Volume 10: Pro and Con
Chapter 6: The Interview (Part 3)
“In any case, when the time comes, I’ll teach you bit by bit what a boss should do.” Lu Li finished explaining some key points and found that stars were spinning around the Little Tiger’s head. She must not have understood. In his previous life, Lu Li and the Little Tiger had started a business together and hit many walls. All this experience was something he and the Chen Jianing of his past life had figured out bit by bit.
“How much salary will you pay me?” Chen Jianing asked.
“Silly. You still want a salary?” Lu Li shook his head. “We’ll sign a contract when the time comes. I’ll explain it to you in detail then.”
“You can just sign the contract for me. I wouldn’t understand it anyway. And you wouldn’t harm me, right?”
Lu Li looked at the Little Tiger’s sincere eyes, feeling both moved and amused. He was moved by her trust in him and amused by her complete legal illiteracy. It was a good thing Shenzhou had no regulations against plagiarizing game mechanics, otherwise this girl would have probably been in jail long ago.
…
Chen Jianing walked alongside Lu Li on the streets of the university town. There was no idle chatter between them. She was afraid Lu Li would suddenly suggest leaving, so she tried to find something to talk about.
“So, did you and Chu Jingyi make up in the end?”
Lu Li didn’t really like eating ice cream. The ice cream at the bottom was too stubborn; it was a difficult task to eat it cleanly and decently. As he was struggling, the ice cream, melting under the scorching sun, quietly flowed into his palm.
Chen Jianing turned his hand over and began to lick it like a little puppy. Lu Li quickly pulled his hand back. “What are you doing?”
“You’re wasteful. This ice cream is so delicious, and you let it get all over your hand.” Chen Jianing looked at him with annoyance. “I don’t even mind, so why are you reacting so strongly?”
Would a normal girl lick a boy’s hand? Oh right, Chen Jianing had always been quite abnormal. The young girl’s saliva had a faint scent, neither stinky nor fragrant. It was a little intoxicating to smell. Lu Li was too embarrassed to sniff it in front of her.
“You mean Chu Jingyi? We’ve made up, about halfway. She can’t see me right now.”
“Oh.” A flash of joy crossed Chen Jianing’s eyes, immediately followed by a complex look of shame.
Lu Li didn’t want to talk about this topic. He said, “I saw your roommates earlier. Jianing, how exactly did you introduce me to your roommates?”
“I-I didn’t really introduce you.” Chen Jianing stammered. “They didn’t give you a hard time, did they? They’ve always been a bit gossipy.”
Lu Li’s heart was touched. He was inexplicably reminded of that night during the Winter Camp. A subtle impulse flowed through his veins, urging him to confirm something. A girl who was willing to let you be her “fake” boyfriend, willing to lick your hand, and whose first kiss you had taken—besides liking you, what other feeling could there be? But the various events of his past life were like shackles, binding that subtle impulse.
“Chen Jianing…”
“Why are you suddenly calling me by my full name? Are you sick?”
A vein throbbed on Lu Li’s forehead. “Forget it, it’s nothing.” This damn girl had completely ruined the mood he had been building up for so long with a single sentence. He walked around with Chen Jianing for a while. Remembering that Baili and Hupo were still at the hotel, he said goodbye to Chen Jianing first. Chen Jianing gave a casual “oh,” said she had to go to the print shop, and then left without looking back, showing no reluctance at all. Lu Li watched her retreating back and began to doubt his vague impulse again.
She likes me. This sentence usually couldn’t be said by the person himself, because it was too conceited and inflated, and also carried a hint of wishful thinking. Perhaps this damn girl was just chronically reclusive and lacked a sense of boundaries, which was why she was especially close to him?
…
The interviews were conducted in groups. Unfortunately, Lu Li was not in the same group as An Baili and Wen Hupo. The two girls, however, were together. When Lu Li walked into the classroom, there were already more than a dozen young men and women inside.
Before Lu Li could even take his seat, he heard someone say, “Isn’t that the guy from the Winter Camp?”
I’ve run into an acquaintance? Lu Li scanned the room and found that he couldn’t remember the name of the girl who had spoken.
“…What about him?”
“He skipped all the classes during the Winter Camp. He even hung up when the teacher called him.” The voice was very low, but the classroom was quiet enough, and Lu Li wasn’t deaf.
“…If I were him, I wouldn’t have come.”
“…True.”
Lu Li noticed the gazes falling on him change from curiosity to schadenfreude. The interview, after all, was not a friendly game of house. Everyone was a competitor. In the end, only three people from one classroom could pass the interview; one could imagine how fierce the competition was.
Perhaps in everyone’s eyes, there was now one less competitor. Lu Li sat in his seat, ignoring the gazes, and checked his email on his phone. It was a notification that Shenzhou Changle Technology Company had been successfully registered. The prefix “Shenzhou” was actually quite significant. If Lu Li had handled it himself, it would have been called “Chuanhai Changle Technology Company” or “Mulan Changle Technology Company” at most. It seemed Long Di had done his best to make things convenient for him.
After clearing his inbox for a while, he saw three middle-aged men walk into the classroom, each holding a thermos. Lu Li noticed that one of them was, in fact, one of the lead teachers from the Winter Camp. That teacher walked up to the podium. “Ahem, let me introduce myself. My surname is Jiang, and my name is Zhouzheng. I am the main interviewer for this 2B01 classroom. These two are Professor Wu Sheng and Professor Chen Guo, who are also the interviewers for this session.”
The girl who had spoken earlier realized that this Professor Jiang was an old acquaintance from the Winter Camp, and a look of joy appeared on her face.
“Is everyone here? I’ll take attendance.” Professor Jiang unscrewed his thermos, slowly took a sip of tea, and then took out the roster and began to call out the names one by one. When he called the name Zhao Lulu, he pushed up his glasses slightly. “Zhao Lulu, I remember you. Your speech at the Winter Camp left a deep impression on me. Do well!”
Zhao Lulu was overjoyed. “Yes, thank you, Professor Jiang!”
Shenzhou’s universities had two teaching models: one was the public, mobile-classroom-based instruction, and the other was the private master-disciple model. When professors from certain schools took a liking to certain students, they would lead the students to participate in research outside of class time and guide them in preparing for the subsequent graduate school entrance exams. Most students, throughout their four years, only completed the public curriculum and did not fully absorb the resources the university had to offer.
Zhao Lulu was undoubtedly lucky. She had already been favored by a professor during the interview; her starting point was already higher than most of the new students.
The rest of the people couldn’t help but break into a cold sweat. Since Zhao Lulu was already a shoo-in, didn’t that mean there was one less spot available?
“Lu Li?” When Jiang Zhouzheng called this name, he pushed up his glasses again, his tone filled with surprise.
“Here.” Lu Li’s voice was listless.
“If I were you, I would start preparing for next year’s entrance exam,” Jiang Zhouzheng said bluntly. “Your written exam scores are very good, but not abiding by discipline and not following the rules is enough to overshadow your written exam scores.”
Lu Li didn’t say anything. The obedience test was the most common test in modern society. What was needed between classes was obedience, not talent. His obedience had always been poor. This was also one of the reasons why he hadn’t been admitted to Mulan University in his previous life.
“Zhu Xi.” Jiang Zhouzheng suspected he had read it wrong and asked the person next to him, “Did we get the wrong roster?”
“Here,” a cold voice came from the back row of the classroom.
This classroom was a large lecture hall of different classes. Zhu Xi had been sitting silently in the back row the whole time, and surprisingly, no one had noticed her. Or rather, they had seen her but subconsciously ignored her. The moment her “here” fell, everyone in the front rows looked at him in astonishment, and a wave of discussion rippled through the students.
Lu Li noticed that today’s Zhu Xi was wearing a wig, not her usual short hair. He felt that Zhu Xi didn’t look good with long hair; it was too fake, too hypocritical. That kind of gentle temperament shouldn’t appear on her. Zhu Xi sensed Lu Li’s gaze and shot him a fierce glare, as if warning him not to look around randomly.
Zhu Xi said, “Professor, please continue with the roll call.”
“Yes, yes, Your Highness.” Sweat began to bead on Jiang Zhouzheng’s forehead. Why hadn’t the people in the office told him in advance that Zhu Xi was also in his group?
Jiang Zhouzheng quickly finished the roll call, took another look at Zhu Xi, and then said, “Everyone is here. Does any student have materials to submit? Research achievements, articles published in provincial journals, or other A-level certificates.” This was just a routine inquiry. Most new students wouldn’t have these materials, and those who did wouldn’t be applying to Mulan University. When he said this, he wasn’t looking at anyone else, only at Zhu Xi.
