The Hyperfocus Downside

Ye Qing whipped his head around to see Madam Ye standing composed to one side while Zi Rumeng stood not too far away, both under the shade of a towering tree. Ye Qing's mind took a few seconds to process the situation and return to its self-awareness state. Then, he felt a bit embarrassed as to having not noticed Madam Ye's arrival, not knowing how long she must have been waiting.

He assumed Zi Rumeng brought Madam Ye to the library, and from the looks of it, they must have been waiting for him to finish reading the notes.

"Did I make you wait long?" Ye Qing asked, his fingers fumbling with the last dozen papers of notes, somewhat reluctant to leave them unfinished.

"Not really, I just arrived," Madam Ye pursed her lips. "You can finish those notes first, we can leave after that."

Ye Qing hesitated for a bit as he glanced down at the notes. However, the sight of these notes reminded him of Zi Rumeng who was standing to the side. That girl was the definition of a mess right now, consistently shifting about from one awkward position to the next.

Ye Qing had no idea what had gotten into that girl, but he quickly remember their little interactions from a few hours back, still feeling guilty for invading the private space of a female, especially his supposed Class President.

At this moment, Zi Rumeng was shocked by the fact she was so absorbed in watching another guy with barely any sense of situational awareness, how would that reflect on Madam Ye?

Would she think I am a frivolous young lady for that? Thoughts like these swirled in Zi Rumeng's mind even as she shifted her body about in an attempt of concealing her frustration and helplessness with a mask of calm.

What do I do now?? Even as these thoughts haunted Zi Rumeng, she heard Ye Qing speak the words that stoned her silly where she stood.

Ye Qing looked over at Madam Ye and spoke, "Can Class President Zi come with us to the Auction House? I somewhat owe her an apology from earlier."

Ye Qing didn't like misunderstandings that could be easily avoided, thus, he immediately inserted both request and reason in one sentence, not allowing either of the two women to get sidetracked contemplating some hidden agenda or whatever.

However, Ye Qing grossly underestimated the mind of a woman, especially a young teenager like Zi Rumeng who was vivacious in nature. From her perspective, that brief hug on the sidewalk of the administration building was nothing. If anything, she owed Ye Qing a thank you, not the other way around. Thus, he could only be using this as an excuse to express his interest in helping her mend relationships with Madam Ye.

Why would he do that? He was clearly enjoying reading those notes so he might be thinking about asking for some more in the future. Thinking about it, Zi Rumeng felt grateful, deciding to invite Ye Qing to study groups in the future to actively gain more benefits from her smart and pretty friends. Since he was a shy person, it would also be somewhat comedic to watch him fumble around in a sea of flowery young ladies.

Wouldn't it?

Ye Qing had no idea what he'd gotten himself into, but he stared through the curtains of black hair over his upper face, and Madam Ye was seemingly capable of seeing through those bangs and deeply into Ye Qing's sincere gaze. As a powerful cultivator, she could see how genuine Ye Qing was, but she wasn't the least bit interested in why would this boy owe that girl an apology.

After a moment of silence, Madam Ye nodded and looked over at Zi Rumeng. "You can go call your parents and tell them you'll be coming home late today, the weekly auction starts at 7 PM and might end somewhere around 9 PM."

Zi Rumeng simmered with excitement as she fished out an iPhone from her pocket, waving it about with a smile. "No need, I'll call Mom on the way!"

Madam Ye stared at the phone and paused for a moment. Then, she looked over at Ye Qing and said, "You don't have a phone yet, I almost forgot about that. I'm sorry."

She then proceeded to fish out her smartphone and send a message to Maid Ya, asking the latter to buy a good smartphone for Ye Qing from the market. Although Madam Ye couldn't adopt Ye Qing as her son, much to her dismay, she wanted to become a good big sister nonetheless.

Her other brother was always busy, not to mention his cultivation was on par if not stronger than her own. Hence, she didn't have much time to adjust to the role of a caring big sister.

Even at this moment, she had high expectations of Ye Qing, modeled after the deep impression her real brother left behind, inevitably causing her to forget that Ye Qing was essentially a child. When she saw both Zi Rumeng and Ye Qing side to side, she immediately realized how she might have been rushing things so far.

Ye Qing was dazed, not having expected this woman to make an… apology?

Zi Rumeng was also stunned, having to reevaluate the relationship between these two once again as it seemed far from her initial estimate. Madam Ye didn't care about their astonishment as she had always done what she wanted to do unless Maid Ya fiercely opposed it.

"Okay," Madam Ye put away her phone and turned around. "Let's get going, you can read the rest of the notes in the car."

Zi Rumeng suddenly recalled something. "Ah! Wait a second, I'll go get my bag and other stuff!"

The young girl quickly bolted away.

Ye Qing knew this was just an excuse, Zi Rumeng must be on her way to report back to Teacher Xue about the whole escalation of the current events. As for Madam Ye, she took the words at face value, though she didn't plan on waiting here in the open but rather in the car.

As for Ye Qing, the moment he sat in the passenger seat, his first thought was about how he would visit a bonafide territory of the dark world in society, also known as the South Side.

Ye Qing knew that he must have passed through their territories in the past and more than once at that. However, this would be his first time entering the territory while being fully aware of it. After having that fleeting thought, he focused on the notes once again.

About eight subjects including math, physics, biology, economy, and literature.

Whatever he didn't understand, Ye Qing left a mental note to review earlier materials from past classes, perhaps middle school material, to stabilize his foundations. Other than that, he felt refreshed the moment he finished going through all the notes, immediately lifting his head to notice they'd somehow arrived at an underground parking lot while Madam Ye and Zi Rumeng were patiently waiting for him to finish.

Madam Ye's brows scrunched together. "The ability to focus is very good, but you need to control yourself so as to not lose your sense of self-awareness as often."

Ye Qing smiled faintly. "I know, I'm trying to find my way around this issue as well…"

Zi Rumeng, who had gotten over her initial apprehension after spending so much time in the car with Madam Ye, suddenly spoke up, "I've noticed that you keep up your focus based on a mental task or condition you to provide to yourself… if that makes any sense. For example, why would you suddenly leave that state of mind when you've finished the notes? Could it be that you've subconsciously set the goal to focus on reading and inadvertently filtered out everything else?"

Ye Qing was stunned for a moment.

Yeah… why hadn't he thought about that possibility? He had centered his focus on reading since he was too interested to figure out whether things would work the same way they did in Clash of Titans Online. Then, what if he centered his focus on both reading and his sense of hearing?

Wait, can he limit his senses to a specific parameter too? This idea both startled and excited Ye Qing— he wanted to test it out immediately, but he had no time to do so now.

Madam Ye gave Zi Rumeng a surprised glance, as she hadn't expected the answer to this issue to be so… simple? Thinking about it, perhaps it was also incorrect to tackle every problem as though it was something difficult to handle.

"You're quite clever," Madam Ye said to Zi Rumeng, she then turned off the car's engine and rolled up the open windows before alighting into the parking lot. "Let's get going, then. The auction is about to start."

Ye Qing's excitement settled down and he quickly thought about something else as he turned to Zi Rumeng and asked. "What time is it now?"

"It'll strike 7 PM in like fifteen minutes," Zi Rumeng replied, sticking out her tongue in a playful display before she bolted out of the car as well, jogging after Madam Ye while the earlier praise echoed like a heavenly chime in the young girl's head.