Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Chen Ziyuan and a few other men were charmed by Xu Shuangyu’s ethereal beauty.
However, they dared not express their true feelings since they had their girlfriends with them. Therefore, they could only joke profusely using Zhou Wen’s name.
Zhou Wen did not really care much about their teasing. He was not planning to have a girlfriend before he made his fortune in life, anyway.
One was a manly man when he was wealthy and a troubled wuss when he was poor.
A man like him who was constantly spending more than what he earned did not deserve to be in a relationship.
As for the saying of ‘becoming a rich man by marrying a rich woman,”, it was fun to think about it, but it would never happen to him. Moreover, there was no need for him to do that anyway.
Xu Shuangyu did not overreact to the group’s teasing. She smiled and neither refuted nor acknowledged it.
After the meal, Chen Ziyuan treated the group to a karaoke session. However, Zhou Wen rejected it with the excuse of going back to look up some literature information for his research.
Coincidentally, Zhang Wei’s girlfriend had some emergency affair to attend to as well. Therefore, everyone parted ways there and then.
Xu Shuangyu followed Zhou Wen back to the campus, naturally.
It was Chen Ziyuan’s scheme. He made the arrangement on purpose and had racked his brains just so he could end Zhou Wen’s lonely, single life.
Zhou Wen and Xu Shuangyu walked with one person at the front and the other one behind throughout the journey.
Zhou Wen walked so swiftly such that Xu Shuangyu was having a hard time just catching up. She called out, “Hey, will you die if you slow down a little?”
“You’re not an ill person. Can’t you walk faster?”
The anger in Xu Shuangyu’s heart was ignited with a loud whoosh. “You knocked me down in the past, and I have yet to deal with you on that. Yet, now you have the audacity to pick a fight with me?”
“I’ve already offered my apology to you,” said Zhou Wen without even turning to look at her.
To which Xu Shuangyu replied, “I don’t accept your apology.”
Zhou Wen added, “Your refusal to accept it is your own issue. it’s unrelated to me.”
Xu Shuangyu was infuriated by that last remark.
She had always been surrounded by people admiring her since she was young. She was protected by her classmates, teachers, and family members and was accustomed to being the center of everyone’s attention, regardless of where she was.
It was the same, even when she was at university. Even though there were plenty of amazing women over here, she was still the crane amongst the swans and male students’ focal point. She had never encountered anyone so arrogant like Zhou Wen, who dared to speak offensively to her.
Most importantly, what did he have that gave him the right to be so arrogant? Did he really think that she would want him?
She watched helplessly as Zhou Wen walked faster and moved further into the distance as if he was avoiding a plague. Xu Shuangyu’s eyes rolled around to come up with an idea. All of a sudden, she said, “Ouch!” before she squatted down.
Zhou Wen, who was walking in front, turned around and walked back to her. He asked, “What’s going on?”
Xu Shuangyu grabbed her ankle and expressed her agony through her facial expression. “The old injury has yet to heal fully. It seems that I’ve just sprained my ankle again…”
Zhou Wen checked out her ankle and said, “Alright, stop pretending.”
Xu Shuanyu’s face blushed in a barely discernible manner. Soon afterward, she feigned being angry by saying, “What do you mean by pretending? I am the one who is in pain! How about you try to put yourself in my shoes?”
“Phew…” Zhou Wen heaved a breath slowly. “So, can you still walk?”
“Let me give it a try…” Xu Shuangyu assumed an agonizing expression on her face and slowly stood up from the ground while hissing in pain.
“You’re really good at pretending…” Zhou Wen felt amused in his heart, but he did not overthrow her scheme further. He had to save her some dignity, anyhow.
Meanwhile, Xu Shuangyu stumbled and limped forward.
Zhou Wen could not bear to watch her anymore, so he stretched out his hand to grab her arm and helped her to walk faster.
Xu Shuangyu was delighted to achieve her goal. “Heh-heh… Scoundrel, try to fight me and look, you still have to compromise in the end…”
The more Zhou Wen behaved in such a manner; the more Xu Shuangyu was reluctant to walk.
They moved slowly for ten minutes and arrived on the lawn in front of the campus’ clock tower known as Lover’s Slope. At this point, Xu Shuangyu refused to walk anymore and said straightforwardly, “I would like to rest for a while on the lawn.”
Zhou Wen loosened his hold and said, “Take your time to rest. I shall leave first, alright?”
As he spoke, he wanted to remove his grip, but he did not expect that he had just loosened his hold a little too fast when Xu Shuangyu let out an ‘oh no,’ and her body tipped forward. Subconsciously, he quickly grabbed her to stop her from falling.
Zhou Wen felt speechless. He said, “It’s better not to go too far, huh.”
Xu Shuangyu replied piteously, “I’m in pain, really.”
“…”
Then, Zhou Wen supported her with his hand as they made their way to the lawn.
The lawn was the largest out of all the campuses in Jiangzhou University. The lawn was surrounded by the School of Mathematical Sciences’ building, the Weige Hall, the clock tower, the Kenneth Wang School of Law, the School of Nursing’s main building, and the old stadium.
On summer nights, when speckles of stars adorned the night sky, many couples would gather here to watch the moon, count the stars, cuddle affectionately, and gyrate their hands.
As a result, this place was known as the Lover’s Slope.
It was a night with a bright moon, little stars, a gentle breeze, and floating clouds. There were quite a number of people sitting on the lawn, with most people cuddling in pairs.
Zhou Wen supported Xu Shuangyu with his hand and found a less crowded place for them to have a seat.
Then, he took out his phone and opened his email mailbox. Later, he read the information he downloaded in the afternoon as if he was all alone.
Xu Shuangyu rubbed her ankle that was not actually in pain and took a glance at Zhou Wen’s phone to see an article full of English words displayed on his phone. There were so many words that she did not even understand.
Nevertheless, it was pretty normal. Biology was a program with the most extensive collection of coined terminologies out of all the courses. The terms were even more uncommon than medical terminologies.
Meanwhile, Xu Shuangyu regretted choosing to go to med school and decided to switch to another program next year.
“Hey…”
“Hmm.”
“Are you taking the examination for graduate school?”
“Uh… No.”
“What are you doing then?”
“Uh… It’s my graduation thesis.”
Xu Shuangyu wanted to inquire further, but she was interrupted by Zhou Wen’s ringing phone.
Zhou Wen glanced at the phone to find that Wu Yan was calling him. Wu Yan instructed him to head to the hospital tomorrow.
Due to the matter with the Filoviridae virus, the amount of high concentration white mouse’s DNA used over the past few days was quite high to the point where other teams in the hospital were borrowing them from the PCR Team.
Zhou Wen had no choice either but to lend them. However, this had also increased his workload.
“Hmm, noted…”
He hung up the phone and continued to read the information.
Xu Shuangyu could hear Wu Yan’s conversation clearly because she was sitting right next to Zhou Wen. She asked out of curiosity, “Which hospital are you working in?”
“First People’s Hospital.”
“The general hospital at Haiping Road?”
“Mmhmm.”
Xu Shuangyu felt somewhat surprised. “How can a person like you even be capable of getting a job in the general hospital? What do you do there?”
Zhou Wen answered, “I’m a safety contractor.”
“What’s that?”
“Security.”
Xu Shuangyu was so furious that she wished that she could knock his head twice. “Will you die if you speak properly? Forget about it. I can tell that you’re a person with mental problems. I won’t speak to you anymore.”
Upon saying that, Xu Shuangyu stood up and patted away, the grass clippings stuck to her buttocks and left in a lively manner.
Zhou Wen chuckled. ‘She’s gone at last.’ Then, he stood up and walked in the other direction.
…
The next day, the first thing Zhou Wen did when he woke up in the early morning was to bring up the system and check on the mission timeline.
He still had 13 hours and 25 minutes before the mission ended at eight tonight. Frankly, Zhou Wen felt rather relieved in his heart.
It was the damned mission’s fault that he did not manage to accept the other missions for an entire week. Therefore, it was better for the mission to come to an end.
As for the Black metal treasure chest, he did not even want it anymore. It was better off for him to gather his wood chests obediently.
By the time he arrived at the laboratory, he had bumped into Wu Yan while rushing in.
Wu Yan was the relative of a nurse from the inpatient department in the same hospital. Therefore, they rented a house just outside of the hospital.
Zhou Wen asked smilingly, “Why are you here as well?
Wu Yan answered, “Dong Wenying is on leave today, and I’m here to cover for her.”
“Ah…”
They entered the building as they chatted.
The first thing they did was to sterilize themselves upon entering the comprehensive laboratory.
The sterilization process was troublesome and time-consuming. In fact, a typical laboratory technician would spend one-third of his or her day doing this.
Zhou Wen spent the entire morning working on the DNA extraction process until it was time for lunch.
By the time he came out of the laboratory, Wu Yan had just come upstairs from the PCR laboratory downstairs.
Zhou Wen said, “Shall we grab lunch together?”
Wu Yan nodded and replied, “Mmhmm, give me two minutes so I can upload the test data.”
Then, Zhou Wen followed Wu Yan to the office. All of a sudden, he picked up a floral scent as he walked into the office. He gazed around the room and found that the scent came from a large bouquet of roses placed at the foot of a wall.
“Is that a gift from your boyfriend?”
Wu Yan replied while tidying up the data, “Ex-boyfriend.”
As soon as Zhou Wen heard the word ‘ex-boyfriend,’ he knew that Wu Yan would have a story that would take three days and nights to complete, so he did not continue to inquire further.
Wu Yan completed uploading the data soon, and the two of them headed to the cafeteria together.
During lunch, Zhou Wen asked, “If there’s nothing else this afternoon, can I head back after lunch?”
Wu Yan nodded. “Mmhmm. You can head back; there’s nothing else to do here.” Wu Yan finished her meal quickly and left with her food tray.
They were at the small staff cafeteria while the bigger patient and family cafeterias were located next door and connected to this place via a passageway.
After lunch, Zhou Wen walked toward the entrance in the east.
He took a glance at the big cafeteria when he passed by it just in time to see an old woman of about 80 to 90 years old with gray hair walking to the door with a round plastic meal container in one hand and a cane in the other hand.
There was a 20cm step at the entrance, so Zhou Wen was worried that the old woman might trip and fall. Quickly, he walked over to her and helped her out.
The old woman thanked Zhou Wen in a Jiangzhou accent and got his help to pass the step.
Although Zhou Wen wanted to leave, he knew he would feel bad for doing so and chose to support the old woman with his hand as they walked toward the inpatient department.
The old woman said, “Alright, it’s fine… I can walk by myself.”
“That’s alright… I work here. I can send you to the building…”
“Are you a doctor here?”
“I work in the laboratory department.”
“Oh, oh, oh, it’s that huge building at the back, right?”
“Mmhmm, that’s right.”
The old woman said smilingly while she walked, “Oh, I was actually in really good shape before and could even perform line dancing. I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s Disease last year, and I can’t do anything anymore now.”
“I see. So what are you doing today in the hospital?”
“My son is ill…”