Had He Secretly Hooked Up with a Girl?

Yesterday, Li Hui and the other two had been staggering drunk. Unable to count on the system, Qi Hao had finally been forced to call Zhou Peng and the others from the dorm next door for help before he could get the three of them back to their room.

Along the way, Li Hui had even tried to shake hands with the dorm supervisor, insisting she was Microsoft's president for the Asia-Pacific region and refusing to leave without her autograph.

What an embarrassment!

When Qi Hao got up in the morning, his back ached all over.

[Ding! The system has detected that tovarishch is showing signs of weakness, including soreness throughout the body, after a tiny amount of physical labor.]

[A great Soviet warrior should possess the supreme physique of a man with hands of steel who can pull a tank. Your feeble body cannot even withstand the first snow of Siberia!]

[To correct tovarishch, the system has forcibly activated the physique monitoring panel.]

[Current physique value: 5.1/60.]

"5.1?"

Qi Hao's mouth twitched.

Although he spent every day in the library and classrooms and really didn't get much exercise, he was still an eighteen-year-old young man in the prime of his youth. How had the system turned him into a frail college student who couldn't even survive the first snow?

Could this bargain-basement son of a system be fooling me?

To test whether the panel was reliable, Qi Hao glanced at his roommates, who were still fast asleep. Gritting his teeth, he got out of bed and got down on the open floor of the dorm, preparing to do a few dozen push-ups to check.

One, two, three...

Qi Hao counted silently in his head.

But dreams were full-bodied, while reality was all skin and bones.

By the time he reached ten, his elbow joints were already throbbing with the strain. He gritted his teeth and forced out a fifteenth, only for his arms to give way. He collapsed flat on the floor like a limp shrimp.

"Whew... I can't do any more. My arms feel like they've been filled with lead!"

He rubbed his aching biceps and called up the system panel.

But one look made Qi Hao freeze.

[Physique value: 5.1 -> 5.11 (increase: 0.01).]

"Holy shit, it really works?!"

Fifteen push-ups increased my physique by 0.01?

At that rate, if I do a hundred push-ups a day in the dorm, that's a thousand in ten days. Won't my physique be maxed out before long?

No, knowing this system, things definitely aren't that simple.

While his thoughts were running wild, the alarm went off.

The lingering effects of the hangover drew a chorus of pained groans from the three guys in bed. But when they glimpsed that only fifteen minutes remained before class, the fear of being late instantly overwhelmed their headaches.

The three of them tumbled out of bed and staged a desperate race against time in front of the narrow balcony, fighting over the faucet and toothpaste. Then they hurriedly pulled on their clothes, grabbed their textbooks, and raced out of the dorm with Qi Hao.

The winter morning was chilly, and the road to the teaching building was already packed with an army of students hurrying to class. The air was filled with the steam of baozi, soy milk, and jianbing guozi.

Walking among the crowd, Qi Hao keenly noticed that he seemed to be drawing far more looks than usual today.

"Look, that's Qi Hao from the mathematics department, right?"

"Yes, yes, that's him! My god, he published a Q2 SCI paper all by himself as a freshman. He's practically an immortal descended to earth!"

"Holy shit, here comes a real academic god!"

"Wow, is that the academic god even Huaji's CEO wants to talk to?"

Whispers reached him from time to time, accompanied by a few secret glances of amazement and admiration. Some people even pretended to take selfies while quietly pointing their phones at him.

For the first time, Qi Hao understood deeply what people meant by the sweet burden of fame.

He was suddenly glad he had fixed his hair before going out.

In the public's stereotypical view, academic gods in science and engineering usually came with the ultimate three-piece set: messy hair, dark circles, and plaid shirts.

As an academic standard-bearer of the new generation, he had to shatter that prejudice through his actions and prove to all the university's teachers and students that publishing SCI papers and being handsome could indeed go hand in hand.

When Qi Hao finally made it into the classroom, he found that all the good seats at the front were taken.

Whether Qi Hao had spurred them on or finals were approaching, everyone was much more eager to study than usual.

Qi Hao was walking toward the back with his roommates when a girl suddenly called out to him. "Qi Hao, there's an empty seat here. Come sit here."

Qi Hao turned and saw a girl.

Is she in our class?

Qi Hao couldn't remember.

At that moment, dozens of burning gazes around him fastened on Qi Hao in unison.

Under that overwhelming tide of gazes, Qi Hao understood that if he refused now, the girl who had kindly saved him a seat would undoubtedly be left in an awkward position in full view of everyone. To spare her the embarrassment, he could only smile and nod, then brace himself and sit down.

Meanwhile, in the salted-fish haven of the second-to-last row, Wang Jun squeezed into a seat and craned his neck over the sea of heads, staring at Qi Hao in the prime spot in the second row.

"Holy crap, when did Brother Hao sneak behind our backs and hook up with a girl?!"

"Maybe it was at the library!" Li Hui said, clutching his faintly aching head.

Amid the teasing from his bad-influence friends in the back row, the class bell finally rang shrilly.

Teacher Qi stood at the lectern with a radiant smile on his face and said, "Students, before class begins, I'd like to take two minutes of your time to announce some very happy news."

"I'm sure you've seen the news over the past two days. Our classmate Qi Hao has successfully published a high-quality English SCI paper in an international academic journal. As your English teacher, I must tell you that the English proficiency behind his ability to independently complete writing of such a high standard speaks for itself."

"In the future, everyone should learn from Qi Hao. Not only must you be strong in your major courses, but you absolutely mustn't neglect your English either!"

Hearing Teacher Qi's praise, Qi Hao, sitting in the second row, was speechless.

Learn from me by reading math books in English class?

If the whole class really picked up his habit, Teacher Qi's blood pressure would probably shoot through the roof on the spot.

Today, his seat was right under Teacher Qi's nose, so Qi Hao decided to pay proper attention for one English class.

Unfortunately, that burst of enthusiasm didn't last long.

Qi Hao already understood everything Teacher Qi was teaching, and he hadn't slept well the night before. As he listened, he fell asleep.

At the lectern, Teacher Qi was in full swing, spittle flying as he analyzed a long, difficult sentence from the text. He glanced toward the second row out of habit, ready to exchange a look with his shining light of English.

Instead, he found his shining light of English asleep.

"...So everyone must pay attention to the subject-verb agreement in this sentence." Teacher Qi pretended not to see and looked away.

Under Teacher Qi's hypnotic influence, Qi Hao slept especially soundly.

As soon as the bell rang, he woke up feeling refreshed.

He had just stretched when his phone vibrated in his pocket. He took it out and saw a message from Old Wang:

[Qi Hao, come to Dean Hu's office. Huaji's CEO is here.]

Qi Hao was taken aback.

Huaji's CEO is here today?

He quickly replied: [Teacher Wang, I haven't had time to go through the procedures to request leave.]

As a university student steeped in rules and regulations, Qi Hao hadn't forgotten this important matter.

[What leave? Just come straight to the office. Leave the request to me!]

Looking at Old Wang's reply, positively brimming with authority, Qi Hao packed the books on his desk into his backpack.

Seeing this, the girl beside him asked somewhat shyly, "Qi Hao, shall I save you a seat for the next class too? I wanted to ask you about a few problems."

"Maybe next time. I have something to do now, so I'm not going to class."

"Did you request leave, then?"

"The teacher already requested leave for me."

The girl looked utterly bewildered.

Leave... you can actually have a teacher request it for you?