He was a disabled military officer who doted on his research work in the Northwest.

Shen Tang was in a good mood when she ran into Teacher Lu on her way back from school in the afternoon.

As for Shen Yao's provocation... she thought it was nonsense and didn't take it to heart at all.

Dinner was eaten in the main room of the compound; Xiao Li went to the canteen to get the food and brought it over. At the dinner table, Shen Tang casually remarked, "We had a new substitute teacher for physics and chemistry class today, and he was really good. He could explain the dry knowledge points in the textbook in a very thorough way, connecting them to real-world problems."

As Xiao Li was eating, he casually asked, "How old is the new teacher? An old man?"

"No, I think I'm in my early twenties, quite young," Shen Tang replied casually, picking up a piece of food with her chopsticks.

After finishing their meal, Shen Tang went to the side room to pack her schoolbag, while Xiao Li went to the hospital to deliver food to Mu Qinghan and casually reported this gossip as if it were news.

Mu Qinghan was leaning against the headboard of his hospital bed, reading an internal briefing from the General Staff Department. When he heard Xiao Li excitedly say, "Comrade Shen praised the new physics and chemistry teacher today, saying he's a young man in his twenties," his fingers, which were turning the pages of the briefing, paused slightly.

The paper made a very soft, crisp sound.

In the evening, Shen Tang arrived at the hospital for a massage as agreed.

After more than half a month of treatment, the speed at which Mu Qinghan's right leg nerves recovered was so fast that even Dr. Chen exclaimed in disbelief. The sense of touch below the knee was gradually returning, and the right big toe, which had been deemed irreversibly damaged, could now make slight flexion and extension movements when he exerted force.

Shen Tang washed her hands, applied a hot towel to the acupoints, and then skillfully pressed her hands on Mu Qinghan's calves. The pressure was moderate, and she pushed down along the meridians little by little.

"How was your first day of school?" Mu Qinghan asked casually, looking at her downcast profile.

"It's great. The students in Class Two are also very easy to get along with." While giving a massage, Shen Tang smoothly transitioned into her plan, "Especially that substitute teacher, Mr. Lu, he teaches very well. I was thinking if there's a chance, could I ask him to come to the compound after class to give me some extra tutoring in physics and chemistry?"

Shen Tang put forward this idea after careful consideration.

Firstly, she got first place in the whole school in the transfer exam. Although it was satisfying to slap Shen Yao in the face, it was also easy to arouse suspicion. How could a girl who had lived in the countryside for fifteen years crush so many people? If she had a highly skilled teacher to give her private tutoring as a cover, then she would have a legitimate reason to maintain good grades and could completely attribute it to Teacher Lu.

Secondly, this would allow her to get closer to Lu Yanzhi. With the pretext of tutoring, she could naturally extend their contact time, learn about his current research progress at the agricultural research station, and then smoothly transfer the salt-tolerant crops from her own space to him.

Killing two birds with one stone. She felt her plan was brilliant, and since it would benefit her studies, Mu Qinghan had no reason to refuse.

However, as soon as he said that, the ward suddenly fell silent.

Shen Tang felt the muscles under her hand suddenly tense up. She looked up in confusion, "What's wrong? Did I use too much force?"

"It's not heavy." Mu Qinghan looked at her, his dark eyes showing little emotion, but his voice was a few decibels deeper than before. "The compound is strictly managed; it's inconvenient for outside men to come and go. It's not convenient for you to come."

"What about my studies?" she blurted out anxiously. "You know I'm weak; how can I manage without tutoring?"

"Poor foundation? You got first place." Mu Qinghan bluntly exposed her.

"That...that was an accident, I...I was just lucky." Her voice was weak. Why was he being so nosy?

Mu Qinghan pursed her lips noncommittally, suspecting he was smiling. "But you can't fall behind in your studies... How about I tutor you?"

"You?" Shen Tang was stunned for a moment, not quite following his train of thought. "But you need to rest in the hospital during the day, and you have high school physics and chemistry—"

"Dr. Chen said I need to increase moderate activity at this stage, as prolonged bed rest is actually detrimental to nerve regeneration." Mu Qinghan used Dr. Chen as a shield without changing her expression. "As for physics and chemistry—what, do you think I can't teach you?"

The last half of the sentence had a slightly rising tone at the end, carrying a hint of danger.

It would be a joke if a top-tier Air Force pilot couldn't even handle high school physics and chemistry. You have to understand, when they were learning aerodynamics and advanced mathematics at flight school, they were exhausted.

Shen Tang was a little puzzled as to why he was so concerned. But since things had already come to this point, it would seem strange to insist on finding Teacher Lu.

Fine, let him tutor me then. I'll find another opportunity to get closer to Teacher Lu later; he can't just stay at school as a substitute teacher anyway.

"Not at all, then I'll have to trouble you, cousin."

Upon hearing the words "cousin," Mu Qinghan's brow twitched almost imperceptibly, and he closed his eyes, remaining silent.

That evening, Xiao Li was assigned a new task—to borrow a complete set of high school physics and chemistry textbooks and teaching syllabus from the academic affairs office of the affiliated high school.

As a result, the lights in the main hall of the courtyard began to stay on until late at night every night.

Mu Qinghan kept his word. He had Xiao Li push him to the octagonal table in the main room, where Shen Tang sat opposite him doing her homework, while he prepared his lessons nearby.

Tutoring physics on the first night.

Mu Qinghan drew the force analysis diagram on a draft paper and explained, pointing to the diagram: "The core of projectile motion is to analyze it separately in the horizontal and vertical directions. The horizontal direction is uniform motion, while the vertical direction is free fall."

He paused here, as if wanting to give an example to help her understand more intuitively.

"...It's like throwing a stone from a height," he said.

Then it paused for two seconds.

"However, the actual situation is much more complicated than throwing a stone." Mu Qinghan picked up his pen and added a symbol for the drag coefficient next to the diagram—this was beyond the scope of high school, but he didn't seem to realize it yet. "When flying at high altitudes, wind direction and airflow will affect the trajectory of the launched object. When we learn ballistic calculations in flight school, we have to take all these variables into account—"

He suddenly stopped there, as if realizing he had gone off-topic.

"...Anyway, just memorize the basic formulas first." He put down his pen, his tone returning to its usual indifference.

Shen Tang lowered his head. What was he doing?

As expected, the teacher isn't a professional; the teaching style is just weird.

I tutored him in chemistry the following evening.

When discussing the equation of state for gases, Mu Qinghan "accidentally" brought up another passage:

"The relationship between air pressure and temperature—this is very obvious at high altitudes. Above 10,000 meters in the troposphere, the air pressure drops sharply, and the temperature can drop to minus fifty or sixty degrees Celsius. If the cockpit pressurization system malfunctions..."

He started to say something but then stopped himself, clearing his throat: "You don't need to understand this problem in such a complicated way. Just use the formula and substitute the values ​​to calculate it."

Shen Tang blinked, realizing something. He... seemed to be doing it on purpose?

Was he deliberately showing off in front of her? But why? To make himself seem better than Teacher Lu?