WiFi Test

Jiang Ning arrived in Yuzhou City at one in the afternoon.

It was summer, the sun at its fiercest. Aside from the occasional cicada chirp, the area around the single-story houses was quiet.

The broad open space ahead was empty. Most people had retreated indoors for their afternoon naps, so Jiang Ning did not see Xue Yuantong at the entrance.

He unlocked the door. He had arranged to meet the Telecom Office staff between three and four.

After setting down his backpack, Jiang Ning casually set up a Formation to maintain the herbs' temperature and prevent any loss of potency.

After traveling all night without sleep and covering over a thousand miles, Jiang Ning felt a wave of exhaustion.

With a beckoning gesture, a ball of water flew out of the water bucket. A flame appeared and instantly heated the water to a suitable temperature.

The water fell over his hair, yet not a single drop splashed away.

Warm water flowed over his entire body, washing his skin clean. Jiang Ning then cast another Magic Art to blow his clothes dry, leaving him feeling instantly refreshed.

He lay down on the bed, listened to the cicadas outside, and fell into a deep sleep.

He slept until his phone rang, startling him awake.

"Mm, I'm home. You can come straight over." It was a call from the broadband installers.

Jiang Ning stepped outside. The sun was no longer as bright as it had been at noon. People had gathered in the open space before the houses to chat, while several old men had set out a Chinese Chess board to test their skills.

Xue Yuantong sat on a small stool by her front door, playing on her phone and eating a peach, looking utterly content.

When she spotted Jiang Ning, she greeted him. "Jiang Ning, don't tell me you just woke up?"

"No. I went out last night and only got back a little while ago."

From the corner of his eye, Jiang Ning saw the workers riding motorcycles over from the distant dam. His eyesight was excellent, and he could make out the logo on their uniforms.

"You went to an internet café?" Xue Yuantong asked quietly.

She had wanted to visit an internet café for a long time. Every day, she heard her classmates passionately discussing League of Legends, and she wanted to play too. When it came to games, Xue Yuantong considered herself very talented.

But she did not dare go to an internet café alone. At her age, she could only visit unlicensed places, and unlicensed internet cafés were bound to have shady people. What if someone bullied her?

"No. I don't really like those places."

The old Jiang Ning had liked internet cafés well enough. Later, though, in order to pursue Shen Qing'e, he turned over a new leaf. For all three years of high school, his life revolved around her, and he hardly went to internet cafés again.

Unfortunately, he neglected gaming, and the woman still left him in the end, leaving him with nothing.

Later, when he started college in 2016, he wanted to get into League of Legends, but felt it was already too late, so he simply gave up on the game.

After he started working, he built a high-end computer and switched to single-player games. He preferred AAA Games that pursued immersive experiences, or the social powerhouse Honor of Kings.

The workers carried their tools in one hand while making a phone call with the other, and Jiang Ning's phone began to ring.

The familiar melody left Xue Yuantong stunned. Wasn't that an Apple Phone ringtone? When had Jiang Ning changed phones? Jiang Ning hung up and called out, "Over here, over here."

The two workers were young men around twenty-five or twenty-six. "You're the one who booked the broadband installation?"

Jiang Ning handed over the form. "Go ahead and install it."

The installers entered Jiang Ning's house and began running cables and setting everything up.

Seeing the two of them sweating from their work, Jiang Ning handed them two bottles of water. "Thanks for your hard work."

"Alright, thank you!"

Jiang Ning had bought the router from the business office beforehand. After connecting the cables, the installers began testing it, activating the network, setting up the internet account, WiFi name, and password. Once they confirmed there were no issues, they stuck a repair hotline number onto the router and even cleaned up the wrapping paper and cable sheathing left behind during installation before taking them away.

After the two left, Jiang Ning connected to the WiFi. With a 20 Mbps broadband connection, download speeds could easily reach 2 MB per second. Telecom broadband was highly stable, without the slightest lag.

"Jiang Ning, you installed WiFi?" Xue Yuantong blinked. Only half the month had passed, yet her data was already nearly used up, making her feel a sense of crisis.

"Yeah, it was just installed," Jiang Ning said.

Xue Yuantong looked at him expectantly. "Is the internet fast?"

"Let me quietly tell you something: I'm especially accurate at testing internet speed." Her little face was utterly serious.

Pretending not to hear, Jiang Ning continued chatting with Xue Yuantong.

"I think it's alright. It's much better than mobile data."

He opened a video site and showed Xue Yuantong the speed. The video loaded instantly, and as a distinguished VIP User, he could watch whatever he wanted.

Xue Yuantong admitted it—she was jealous. When browsing Tieba, she always enabled no-image mode, only tapping pictures she particularly wanted to see in order to save that tiny bit of data. Yet Jiang Ning was watching videos outright.

"It is pretty fast." Xue Yuantong forced a smile.

"But internet speed is something that needs to be tested multiple times."

"Oh, I get it. I'll download a few more videos and try it out."

Hmph, I want to test the internet speed for you! I'm not telling you to test it yourself!

Xue Yuantong kept her face stiff as she maintained her fake smile.

Jiang Ning laughed inwardly and stopped teasing her.

"How about you test the network for me?"

"What?" Xue Yuantong did not react at first. "You want me to test it?"

"The password is eight eights, with an m at the end," Jiang Ning said.

Xue Yuantong inhaled sharply. Her eyes lit up with surprise, and she nearly shouted, I'll test it for you right now!

But the last shred of reason she possessed swiftly calmed her pounding little heart.

She cleared her throat and, in an unhurried, affected manner, said softly, "Mm, then I'll test the internet speed for you, so you don't get fooled by the business office."

At a seemingly slow but actually rapid pace, she entered the WiFi password, looking forward to the blissful experience of being able to watch whatever she wanted without worrying about data usage...

Then a pop-up appeared, informing her that the password was incorrect!

Xue Yuantong: ...

It was like having a bucket of cold water dumped over her head. All her excitement instantly cooled.

"Ahem, the password was wrong." Damn it, she had gotten excited for nothing! Jiang Ning gave an "oh." "I said it wrong. It ends with a y."

Xue Yuantong shot Jiang Ning a resentful look and entered the password again. This time, it worked, and her phone finally connected to the great WiFi highway.

She had no time to pay attention to Jiang Ning. Like a newly rich tycoon, the first thing she did was open a video app.

Whoosh—an entire screen of video thumbnails appeared in an instant. She could watch whichever video she wanted! Xue Yuantong felt as though her heart had been filled to the brim. She felt so fulfilled and rich that she almost wanted to cry. No one knew how happy a girl who scrimped on mobile data all day could be when she connected to WiFi with full signal.

And it was the WiFi from next door, making it twice as thrilling.

Jiang Ning watched her with a smile. "So, how's the speed?"

How could Xue Yuantong understand broadband speeds? She could not tell the difference at all. But she could still feel whether the connection was fast or not, and by then, she had already opened a video she wanted to watch.

"Not bad, not bad. The internet is very fast, but it still needs to be used for a while to see whether it's stable. I'll reluctantly help you test it for a while longer!" Xue Yuantong said with a perfectly straight face, trying to fool him.

"Sure, sure!" Jiang Ning went along with her. He would be using it alone anyway, so there was no harm in sharing it with Xue Yuantong.

After all, the gold had been dug up from beneath her house.

Watching Xue Yuantong suppress her delight, Jiang Ning found it especially amusing. He wondered when Xue Yuantong would grow into the woman she would become in the future.

Otherwise, he always felt as if he were teasing an elementary school student every day.