087 I’ll Let You Play Dumb
“Sister Lu, I can see you’re teasing me. I hope you won’t do this in the future.”
After saying this, Wang Heng closed his mouth and calmly faced Lu Qi’s gaze.
Lu Qi leaned back against her chair and said with a smile, “Alright, since you don’t like it, I won’t tease you anymore. Let’s talk about something else. How are your classes at school?”
Wang Heng: “They’re alright.”
Lu Qi: “Do you need me to help you with tutoring? Advanced math, linear algebra, and the like, I still remember them…”
Wang Heng quickly shook his head. “No need, really no need. For these things, as long as you master the formula, passing is very simple.”
Lu Qi raised her eyebrows slightly and teased, “Are you satisfied with just passing? I thought you were aiming for a scholarship.”
Wang Heng: “There’s no need to force that. The salary Sister Lu gives me is incomparable to a scholarship.”
Lu Qi smiled. “Your skill and contribution are also incomparable to that small salary.”
Wang Heng said in a serious tone, “Thank you for the compliment, Sister Lu. You flatter me.”
Faced with such a dry reply, Lu Qi was at a loss for words for a moment.
After a brief silence, Wang Heng spoke again:
“Sister Lu isn’t eating either, right? Then I’ll take care of these two and go to work first. If you need anything, just call me.”
With that, he took the two nearly-finished cups of instant noodles and went out.
He poured out the soup from the instant noodles, threw away the trash, and then returned to his workstation to continue writing code, not going back to Lu Qi’s office.
And in that office, Lu Qi opened the window to its widest to let the smell of instant noodles dissipate as quickly as possible.
“You brat, I’ll let you play dumb!”
She leaned against the windowsill, looked out at the overcast sky, and sneered.
Glancing at her own side profile reflected in the window glass, Lu Qi suddenly felt a little regretful—it was a pity she didn’t smoke. Otherwise, lighting one up at a time like this would have given her more of a queenly air.
So, should she try smoking one?
After a brief moment of thought, she gave up the idea. After all, from a rational point of view, smoking harms the body and will most likely shorten one’s life. If it wasn’t for an addiction, but just for the so-called “air,” it really wasn’t worth it.
She sat back down in her chair and opened the code Wang Heng had submitted.
Because he was a part-time temporary worker, and his working hours were much shorter than others, the amount of code Wang Heng submitted was naturally much less. But compared to the code written by other subordinates, Wang Heng’s work results were always the most satisfying to Lu Qi.
The logic was clear, the structure was complete, and even the comments were written clearly.
“Smart, and knows how to play dumb. Impressive.”
After reading this piece of code and running it once to confirm there were no bugs, Lu Qi started to look at another subordinate’s code. Before long, her brows furrowed.
“The beginning was fine, but this part… what is this?”
**
Wang Heng got off work.
His working hours were on Saturdays and Sundays, which were overtime hours for his other colleagues, while most other industries still had a two-day weekend. So the subway after work was not that crowded.
Wang Heng walked into the subway car and suddenly saw a familiar figure.
The person was tall and handsome, wearing in-ear headphones, and looking at the advertisement board outside, seemingly thinking about something. His stern side profile had the air of a male protagonist from a female-oriented novel. And although his clothes were not from any famous brand, just simple casual wear, they were relatively slim-fitting, showing off his tall and slender figure to the fullest.
This handsome guy was none other than his long-time roommate, Wang Ke.
Around him, several girls were secretly sizing up Wang Ke. Some were university students, some were white-collar office ladies, all with looks of admiration and even some expectation. It was unknown what they were expecting.
But strangely, the two girls closest to Wang Ke were looking at him with a strange gaze. There was no admiration in their eyes, but rather some… contempt?
And it wasn’t just the girls. There were also two boys around who were staring at Wang Ke, whispering to each other and snickering.
Why was that?
Wang Heng walked over and patted his roommate’s shoulder.
Wang Ke took off his left earphone, looked away, and immediately smiled. “Yo, Teacher Wang!”
Wang Heng stared at his headphones and finally understood why the two girls closest to him had that expression.
“What are you listening to?” Wang Heng asked, pointing at the headphones.
“A compilation of Rie Kugimiya’s insults. It’s awesome!” Wang Ke replied with a happy smile.
Wang Heng was speechless.
Of course, he knew Rie Kugimiya. She was a super voice actress in 2D anime, especially good at voicing loli characters, especially tsundere lolis. The legendary ‘Four Tsundere Wonders of Rie Kugimiya’, the four most popular tsundere loli characters, were terrifying existences that could make a large number of otaku have nosebleeds.
Tsundere loli insults like “It’s not like I did it for you,” “It’s not like I like you,” “Urusai,”(shut up, noisy) and “Pervert, pervert, big pervert” were what made thousands of otaku addicted.
Clearly, Wang Ke was one of the deeply addicted.
So what was that saying again? When you see a cool and handsome guy wearing headphones on the subway, you can never imagine what he’s actually listening to.
However, Wang Ke’s situation at this moment was particularly awkward.
Wang Heng still pointed at his headphones and said, “Your headphones are leaking sound.”
Wang Ke: “…What?”
Wang Heng: “Within a three-meter radius, everyone can hear your Rie Kugimiya insults.”
Wang Ke fumbled for his phone and paused the playback. He looked around again and found that people were indeed staring at him. He quickly took off his headphones and stuffed them into his pants pocket along with his phone.
Wang Heng sighed. “Little Ke, you should know that Rie Kugimiya herself is not a loli, right?”
Wang Ke: “I know. A voice actress who debuted more than ten years ago, of course she can’t be a loli.”
Wang Heng: “According to your standards, she’s definitely an old woman, auntie-level. So why are you still so obsessed?”
Wang Ke argued, “But this old woman can portray the essence of a loli! I don’t care about the person, I just appreciate the essence!”
Wang Heng looked around. “…Keep your voice down. If you keep shouting, even I’ll be treated like a pervert.”
Wang Ke scratched the back of his head. “Alright, then we’ll talk about this when we get back to the dorm. By the way, I wanted to ask you, you got off work so late? Is it that busy at Penguin Company?”
Wang Heng nodded. “I’m still okay. I only come on Saturdays and Sundays. For the others, there are just too many who work 996.”
Wang Ke, who was also a computer science major, asked naively, “What does 996 mean?”
“Work from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., six days a week,” Wang Heng said with a profound meaning. “You’ll understand when you graduate.”
Wang Ke couldn’t help but click his tongue. “That’s so terrifying…”
Wang Heng chuckled lightly and changed the subject. “What were you doing on the subway so late?”
Wang Ke replied, “Tutoring my relative’s child. It’s my aunt’s child, just started junior high, and his grades aren’t very good, so she asked me to tutor him on weekends.”
Wang Heng sensed a certain dangerous possibility and immediately asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
“Of course it’s a boy…” Wang Ke stared at him and protested, “Hey, what’s with that relieved look on your face? I already said I wouldn’t commit a crime!”
As soon as the word ‘crime’ was spoken, half the people in the car turned to look at him. The girl sitting next to Wang Ke sucked in a breath of cold air and silently moved further away.
Wang Heng also coughed, faced forward, and sat up straight, with a look that said, ‘I don’t know this guy.’
Translator’s Notes
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Rie Kugimiya (钉宫, Dìnggōng): A famous Japanese voice actress known for voicing many popular tsundere loli characters.
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996: The “996 working hour system” is a work schedule practiced by some companies in China. It derives its name from its requirement that employees work from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm, 6 days per week. It’s a notorious and controversial aspect of China’s tech industry work culture.
