Chasing Your Trail

Experiments, papers, reading, exams.

And dating.

Shen Qi spent his last few months at Yenching University very busy, but fulfilling and happy.

After officially confirming his relationship with Ou Ye, Shen Qi discovered an interesting phenomenon: the growth rate of daily experience points for most subjects in the system had significantly increased.

Let's take the data from the last three days as an example.

Math Level 8, Experience Points +12, 1029/400,000

Physics Level 6, Experience Points +47,726/150,000

Sports Level 5, Experience Points +276,2478/50,000

English Level 5, Experience Points +0, 517/50,000

Level 4 in Chinese Language, +666 experience points, 2246/10,000

Politics Level 4, Experience Points +137, 1726/10,000

The daily experience points for non-core subjects such as chemistry, biology, history, and geography also saw an increase in growth rate compared to the previous month.

The only exception is English. Since passing the Princeton interview, Shen Qi has not spoken a word of English, nor has he written SCI paper, instead rewriting papers for general Chinese journals.

The subjects that increase daily experience points the fastest are Chinese and Physical Education, which fully demonstrates that dating is a comprehensive endeavor that helps improve language expression skills and physical fitness.

Except for a slight decrease in the growth rate of English experience points, all other subjects increased. Chinese and Politics automatically advanced one level, and Shen Qi did not spend even a single point of his academic excellence points on these two subjects.

Shen Qi's two papers in popular mathematics journals have entered the peer review stage. The first physics major course exam to finish was <Computational Physics>, and Shen Qi scored 94 points.

The situation isn't too bad; at least we managed to maintain the minimum score of 90 for top students.

Shen Qi could accept this reality, after all, he spent very limited time on Computational Physics, even less time than he spent meeting with Zhou Yu'an.

Shen Qi and Ou Ye's relationship quickly blossomed, and their studies were not affected. On the contrary, they strode confidently forward on their respective academic paths.

1+1>2, a chemical reaction occurred between Shen Qi and Ou Ye.

Ou Ye reclaimed the top spot in the Mathematics Department, while Zhou Yu'an came in second.

Shen Qi has been admitted to Princeton Graduate School, but his math scores are not included in the undergraduate list of the Mathematics Department at Yenching University.

Zhou Yu'an rented a house off-campus two weeks ago, and he hasn't returned to his dormitory in the past two weeks.

Shen Qi spent less time on Computational Physics than he spent meeting with Zhou Yu'an, so Shen Qi could accept the reality that he only scored 94 points on the Computational Physics exam.

Zhou Yu'an has been elusive lately, making it difficult for Shen Qi to catch a glimpse of him.

Today, Shen Qi finally caught Zhou Yu'an outside the library.

"Hey, Zhou Yu'an, wait!" Shen Qi chased after him. "Where did you rent a place? Aren't you going to invite me over?"

"My humble abode is not worthy of a great deity like you." Zhou Yu'an walked faster and faster, heading towards the east gate of Yanda University.

"Do you live with your girlfriend?" Shen Qi quickly caught up and asked.

"What girlfriend did I get? I'm not like you, the ultimate winner in life." Zhou Yu'an walked to the east gate and waited for the bus.

"Since you don't have a girlfriend, I'll come visit you." Shen Qi was also waiting for the bus.

"I share an apartment with my boyfriend," Zhou Yu'an said.

"Boy... boyfriend?" Shen Qi was taken aback.

"What's wrong with having a boyfriend? Is that a problem?" Zhou Yu'an retorted calmly.

"Hehe, you're just kidding, you're really good at it." Although Shen Qi often forced Zhou Yu'an to wear women's clothes, it was really just a joke! There was no way Zhou Yu'an could be turned gay.

"Who's joking with you?"

Just then, the bus arrived, Zhou Yu'an jumped on. She said to Shen Qi, who was deep in thought below the bus, "My boyfriend is home, so it's not convenient for him. Don't come."

"Screw my boyfriend!" Shen Qi rushed onto the bus and swiped his bus card.

The doors closed, the bus started moving, and headed west.

The bus drove away from the Zhongguancun area, and Shen Qi knew that Zhou Yu'an couldn't afford to rent a house in Zhongguancun.

In the car, Shen Qi observed Zhou Yu'an carefully for a while and said to her, "You're straight. People who are turned gay don't have your kind of temperament."

"Tch, you act like you know everything about this company? Have you ever had a boyfriend?" Zhou Yu'an put on her earphones and ignored Shen Qi.

Shen Qi keenly noticed that Zhou Yu'an was listening to the American TV series "Breaking Bad".

Zhou Yu'an didn't look at the phone screen; he only listened to the dialogue of the characters in the drama.

In the drama, the male protagonist Heisenberg, makes a bottle of hydrofluoric acid and gives it to his henchman to dissolve a corpse and destroy the evidence.

Just then, the bus stopped, Zhou Yu'an got off, muttering to himself in English, "Escape, or face."

You can either run away or face it.

This is a classic line from the male protagonist of Breaking Bad.

After saying this line, the male protagonist transforms into a completely different person, from a high school chemistry teacher into the most notorious tech-savvy drug lord in the United States.

Shen Qi followed Zhou Yu'an off the bus. This was Liulangzhuang, a seven or eight-minute drive from Peking University.

"Stop following me!" Zhou Yu'an said, taking off his headphones.

"Zhou Yu'an, what's wrong with you!" Shen Qi roared, noticing that Zhou Yu'an had recently become a different person.

It wasn't that he'd turned into a drug dealer, but rather... Shen Qi couldn't quite put his finger on it, so he was determined to investigate Zhou Yu'an's rented apartment to find out if the kid was manufacturing drugs!

Shen Qi kept a distance of 5 meters behind Zhou Yu'an, and no matter how Zhou Yu'an tried to shoo him away, Shen Qi just wouldn't leave.

Zhou Yu'an was helpless against Shen Qi; he couldn't beat Shen Qi.

Shen Qi followed Zhou Yu'an into a residential building. There was no elevator, the building was old, the corridor was dark, the walls were covered with small advertisements, and a headless dead rat lay in the corner.

The apartment Zhou Yu'an rents is on the 3rd floor.

Zhou Yu'an opened the door, and before going in, she turned back and said, "I'm really fed up with you, Shen Qi. You already have a girlfriend, why won't you let me go? Please leave, boss, I'm tired."

"The more they pretend to be covering it up, the less real it is." Shen Qi insisted on not leaving. "Can I just go in for a minute?"

"You're really being willful." Zhou Yu'an entered his rented room without closing the door.

Shen Qi rushed inside; it was a one-bedroom apartment.

Shen Qi quickly scanned the room for suspicious items, from the living room to the bedroom, from the bathroom to the balcony.

As a result, Shen Qi did not find any suspicious items. Zhou Yu'an's rented room was full of books, CDs, blank paper, and drawing tools.

Most of them are math books, from Demidovich's Problem Book to Differential Geometry, from Ann-Math to Acta-Math.

Zhou Yu'an almost completely copied Shen Qi's math reading list from the past two years.

Zhou Yu'an copied the mathematical literature that Shen Qi had read and the problem sets he had done.

Zhou Yu'an is following in Shen Qi's footsteps; he also has ambition and desire.

The blank paper was covered with various mathematical curves, as well as mathematical derivations and proofs; it seemed that Zhou Yu'an was drafting a paper on Differential Geometry.

The CDs are all in English, mostly practice and test discs for those at the English proficiency level 8, and TOEFL listening discs.

"Ten minutes have passed." Zhou Yu'an tapped his watch.

Shen Qi was finally relieved. "There are no underwear belonging to your boyfriend here, and the shorts drying on the balcony are all yours."

"Holy crap, how did you know the waistbands of your shorts were mine?" Zhou Yu'an was surprised.

Shen Qi said, "We've lived in the same dorm for almost two years. Your underwear is all patterned, size M. Luo Ji, who has size L, prefers black, and Cai Qing, who also has size L, wears all sorts of colors. I'm the King of Show Offs in the Mathematics Department at Peking University. If I don't even have this much observational ability, what kind of King of Show Offs I?"

"You... you actually have such a peculiar fetish?" Zhou Yu'an trembled with fear and took several steps back.

"So you're not gay." Shen Qi smiled. "You shouldn't be making that face. So Zhou Yu'an, you also want to go abroad, rent a place by yourself to do your research, and find some peace and quiet. There's nothing shameful about that. Why hide it? You can copy my entire reading list and literature; there's no problem with that. I approve."