It wasn't an apple that hit Newton.

For example, this sentence: "This author makes more grammatical errors than I did when I was seven. I really don't know how he dared to publish a book without proofreading it."

That's still not bad; there's even more: "That old man Hope is being sarcastic in front of me again. How come he's still alive? I'll definitely be the first to celebrate when he does."

There are also those with a touch of chuunibyou (a Japanese term for someone with delusions of grandeur): "[I'm certain there's a more brilliant solution here than the author's, but unfortunately there's too little space to write it down...]"

The pleasure of peeping into the diary made Li Cheng even more excited.

Time slips away unnoticed.

crunch--

The tightly closed door was pushed open, and Newton, dressed in pure white pajamas, walked into the room. The first thing she saw was Li Cheng sitting on a wooden stool by the bed, engrossed in reading a black book, occasionally chuckling.

The familiar black cover and the thickness of the pages made Newton's heart skip a beat, and he hurriedly quickened his pace and rushed over.

However, Li Cheng had already heard the door open and saw Newton rushing towards him, so he quickly dodged to the side.

"Give it back to me!"

Newton missed his target, and in a fit of rage, he brandished his claws.

"Hehe." Li Cheng hugged the book to his chest, protecting it with one hand and pressing his forehead with the other. He said in a low voice, "I am clearly a genius, a genius who can break the minimum graduation age of Cambridge University, but I actually fell asleep in the bathtub by accident... Luckily I didn't catch a cold. It seems that God doesn't want me to go to see Him so soon either, ahahahahaha."

Then, without pausing, Li Cheng made a hair-flipping gesture: "I said, let there be light! Hahaha, as expected of me, is this a rainbow? As the saying goes, if the heavens had not given birth to Newton, natural science would have been in eternal darkness (Note: paraphrase)."

After doing all this, Li Chengshi couldn't help but lower his head and let out a muffled chuckle.

"Aaaaaaaahhhhhh I'll fight you to the death!"

Experiencing social death for the first time in her life, Miss Newton's rational mind quietly snapped.

Her face flushed red, she rushed forward, determined to fight Li Cheng to the death.

"Hey, hey, calm down, I was just joking. A lady shouldn't be so rude... Don't bite me, you bastard! Are you a dog?... Ouch! That hurts!"

Faced with Newton's attack, who had two sharp fangs, Li Cheng tore off the calm and composed facade he had been trying to maintain.

"You're actually serious... Fine, you forced me to this. I'm going to show you what a true gender equality advocate is!"

After making such a declaration, Li Cheng rolled up his sleeves and wrestled with Newton on the snow-white bed.

After a fierce exchange.

Li Cheng suffered 1D3 direct damage, with an additional bleeding effect lasting for three hours, occurring once every hour.

Newton didn't fare any better; she got hit in the buttocks several times during the melee. Since this wasn't the first time, she didn't have to undergo a willpower check.

The battle round has ended.

As if in a garden, Li Cheng once again pinned Newton down from above, looking down at him with the air of a victor, and uttered that classic villain line: "Ha, no one will help you even if you scream your lungs out."

However, something unexpected happened. Newton, who was expected to fight to the death, suddenly fell silent and turned his head to the side without saying a word.

? ?

Li Cheng then realized that the situation was slightly different. He couldn't explain why, but as the room fell silent, a strange atmosphere filled the air.

A refreshed body after a shower, a soft and comfortable cotton mattress, young men and women brimming with hormones, a quiet environment where no one will disturb them... When these conditions are met simultaneously, even a single intentional or unintentional contact can become a spark that ignites dry tinder, let alone the comprehensive physical contact we are currently experiencing.

It was precisely because she sensed her current predicament that Newton turned her head to the side, avoiding eye contact with Li Cheng. However, her long, blinking eyelashes and tense body clearly revealed her inner unease.

The girl's figure was as immature as an unripe fruit; though not as voluptuous as a mature woman's, it had its own unique charm at this age.

Unfortunately, I don't like sour food, and besides, now isn't the right time... Li Cheng poured a bucket of cold water on the dry firewood first, and said leisurely, "Are you calmed down now?"

Newton looked over, but after making eye contact with Li Cheng for less than a second, he turned his head away again.

She didn't speak, after all, the dead can't speak; they only speak when they're resurrected.

"Then I'll let go."

Li Cheng noticed a hint of fear in Newton's eyes, so he released his restraint and stood up. Newton sat up straight, and the two sat side by side on the bed.

Looking down from this angle, he could see that Newton's pajamas were very tight against his chest...yes, very tight, there wasn't a gap. Actually, this was a good thing; he didn't have to worry about catching a cold after showering, which greatly increased his survival rate in this era without antibiotics.

Li Cheng was seriously lost in thought.

"Hey, what are you thinking about?"

The resurrected Newton looked puzzled, her sixth sense was stirred.

"It's nothing," Li Cheng changed the subject. "By the way, who exactly is Hope?"

Chapter Six: Even the Second Time is Shameful

While browsing through Newton's juvenile history, Li Cheng noticed that several names appeared frequently, including but not limited to 'Hope,' 'Lisa,' and 'Wilson,' with 'Hope' appearing the most often.

Aside from the high frequency of these encounters, Hope was almost always portrayed negatively, frequently subjected to Newton's insults and curses, demonstrating the depth of his hatred for her. Even upon their first meeting, Newton jokingly suggested that he suspected Li Cheng was sent by Hope to assassinate her.

"Hope is an old bastard, he's like a rotten, stinking tuna!"

When Hope was mentioned, Newton became very agitated: "What era is this? He still discriminates against women. He actually thinks that letting me graduate is a disgrace to Cambridge University and has been deliberately suppressing my dissertation!"

"It's all his fault! I was going to be the youngest graduate in Cambridge's history, and now that's all gone!"

The resentment runs deep, and I sense there's some hidden story... Li Cheng, like soothing a frightened kitten, gently pressed his right hand against Newton's long golden hair, slowly stroking it back and forth: "Calm down, calm down, speak slowly, he's not here."

"Hmm." Newton exhaled and began to recount her experiences in detail.

In short, Newton wanted to skip grades and graduate, breaking the minimum graduation age at Cambridge University, but his dissertation was secretly prevented from passing by Hope. In addition, Hope privately mocked Newton and frequently made veiled attacks on him in public, often using gender as a point of contention.

One of the most prestigious professors, Hope, was deliberately making things difficult for Newton? This plot sounds so unrealistic... Li Cheng was a little confused, so after Newton finished complaining, he asked the question that had been lingering in his mind:

"There must be more than just you as a female student at Cambridge University, right?"

"Are you talking to him?"

Newton immediately became unhappy. She raised her little head and said to Li Cheng in an angry tone, "Are you going to say that it's my fault? There are so many people, is it because I have a problem that he's targeting me?"

Completely blinded by anger... Li Cheng sighed helplessly, raising his hands above his head to show his stance: "I swear I'm on your side... I asked this to better understand the situation and help you defeat him."

"Really?"

"Really, I don't know this Hope at all, how could I possibly help him?" Li Cheng said this with a sincere look in his eyes and with a sincere heart.

Newton reluctantly believed him and began to think about the question Li Cheng had raised.

“I’ve also wondered why he always targets me.” Newton fell into deep thought. “I think… he must be jealous of my talent. After all, his best student, Leibniz, who was just as rigid as him, is not as good as one of my toes.”

I really want to record that sentence and play it back for you ten years later... Li Cheng barely suppressed the urge to complain.

Li Cheng pressed further, "Besides that, are there any suspicious points?"

Newton shrugged. "What else could it be? At most, he once stood up during a lecture to refute his points about Aristotle..."

"Wait a minute," Li Cheng interrupted. "I have a question: were there many people there?"

Newton fell into reminiscence: "Let me think... I remember it was when freshmen were enrolling, there must have been quite a lot."

Li Cheng felt he had vaguely grasped the crux of the problem, and he pressed further: "What was Hope's opinion of Aristotle?"

Zhihu-style question: How would you evaluate Aristotle?

"This is what I dislike most about Hope. He's an extreme Aristotelian zealot who treats Aristotle's words as gospel in his speeches, even though many of Aristotle's theories have already been proven wrong,"

Newton shrugged. "I prefer Copernicus and Galileo, so I offered a slight rebuttal... Hahaha, just thinking about that guy's speechless expression is hilarious, you'd never guess..."

Okay, that's enough. You don't need to say anymore.

Li Cheng covered his face in anguish.

In his orientation speech to new students, he refuted the views of a senior professor in front of a large group of freshmen, leaving them speechless... That's very Newton-like.

The cause of the problem has been found, but the person who caused it is completely unaware of it.

Miss Newton, with her large, clear, and innocent eyes, looked at Li Cheng expectantly: "Well? Judging from your expression, you must have a solution, right?"

Li Cheng was inwardly in tears: What can I do? Sister, you insulted the person he respects most in front of others, and he didn't fight you in person, he just messed with his graduation thesis. That's already a lot of restraint, okay? The only perfect solution I can think of is to give him a little blue pill to erase his memory!

The best course of action right now is to delay... Li Cheng hesitated for two seconds, then decisively said, "Yes!"

Newton initially didn't have high hopes, but after hearing this, he was taken aback, moved closer to Li Cheng, and asked expectantly, "What method?!"

"Isn't he using your thesis to prevent you from graduating?" Li Cheng smiled. "We'll write a thesis that everyone will be convinced of, so he'll have no choice but to let you graduate with resentment."

“Easier said than done.” Newton sighed, slumping back and half-lying on the bed. “Even for me, writing that kind of paper isn’t something I can just do on a whim.”

No, if I hadn't come, you should have already written it... Li Cheng coughed twice, frantically hinting, "This kind of paper... isn't unheard of, is it?"

In order to demonstrate one's value, rather than simply being a gigolo who lives off a woman, some sacrifices are necessary—speaking of which, wasn't this originally Newton's idea?! Could this be considered another form of stealing money to pay for prostitution?

"Oh, you mean your universal gravitation?" Newton instantly understood, then decisively replied, "No."

Li Cheng had assumed that Newton would readily agree to such an opportunity, but the reality was quite different from what he expected.

Newton not only refused, but refused decisively, sitting up straight again: "That's your research; I'll write my own thesis."

Don't rush to refuse.

Li Cheng thought to himself that it was fortunate he hadn't spoken too bluntly back then, so he could still dig a hole: "The research on universal gravitation is not yet complete, and there are still many questions waiting for us to answer. For example—since there is gravity between all things, and the magnitude of gravity is related to mass, then why, according to Galileo's Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment, does the heavier iron ball fall to the ground at the same time as the lighter iron ball?"

Li Cheng persuaded him, "Why don't you write down the part of the research you participated in as a paper? Wouldn't that make it your own?"

“Hmm, but you should be able to do it by yourself…” Newton unconsciously bit his nails, caught in a dilemma.

"Do you really think you're just there to make up the numbers? That you can't produce results that I can't?"

Li Cheng tried to provoke her: "A self-proclaimed genius girl who thinks she's breaking the record for the most years to graduate from Cambridge, doesn't even have the courage to stand on my shoulders and peer into the unknown? Or are you afraid that Hope will use this against you, so you're scared?"

This tactic was very effective; Newton's fighting spirit was instantly ignited, and even his cheeks flushed red with excitement.

She shouted, "Who said I'm scared? I'll prove it to you right now!"

"Yes, that's the fighting spirit."

Li Cheng always had the illusion that he was fooling a child—or maybe it wasn't an illusion: "Natural science research requires this kind of courageous and direct spirit—if you're still hesitant, you can sign my name on the paper, and it will be considered joint research."

"Is it possible?" Newton was intrigued.

“Of course, I’ll compile the research progress later and we can study it further.” Li Cheng tried to demonstrate his value and prove that he wasn’t a freeloader. “This little bit of fame is worthless to me, but it can help you solve your current problem.”

Even if he really couldn't graduate, he could still consider using this thesis to apply to Oxford... He silently added to himself.

Newton was persuaded, and she was somewhat moved, but she insisted, "Hmph, I won't take advantage of you. Consider this my debt to you, and I'll put your name on any future discoveries of equal value."

"Okay, okay, I'll wait for that day."

Seeing her haughty demeanor, Li Cheng couldn't resist teasing her.