An Honest Guy, It Turns Out

"Lu Zhou!"

Hearing someone call his name, Lu Zhou, who was walking toward the men's dormitory, stopped and turned around. Lin Yuxiang, dressed in a white skirt, was jogging toward him.

Supporting herself with her fair hands on her knees, Lin Yuxiang bent over and caught her breath lightly, complaining in a soft voice, "Why did you walk so fast?"

Lu Zhou asked curiously, "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing. I just wanted to thank you. Back in Professor Tang's office, it was really thanks to you." Lin Yuxiang smiled brightly.

"It was nothing. You're welcome." Lu Zhou shook his head.

"Although I know I'm not very smart, I'll work hard to catch up with all of you! So... thank you for giving me this opportunity." Lin Yuxiang spoke shyly.

Emmm...

That alone was probably impossible.

Forget catching up with them, even catching sight of their taillights would not be easy for her.

Still, there was no need to expose a painful truth. Lu Zhou gave her an encouraging smile. "Mm, keep it up. You can definitely do it."

"Really? Thank you for encouraging me!" Lin Yuxiang hooked her fingers behind her back and said happily, "Then... as thanks, can I treat you to a meal?"

Although the offer of a meal was tempting, Lu Zhou politely declined for the sake of maintaining harmony among teammates.

"You should eat with your boyfriend. I won't be a third wheel."

Hearing that, Lin Yuxiang burst out laughing. She tucked the long hair by her ear behind it and said with a smile, "Don't tease me. Where would I get a boyfriend?"

Lu Zhou paused slightly. "Isn't that Student Wang?"

"What are you talking about?" Lin Yuxiang reproached him with a dissatisfied pout, looking at him seriously. "He's just my senior. I see him as an older brother, not like that at all."

Eh, eh, eh?

That was an option?

Lu Zhou was stunned at first, but then he quickly understood.

Ah...

So this was the legendary...

Lu Zhou smiled and politely refused. "Sorry, but I have some personal matters to deal with tonight. Maybe another time if there's a chance."

Apparently not expecting to be rejected, Lin Yuxiang froze for a moment, but her smile soon returned. "Okay! Then I'll wait for you to contact me... Oh, right, let me scan your WeChat."

This time, Lu Zhou did not refuse and took out his phone.

After all, they were teammates. Having each other's numbers would make it easier to stay in touch.

After exchanging WeChat accounts, Lin Yuxiang held her phone as though she had found a treasure, happily thanked him, and then turned away with light footsteps.

There was never a shortage of a certain type of girl at university. They were pretty and innocent, and when they smiled, they looked just like your first love. Every smile and frown tugged at your heartstrings.

They made you mistakenly think that they liked you and would begin approaching you without seeming to mean to.

"You're amazing." "Wow, you're so awesome." "If only I could be half as smart as you."

Being able to honestly acknowledge one's shortcomings and recognize exactly where they lay was a rare and valuable virtue, but they were clearly not content with that alone.

They were skilled at using the art of language and Moments to package themselves as lonely, pitiful weaklings, stirring up the protective instincts of the opposite sex and taking advantage of them as though it were only natural.

Yet once you started pursuing them, whenever you took a step forward, they took one back.

So you began reflecting on whether you were not good enough. Gradually, you lost yourself, pouring everything you had into a bottomless black hole.

Until one day, you realized that you were merely one of many captives...

If this phenomenon were abstracted into a model of social behavior, one would find that this collective social behavior was remarkably similar to the social structure of ants.

All worker ants and soldier ants served the sole queen, yet none of those ants held any power. Only the few male ants, those "tall, rich, handsome" types who did no labor, grew wings, and had weakly developed mandibles, truly possessed privilege.

As for that Senior Wang, the role he played was probably that of the so-called backup.

After analyzing it rationally, Lu Zhou felt that he had more or less figured it out.

As for Lin's goal, it was also obvious: latch onto a powerful thigh and coast to a ranking in the Mathematical Modeling Competition. Perhaps she had noticed that Lu Zhou was not very satisfied with her as a teammate, so she had deliberately approached him to show goodwill.

If she could make two science-and-engineering guys fight over her, that would be even better. All she needed to do was maneuver between them, and she could coast to victory in this national-level competition. It was not like she would lose a piece of flesh over it.

He had to admit that girls of this type were simply the natural enemies of top students.

People who devoted too much energy to studying were destined to find it difficult to cultivate other aspects of themselves...

As for why Lu Zhou would not take the bait?

That was because he had some self-awareness.

He felt that aside from being honest and fairly handsome, he was neither tall nor rich.

Trying to get deeply involved with this type of girl would be nothing but asking for trouble...

Lu Zhou returned to the dormitory and was preparing to take his laptop to the library to continue researching paper topics.

However, the moment he stepped into the dorm, Huang Guangming rushed over and shut the door.

Click—

Hm?

He had even locked it?

Lu Zhou warily watched Shi Shang and Liu Rui approach him with smiles on their faces. "Let's talk this out. We can discuss anything except money!"

Shi Shang grinned. "Zhouzi."

Liu Rui grinned along with him. "Zhouzi."

Lu Zhou said, "...Could you not make it sound so mushy? I'm getting goosebumps."

Blocking the dormitory door with his back, Huang Guangming said solemnly, "We all saw it. Confess honestly. Who was that girl downstairs? Which school? Which department? When did it start? How far has it gone? How did it feel?"

Lu Zhou: ???

Shi Shang patted Lu Zhou on the shoulder and sighed. "Brother, it's not that I won't help you, but you have to sympathize with us single dogs too, right? For the sake of us having slept under the same roof, I'm begging you for one thing. Call the people in your girlfriend's dorm over and arrange a mixer with our dorm. The three of us will cover the costs for food and karaoke. You just need to organize the event. Whether any couples come out of it or not, I'll owe you one."

Lu Zhou sighed and reached out to clasp the hand resting on his shoulder. "Brother, it's not that I won't help you... That student is just my teammate for the Mathematical Modeling Competition. Another teammate brought her in, and today was the first time I met her."

"How is that possible? Are you saying there's really nothing between you and her?" Liu Rui asked skeptically.

"Mm, you could say that." Lu Zhou nodded.

The three beasts in the dorm immediately deflated like limp mantis shrimp. Muttering things like, "Boring, boring, let's go," "I told you, if Zhouzi could get a girlfriend, my kid would already be buying soy sauce," and "If there's no mixer soon, let's vote the dorm leader out," they returned to their chairs and prepared to start another round of gaming.

Advanced Algebra and Mathematical Analysis were already over, while English, C Language, and Modern History were not until next week. The dormitory was already filled with the atmosphere of summer vacation, and naturally, no one wanted to study at a time like this.

Seeing that no one was paying attention to him anymore, Lu Zhou silently slung his laptop bag over his shoulder and slipped out.

Although he had stayed in the library until the librarian got off work yesterday, aside from downloading a mountain of papers and reading through a huge pile of incomprehensible material, he had made no progress whatsoever on choosing a topic.

Still, yesterday's accumulation had given him plenty of ideas. Today, he planned to push through in one go, finish choosing his topic, and begin writing the paper.

It sounded simple enough, but actually accomplishing it was far from easy.

The mathematics paper was manageable, but the nine computer science papers were all in fields outside his specialty. He had read no fewer than thirty related papers, more than half of them in English. After downloading them from the library, he had stayed up until after two in the morning just to barely finish them, and even then, he had only understood them halfway.

Even though he had worked through a C Language textbook before, much of the overly specialized material still posed considerable difficulty for him.

Sure enough, his learning ability still could not compare to that of true geniuses.

If only the system could give him another library task...

Walking toward the library, Lu Zhou sighed as he thought this.