Chapter 22

When Shen Jianqing came out after a quick shower, Qin Yue was leaning back in the wide chair, left foot on the floor, right leg propped up, her pale slender arms draped casually over her knee. The pose was outrageously alluring and effortlessly cool. The thing was, she hadn’t exactly come out quietly, and this one was still sitting there like she was off in another world.

Shen Jianqing arched a brow and let her gaze travel up as she swept her curls back.

Qin Yue’s head rested on the chair back, her long hair hanging in midair and stirred by the slow-turning fan nearby like butterflies dancing lightly. Her thoughts seemed hazy and drifting, her gaze distant and unfocused. A faint red still lingered in her eyes, a delicate film of sweat lay along the length of her elegant neck, and the whole of her looked very much “after.”

Looked at more closely up near, what with her skin being so white and her energy so low and her breaths so quick and shallow, all that remained was that pitiable, delicate frailty, a far cry from the person who had covered her mouth not long ago and wrung her half to death at the door.

Shen Jianqing leaned sideways against the table, lazily tilted her head back to stretch her neck, then rolled her right shoulder and let out a comfortable sigh. “Going to grab a shower?”

Qin Yue was quiet for a few seconds. The fingers hanging over her knee curled up slightly, the thumb rubbing slowly over the knuckle of her index finger. “Don’t want to.”

Shen Jianqing hadn’t meant to force it anyway. In Qin Yue’s current state she was genuinely afraid she’d faint inside within five minutes. Shen Jianqing shrugged it off with a smile. Since she so rarely had the mood and the chance to properly study a post-act Master Qin, she studied her all the more carefully.

There were still those lips, the ones that never drank enough water and always looked dry and not quite healthy. Yet once they started kissing her they were soft and commanding, endlessly inventive.

The gauze on her neck had been torn off at some point, revealing the healing wound beneath. Shen Jianqing looked at those wounds and, with a moment’s recall, had a pretty clear idea of when Qin Yue had torn the gauze off. It seemed to have been those few seconds right before the ragged panting between her own lips was about to crest and then suddenly go still. She had pulled away sharply at that moment, tilted her head aside, chin lifting slightly while her lashes lowered to gaze down at her. In the midst of Shen Jianqing’s unfocused stare, she raised a hand and tore it off in one decisive stroke, savage as anything. What came after… even more savage.

Maybe it was because she’d freed herself from that layer of “seal.”

Shen Jianqing pressed her lips together, cleared her throat, and said to herself without a sound.

The gaze teased by memories drifted lightly and came to rest on Qin Yue’s fingers hanging at her knee.

!! ??

This… doesn’t it feel gross not to clean up?

The hands braced on the table’s edge quietly clenched. After a moment she offered a roundabout reminder. “Then how about washing your hands?”

Qin Yue’s rubbing fingers stilled. A long time passed before, as if registering what Shen Jianqing meant, she slowly raised her hand halfway, glanced at it, and dropped it back as though nothing had happened. “Not washing.”

Shen Jianqing: “…” So defiant.

“No strength left in me. Can’t walk.”

Shen Jianqing: “……..” So weak.

Shen Jianqing was at a loss for words and tactically looked away.

Turning back, she spotted the phone disassembled into parts on the table and the circuit design software open on the PC monitor, and paused in surprise. Her eyes swept quickly over the tools and blueprints spread across the table. “Qin Yue, repairing phones, designing circuits, you know how to do all this too?”

The sudden change of subject made Qin Yue blink slowly like the sloth in Zootopia before she finally deigned to raise her head.

“Do you think all I can do is soldering, something that doesn’t need a brain?” Qin Yue answered a question with a question.

Shen Jianqing choked. To be fair, she had never seen Qin Yue do anything else. A beat later she remembered the time she’d picked Qin Yue up from Lead Science to help Chen Wei, and their conversation in the car about “modesty.”

Shen Jianqing was struck with sudden clarity.

Being modest before your strengths have been discovered, the other person might take you at their word.

I’m that person, Shen Jianqing thought. I never discovered Qin Yue’s strengths and instinctively treated her as nothing more than a skilled craftswoman with good patience.

That wasn’t good.

Shen Jianqing picked up a blueprint at random and glanced at it. “Run the impedance matching for U2 again. U5 is amplifying…” Shen Jianqing did a quick mental calculation. “A thousand times. Then your front-end filtering has to be solid, otherwise 1mV of ripple gets amplified to 1V and the chance of false triggering downstream gets very high…”

In under five minutes Shen Jianqing went through the circuit Qin Yue had designed and broke into a smile. “Master Qin, not bad at all. No major problems. As for the minor ones, even if I don’t point them out now, you’ll catch them entirely from the waveforms when you verify later. You…”

“The problems you mentioned have already been fixed.” Qin Yue cut in without a trace of hurry. “What you’re holding is version 1.0. Version 1.1 is under the monitor.”

Shen Jianqing blinked and spun around to grab it. Sure enough, every one had been fixed, along with several small details her cursory glance had missed. The level of work was at least beyond her three second-year graduate students.

That said, this was only a simple two-layer board with basic functionality. She hadn’t seen anything complex and couldn’t judge that. But great things are known from small. Qin Yue’s exceptional soldering skill was enough for Shen Jianqing to be virtually certain: her circuit design ability had to go well beyond this too.

She was a high school graduate.

Shen Jianqing set down the blueprint and looked at Qin Yue deeply. “Who taught you all this?”

Qin Yue picked up the probing in her voice and looked straight at her. “No one.”

“Then how did you learn?”

“Figured it out myself.”

Shen Jianqing was surprised. Circuits were easy to pick up but hard to master. Working it out alone, you might get the broad strokes right, but it was very hard to reach Qin Yue’s level, where not a single detail was missed. For high-end boards, the make-or-break of a design often lies in the details.

Shen Jianqing leaned slightly forward and looked into Qin Yue’s eyes. “Qin Yue, just how much do you actually know about hardware?!”

Qin Yue’s voice was flat. “I can follow the theory behind Teacher Chen’s three boards. And each time she asks me to make an adjustment, I can generally see where the problem is beforehand.”

That was how she could keep up with Chen Wei’s pace so effortlessly, and stay even-tempered through her repeated demands. Because she was simply waiting for Chen Wei to tick off, one by one, the checklist of problems in her head. Not being ordered around like a soldering tool.

“Anything else?!” Shen Jianqing fired off.

Qin Yue pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, her face still unruffled. “The first day in 312, when you were discussing that code problem, I could follow a bit of that too. I just don’t know how to solve it yet.”

This far exceeded Shen Jianqing’s expectations! She looked at Qin Yue, her gaze growing slowly incandescent.

A moment later, Shen Jianqing asked with utmost seriousness, “Qin Yue, would you like to learn FPGA or microcontrollers?”

In the internet age, the job prospects for FPGA and microcontrollers far outstripped pure circuit work, and the pay was higher. FPGA in particular saw wide application in fields like communications and imaging that involved high-speed computation, yet the talent gap in that area was enormous. Shen Jianqing recalled that back in 2021, more than half of all companies nationwide had a severe shortage of engineers even at intermediate level or above.

If Qin Yue mastered that programming language, she could leave Lead Science at once, transforming from a “never-see-daylight” workshop worker and walking into those grand, bright towers. She might still work overtime then, and the pressure would be greater than now. But she would surely never again face the kind of heart-stopping scene from last night.

If she got off late, she could take the transportation allowance that covered a taxi home, call herself a car from the office, and then sit back and relax while the driver phoned in with a courteous, “Good evening, ma’am. I’m arriving at the destination shortly. Please come down in time.”

Shen Jianqing held the blueprint and could already picture the scene. That was the life Qin Yue deserved: the life of someone who could have gone so much further but had been tripped up early by a soft heart. She had already forced her way halfway forward through sheer effort. The rest…

“Qin Yue, let’s do it. I’ll teach you,” Shen Jianqing said.

Qin Yue met her eyes and asked, unhurried, “What’s in it for you, teaching me?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why teach me?”

“I don’t want to see you go through what happened last night again. I don’t want your life to stall out over things beyond your control.”

“Aching for me again?”

“…” Shen Jianqing pressed her lips together, then released them. “What else?”

Qin Yue looked at her quietly for a few seconds, then suddenly dropped her eyes and laughed, folding herself over her knee. “Teacher Shen, having a friend like you is a blessing I’ve earned over three lifetimes.”

Shen Jianqing frowned. That word “you” coming out of Qin Yue’s mouth really was awkward.

Shen Jianqing nudged Qin Yue’s toe with her foot and pressed. “So are you learning or not? Once September comes around, I’ll have graduate courses.”

Qin Yue looked up, a smile playing at her lips. “Of course. When pie falls from the sky, why wouldn’t I reach out and catch it? I’m not an idiot.”

Shen Jianqing breathed a sigh of relief. “Once the schedule comes out, I’ll send it to you. Go to the lectures if you can; if not, that’s fine too. I’ll find time to tutor you one-on-one.”

The smile on Qin Yue’s lips bloomed wider. “Thank you, Teacher Shen.”

Shen Jianqing shot her a sideways glance. “Qin Yue, you’re being a little strange today.”

“How so?”

Shen Jianqing studied her, thinking to herself. Before she could land on “you smile too much,” the phone rang and the sight of it gave her a headache.

“Hello, Teacher Ke,” Shen Jianqing said.

Ke Liangping’s voice rang out at full volume. “He’s had you on WeChat for nearly two hours! Why haven’t you accepted yet!”

Shen Jianqing lied through her teeth. “Forgot.”

“I knew it!” Ke Liangping nagged with the exasperation of a master whose student wouldn’t improve. “When are you going to take your own affairs seriously? You’re thirty-four. When your mother was your age, you were almost done with primary school. She…”

“Teacher Ke.” Shen Jianqing cut him off. Her voice was a low, hard note Qin Yue had never heard before. “If you have a problem with me, say it about me. Don’t bring up other people.”

Ke Liangping seemed to draw a breath at the other end. A few seconds later he spoke again, his tone resigned. “I’m only anxious for you.”

“Mm. I know you mean well.”

“Sigh, you.” Ke Liangping sighed. “Fine, I won’t push you. Tell you what: Teacher Wang’s students took the group first prize at the electronic design competition, right? I’ll have him treat everyone to dinner tonight. You both come. Meet once first, and if you hit it off, consider the next step.”

With Ke Liangping having gone this far, refusing again would be downright ungrateful. Shen Jianqing held the phone and answered in a low voice, “Mm.”

“Oh, and one more person. Bring her along for me,” Ke Liangping remembered and added.

“Who?”

“That little master of yours at home.”

“???” Shen Jianqing was utterly lost. “What little master do I have at home?”

Ke Liangping instantly recovered his booming voice. “How do you not?! Chen Wei told me everything. The person you found saved her life! Don’t tell me you’re the type to slaughter the donkey once the grinding’s done and forget the poor little master so fast!”

Shen Jianqing snapped awake and quickly looked up at Qin Yue, who had already heard everything Ke Liangping said. But… why did her expression look so teasing? That didn’t match Master Qin’s taciturn, big-shot aura at all. She must be seeing things.

Shen Jianqing gathered her thoughts and got back to the point. “What do you want her there for?”

“To thank her,” Ke Liangping said. “You know how important this project is better than I do. The little master helped us through a rough patch without a word of fuss. Wouldn’t it be wrong of me not to thank her to her face?”

“It would,” Shen Jianqing answered without thinking. “But she’s very busy with work. She might not…”

“I’m not busy,” Qin Yue said suddenly.

Shen Jianqing was startled. The “busy” had of course been an excuse; her real reason was that she didn’t think Qin Yue was the type to enjoy a crowd. But this wasn’t what she’d expected at all.

Shen Jianqing silently stared at Qin Yue for a few seconds, then said to Ke Liangping, “I’ll ask her first and get back to you later.”

The call ended and Shen Jianqing asked Qin Yue point-blank, “Are you serious?”

“Serious.”

Now Shen Jianqing was completely certain. “You really are being strange today.”

Qin Yue straightened up and leaned back into the chair, same three words. “How so?”

“Everywhere.” Shen Jianqing rattled off at speed. “Only that last retort barely preserved your big-shot aura.”

“If we’re going, we need to hurry. It’s nearly five. I’ll go home, change, and put on some makeup. We should make it right on time,” Shen Jianqing said.

“Mm,” Qin Yue answered, and didn’t move.

Shen Jianqing’s brows shot sky-high. “You’re not changing?”

“I’m going to broaden my horizons, not to be set up.”

“…” Shen Jianqing nearly choked to death. After two deep breaths, she said, “Then comb your hair, put your shoes on, and come with me to change.”

Qin Yue answered with the same flat “Mm” and raised her hand. “Give me a hand, Teacher Shen. My legs are still weak. Can’t stand up.”

Shen Jianqing threw up her hands. “Are you sure it wasn’t you who made my legs weak and wouldn’t let me slide down?”

“Can’t say for sure.”

Shen Jianqing was so exasperated she laughed. Her hand carved an arc through the air and landed on Qin Yue’s. “Come on!”

The words left her mouth and Shen Jianqing’s hand, clasping Qin Yue’s, froze where it was.

Qin Yue, meanwhile, calmly drew her hand back, wiped her slick fingers, and said, “Nearly forgot. I haven’t washed my hands yet.”