NOVEL NEXT Ch. 15
Chapter 15: Coincidence, Probability
When Bai Lengci walked out of the data room holding those few books of college entrance exam materials, the atmosphere in the living room was completely different from before.
Yu Chunqiu was sitting comfortably on that wide mahogany sofa, holding a cup of hot tea in his hand.
Luo Nansheng, on the other hand, was sitting gracefully in a single armchair, still carrying a trace of post-meal languor.
She held a hardcover book in her hand.
“Xiaobai! Come, come, come!”
The moment Yu Chunqiu saw her, he immediately waved warmly, the smile on his face even brighter than before.
“Come sit down, did you find the materials? Oh my, you’ve taken so many books, so diligent, huh?”
Bai Lengci walked over and placed the materials on the small coffee table beside the sofa.
“Mm, I found some of what I needed.”
Yu Chunqiu put down his teacup, as if he had just remembered, and pointed to Luo Nansheng, who was sitting diagonally opposite.
“Look at my memory, I forgot to introduce you. This is Luo Nansheng, the young lady of an old friend of mine, just back from the capital.”
“Xixi.”
He turned to Luo Nansheng.
“This is Bai Lengci, the outstanding young person I mentioned to you before.”
Luo Nansheng lifted her eyes from the page.
She gave a slight nod, counted as a greeting, her coolness unchanged.
Yu Chunqiu continued with great enthusiasm.
“Xixi will also be transferring to Jiangcheng No.1 High School this year for her senior year. Hey, isn’t that a coincidence? She just arrived in Jiangcheng a couple of days ago, and here you are visiting already!”
His tone carried a hint of intention.
“Who knows, maybe the two of you will even end up in the same class! What else could that be but fate?”
At these words, Luo Nansheng’s brows furrowed slightly.
She closed the book in her hand and looked up at Yu Chunqiu, speaking with a faint indifference.
“Teacher, the number of classes in Jiangcheng No.1 High School is limited. Even if we end up in the same class, it’s nothing strange. Besides, this is just an overlap of mathematical probability, in line with random distribution. It can’t be called a ‘coincidence,’ let alone ‘fate.’”
Being so earnestly “lectured” on probability by a student, Yu Chunqiu was not annoyed at all.
Instead, he chuckled and turned to look at Bai Lengci, his gaze carrying an obvious “See? That’s just her temperament” expression.
Out loud, though, he asked:
“Xiaobai, what do you think? Xixi says this is only probability, not fate. What’s your take?”
Bai Lengci was just sipping the glass of water the housemaid had brought, clear water, taking small sips.
Hearing Yu Chunqiu toss the question to her, she simply put down the cup calmly and gave a brief response: “Luo classmate is right. I agree.”
Seeing that the Bai Lengci spoken of by the teacher so easily sided with her, Luo Nansheng felt no satisfaction from being acknowledged.
Instead, she thought the other’s attitude was too perfunctory, even indifferent.
A trace of displeasure flickered in her cool gaze, and she spoke again, her tone more serious than before.
“Events of probability are often underpinned by complex chains of causality.
For example, I came to Jiangcheng because of family arrangements.
Bai classmate visited the teacher today, surely with a specific purpose as well.
Two trajectories that appear to intersect by chance actually originate from independent but inevitable choices.
To call this some mystical ‘fate’ is to ignore the inner logic of things.”
She tried to push the discussion toward a deeper analysis of cause and effect.
Yu Chunqiu once again looked toward Bai Lengci, smiling as he asked:
“Xiaobai, doesn’t Xixi make sense? This causality, what do you think?”
Bai Lengci nodded noncommittally.
“Luo classmate makes a lot of sense.”
Still the same soulless agreement.
Luo Nansheng finally found it hard to bear.
She could accept heated academic debate, but not this kind of one-sided exchange, like throwing a punch only to land it on cotton!
Especially when this elder and younger seemed to be amusing themselves at her expense!
Luo Nansheng was a little angry, her face expressionless as she said:
“Teacher, it seems I came at the wrong time today, disturbing your pleasure in toying with ‘young people.’
I wonder who it was yesterday, on the phone, saying they were a lonely old man, how long it had been since anyone visited…
Yet here I am, and this is how you treat me: cheating at chess, playing deaf when asked questions.
I won’t come here again.”
Seeing the timing was just about right, Yu Chunqiu immediately let out an “Aiya,” feigning surprise as he turned toward Bai Lengci.
“Xiaobai, look what you’ve done, how did you make Xixi angry? Come on, come on, talk to her properly. You can’t just keep saying ‘right, right, right,’ how boring is that!”
Bai Lengci felt a little helpless.
How was Luo Nansheng’s anger related to her!
She hadn’t done anything!
But at that moment, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the college entrance exam materials she had placed on the sofa beside her.
The key to the data room… Yu Chunqiu’s “do as you like”… the convenience she had just accepted…
When under someone else’s roof, one had no choice but to bow one’s head.
She figured she had become the tool for “educating” Luo Nansheng.
Bai Lengci’s voice remained steady, but her pace of speech slowed, carrying a deliberate tone of weighing each word.
“Luo classmate, anger often stems from the gap between expectation and reality. You expected a rigorous debate, while I...”
She paused, the corner of her lips seeming to curve upward ever so faintly, so quickly one might think it an illusion.
“…only feel that coincidence itself is too broad a concept, so broad it can hold any explanation. Just as Mr. Yu calls it fate, and you call it probability, essentially, both are frameworks imposed to interpret a phenomenon that cannot be fully verified or falsified.”
Luo Nansheng’s brows knitted tighter.
“‘Imposing a framework’? Bai classmate, are you saying my analysis of probability and causality is subjective conjecture?”
“Not entirely subjective conjecture.”
Bai Lengci shook her head lightly.
“Probability is a mathematical tool. Causality is a logical chain. They certainly have objectivity and explanatory power. I’m only curious…”
Her gaze swept past Yu Chunqiu, finally landing again on Luo Nansheng’s face.
“When Luo classmate so firmly excludes fate as a subjective feeling, isn’t she also, with her chosen objective framework, rejecting another possible, equally unquantifiable kind of ‘connection’? For example, the butterfly in the butterfly effect—its fluttering wings and a distant storm. Before the storm occurs, isn’t that link also just a tiny coincidence drowned in probability?”