To keep a murder from happening, Wang Haoran loyally accompanied Chu Mingzhe to the infirmary.
Judging by his state, he had clearly been devastated by Su Bai and Chen Yusheng's intimacy. If nobody kept an eye on him, something might really happen.
"Young man, there's nothing seriously wrong with you. Your spleen and stomach are just a little weak. Stay up less late."
At the campus hospital.
The doctor smiled as he put away his stethoscope and withdrew the hand he had been using to take Chu Mingzhe's pulse.
Then he added, "Visit Taoist temples less often."
Chu Mingzhe: "..."
"To be safe, get a blood test. If you still feel unwell, I can prescribe some moxibustion therapy. If everything's fine, you can go."
Wang Haoran could not make heads or tails of it. Doctor, are you practicing traditional Chinese medicine or Western medicine?
Whatever. In any case, Hu Ye was fine, and that was good enough.
Sitting on a bench outside the emergency room, Chu Mingzhe stared blankly ahead.
Suddenly, he muttered, "Why? Damn it, why is Chen Yusheng so enthusiastic toward Su Bai?"
"Uh, who can say when it comes to feelings? Don't overthink it."
Wang Haoran offered some comfort, though his thoughts were entirely different.
He knew Brother Bai's hidden strengths.
Rich, good-natured, and handsome—he was obviously a great match for Chen Yusheng.
At the south gate of Jiangcheng University, there was a computer market.
Computer markets had clearly fallen into decline by this era.
With self-media information so widespread, everyone knew those shady merchants could fleece people without batting an eye.
They ripped off strangers halfway, and cleaned out acquaintances completely.
What i9-grade CPUs, military-grade motherboards, server-grade memory... They bragged until the sky was the limit, but in reality, it was all electronic junk scavenged from who knew where, assembled into computers that looked high-end to fool people who did not know better.
A computer that cost six hundred yuan to build would be sold to you for fifty-six hundred, earning them a tearful profit of five thousand.
Nowadays, anyone who watched even a few educational videos would generally not come to a computer market to get slaughtered.
However, Chen Yusheng was an exception.
She was extremely familiar with both software and hardware principles, as well as market prices.
She had even helped Professor Luo procure equipment before.
As a result, she could actually get bargains at the computer market. Put simply, she bypassed the layers of agents and got prices even lower than e-commerce platforms.
That was Chen Yusheng's skill.
No wonder Professor Luo praised this freshman to everyone he met. How could she not be impressive? She could write code and handle procurement, and she was a straightforward, honest girl who would never embezzle anything. Su Bai even suspected Professor Luo of exploiting cheap labor...
So Su Bai did not need to think at all. He only had to follow behind Chen Yusheng and enjoy watching her haggle.
There was no doubt that Top Student Chen was socially anxious.
Yet whenever something involved a professional field she liked, she seemed remarkably decisive and commanding.
Every so often, she turned to ask Su Bai about his needs, then negotiated with the computer parts vendors accordingly.
Before long, she had put together an entire configuration.
She also gathered all the components and had them assembled and tested on-site at a store that had long worked with Professor Luo's laboratory.
"Hey, Little Chen, this computer doesn't look like it's for the lab. With all these RGB light strips, won't Professor Luo think you're playing games in the lab?" The kindly older woman running the store commented while cracking sunflower seeds.
"It is for gaming. I'm building it for him."
Busy at work, Chen Yusheng looked up at Su Bai.
The affection rippling in her eyes was caught by the store owner.
The woman did not expose her. She merely chuckled and gave Su Bai an appraising look.
Mm, not bad.
The young man was quite handsome.
If he could afford a computer worth tens of thousands, his family was probably doing fairly well too.
Su Bai was completely unaware of the owner's scrutiny. He was focused on watching Chen Yusheng build the computer.
She was pretty skilled.
At any rate, she was better than Su Bai.
And she had claimed her hands-on skills were poor. She had definitely just been being modest.
Or rather, compared to her other skills, this one was less impressive. Her idea of "poor" only meant compared to herself.
"...Why do you keep looking at me?"
"Watching you build a computer is fun. Honestly, before meeting you, I never imagined I'd assemble a computer with a girl. It's really cool, okay?"
"Stop talking nonsense and come help."
The two worked together to remove and install partitions, tighten screws, and so on.
Their fingers inevitably brushed against each other now and then.
An ambiguous atmosphere gradually began to brew.
Meanwhile, Chen Yusheng kept mulling over Su Bai's words.
It seemed that, in Su Bai's eyes, she was special too. Hmph...
Soon, the computer was assembled and powered on.
Next came installing the operating system and relevant drivers.
Everything was ready. It was time to run a benchmark and test this computer's strength!
The score was higher than Su Bai had expected.
Su Bai was slightly puzzled, so Chen Yusheng explained, "I set up an overclocking profile for you. It performs better than the standard settings."
"Sounds awesome. It won't explode, right?"
"It won't. The power supply and cooling have plenty of headroom, so they can definitely handle it. Since you maxed out the budget, I found you the best components."
Chen Yusheng looked very confident.
The Republic of Gamers system Su Bai had wanted cost around seventy or eighty thousand yuan, but Chen Yusheng said it was not cost-effective. The setup she ended up building for him cost a full one hundred thousand yuan, which was pretty outrageous.
But its performance really was stronger!
It looked good too, filled with a futuristic technological aesthetic.
It was absolutely the gaming rig of a man's dreams!
After paying, Su Bai found a cardboard box with plastic foam padding, packed up the computer, and carried it to the car.
The heavy desktop tower rested on Su Bai's shoulder as lightly as if it weighed nothing.
Then he carried over a monitor made with a top-tier panel, along with the keyboard, headphones, mouse, and all the other peripherals.
The whole set cost over one hundred thousand yuan and earned him around five hundred thousand yuan in cashback.
"Where are we going now?" Chen Yusheng asked. "Not the dorm, right? The dorm's limited power supply can't support this whole setup."
"Of course not. I've been staying at a hotel near campus lately, so we'll take it straight there. Once I find somewhere to live long-term, I'll move it again."
"Oh."
Chen Yusheng immediately thought that the hotel Su Bai was staying at could not be ordinary either.
Sure enough, the car pulled up at the JW Marriott.
Chen Yusheng knew the hotel brand and knew it was expensive.
However, when she followed Su Bai into the river-view suite, she felt nothing much about its grandeur.
This was a stark contrast to Zhou Jialu.
After all, Chen Yusheng had no interest in luxurious material things. What she cared about was something else.
If the room were filled with computing cards for AI research, Chen Yusheng might have been as excited as Zhou Jialu had been when she entered.
Only after helping Su Bai set up the computer did Chen Yusheng belatedly realize that she was alone with him in a hotel room he had rented.
She had always been vigilant about this sort of thing and would never be alone with a man in an enclosed space.
Yet being with Su Bai felt so natural that all her caution had vanished.
Chen Yusheng valued rigorous logic. Judging from this phenomenon, Su Bai's place in her heart had already become more than that of an ordinary friend.
Or perhaps, just as Su Bai had said, they were "soulmates."
Sigh...
She had already fallen hopelessly in love with him.
Chen Yusheng thought resentfully.
Ding!
Ding! Detected that S-Class Goddess Chen Yusheng's favorability toward Su Bai has surpassed 80 points. Intimate relationship binding successful!
Reward: One lottery draw!
From now on, spending money on Chen Yusheng and fulfilling her indulgent desires can also earn the host 2 to 10 times cashback!
Oh?
This one had surpassed eighty too?
Su Bai was not particularly surprised. After all, he genuinely felt that he and Chen Yusheng had great chemistry.
It was just that for a girl with such strong self-esteem and seemingly complicated family circumstances, he could not rush things. He had to take it slow.
Yet she had fallen for him so quickly and entered a "passionate love etched into her bones."
So Su Bai gently coaxed her.
"Shengsheng, I have a bold idea..."
Before you continue