Chapter 28

Gu Chen turned and left. He still had basketball practice to attend.

Over at the basketball team, Cheng Yi had been waiting for Gu Chen for a long time too. Thanks to him, the gossip that their star player had dared to skip a major course had already spread through the entire team. Everyone was shocked, but they also had to admit that Gu Chen was seriously gutsy.

"Even I wouldn't dare skip Elder Xing's class. You're damn impressive!" Huo Mingzhang gave Gu Chen a big thumbs-up. "I've realized you really have no idea who you can offend at this school and who you absolutely can't."

Compared to Elder Xing, Huo Mingzhang felt like he was nothing. Thinking about it that way, he could understand why Gu Chen had never taken him seriously.

At the very least, Huo Mingzhang wasn't powerful enough to make Gu Chen fail his exams, revoke his graduate recommendation slot, or even block him from joining project teams.

Thinking about it that way, he, Huo Mingzhang, was nobody at all!

Gu Chen sighed silently. Everyone thought he was an idiot. No one understood that, in the eyes of someone reborn, university courses really weren't that important. Besides, Elder Xing was actually only strict with freshmen and sophomores. Juniors and seniors needed internships and had to look for jobs. Especially seniors—if they occasionally skipped class to handle their own affairs, Elder Xing would usually turn a blind eye.

Gu Chen had once been one of the many students Elder Xing turned a blind eye to. So much so that after being reborn, he had actually forgotten just how harsh Elder Xing was on freshmen and sophomores.

He had fallen into habitual thinking!

Gu Chen regretted it as he reflected on himself. He also reminded himself that times had changed. When it came to some people and some things, he truly could not keep relying on old habits of thought. Not every change was only natural, and not every alteration could be taken for granted.

One careless move, and a professor could still teach him a brutal lesson.

That evening, Gu Chen, thoroughly frightened by Professor Xing, took it out on the basketball team members. He crushed them so badly that they howled in misery. After practice, he returned to the dorm, showered, and picked up his Economic Law and Tax Law, intending as usual to study in the common activity room. When he picked up his phone, he found a new text message from an unfamiliar number.

Gu Chen opened it and was immediately hit with a major assignment: <Trade Liberalization and Macroeconomic Market Regulation>.

[An eight-thousand-word paper. Hand it to me before class next week. Your arguments must be well-supported and substantive.]

Below that, he had even thoughtfully included a website link and a WeChat ID.

[ADD ME ON WECHAT!!!]

Gu Chen's vision went dark as he stared at that final sentence.

No matter how unwilling he was, Gu Chen still nervously added Professor Xing on WeChat. Fortunately, after accepting his request, Professor Xing did not say much. He only told Gu Chen to write the paper properly.

Gu Chen let out a sigh of relief. Yet at the same time, it felt as though a Sword of Damocles hung over his head, leaving him with the constant illusion that someone was watching him closely.

Gu Chen felt that this was probably what people called academic pressure.

Because of Professor Xing's sudden notice, when Gu Chen arrived at the common activity room that night, he did not go into the study room as he usually did. Instead, he went to the multimedia room and claimed a computer to look up information.

Having started his own business in his previous life, Gu Chen habitually checked companies' publicly disclosed financial reports when gathering materials. Compared with financial news articles that could be spun in various ways, he placed more emphasis on organizing large-scale data and analyzing market indicators. Combined with domestic economic trends over the next decade, it was easy for him to select several projects he remembered as classics for case studies.

After broadly reviewing the relevant news on several targets, Gu Chen ruled out several industrial conglomerates whose specific data would be difficult to collect. He retained only one case: a fast-moving consumer goods giant that raised massive funding through a new share issuance, then leveraged financial instruments to complete mergers and consolidation, successfully driving industrial upgrading and corporate transformation before listing on the M-share market.

The main reason he chose this case for his paper was that it had been entirely led by Tiansui Capital. And for personal reasons, Gu Chen was extremely familiar with every investment project Tiansui Capital had undertaken. He might not know every figure by heart, but they were at least readily available to him. That would save him a great deal of time searching for materials and verifying data.

As Gu Chen smugly congratulated himself on finding a way to slack off, he had no idea that when Professor Xing assigned him this topic, he had not expected Gu Chen to write an especially polished or detailed paper. Although he had developed some appreciation for Gu Chen's talent, Gu Chen was, after all, only a freshman who had just entered university. Both his life experience and his knowledge base were limited.

In Professor Xing's view, as long as Gu Chen's paper could offer a broad discussion, analyze the general direction well, and present an overall argument with some merit, that would be enough. He had not expected the paper to be particularly professional.

Who could have imagined that, because of his habitual thinking, Gu Chen would prepare the paper as though it were a due diligence report, analyze his arguments from a financial perspective, and ultimately produce an industry observation report with considerable foresight?

Gu Chen spent the entire evening researching materials and preparing a draft. By the time he came back to himself, it was already eleven at night. He packed up and prepared to return to the dorm to rest. The moment he stepped out of the multimedia room, he ran into the senior who had asked him for a mind map in the study room earlier.

Gao Haiyang had looked for Gu Chen all evening and thought he had not come. He had not expected to run into him at the entrance to the multimedia room after taking a trip to the restroom. Somewhat surprised, he asked, "Why did you go to the multimedia room? I thought you weren't coming to study today."

Gu Chen said, "I need to write a paper and look up some information."

Gao Haiyang asked curiously, "What year are you in? You're writing papers this early?"

Gu Chen said, "Freshman. Professor Xing assigned it."

Gao Haiyang's eyes widened in shock. "Freshmen have to start writing papers already? Has Elder Xing become this completely insane now?"

"No." Gu Chen hesitated, unwilling to spread his embarrassing experience everywhere, but he also could not let Professor Xing be misunderstood. He could only force himself to explain, "It's because I got caught skipping class. That's why Professor Xing—"

"You skipped Elder Xing's class?" Before Gu Chen could finish, Gao Haiyang cut him off in disbelief. "Elder Xing as in the one I know? Xing Changlian, Professor Xing, who teaches Principles of Economics?"