CH 9

The highlight of the summer camp was actually on the second day. Fang Huaining and others needed to have one-on-one consultations with the postgraduate students who came from other schools. They had to introduce to them the mentor’s strengths, research directions, and answer all kinds of random questions.

This time, everybody was so busy that they only realized it was lunchtime when the meal arrived. 

The one who came was that same enthusiastic delivery guy from Doudou Dim Sum Restaurant. He did not forget to introduce the new menu items to everyone while collecting money.

After finally sending him away, Hong Yue noticed that Fang Huaining had not touched the meal in front of him

Hong Yue asked: “Is it not to your taste? I even ordered the same dessert as yesterday, didn’t you like it?”

Fang Huaining lowered his head: “Mn, leave it there for now.” 

Hong Yue pursed her lips and stopped talking.

Li Ting originally had four part-time jobs. However, two were temporarily closed due to summer vacation and will reopen in September. Li Ting did not feel relaxed because of this. He had already searched for two other jobs and was going to the interviews today. One of them had cooperated with the store where Li Ting used to work. When they saw that it was him, they happily accepted him. The other one was newly opened. After listening to Li Ting’s brilliant and solid resume, they also nodded without saying another word.

After it was done, Li Ting took the student ID he rented and went to the University A’s library. Library A was quite humane in terms of taking care of the summer students. It opens three days a week, two hours both in the morning and the afternoon. Li Ting remembered it clearly. However, when he went there, he saw a notice posted on the door that the library space was rented due to the “Guaranteed Postgraduates Summer Camp” held by several departments in the school.  Thus, the opening of the library was delayed by two hours.

Two hours was a bit long, but Li Ting who has work at four, could afford to wait. The weather was so hot, he was unhappy about going back and forth so he casually found a shaded bench under the tree at the door and sat down.

From here, you can see a large number of people coming and going in the library plaza. There are also colorful flags and banners put up at the entrance, which is probably there for the summer camp. Countless outstanding young students walked in and out with confident steps. Even from such a distance, the rising vitality could be felt.

Li Ting took out a water bottle and took a sip. Then he heard the two girls behind him discussing in a quiet voice.

“Have you decided? Which mentor are you choosing?”

“After wandering around… Liu Chuping, Song Zhao, and Liang Jingtao are all not bad.” 

“Vbcu Itjb lr ubbv, yea Ole Jteqlcu? Gbc’a sbe atlcx tlr dejilolmjalbcr jgf abb rtjiibk?”

“Vtjiibk dejilolmjalbcr jirb tjnf atflg jvnjcajufr. Ktf cfk afjmtfgr afcv ab ajxf la wbgf rfglberis. Lbk wjcs bo atbrf gfcbkcfv ylu cjwfr kbeiv gfjiis afjmt sbe rafq ys rafq, atfs bcis rbecv ubbv. Ccv atfgf wera yf j iba bo qfbqif jqqislcu obg Vbcu Itjb ijbrtl. Ktfgf’r abb wemt mbwqfalalbc.”

“Isn’t this what that hot guy just said? Hahaha, did you get brainwashed just because he’s hot?”

“What are you saying… what he said made sense.” 

“Made what sense? I heard that someone found out that hot guy is actually following Ni Weinian after inquiring about him. He’s the real big name.”

“That impressive? Ni Weinian hasn’t been recruiting for a long time. But if even Ni-laoshi’s student vouched for Liu Chuping. Doesn’t that mean that Liu Chuping is good?”

“I think you just think that the hot guy is the one who’s good…”

“Shut up you, it’s so hot outside that it’s making you muddle-headed.” 

“You’re the one who became muddle-headed by good looks. Come come come, let’s go in. There’s air conditioner inside, we can take a look at some books and then take a look at that hot guy in the passing…”

The people around Li Ting joked as they came and went, but he continued to sit there silently. From time to time, he would take out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

Suddenly, a girl in the distance waved her hands. Li Ting didn’t move. It was not until the other party waved twice more perseveringly that Li Ting confirmed that it was directed at him.

Although he was puzzled, he walked over. 

“Student, can you help me? Let’s each pull one end and tie the rope tighter.” The girl pointed to the loose banner on the wall.

However, Li Ting pulled her down when she was about to step onto the stool. He stepped onto it himself and with two or three moves, he tied the hemp rope that was nearly fingers-thick into a tight knot.

The girl was shocked: “Wow, you’re very strong.”

Li Ting didn’t answer, he turned around and was going to continue to wait for the door to open under the tree but was stopped by the girl’s voice. 

“Excuse me, are you a guaranteed postgraduate student?” During this time, guaranteed postgraduate students are either consulting, visiting their tutors, or quietly nibbling on textbooks in order to cope with the exams in the next two days. They shouldn’t be so idle.

Sure enough, Li Ting said: “No.”

“Really? That’s great!” The girl’s eyes lit up, “Ah… I finally found someone who is not from another school, thank god. C-can can… you lend me a hand?”

Although it was a question, she already grabbed onto Li Ting and pulled him inside. She said as she walked: “During summer vacation, students from University A are really hard to find, we really have no other choice…” 

Li Ting inexplicably followed her into the door of the library. They walked directly across the hall towards the most crowded place. Only when they got closer, did he notice the row of booths there. Behind the booths were many exhibition boards which listed the basic information of the master’s and doctoral mentors, things like their research directions and the various projects in their hands. Students from University A sit at one end, and students from other schools sit at the other end. The two sides were exchanging a friendly consultation.

However, because it’s a one-on-one activity, the over-enthusiasm of postgraduate students from the external schools has caused a great tilt in the balance of the number of people in some booths. Li Ting was taken to the most lively place.

Excluding the many consultants, Li Ting saw two boys in the center. One of the two was very familiar.

Fang Huaining looked towards him unexpectedly when he heard Hong Yue say that she had found a helper. As soon as he saw the person coming, his facial expression only stiffened slightly before returning to his calm state. 

Very good, after so many times, he’s already experienced.

“Let him help record the student’s information.” Hong Yue said to Fang Huaining, and then turned to reassure Li Ting, “It’s not very complicated, many students didn’t bring their resumes. You can just help record what school they’re from, what they’re good at, and what they want to learn. It doesn’t matter if it’s wrong, it’s just a rough statistic. We’ll check it at the end, you can ask if you don’t understand something, is it okay?”

Li Ting didn’t answer immediately, he swept across several people before his eyes fell onto Fang Huaining’s face.

He originally thought the other wanted him to help with some physical work, but it turned out to be such technical work. Li Ting had seen these people when he came to deliver food yesterday. Likely because he stayed too short and is now wearing his regular clothes, no one recognized him and treated him as a student of University A. But even if others don’t recognize him, the person in front of him probably recognizes him. Even if he agrees, the other probably isn’t willing to let a food delivery man handle the matters of masters and doctoral students. 

Who knew that Fang Huaining didn’t expose it, neither did he object to it, he just looked at Li Ting and asked softly, “Do you have anything to do this afternoon?”

Hong Yue also just remembered: “Oh, right, I was so busy that I forgot to ask you, do you have time? Actually, we’re quite quick, it won’t take too long.”

After a brief pause, Li Ting finally said in the eyes of several pairs of anticipation: “No.”

“Okay okay, then sit down quickly, this is the form, hold this pen, and write here… Right, we will tell you what to write…” Hong Yue quickly pushed him to sit down beside Fang Huaining. Without giving Li Ting the slightest bit of buffer, she called the guaranteed postgraduates over while she herself went to face another wave of crowd. 

Fang Huaining has always had a sense of propriety, but at that moment he admitted that he had let his curiosity take over. He really wanted to see if this talented person who always inexplicably appeared in front of him would screw things up. After all, this thing is not as simple as Hong Yue said, it’s very unfriendly to amateurs. But it didn’t matter, as long he’s here, he can always deal with the aftermath in time.

While thinking of this, Fang Huaining asked some key questions from time to time while listening to the students in front of him.

The conversation went relatively smoothly at first, and the person beside him only needed to write down their school, their name, and their phone number. There haven’t been any mistakes.

Fang Huaining was quite satisfied, and he found that this small farm-… this little secretary’s handwriting is quite beautiful. Just looking at it, you would think it was written by a very rough man. It was upright and vigorous, not at all similar to his soft and dazzling appearance. 

However, as the conversation deepened, Fang Huaining’s mind was inevitably focused on the proper affairs due to the complexity of the problem and the flow of personnel. When he regained his senses, he realized that most of the conversations he had just used were in English.

Fang Huaining thought oh crap. He tried hard to recall the content left by the previous few students and planned to check the form later to fill in the gaps. His memory probably won’t go wrong.

Who knew that when he turned around, he saw that the form at hand was filled out neatly to the brim. The little secretary who was writing seriously with his head down, not only wrote Chinese well, but also recorded foreign characters fluently and gracefully.

City A is a big city with international practices. It is not difficult for experienced workers here to know some foreign languages. Even the cleaners from the street where the bars are located speak better than many college students. There’s nothing strange about a delivery guy knowing English. However, to be able to write a lot of professional vocabulary for computer science, and even the principles and nouns that can only be accessed in this field, is not exactly normal. 

Li Ting didn’t hear Fang Huaining’s voice for a long time, so he raised his head and met a pair of eyes blankly staring at him, not even noticing that the student in front of him had called him.