Shangjing University, classroom.
Lin Qiye and An Qingyu had arrived fairly early, yet nearly half the classroom was already occupied. The two unfamiliar faces drew some attention, but everyone merely glanced at them before lowering their heads to continue reading their books.
To their surprise, Cao Yuan was sitting in the second-to-last row, waving at them as if he had been there for quite some time.
"When did you get here?"
"I didn't pay attention to the time... but when I came in, this classroom was still empty."
"I heard from Jiang Er that you went for a morning run?"
"Yeah, just ran around a bit."
Lin Qiye gave Cao Yuan a suspicious once-over before sitting beside him. An Qingyu took the seat on the other side.
"Qiye, I want to ask you something." After hesitating for a long time, Cao Yuan finally spoke up.
"What is it?"
"Usually... how old are people when they get a PhD?"
Lin Qiye raised an eyebrow at the bizarre question. "That depends on the major."
"What about... Chinese literature?"
"A Chinese literature undergraduate degree should normally take four years... If someone starts university at nineteen, then four years for undergrad, three years for a master's, and a PhD... that depends on how far they go, but probably another three to five years? So someone with a PhD would be at least twenty-six, maybe even thirty."
Cao Yuan's eyes gradually lit up.
"Got your eye on some PhD girl?" An Qingyu caught a whiff of something unusual and asked with a smile. "Makes sense. With Old Cao's tastes, he definitely wouldn't like anyone too young... A PhD student should be a few years older than him. If she were a little curvier, maybe divorced too, she'd be exactly his type. There might even be