Ji Wenyu suddenly felt a surge of curiosity about who X actually was.
Since they were already study partners who checked in with each other every day, wouldn’t it be normal to know each other’s university and name?
However, the sunset in the photo only captured the clouds in the sky, without any ground buildings, making it completely impossible to determine X’s location based on it.
The young man raised his head to look at the sky.
Every single cloud looked quite similar to the pretty ones in X’s photo, but upon closer inspection, they all seemed different too.
Capital University should be located to the west of their campus.
Ji Wenyu opened the compass on his phone.
The clouds to the west didn’t seem to look any more similar, did they?
Should he just ask directly?
Better not.
They were just online acquaintances, and even though he had his suspicions about X’s identity, asking that person directly would still be somewhat presumptuous.
After much deliberation, he gave up, tossed his phone into his coat pocket, and jogged over to the basketball hoop to grab the ball.
In the past, Ji Wenyu used to disdain such check-in activities.
Yet, after an entire vacation, he unexpectedly discovered that this seemingly showy operation was exceptionally effective.
Especially after choosing the professor he wanted to butter up, things went even more smoothly.
X had sent him some templates for writing recommendation materials for the graduate recommendation winter camp and even personally helped him polish his research plan. When he returned from the vacation and before computer vision classes started, Ji Wenyu had already successfully prepared his personal statement and research plan for buttering up the professor.
When it comes to buttering up professors, personal interaction is key. Anyway, he had always been a social butterfly—an absolute extrovert. When buttering up a professor, he didn’t have to worry about bruising his ego if he got rejected; the worst that could happen was that the other person would point out what was wrong, he would fix it, and then come back to ambush the person again.
Since he wanted to be Chen Wang’s disciple in the future, his computer vision studies couldn’t be taken lightly. On Monday afternoon, Ji Wenyu purposely arrived at the classroom twenty minutes early to block the doorway. As soon as the previous class ended and students streamed out of the classroom, he rushed inside and directly claimed the front-row center seat.
Eating or playing on his phone during class usually brought the fear of accidentally making eye contact with the teacher, but since Ji Wenyu was sitting in the front row and listening attentively, his eyes naturally followed the teacher’s gaze, fearing the teacher wouldn’t notice him.
This must have been the most attentively listened-to class Ji Wenyu had in his three years of university. The professional class in the second half of the afternoon wasn’t all that drowsy either.
As the end-of-class bell rang, the tree-planting app on his phone successfully recorded a duration of an hour and a half. The young man stuffed his books into his backpack with satisfied speed and guarded the classroom door, waiting for Professor Chen to come out.
Ji Wenyu’s opening line for buttering up the professor was simple and crude.
“Professor Chen, I recently started preparing for Zijing University’s graduate recommendation winter camp, and regarding my future research direction, I’d like to consult with you.”
Rather than wasting Chen Wang’s time listening to him beat around the bush, it was better to cut straight to the chase. Less routine, more sincerity, especially since he had already expressed his sincerity by sitting in the front row and listening attentively during class.
Having seen hundreds and thousands of students, the man knew what he wanted to say the moment he spoke.
The professor, wearing thin-rimmed glasses, nodded gently: “Alright, then follow me to the office.”
The first half of buttering up the professor progressed very smoothly.
Following Chen Wang back to the small office upstairs, Ji Wenyu handed the prepared materials to him, briefly introduced his grades and various competition awards from over two years of university, and stated his academic research vision for the future.
Professor Chen listened very attentively, asking a few questions from time to time. The research direction was something he had previously run by X for approval, and the big boss had casually given him a few pointers, several of which happened to cover the content Chen Wang was interested in.
While answering fluently, Ji Wenyu quietly sighed inwardly that X truly lived up to being a big boss. Once the buttering-up process succeeded, he would somehow have to treat X to a meal. But after all, everyone was just online acquaintances; would the big boss agree to meet him offline?
However, the good times didn’t last. While Ji Wenyu was still pondering this seemingly foolproof attempt, Chen Wang ended his questions.
“Your research direction preparation is fairly adequate, but have you published any papers so far, or worked on projects with any professors at the school?” the man asked.
Ji Wenyu was so nervous his palms were sweating: “I haven’t had anything in professional journals yet, but does writing papers for competition problem-solving count?”
He flusteredly flipped his resume page out from a stack of materials and handed it to Chen Wang.
“Oh, right.” The professor glanced at it casually. “You’re a junior now, right?”
“Yes, Professor Chen,” Ji Wenyu nodded and said.
Chen Wang pointed at the GPA on his resume: “Your grades should be fine for getting into Zijing University, but the winter camp belongs to the early-admissions batch.”
He didn’t point it out directly, but Ji Wenyu understood what he meant.
The entire graduate recommendation process started with the winter camp, followed by the summer camp, and finally the official massive application wave. The winter camp was equivalent to an early-admissions batch within the early admissions, where major universities head-hunted the top talents. If it were X or Xu Yuanzhe, it would naturally be fine. But his GPA and resume might fall a bit short.
Starting off on the wrong foot and feeling his heart sink halfway, Ji Wenyu understood, but he was still unconvinced.
Perhaps seeing his unwillingness to give up, Chen Wang looked at him and said, “Wait a moment.”
He turned around, searched for a while on the bookshelf on the other side of the desk, and handed an A4 sheet of paper to Ji Wenyu.
Printed on the paper were four or five questions related to biology and artificial intelligence, the kind of open-ended questions where each one looked like it could be expanded and written into a research paper.
“I prepared these a while ago at the start of the semester for this year’s newly enrolled master’s graduate students, sort of to test everyone’s foundation and research mindset. Go back and prepare it, give it a week, and I’ll see what level you can reach. If it meets my standard, I can write you a recommendation letter for the winter camp.” Before he even had time to directly ask for a recommendation letter, Chen Wang proactively brought it up.
The young man’s eyes lit up again: “Alright, thank you, Professor Chen!”
Open-ended propositions are obviously more difficult than exam questions that always have a correct answer.
This is probably also the inherent difficulty of doing scientific research itself.
With only a general direction, where to go and how to walk, it felt like walking in a silent, dark night, relying entirely on one’s own exploration.
There were five questions in total given to him by Chen Wang, among which the first two were relatively basic, and he could find their general answers in his professional textbooks from the past two years or so. But starting from the third question, the problems became abstract.
Taking the questions assigned by Chen Wang to the library and struggling for an entire evening, Ji Wenyu still had no clue the next day, and couldn’t help tapping open the chat box with X.
He had to admit that over this period, he gradually discovered that the big boss was really useful.
Although he used to hang onto Xu Yuanzhe’s coattails along with Huang Bin and the others, because of his secret crush on Xu Yuanzhe, he often wasn’t willing to lower himself before that person. Apart from asking for notes, he rarely asked that person questions, and mostly relied on self-study from notes for final exams. Thinking about it now, if he had pestered Xu Yuanzhe more previously, he probably could have learned a lot more knowledge. But nowadays, he and Xu Yuanzhe kept out of each other’s way, and their interaction was limited to superficial greetings and nods. Without him leading the charge in the dorm, they hadn’t dragged Xu Yuanzhe along for any group dinners recently. For the graduate recommendation winter camp, Xu Yuanzhe would probably sign up too. However, since that person had already found a partner and the two of them were competitors, Chen Wang’s questions were neither convenient nor desirable for him to ask Xu Yuanzhe about.
In terms of professional knowledge, most of the time he could only understand the shallow meaning of texts and formulas. When the book wrote one, he only read one. But X’s knowledge base was broader than his, allowing him to better draw inferences from one instance. The one on the page was understood by that person into two and three, or even four, five, and six.
Registering for the check-in activity as a study partner with X was something Wang Xinnuo forced on him. At first, Ji Wenyu wasn’t very enthusiastic, but after more than ten days, he had already begun to feel glad that the person who became his study partner with X was himself. On the point rankings of the Qinghe activity homepage, his and X’s combination firmly occupied first place by a wide margin, but that was secondary. The most important thing was that Ji Wenyu suddenly possessed a treasure chest. Wherever he didn’t understand, he could click; wherever he had a question, he could ask, and X could always reply with the exact answer he needed most.
He was starting to rely on this standard answer.
[Little Fish: God X, I went to butter up a professor today]
Ji Wenyu planned to make some small talk first before getting to the main point.
[X: How did it go] [Little Fish: The professor felt my resume was a bit lacking] [Little Fish: He didn’t outright reject me, but gave me a page of questions he prepared for newly enrolled graduate students, and gave me a week to prepare] [X: Is it hard]
Ji Wenyu promptly sent the scanned questions over.
[Little Fish: I have no ideas for the last three questions] [Little Fish: Crying dog GIF]
He waited for half a minute, but the other side didn’t reply for a long time.
Ji Wenyu typed with a guilty conscience.
[Little Fish: If the big boss has time, can you help me take a look?]
Outsourcing his homework to the big boss to do was ultimately not very good. He didn’t know if X would refuse, but he still held onto a sliver of luck and wanted to try.
Fortunately, he had just finished editing this message and hadn’t sent it yet when X replied with a message.
[X: Let me see]
God X was helping him look at the questions! What did this indicate? It indicated that X was interested in his questions! Based on his understanding over these past days, although God X and he were both in the artificial intelligence major, X didn’t take the cross-disciplinary route, so there was no suspicion that X wanted to peek at his questions or steal his mentor. Besides, X was from Capital University across the way, and in all probability had no interest in their Zijing University either; Ji Wenyu had no extra worries whatsoever.
There was hope; his graduate recommendation winter camp had hope! Ji Wenyu, who had been frowning all evening, walked out of the late-night library door with brisk steps and humming a little tune after receiving X’s sentence, “Let me see.”
Although what X said was “Let me see” and not “I’ll help you think about it,” he simply defaulted to the idea that X wouldn’t leave him to fend for himself.
Having a big boss as a study partner is really great; was this the feeling of getting a head start just by being close to the water?
With the big boss around, everything was worry-free. Thinking this, even though the deadline was a day closer and his hands were still empty, Ji Wenyu still slept exceptionally soundly that night.
The next morning, after diligently finishing three classes during the day and squeezing in time to memorize 200 vocabulary words for check-in, the young man walking from the cafeteria to the library at dusk happily received the message sent by X after reviewing the questions.
[X: What are your current thoughts? Do you want to discuss it?]
Although God X was formidable, his communication with him was always humble.
Clearly helping him with unpaid guidance, X actually asked him if he needed to discuss and exchange ideas. Even with skin as thick as Ji Wenyu’s, he still felt a bit embarrassed.
[Little Fish: If God X is willing to guide me, that couldn’t be better!] [Little Fish: Loopy fawning GIF]
[X: Seven o’clock, voice call?]
Ji Wenyu replied in a fawning second.
[Little Fish: Alright, waiting for you!]
Buying coffee on the first floor of the library and taking the elevator to the sixth floor to his favorite spot, the young man stared blankly at the lush green expanse downstairs for a moment, then opened his computer to prepare for the voice call with X later.
He was going to hear X’s voice. For some reason, he felt a bit nervous.
The gender X filled in on Qinghe was male; was the big boss’s voice deep or thin, high or low? Wang Xinnuo said X was a handsome guy, so would his voice sound very pleasant too?
Although he and X had checked in together as study partners for so many days, they weren’t actually very familiar with each other. Would it be awkward to connect for a phone call like this?
Ji Wenyu never expected that one day he would worry about awkward silences when communicating with people.
The young man patted his cheeks, trying to calm down.
Wake up, Ji Wenyu, why are you nervous? Isn’t it just an X? It’s not like you haven’t seen big bosses; you even room with Zijing University’s god-level student Xu Yuanzhe every day.
Setting up the computer and opening Notability on his iPad, the young man held his electronic stylus, waiting for the time on his phone to jump from 18:59 to 19:00.
Tens of seconds passed, and the chat box between Qinghe and X remained quiet.
X should be a punctual person, right? Should he initiate the call himself? But would that make it look like he was rushing the big boss? Should he wait a bit longer instead?
Torn between hesitation, Ji Wenyu was pondering when the opposing voice call popped over.
The young man licked his lips and pressed accept.
X’s voice came through the earpiece.
Only then did Ji Wenyu realize he had overthought it.
As an anonymous social networking software, Qinghe still did a very good job in protecting user privacy.
The voice default setting came with a voice changer.
Why did he realize instantly that this wasn’t X’s original voice?
Because the sound coming out of the headphones was the most commonly used voice in short videos: the Monkey King dubbing.