Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
“…” Lu Zhou did not answer.
“I can understand. You must have your own opinions about her,” said Professor Liu with a smile. He added, “Just like my research community, every team would always have a useless teammate. They don’t care at all about the project. These people would always exist.”
“Professor, your mentality is so good,” said Lu Zhou with a smile.
“It’s not that my mentality is good,” said Professor Liu. He waved his hand and smiled, “It’s because I’m used to it by now.”
He patted Lu Zhou on the shoulder and said in a serious tone, “You have to understand that getting the first prize is our only goal. It might seem unfair to those who have to do more work, but this is just a learning curve.”
Lu Zhou thought about it for a bit and nodded, “Okay, I understand. I can be responsible for building the mathematical model and writing the thesis, but I have one condition.”
“Say it,” said Professor Liu with a smile.
“I want to reduce the number of group training sessions moving forward and change it to solo training. We can resume group training closer to the competition time,” said Lu Zhou. He paused for a second before continuing, “This way, I can be more flexible with my training schedule.”
Having to get everyone together to train would waste too much time.
Lu Zhou still preferred to work at his own tempo.
“No problem as I originally planned to do this as well,” replied Liu Xiangping with a smile.
The two people went back into the computer room.
At last, Lu Zhou could write the thesis.
After all, he had experience from submitting an SCI thesis and he had done quite a lot of research for that system mission. Looking at writing thesis alone, not to mention the useless Lin Yuxiang, even the second-year student, Wang Xiaodong, was no match for him.
Of course, today was just a training session. There was no need to polish the paper in accordance with the standards of the competition. The layout required ten or twenty pages of paper. It could not be finished within a day.
Lu Zhou wrote the key parts of “model hypothesis” and “problem analysis” according to the format of the mathematical modeling thesis. For the less important parts, he wrote down the title and skipped it.
Lin Yuxiang looked at the completed thesis and expressed her gratitude. She expressed pitifully that she had dragged them down today and that she was very sorry and would try to catch up with everyone’s footsteps.
Lu Zhou did not respond, but in his heart, he sighed.
Try your best!
After dismissal, Lu Zhou rejected Lin Yuxiang’s invitation to buy him food.
He strapped on his computer bag, walked to the library, and began to furiously write his thesis.
Chen Yushan sat next to him. Other than occasionally asking him a question or two, she also had her head down doing questions. Although she was very curious why a mathematics major like him was writing a computer science thesis, she did not ask why.
He leaned against the chair and stretched his arm. Lu Zhou was about to go to the toilet when his phone started to vibrate on his desk.
Lu Zhou picked his phone up and saw it was Fat Wu calling. He immediately stood up and walked towards the library’s toilet.
He answered the phone and leaned against the window.
“Hey, what’s up?”
“It’s me, Wu Dahai. Are you free this week?”
The sincere voice of Fat Wu came through the telephone. It was obvious he needed manpower for a job.
He was a third-year student, but he did not care at all about the graduate entrance exam. He did not look for jobs either. He spent all day working and was never in school. If he did not have a student ID card, Lu Zhou would doubt that he was even a student at the University of Jin Ling.
“What kind of job?” asked Lu Zhou.
Although he was very busy right now, if the pay was high, he would still consider it.
However, he knew that the probability of that was low.
“Jin Ling recently opened a building and the developers need people to pass out flyers. 20 yuan an hour. They need people all week. Are you coming?” asked Wu Dahai.
“… I’m a bit busy these few days. I can’t do it,” said Lu Zhou with a mild tone. Even though Lu Zhou was a bit excited, he had to think about the nine theses he still had to write.
“It’s fine. I’ll find someone else then,” said Fat Wu. He did not care and said, “Go do your own stuff.”
Lu Zhou hung up the call and went to the toilet. Then he went back into the library.
When he returned to his chair, he saw his draft paper under the keyboard and Chen Yushan was sitting next to it. She looked forward to seeing him. When he saw her expression, he could not help but smile. He did not say much and started to pick up his pen to solve the problems.
Finding the general solution for the problem of a second-order constant-coefficient differential equation was a pretty difficult topic in advanced algebra. As it combined multiple knowledge points such as trigonometric functions and integral derivation, it was usually used as the second or last big question on the exams.
However, for Lu Zhou, it was not a challenge at all.
He was not bragging. There was no university level advanced mathematics questions that he could not solve.
Chen Yushan looked at Lu Zhou as he was solving the question and asked softly, “Who called you just then?”
“A student. He wanted to give me jobs,” answered Lu Zhou swiftly.
“You still work?” asked Chen Yushan with her eyes widened. She asked softly, “But I see you stay at the library all day…”
“I’ve been working less recently. I worked at night last time…” said Lu Zhou. He stopped his pen and added, “It was sorting packages.”
“Why did you have to specify?” asked Chen Yushan curiously.
“No reason… I solved it.”
Lu Zhou said while handing the draft paper back to her. He spent less than three minutes to solve this problem. It was extraordinarily fast. A normal student could take up to half an hour on a question of this level.
“Ah, thank you… I hope you don’t mind me asking, but are your allowance not enough?” asked Chen Yushan as she took the draft paper back.
“… You could say so,” answered Lu Zhou.
He had never even had an allowance.
Chen Yushan nodded her head as a sign of understanding. She then opened her mouth and said, “Then… I have a job for you. It’s easier than sorting packages. Do you want it?”
Lu Zhou was typing when he suddenly stopped and looked at her strangely, “It’s not teaching you mathematics, is it?”
“My mathematics… isn’t that bad!” said Chen Yushan. She was about to raise her voice when she remembered that she was in the library. She held back and said softly, “It is teaching mathematics, but not for me. I have a cousin who is still in high school. She’s from the City of Jin Ling. She lives near our school. She’s about to enter Grade 11, but her results are horrible. Especially mathematics. My auntie is worried to death about her studies, so she asked me to find a tutor. Preferably a tutor who is good at mathematics…”
Chen Yushan looked at Lu Zhou apologetically, “Originally, I was planning on asking my roommate, but she has to prepare for the graduate entrance exam so she has no time. Also, it’s been so long since she did high school stuff that she has completely forgotten about it. I thought… Anyway, you seem to be pretty harmless. So, I just want to ask if you have time during the summer holidays…”
Lu Zhou: ? ? ?
What the hell is harmless? Is she calling me handsome?
For a long time, Lu Zhou did not anything. Chen Yushan said softly, “No time? I can ask someone else…”
“What’s the pay?” asked Lu Zhou. He wanted to know the salary before giving her a response.
He had originally planned to work throughout the holidays. It was either working for Fat Wu or this girl.
Chen Yushan thought for a bit and said, “200 yuan an hour with the transport fees covered. From July onwards, go there every Saturday.”
“How much???”
“200 an hour… What?”
Lu Zhou heard her. He placed his hands down on the keyboard and became silent.
“Is it too little?” asked Chen Yushan. When she saw that he was silent for so long, she thought it was too little. She said tentatively, “Maybe I can ask my auntie…”
“No need,” said Lu Zhou. He shook her hand, “Deal.”
“Then why was your expression so serious? I thought it was too little,” said Chen Yushan. She relaxed and rolled her eyes at Lu Zhou.
“Nothing, I just felt that…” said Lu Zhou. He looked at the ceiling and sighed softly, “I’m so angry.”