YPSSS Chapter 26.2

The Mount Xia trip ended quite successfully. The night before returning to C City, Chen Rongxin mysteriously knocked on Xia Shiruan’s door to give him a gift.

It was a familiar small bottle. Xia Shiruan recognized it after two seconds, and Chen Rongxin happily pushed it into his arms. “I could tell you liked it yesterday, here.”

Xia Shiruan stuttered a thanks, accepting the bottle of imitation perfume.

“Don’t mention it!” Chen Rongxin said, “I just went around town again and bought some souvenirs. Honestly, there wasn’t much to buy, but I really wanted to have those crab roe soup dumplings again. They were so good, but unfortunately, the place only opens at night.”

“Crab roe soup dumplings?” Xia Shiruan asked.

“Yeah, we found that shop with Xie-ge on the way to town last night. It seems they only open at night.” Chen Rongxin said, “Didn’t he buy them for you? Didn’t you eat any?”

Xia Shiruan blinked slowly, “Bought for me?”

Chen Rongxin said, “Yeah, since you didn’t come that night and missed supper, we were worried you’d be hungry when you woke up, so we bought them specially.”

Before Xia Shiruan could speak, Chen Rongxin stroked his chin thoughtfully, “Have you two made up? I mean… I thought you’d fallen out, that’s why you haven’t hung out together all these years. I was actually quite surprised you came along this time.”

Xia Shiruan was still processing his previous words, paused for a few seconds, then smiled and said, “…We never fought, there was nothing to make up for.”

He said this with a slight hint of guilt, but it really couldn’t be considered as a fight… right?

“Oh, oh, oh,” Chen Rongxin didn’t probe further, saying, “That’s what I thought, it must’ve been Xie-ge sulking on his own. He’s just like that. Remember when we were kids? When you shared Aunt Gao’s desserts with us, he’d get upset if you gave me even one extra piece! So childish!”

Chen Rongxin was always a bit slow, always cheerful. He called Xie Ji childish, but he wasn’t much different himself. He’d barely finished laughing when someone grabbed the top of his head.

He almost tumbled over from the grab and was about to curse, but when he turned around, he saw the very person he’d just been badmouthing standing behind them.

Xie Ji didn’t look at Chen Rongxin, but his words were directed at him. “Who are you calling childish?”

“…I-I’m childish.” Chen Rongxin reluctantly gave in, despite thinking otherwise. He glanced at the two people whose atmosphere had suddenly turned strange and felt that he might have indeed talked too much. “Well, you two chat? I’ll leave first.”

With that, he quickly slipped away.

Once the noisy one left, the corridor fell silent.

Xie Ji lowered his eyes and looked at the person leaning against the doorframe, lost in thought. He waved his hand in front of his face, “Why are you just standing there?”

Xia Shiruan looked up at him, pressed his lips together, and said, “Thank you.”

“Thanking me again?” Xie Ji asked, “What’s the thank-you gift this time? Your department’s lecture notes?”

“…” Xia Shiruan noticed the dissatisfaction in his tone about the previous gift and immediately defended himself. “What I gave you was useful for everyone in school. Midterms are coming up, you’ll definitely find it helpful.”

Xie Ji let out a laugh, this time without mockery, and gave a rather sincere “Okay.”

Xia Shiruan felt tongue-tied. He had wanted to say something more, but standing face to face, his mind went blank.

Just as he was about to turn and go inside, Xie Ji called out to him.

“Xia Shiruan, don’t move.”

Xia Shiruan obediently stood still.

Xie Ji leaned in close, his warm breath brushing against Xia Shiruan’s face. Then he reached out and plucked a small piece of lint from Xia Shiruan’s hair, glanced at him, and blew it away.

“…”

Xia Shiruan’s heart skipped a beat.

He had been holding his breath just then.

So he was certain that this moment had nothing to do with pheromones.

The day before the holiday ended, Xia Shiruan found himself added to a discussion group.

Including him, there were over ten people in the group. Scrolling through the list, the only one he recognized was Xie Ji’s distinctive ghost face profile picture.

When he entered, they were already discussing some unknown topic, with emoticons popping up one after another in the chat window. Seeing a new member join, someone with the ID “Sparkly Little Xinxin” immediately sent a greeting.

Sparkly Little Xinxin: Ruan-ge, you’re here!

Although he couldn’t understand why Chen Rongxin’s typing seemed to come with sound effects, based on this message and his ID, Xia Shiruan quickly recognized him and guessed this must be the group chat for the friends from their Mount Xia trip.

Xia Shiruan: …yeah.

Apart from various grade-level groups and project discussion groups, Xia Shiruan rarely joined these types of chat groups. After saying “yeah,” he didn’t know what else to say, so he switched back to continue scrolling through the member list.

When he switched back, there were dozens more message bubbles at the bottom of the screen, along with a small one.

Stone Chair¹: Senior Xia Shiruan, I sent you a friend request, please accept?

Below were strings of memes. Most of the emoticons were weird, but the captions were funny. Xia Shiruan scrolled through them one by one and saved a few.

Stone Chair told them to stop making a fuss.

Seeing this message, Xia Shiruan paused for a moment before realizing who this person was. He switched over to check and sure enough, there was a new friend request icon in his contacts.

Xia Shiruan couldn’t quite pin down his impression of Shi Yi. She seemed frivolous, yet maybe not really. But regardless, she was a junior from the same school, so without thinking too much about it, he accepted her friend request.

Almost the exact moment Xia Shiruan hit accept, someone else spoke up in the group.

Xie Ji: Stone Chair
Xie Ji: ?

Seeing this question mark, Xia Shiruan felt inexplicably guilty, as if he’d been caught doing something.

Stone Chair: …
Stone Chair: What?

But perhaps because Xie Ji’s question mark was too easy to interpret, the next second, Shi Yi posted a screenshot in the group showing that Xia Shiruan had accepted her friend request, and mocked Xie Ji saying “Senior didn’t say anything, why are you acting like a grade schooler?”

Xie Ji ignored Shi Yi’s mockery and quickly sent Xia Shiruan a private message.

Xie Ji: Delete her

The demand was as serious as a grade schooler not letting their friend play with others.

Xia Shiruan: …

Xia Shiruan didn’t know what to say. While thinking about how to phrase it, he suddenly remembered what Shi Yi had said to him not long ago about “at least not going after someone a friend likes.” Hoping to ease the situation, he started typing this in the chat box.

But halfway through typing, he suddenly stopped.

Because no matter how he looked at it, sending that message would be strange.

He stared at his phone for half a minute, then deleted it and typed a new line, raising his own question to Xie Ji.

“Why do you want me to delete her?”

It looked like a rhetorical question, but in fact, Xia Shiruan was seriously waiting for his reply.

It was as if he was hoping Xie Ji’s response would answer his recent confusion and rescue him from this puzzling situation he couldn’t figure out.

While waiting for a reply, Xia Shiruan felt like he had just answered a difficult question he wasn’t confident about and was now anxiously flipping to check the answer key.

After anxiously searching for a while, the answer section simply read “omitted.”

Because Xie Ji didn’t give Xia Shiruan the clear answer he’d hoped for.

Xie Ji: No reason, are you deleting her or not?

Xia Shiruan: …

Sure enough, he couldn’t count on a grade schooler to solve a problem that even adults couldn’t figure out.

Xia Shiruan had completed the initial version of his feasibility study. After sending an email to Professor Lu for review, he quickly received a response.

This reply was CC’d to three other project members including Huang Yun. The main text read: The project kickoff meeting is scheduled for next Saturday. Time is running out, so the other three students should hurry up! Attached is the section written by Xia Shiruan. It’s well-structured and logically sound, and can be used as a reference!

Xia Shiruan didn’t bother imagining Huang Yun’s expression upon receiving this email. He opened his phone calendar and circled the date for next Saturday.

In the following days, Xia Shiruan refined the report, removing parts he felt were redundant and adding some new content.

The small group chat was always lively. After the previous incident, Xia Shiruan rarely spoke up in the group, but unlike the lab group, these people loved tagging him.

Perhaps because he was the only senior, or because of his different gender, or maybe because the group couldn’t stand having a quiet outlier. Whatever the reason, gradually, under constant tagging and game invitations, Xia Shiruan oddly became part of the group.

During this time, under Xie Ji’s pressure, he even participated in a 5v5 online game battle. Xia Shiruan had never played before and had to download the game. All his equipment was basic level. Although Xie Ji said, “my teammate can’t look too shabby” and gave him a set of his own equipment, Xia Shiruan was still inexperienced and kept dying in the game. Their team lost, with Xie Ji getting MVP of the losing side.

The losing MVP sent Xia Shiruan private messages calling him stupid and threatening to “kill” him if he played like that again. Xia Shiruan didn’t dare voice his objection about participating next time.

Seven days flew by, and soon it was time for the project kick-off meeting.

The meeting was set for 2 PM, and the lab organized a shuttle van.

After lunch, Xia Shiruan headed to the meeting point with his bag.

His phone vibrated twice in his pocket.

Xie Ji: Good luck this afternoon.

Xia Shiruan was a bit stunned. After a while, he realized that since Xie Ji’s father would be attending the afternoon meeting, it made sense that Xie Ji knew about this.

He held his phone in a daze for a while before finally replying with a “thanks.”

The meeting location was on the top floor of a high-end hotel off campus. Xia Shiruan had eaten at this hotel before but had never been to this floor. Only now did he discover such a large conference room existed here.

As the contractor party, they arrived early. When they got there, the lights in the reception room weren’t even on yet, but someone soon came in to serve tea.

Several PhD students opened their laptops and started reviewing their presentation slides.

Shortly after, the door opened and Professor Lu rushed in, immediately closing the door behind him.

All the students looked at him.

Professor Lu set down his bag, took out his laptop, glanced at the four students staring at him eagerly, and said, “I have a few things to tell you.”

Professor Lu’s expression was a bit serious, making them all tense up and unconsciously sit straighter.

“It’s nothing major, don’t be too nervous,” Professor Lu waved his hand. “I just got notified that the military department is taking this project very seriously. Besides the original person in charge, other high-ranking officials will also attend.”

He paused here and continued, “Also, they’ve reviewed your initial feasibility study drafts and said they’re all very good. They were particularly interested in the on-load switch section in the second topic. They specifically asked to focus on this part during the presentation, how we plan to implement it and what results we expect to achieve.”

The second topic was Huang Yun’s responsibility. Professor Lu looked at him, “Xiao Huang, can you present this later?”

Huang Yun froze for a moment, stammering out an “okay.”

Xia Shiruan frowned, glancing at Huang Yun.

Professor Lu mentioned a few more points to note, then someone knocked on the door, saying the client had arrived and asking them to prepare to enter.

Professor Lu picked up his notebook, patted each of their shoulders, telling them not to be nervous, just present their work well and everything would be fine. This was just a kick-off meeting; the real work was still to come.

Despite mentally preparing himself after learning how highly regarded this project was, Xia Shiruan was still stunned by the scene upon entering the conference room.

He’d heard that people who could enter Military Institute Twelve were exceptional. Besides requiring top academic credentials and intellect, physical fitness was also a crucial factor. Therefore, when faced with an entire row of Alphas in military uniforms sitting in the front row, Xia Shiruan instinctively felt intimidated.

High-ranking military officers all had military achievements and frontline experience; their build and temperament were quite different from academic Alphas. The official sitting in the middle, with five stars on both shoulders, stood up to shake hands with Professor Lu, showing an obvious difference in physique.

After shaking hands, that officer turned his head and secretly gave Xia Shiruan a gentle smile.

It was Uncle Xie.

But now wasn’t the time for chatting.

Xia Shiruan only returned Uncle Xie’s smile with a subtle nod, and the meeting quickly began.

Ever since hearing that the second topic’s tap changer section was specifically requested for detailed introduction, Xia Shiruan had been concerned.

His concern included some subjective speculation, which was verified when Huang Yun went on stage and was struck speechless when questioned.

“Um… the parameter settings are like this, I… um,” Huang Yun broke into a cold sweat, intimidated by dozens of eyes from below. He swallowed and forced himself to explain, “This part I explained in the text as…”

After five minutes of stammering, nothing useful was said, causing everyone in the room to frown.

Luo Zhou and Shen Chuan were extremely nervous on the side, their eyes wide.

After a while, Xie Mingcheng made a pause gesture and politely said, “Excuse me for interrupting.”

“As the client, I must point out something,” Xie Mingcheng said. “Although this is just a kick-off meeting, the feasibility study should reflect what you’re confident you can deliver. If there’s uncertainty, it shouldn’t be included.”

Huang Yun’s face turned ashen. For some reason, he glanced at Xia Shiruan.

His look carried a hint of resentment.

Professor Lu’s brows were tightly knitted on the side.

“Alright, let’s take a break,” Xie Mingcheng said. “We’ll resume in fifteen minutes.”