CH 12

12. Chapter 12

What did that mean? Evil people? How bad did a person have to be for them to be considered evil?

Before waiting for a response, Zhu Yun heard Li Xun say, “Right now, you’re like a tire without any air.”

Zhu Yun, “….”

How was she supposed to respond to that? Her attack power had truly decreased.

Li Xun walked away and said, “Go get some work done. You’ve already wasted an entire afternoon.”

But Zhu Yun couldn’t recover her excitement. She suddenly felt that she’d spent a lot of energy on this seminar project. Even her last year in high school had never been this tiring. A tightly wound string had been released. That desperation and exhaustion that hadn’t bothered her before was now falling down on her.

“I’m going to take a break today,” Zhu Yun said.

Li Xun stopped at the door. The atmostphere felt a bit strange. A few seconds later, Li Xun turned back around and walked up to Zhu Yun. He grabbed onto her shoulders.

The depth of emotion Zhu Yun saw in his eyes caused her inner soul to tremble.

Li Xun spoke quietly, deeply, “Zhu Yun, do you know this?”

What?

“Everything in the world can only maintain its original form at the very beginning. As time moves forward, those things will diverge from their original form.”

That made sense.

“But those things are still worth the effort we put into them.”

Why?

“Because with our hard work, we can keep those things from changing too greatly.”

Is that so.

“Don’t you think so?”

Mmh…

Zhu Yun looked into Li Xun’s sincere eyes. She could only lift her head and nod. Just as she started to nod though, Li Xun’s expression had returned to that of an arrogant young master.

“So just get angry a bit, but don’t think of doing anymore than that.”

He stuffed his hands into his pants pockets, and a pair of cutting eyes looked down at her. Quietly, he threatened, “If you dare drop out (of this project), I’ll have to kill you.”

Zhu Yun, “…………”

In order to avoid death, Zhu Yun returned to the project base to get working.

As the computer booted up, she looked over at Gao Jianhong. He’d been concentrating awhile before he finally noticed her. “What is it?”

“…Did Li Xun give you some chicken soup yet?”

Gao Jianhong stopped typing. He tried to restrain his laughter. Quietly, he replied, “Mmh… Nearly scared me to death.”

Agreed.

That evening, Zhu Yun’s work was moving along very inefficiently, but still, she didn’t leave until late. When she finally left, Li Xun was still curled up in his chair, typing away, just as before.

The night was quiet after a rainstorm.

As Zhu Yun passed the sports field, she walked over to it. The grass was wet. The field was empty. She looked around a bit, and then changed her course and headed to a print shop in the residential area.

“What would you like to print?”

“A photo.”

“Where’s your USB?”

“It’s on my phone. Do you have a cable?”

“Yeah. How many?”

“Just one.”

She printed out the photo she’d taken of Li Xun at the Languan presentation. Then, she placed it into the deepest recess of her backpack. It was very useful.

When she returned to the project base the next day, all her weariness had worn away. She didn’t feel as tired as she had after their meeting with Han Jiakang the previous day. And she wasn’t like a shriveled up tire, unable to recover her excitement for any task. Her face was gleaming and her spirit was alive.

This was much better than chicken soup. She was basically carrying an energy source on her back at all times.

The collaboration with Zhang Xiaobei’s lab began.

Because Old Mr Lin’s lessons required much preparation, and because he had the utmost faith in Li Xun, he left the seminar project in Li Xun’s care from the start. He only dropped by the project base if any problems arose.

Zhang Xiaobei, on the other hand, was very different. She put a lot of effort into both her lab and the seminar group. She wanted to treat everything with fairness, so she stopped by the project base every day, whether or not there were any issues. She was concerned about the progress. She made suggestions on changes. She would test pages. And then, she would bring each day’s completed materials back to her lab to integrate together with the rest of the project.

These steady, though busy, days continued. At first, everything seemed to be progressing wihout a hitch, but then problems slowly started to appear.

The first big project that Zhang Xiaobei undertook was the frontend aesthetics. Advisor Zhang’s favorite thing was changing the color of the dialogue boxes.

Zhu Yun was in charge of the UI. When she received a draft from the lab, she immediately wrote up the the necessary plugin and components. But not long after, another draft would arrive. Colors, sizes, form details all underwent changes. In the end, Zhu Yun ended up rewriting the entire plugin. After several rounds of this torture, Zhu Yun couldn’t take it anymore.

She sought out Li Xun and explained the situation. Li Xun put down his laptop and gave a call to Han Jiakang.

Han Jiakang’s expressionless skeleton face was the same as ever. “What is it?”

Li Xun asked him to relay to Zhang Xiaobei that Languan’s representative would be coming, in the near future, to check up on the progress of this project. He indicated to Han Jiakang that, if if the team didn’t even have a completed page to show to the representative, things would unfortunately look very bad.

Han Jiakang made no responses as he listened quietly.

Zhu Yun noticed that Han Jiakang’s steps seemed to falter on his way out, as if he wanted to say something. But in the end, he left without a word.

After that, the chaotic situation seemed to improve. The Languan representative visited several times, and each time it was Zhang Xiaobei who greeted him.

Li Xun’s pace quickened.

Zhu Yun started to suspect that he didn’t need to sleep. During the day, he went to his classes. And then the rest of the time, he holed himself up inside the project base, surrounded with books and documents.

And Zhu Yun seemed to have been injected with chicken blood. (t/n: to be very energetic and excited) Her objectives were set and her vision was clear. She felt as if she’d been tied up with a rope, a rope whose ends were in Li Xun’s hands.

As Li Xun worked faster, Zhu Yun would increase her pace to match. If he wasn’t tired, she wasn’t tired.

After the initial planning, work progressed according to schedule. The coordination with the company was smooth as well. Zhang Xiaobei was in a good mood, so one day, she sent Han Jiakang down to the project base with a box of imported snacks to reward the seminar group. Everyone cheered with joy.

Aside from the three core members, none of the students in the seminar group were privy to the details of the project with Languan. All they knew was that the team was working together with some graduate students, and now, the graduate advisor had sent over rewards, which everyone happily accepted.

From the pile of snacks, Zhu Yun looked over at Li Xun.

As usual. Staring at the screen with a grave expression, as usual.

Buckled down to the computer with an arrogant demeanor. Turning the computer on with indifference. Zhu Yun took a bite of a piece of dried mango, wondering which of Li Xun’s appearances frustrated people more.

Her final conclusion—they were about the same.

“What kind of story are you writing up about me now?”

Zhu Yun, “….”

Do you have some type of listening device inside my head or something?!

Li Xun looked up and glanced at her.

Wu Mengxing walked over to ask him a question.

After listening to him, Li Xun smiled and said, “Packaging? You’ll have to ask Zhu Yun about packaging.” Zhu Yun was calmly eating dried mango, and a confused expression crossed Wu Mengxing’s face.

“Didn’t you know? Our class rep is a packaging genius. She could write a novel with the things she keeps to herself. She doesn’t say or let people see anything.” He nodded to Zhu Yun. “Isn’t that right?”

My ass, you’re right.

Li Xun pointed to her. “Look, she’s doing it again.” Zhu Yun remained calm and composed. She immediately looked away from him. Then, Li Xun called out to her, “Come over here.”

Who are you calling for?

“That’s right, you.”

Zhu Yun turned around. Li Xun pointed to the pile of snacks and said, “Pick some of the good ones and pack them—”

Zhu Yun cut in, “You want to keep them for midnight snacks?”

Li Xun continued, “And then send them over to Liu Sisi.”

Zhu Yun’s face looked like it was paralyzed for five seconds. Then she nodded and said, “Okay.”

But on that subject… As she packed away some snacks, she asked Li Xun, “I haven’t done her homework in awhile. Has she become self-reliant?” Li Xun was busy typing away. She wasn’t sure if he’d heard her.

“This is from Li Xun.”

“Mmh, thanks.”

Zhu Yun casually asked, “Why haven’t you been coming to the project base recently?”

“We broke up.”

“…………”

Although she’d heard rumors that Li Xun changed girlfriends very quickly, seeing the results with her own eyes was a different experience.

“Broke up?”

“Mm-hmm.” Liu Sisi pouted.

The image of Liu Sisi singing at the karaoke bar suddenly floated into Zhu Yun’s mind, and she couldn’t help feeling a bit sad.

Liu Sisi didn’t look torn up over it, but Zhu Yun still felt the desire to comfort her. “Well, don’t be sad. In the future…” She stopped in the middle of her words.

In the future, things will be better.

Will things be better in the future? Of course. Gentle and proper boys. Kind and modest boys. …There were a lot of them.

So why did you stop speaking?

While Zhu Yun was having her own inner monologue, Liu Sisi said, “It’s okay, I’m not sad. I dumped him.”

Zhu Yun was quiet.

“Really.” Liu Sisi was worried that Zhu Yun wouldn’t believe her, so she added, “He had a lot of girlfriends in the past, but they were all the ones who dumped him.”

This…

So the amazing Top Score Li also had a side to him that others didn’t know about.

“He doesn’t pursue anyone, and he doesn’t dump anyone. Of course, he doesn’t stay with anyone. It’s always the girls who come and go.” Liu Sisi smiled. “Aren’t things so simple with him?”

Zhu Yun couldn’t help asking, “Why did you leave?”

Although his temper could use some improvement, in all honesty, once you got used to that golden head of his, Boss Li was actually pretty handsome.

“Nothing in particular.” Liu Sisi leaned against a Yulan tree and looked at the courtyard in front of the art institute. “Actually, when I first asked him out, I hadn’t thought about it much. It was just because he was handsome. He’s the same. He just dates so he can relax and alleviate some of his stress.” Liu Sisi looked back to Zhu Yun. “You know, when we were together, none of our phone calls ever lasted more than three minutes. If I wanted to find him, I’d have to go to your practice base.”

Zhu Yun, “……”

Liu Sisi said, “It was fine in the beginning, but after the freshness wore off, I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m not being arrogant; I have a lot of suitors too, okay. It’s just, who could stand being holed up in front of the computer, day after day?”

Zhu Yun thought about it, and then she said, “You could talk with him.”

Liu Sisi didn’t respond immediately. The wind blew gently. The flowers on the Yulan had mostly fallen already.

Liu Sisi said, “I’ve had a decent number of relationships in the past.”

Zhu Yun, “Mmh.”

Liu Sisi continued, “Boys are actually pretty easy to understand. Who’s genuine and who’s fake. Who you can date a short while and who you could spend your life with. I can see all that.”

Liu Sisi straightened up a bit. “Boys who excite you and boys who move you fall under two different types. Forget it. You don’t have to comfort me. We had an amicable breakup, and no one owes the other anything.” Then she seemed to suddenly remember something. “Oh yeah, his new girlfriend is from the broadcasting school. She’s a better student than me, so you probably won’t have to help her with her homework.”

Zhu Yun really didn’t know what to do next.

Liu Sisi accepted the bag of snacks, and then she said, “Is studying programming hard?”

Huh? Why suddenly ask that?

Zhu Yun responded, “It’s alright. If your math and English skills are good, and—”

“Alright, alright,” Liu Sisi cut in. “Stop. Those are the words I hate the most. I’ll be going then.”

As she watched Liu Sisi rummage through the bag of snacks happily, Zhu Yun sighed. No wonder Li Xun said he liked “dumb girls.” They really weren’t so bad. Easygoing and simple to deal with. After a breakup, a bag of snacks could put a great big smile on her face. And then, the two of them would have nothing to do with each other anymore.

When she returned to the practice base, she saw Li Xun, who looked just as he had before she left. He hadn’t even changed positions.

Zhu Yun went to report to him. “I gave them to her, and she liked them.”

Li Xun responded, “Mmh,” as he typed away on the keyboard. Zhu Yun took a glance at what he was working on. Li Xun was tidying up the code that she and Gao Jianhong had written. Originally, Zhu Yun had wanted to bring up Liu Sisi to him, but seeing his focused expression, she just swallowed the rest of her words.