brief daze, she quickly rallied and decided to copy everything from the start.

Yet before she could finish copying, the teacher's voice rang out:

"Done taking notes?"

"Yes!"

"Good, I'll erase this then!"

"!!!!"

Liu Xiazhi, who had barely started, was horrified. But with no way to stop it, she could only watch helplessly as the teacher wiped away the left half of the board with an eraser.

She looked down at her notebook, where only a few words were written.

Whatever, not worth it.

With this thought, Liu Xiazhi flipped back to her doodle page.

Picking up her pen, she resumed drawing.