I hope I'll get another chance to see her...
The burbling water drowned out Gu Qing's inward murmur, blurring it amid the mist.
At the same time, however, that trace of anticipation in his heart grew ever clearer.
He really wanted to know what sort of surprised expression Bai Ningyu would wear if they truly reunited one day and she saw that he, too, had come into contact with the supernatural.
PS: Holding out my bowl for monthly votes and recommendation votes!
37, An all-round genius
The next morning.
Daylight was only just breaking.
Gu Qing opened his eyes and woke up on schedule. Out of habit, he took out his phone and sent his Junior Schoolmate a WeChat message, asking her out to practice martial arts.
It was nearly eight.
Only then did his Junior Schoolmate wake up and reply.
[Xia Shuran: Senior, how about we take today off? We trained too hard yesterday. I'm sore and aching all over now, and even lifting my arms is a struggle. I really can't train.]
A few seconds after sending it, she added a pitiful little emoji. He could feel her exhaustion even through the screen.
Gu Qing replied: [Sure, get some proper rest today, then. We'll carry on tomorrow.]
[Xia Shuran: Senior, you're such a good guy. So understanding.]
[Gu Qing: Hey, don't go handing me the "nice guy" card.]
[Xia Shuran: Then you're really handsome, Senior!]
[Gu Qing: If you've got such a way with words, keep talking.]
[Xia Shuran: Senior, you're devastatingly handsome, explosively handsome, the most handsome guy at Ocean University!]
[Gu Qing: Honest people like you are hard to find. Give me a couple more.]
After chatting with his Junior Schoolmate for a while.
Gu Qing felt thoroughly refreshed.
All he could say was that women weren't the only ones who enjoyed emotional validation. Men liked it, too.
After all, who didn't like being flattered?
But demanding emotional validation from others without giving anything back was just being a complete animal.
A few minutes later.
Gu Qing excused himself by saying he had something to do and stopped chatting with Xia Shuran.
The moment he closed the WeChat conversation, he felt a little troubled.
When he had first woken up, he had planned to practice martial arts with Xia Shuran all day and try to unlock that hulking-musclehead attribute, Knotted Muscles, by Monday.
After all, it was Sunday morning, and his Physical Constitution attribute had already increased by a total of 81 points.
Two days would be more than enough to grind out 19 points.
But no one had expected his sports-major Junior Schoolmate, who had always been so resilient, to go down.
It caught him off guard.
"Oh well, a few days won't hurt."
Gu Qing took it well. "Unlocking it on Wednesday or Thursday will be just the same."
Nine that morning.
Gu Qing wandered around campus, looking for rats.
Although the Public Security Captain had warned him last night not to get involved in these rat cases again, he still did things his own way and hadn't given up investigating.
Because he felt that true self-preservation meant taking the initiative to understand the enemy, not burying his head in the sand.
There were criminals hiding on campus now, and they were very likely supernatural criminals.
As a member of the university, he had to understand everything so that he could keep the whole situation under control.
Only by knowing both himself and his enemy, and understanding exactly what situation he was in, could he better protect himself afterward.
Now that he was supernatural himself, taking the initiative to learn about other supernatural beings was how he could protect himself.
If he chose to stay away from the supernatural and knew absolutely nothing, he would be left on the back foot when other supernatural beings came knocking.
Gu Qing was searching for rats.
Suddenly.
The phone in his pocket began vibrating wildly.
He took it out and looked.
It was Zhou Yuan, the [Biochemical Maniac], messaging him on WeChat.
[You up yet?]
[I've found a new place to rent and moved my things over.]
[It's just that I've got quite a lot of lab equipment. Having the Huolala driver help carry it upstairs would cost too much, and I don't really want to pay.]
[If you're free, come help me carry it up.]
[We can use the money we save on moving fees to go out for a good lunch.]
He quickly scanned the messages.
Gu Qing replied: [Yuan, send me the location. I'll head over now.]
The urban village beside the university.
Gu Qing followed the navigation around, but simply couldn't find the residential building Zhou Yuan had mentioned.
There was nothing for it.
He could only make a voice call to Zhou Yuan to check.
"Yuan, did you give me the wrong address? Why can't I find the building you mentioned?"
"It's right. What map app are you using?"
"Low Virtue Maps."
"Well, no wonder you can't find it. Low Virtue Maps is also called No Virtue Maps. It's got no conscience and keeps sending people the wrong way. Switch to Thousand Degrees Maps and you'll find it."
"I'll give it a try, then."
After ending the call, Gu Qing reluctantly used his mobile data to download Thousand Degrees Maps and started navigating again.
With Thousand Degrees Maps guiding him.
Before long.
Gu Qing found the residential building Zhou Yuan had mentioned.
Fuck, this crappy No Virtue Maps. Uninstall!
Thousand Degrees Maps, launch!
Just after he uninstalled Low Virtue Maps, Gu Qing saw Zhou Yuan coming downstairs, his head covered in sweat.
The moment Zhou Yuan saw Gu Qing, his eyes lit up as though he had seen his savior.
"You're finally here!"
"Quick, quick, quick! Help me carry all this lab equipment upstairs."
"The sooner we finish moving, the sooner we can eat."
As he spoke, Zhou Yuan had already picked up a large box of test tubes, turned around, and carefully headed toward the stairs.
Seeing this, Gu Qing wasted no time and immediately helped carry things up.
He was in good physical shape, and one trip of his equaled three of Zhou Yuan's.
With his help, they carried everything upstairs in just over ten minutes.
Then they spent another half hour or so arranging things and cleaning, and the move was officially complete.
By then, it was already past eleven in the morning.
The two went downstairs to eat.
About an hour later.
The two returned to the rented place, having eaten and drunk their fill.
"I'm a little sleepy after that meal."
Zhou Yuan yawned. "Do you want to take a nap here too, or what?"
Gu Qing suggested, "Yuan, how about we skip the nap and do some research together?"
The reason he had approached Zhou Yuan was precisely to do research with him and grind attributes from that [Biochemical Maniac] tag.
Taking a nap would just be wasting time and wasting his life.
Zhou Yuan was surprised. "Sure! I didn't expect you to really be this interested in research. I thought you were just trying something new."
With that, he fetched two sets of lab clothes and handed one to Gu Qing. "Come on, get your gear on. Let's get started!"
Gu Qing took the lab clothes, put them on, and immediately got to work.
Weighing reagents.
Mixing solutions.
Filtering out impurities.
Every movement Gu Qing made was practiced and steady.
Zhou Yuan watched from beside him, repeatedly taken aback.
"How did your technique get so polished? You were clearly fumbling around when I watched you last night!"
Zhou Yuan couldn't make sense of it.
Gu Qing smiled. "This is already my second time. With last night's experience, it's normal to be a little more practiced."
"But you're way too practiced, aren't you?"
Zhou Yuan began questioning his life. "You only did it once, and now you're this skilled. Next to you, I practically look disabled."
After saying that, he couldn't help feeling some regret. "You were absolutely born for scientific research. You shouldn't have chosen a foreign languages major. What a waste of talent."
Gu Qing found those words very familiar.
Xia Shuran had also said before that he was born for sports and that it was such a shame he wasn't pursuing athletics.
But...
Was it really a shame?
The answer, naturally, was not in the slightest.
Because I'm an all-round genius.
As long as I have enough time to grind more attributes from different tags, I'm destined to be capable of anything.
PS: Holding out my bowl for monthly votes and recommendation votes!
38, The white horse knight
"That's enough, that's enough. You don't need to mix any more solution, or we'll have too much to use up."
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