Work, Top Student!

[Liu Rui: Mathematics is so hard! I totally couldn't understand the fifth fill-in-the-blank question, and I couldn't do the last multiple-choice question either. I just guessed an answer in the end. Sigh, I screwed up the exam. I'm probably going to have to retake it T.T]

"..."

While scrolling through Moments during lunch, Lu Zhou happened to see Liu's post. The corner of his mouth twitched. He was about to leave a like and scroll past, but he simply couldn't control his hand.

[The answer to the fifth fill-in-the-blank question was ..., and the answer to the last multiple-choice question was B.]

Typing symbols on a phone was fucking hard!

After editing it, he sent it.

That felt good!

Lu Zhou was about to put his phone back in his pocket and lower his head to continue eating his noodles when it buzzed. He pulled it out and saw that Liu Rui had actually replied.

Huh? That kid replied pretty fast.

Secretly surprised, Lu Zhou opened Moments.

[Liu Rui: ...Wasn't it A?]

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head. After recalling the question and the contents of each option, he tore out a sheet of scratch paper from his backpack, picked up a pen, and wrote out the full proof. Then he found a spot with passable lighting, took a photo, and sent it over.

[Lu Zhou: [Image]]

This time, Liu Rui took a long time to reply.

After waiting a while and seeing no response, Lu Zhou continued eating his noodles.

He had delayed long enough. If he didn't eat them soon, the noodles would get soggy.

Yet just as he thought that and put his phone back into his pocket, it buzzed again. This time, it was a call.

"Fuck? Has this guy gone crazy? He actually called me?"

Lu Zhou hurriedly pulled out his phone, only to see that the caller wasn't Liu Rui, but Wu Dahai.

Come to think of it, he had been the one to take him to the hospital after his heatstroke last time.

Thinking of that, Lu Zhou felt a wave of embarrassment. He still hadn't formally called to thank him.

Silently muttering a few apologies to himself, Lu Zhou pressed the answer button.

"Hello?"

"It's me, Dahai." Fatty Wu's hearty voice came through. "How are you? Feeling better?"

"I'm all right. Thanks for last time..." Lu Zhou said awkwardly.

"What're you thanking me for? I should be thanking you for not getting seriously hurt," Wu Dahai chided Lu Zhou, then continued casually, "You free tonight?"

"I am... What do you need?" Lu Zhou asked.

"Shentong Express needs people to sort packages. One hundred yuan for the night. You in?" Wu Dahai asked.

Lu Zhou immediately asked, "Where?"

Wu Dahai said, "There's a vehicle waiting at the school gate. We leave at seven. If you're coming, get over here fast. We're still two people short. Once we've got enough, we're leaving."

"I'm coming now!"

After hanging up, Lu Zhou quickly slurped down his noodles, carried the bowl to the dish return cart, and hurried out of the cafeteria. As he briskly headed toward the school gate, he called his dorm leader, Shi Shang.

"Hello? Zhouzi, what's up?" A booming voice came from the other end.

"I've got something to do tonight. I won't be back."

"What the hell? Got something going on?" The voice on the other end brimmed with gossiping excitement.

Lu Zhou said helplessly, "Fuck off. What are you thinking? It's a part-time job."

"..."

The other end was silent for a while. Just as Lu Zhou was about to hang up, Shi Shang suddenly sighed and lowered his voice. "Lu Zhou, I know your family's in a tough spot. If something's wrong, tell your brothers. We can all talk it over together. There's no need to do something like this... Anyway, where are you now? Is the other person a man or a woman?"

Lu Zhou: ???

When Lu Zhou said nothing, Shi Shang panicked. "Fuck, bro, don't do anything stupid. If you do this, you'll regret it for the rest of your life! How are you going to... going to face our future sister-in-law, whom we haven't even met? Don't hang up, I'm warning you! If you dare hang up, I'll call the counselor right away."

Lu Zhou said, "...What the fuck are you even talking about?"

Shi Shang froze, sensing that something seemed off. His expression immediately turned awkward as he asked quietly, "...What kind of part-time job could you be doing at night? I'm just trying to stop you from going down the wrong path—"

"Sorting packages. Fuck off."

The icy tone made Shi Shang shudder. By the time he came back to himself, Lu Zhou had already hung up.

The van was parked outside the gate. Seeing Lu Zhou emerge from the school gate, Wu Dahai waved from far away.

Lu Zhou opened the van door and sat down on a small stool, looking around the interior. Apart from himself, ten other people had been crammed inside. They were all Jinling University students, and all of them were male.

Obviously, no girls would go out to do part-time work at night, especially not this kind of manual labor.

Of course, this job was not actually that tiring. Lu Zhou had done it twice before. At the very least, it was much easier than handing out flyers. The only unpleasant part was having to stay up all night.

Still, when he thought of the hundred-yuan pay, Lu Zhou endured it.

He had no choice. He only had a little over three thousand yuan left in his account. Once he submitted to SCI, he would probably have to pay some unknown amount in dollars for page charges and review fees. He also did not want to burden his family or ask them for money.

Submitting to other magazines came with payment, but academic journals were another matter. Not only did they not pay contributors, they might even make you pay out of pocket.

"One hundred yuan a night, paid in cash the day after. Remember to send me your Alipay accounts. Once we get to the sorting center, follow instructions. The work is simple: unload the goods from the trucks and get them onto the warehouse conveyor belts. There'll be an hour-long break in the middle. You can play billiards in the break room all you want, but I wouldn't recommend playing against the workers. They play for money, and they're damn good. They can sink two or three balls in one shot and keep going."

"We have to move stuff? Won't that be exhausting?" asked a short-looking young man.

Wu Dahai patiently explained, "Don't worry, you won't need to carry anything by hand. You know how to kick a football, right? Two people pull the packages down from beside the truck, and everyone else just kicks them along. The ground between the unloading point and the conveyor belt is very slippery. Unless it's something big like a television or refrigerator, ordinary packages don't take much effort."

Another guy cried out, "Fuck, kick them? What if we break something?"

Wu Dahai shot him a sidelong glance and said in an experienced tone, "So what if it breaks? You won't have to pay for it, so what're you worried about? Just relax. Those merchants usually package their goods tightly, with several layers of foam plastic inside. If you've got the strength, kick them as hard as you want. If you're actually capable of kicking one of those things to pieces, I'll send you off to play for the China National Football Team."

The guy gave an embarrassed smile and said nothing, thinking, I'd love to go. But do you have what it takes to get me in?

As they chatted, they arrived at their destination. The van stopped outside the factory building. Wu Dahai pulled out his phone to pay, then called for the students to get out.

The factory building by the intersection was huge, easily more than two thousand square meters at a glance, with several trucks parked outside. The regular sorters had already started working. A middle-aged man in a blue work uniform stood at the entrance looking around. When he saw Wu Dahai, he immediately waved them over.

"Everyone here? How about taking roll call first?" the man said with a grin, exposing a yellow tooth.

"There are only a few of us. Why bother with roll call? Let's get started," Wu Dahai said as he expertly offered the middle-aged man a cigarette.

The middle-aged man smiled as he accepted it. "All right, follow me."

With that, he turned and led the way toward the workshop.