Still Have to Make a Trip

That was such an obnoxiously straight-guy thing to say. It was like he had ignited the whole scene in an instant.

Shi Huilan said nothing and turned to leave. Chen Yuanguang scratched his head, thinking, If I messed it up, I messed it up. It's not like I have any desire to reproduce in this world anyway.

After thinking it over, he guessed it was because Lin Ran had married into the family, and Shi Huilan had a good relationship with her mother. Once she learned that Lin Ran had most likely cheated and even ordered someone to run over and kill the parents of her childhood sweetheart, she had wanted nothing more than to personally send her father to prison.

There was no death penalty now, anyway. Spending the rest of his life behind bars would be a good thing. That was Shi Huilan's exact wording, as Chen Yuanguang found in his memories.

This world was fascinating. Before, he had needed to guess what the future would look like, using literary works and his own imagination to paint a picture of it. Now, the future was laid out directly before him. There was no need to imagine it anymore.

But while everything had been handed to him at once, it had also lost the hazy beauty of imagination.

Chen Yuanguang found it hard to feel immersed in this spacetime. He saw it more as a cheat code. In the end, he still had to return to modern society and put that cheat code to use.

It was like reading a webnovel about traveling back and forth through time and space. The place you came from was home; no matter how good the place you went to was, it was only a temporary stop.

After completing the Knowledge Download, Chen Yuanguang felt that he needed some time to rest. He silently said, "Exit," and returned to 2018.

Breathing in the familiar scent of his pillow and lying in a room without constant temperature and humidity control, Chen Yuanguang felt inexplicably relaxed.

"Yuanguang, have you been doing all right lately? Have you settled in?

"I came to New York on an exchange program back in high school, so it doesn't feel all that new to me. I have some old classmates in New York, and they've been asking me out every day to hang out, but I don't want to move at all.

"Maybe it's because of the change in environment. Other than going to class, all I want to do every day is lie at home and hibernate."

Guessing that it was around ten in the morning in New York, Chen Yuanguang called her. Lin Jia seemed as though she had not had anyone to talk to in a long time and kept pouring her heart out.

"How have you been these past two days? I saw that your book hasn't updated for two days since that last leave notice. Aren't your readers rioting?

"Or did you run out of inspiration because I left?" Lin Jia asked with a laugh.

In Lin Jia's eyes, Chen Yuanguang clearly did not know how to date, yet he could effortlessly write all sorts of romantic tropes in webnovels. He even held court in his Reader Group, despite never having seriously dated anyone himself, teaching everyone else how they should pursue relationships.

Chen Yuanguang said blandly, "I'm still planning to study abroad. I just haven't decided where yet."

After going through such an intense Knowledge Download, Chen Yuanguang had changed his mind. A webnovel author working on Room-Temperature Superconductivity, artificial intelligence, and new materials was simply too strange.

The technologies he intended to unveil in the future needed a greater halo around them. He needed a more convincing background to vouch for him.

Under those circumstances, going abroad to earn a doctoral degree and put another layer of legitimacy around himself seemed especially necessary.

"That's great, but you need to hurry. It's September now, and application deadlines for all kinds of programs will gradually end from December through February next year. You'd better find a study-abroad agency.

"Something like New Oriental or New Channel. Have them help you plan everything out properly—what you need to do in the remaining time, take the TOEFL and GRE, prepare the materials, and so on.

"Since you don't have much research experience, and you haven't taken either the TOEFL or GRE, your schedule will be a little tight," Lin Jia rambled on.

The days without Chen Yuanguang had indeed been a little lonely.

The two of them could chat endlessly about anything under the sun. But whether it was her roommates now or some old high school classmates, she just could not connect with them.

She had known her roommates for only a short time, while her high school classmates knew who she was, making her vaguely feel that they were trying to curry favor with her.

Lin Jia's father had once made the grand entrance of flying a helicopter to their high school to pick her up. After that, all sorts of rumors about her sprang up around school, though they all shared one point: her family was insanely rich.

"No need. I'm thinking of applying for a PhD, and I don't think those agencies can give me very good advice," Chen Yuanguang said.

Most study-abroad agencies mainly handled master's program applications. To put it bluntly, as long as you paid enough, they could come up with all sorts of ways to get you where you wanted to go.

If the road did not work, then they would take the water route.

But PhD applications were different. The vast majority of applicants admitted to PhD programs at overseas universities had nothing to do with study-abroad agencies. Even without one, applicants could get in on their own.

Besides, Chen Yuanguang had no intention of using a study-abroad agency at all. He was confident that he could easily get offers from top universities through email.

If the Matrix Helmet were still around, Chen Yuanguang would never have chosen to study abroad. He would definitely have stayed in the country and would not even have left Jiangcheng.

Now that the Matrix had become a point inside his brain, he had more options.

Going to a top university, earning a doctoral degree as quickly as possible, and building a reputation as a genius—that was his current plan.

"A PhD? Not to discourage you, but with your GPA and academic record, the best you can apply to are universities around the top 100 in the US rankings. Even if you raise your TOEFL and GRE scores, maybe you can reach around the top 50.

"The Ivy League and top public universities are practically impossible." Lin Jia got straight to the point. "If you want to come to New York, how about the State University of New York?"

"Stony Brook University, then. Stony Brook is also in New York City, and Long Island isn't too far from Manhattan.

"If it's Buffalo or Binghamton, they're only in New York State, not New York City."

Like the University of California, the State University of New York was a public university system made up of many campuses. Its most famous campus was probably Stony Brook University. Yang Zhenning had taught there for more than thirty years, and Tian Gang, the head of Yanjing University's mathematics department, had also first taught at Stony Brook University.

Chen Yuanguang said, "I'll take it one step at a time. I'll apply broadly. Whichever school wants me is where I'll go."

Chen Yuanguang thought, It'll be their good fortune if they admit me.

"If you have to prepare study-abroad applications, will you still have time to write your current book?" Lin Jia asked.

Chen Yuanguang smiled bitterly. "I'm afraid I won't. I'll have to escape through the outline. Anyway, I write romance light novels, so there isn't a particularly strong main plot. It's not like other genres, where I have to tie up every loose end.

"For a book like this that relies entirely on its characters, it's enough to explain the endings of the main characters."

"How have things been over there lately?" Chen Yuanguang changed the subject. He did not want to continue discussing it. It always made him feel like he was about to leave his novel unfinished, and that was not a good feeling for a webnovel author.

Lin Jia said, "Not bad, I guess. New York is colder than Jiangcheng, and I never want to get out of bed every day. Since Columbia University is in Manhattan, the public safety here is pretty good. It's just that the cost of living is a little high."

Chen Yuanguang complained, "If even a young lady like you thinks things are expensive, then they must really be expensive.

"Looks like New York isn't for me. I'll see whether Boston has opportunities that suit me better."

As he searched for information online, Chen Yuanguang became very clear about what he wanted. On the browser page before him were several prominent words:

"2018 10th Huaxia Science Fiction New Star Competition"