The Most Important Lesson I Taught Them

I dropped by to help my younger sister revise her thesis, and while I was at it, I joined her research group for dinner.

The moment I walked into the private dining room, a few girls blushed and called out to me.

“Hey, handsome, are you single? Give us a shot!”

My sister’s boyfriend, Eric Pensworth, looked at me with a faint smile.

“Man, you look kind of familiar. You remind me of that pretty boy everyone’s been talking about on the forum.

“They say you slept with Professor Alva Jackson and stole my direct-entry PhD spot.”

I froze.

The Alva Jackson he was talking about was the newly hired professor at Adams University, fresh back from overseas.

Just as I was about to explain, he cut me off with an innocent look.

“Maybe I got the wrong guy. You look way too respectable to be the kind of guy who lives off women.

“But Professor Jackson’s nearly fifty. How could you even do it with her?”

I stared at him, completely dumbfounded.

Since when had I become a fifty-year-old woman?

Was there another Alva Jackson at Adams University besides me?

The atmosphere instantly turned tense.

The girls who had been asking for my number froze mid-gesture, their hands still hanging in the air as their expressions shifted.

My face darkened.

I had heard about this guy, Eric Pensworth. My sister Lucy had mentioned him before. She said he was the most popular guy in their department. Handsome, but with a bit of a temper.

Now it was obvious that “a bit of a temper” was putting it lightly. The guy clearly had no sense.

When Eric saw that I wasn’t responding, he feigned surprise.

“Hey, did I make you mad? Sorry, sorry. Maybe I really got the wrong guy.”

He said the words, but the provocation in his eyes was obvious.

“It’s just that you look exactly like that pretty boy everyone’s been talking about on the forum.

“I heard he got all those first-author papers in top journals by sleeping with Professor Jackson.

“So tell me, man. You wouldn’t happen to know Professor Jackson too, right?”

I looked at him calmly. “I do know Alva Jackson.”

A flicker of satisfaction crossed Eric’s eyes. He stood up and walked over, looking me up and down.

“That watch on your wrist must be worth over a hundred grand, right?

“So selling your looks didn’t just get you academic resources. It got you luxury goods too.

“Your life must be pretty easy. You skipped twenty years of hard work.”

I frowned. Was it really so hard to believe that I might simply have my own money?

I met his gaze and said clearly, word by word, “You’re mistaken. The Alva Jackson you’re talking about is me.”

I thought that made things perfectly clear.

Instead, Eric burst out laughing.

“Man, Alva Jackson is the name of that old woman. How could it possibly be you?

“Since you’re this shameless, I guess I might as well say it out loud.

“First you seduced Professor Jackson. Now you’re setting your sights on my girlfriend, Lucy.”

I was speechless.

Did Lucy pick her boyfriend based on how dumb he was?

I looked at him, annoyed. “You’re saying I’m seducing Lucy?”

“Isn’t that exactly what you’re doing?”

Eric pulled out his phone and opened a photo.

“The night before last, in the corner of the library. I saw you and Lucy sitting with your heads close together. You looked pretty intimate.

“And Lucy was typing on her laptop while you stood there telling her what to do.

“What else would you call that if not having her ghostwrite your paper?”

The photo had clearly been taken from a distance.

Lucy’s thesis had been a mess, so I had been pointing at the screen and scolding her for her terrible logic while she quietly fixed it.

There had been nothing remotely intimate about it.

But college students loved jumping to conclusions. The whispers around the room grew louder.

“Oh, so that’s what was going on. No wonder Lucy’s been disappearing lately.”

“He’s that good-looking and still chooses to do something this shameless?”