Chapter 144 Recent Developments

Chapter 144 Recent Developments

"Matter exists objectively, and consciousness is a reflection of objective existence. Matter determines consciousness, and consciousness has an active reaction on matter..."

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Chu Ge's voice echoed in the dormitory, carrying a hint of listless frustration.

Chu Ge, with a thick copy of "The Basic Principles of Marxism" rolled up in his hand, was sitting unceremoniously on the ladder next to Wang Dayong.

He was shirtless, leaning against the iron pipe, his brows furrowed, staring intently at the printed words on the page, muttering to himself.

After memorizing for less than two minutes, he suddenly became impatient and slammed the book down on his thigh with a dull thud.

"I can't memorize this anymore. Is this even something a human can remember?"

Chu Ge wiped the sweat from his forehead, let out a long sigh, and collapsed as if all his bones had been removed.

"Do you think that old man who teaches politics is specifically targeting me?"

Chu Ge, his face filled with despair, complained to the person across the aisle.

"All I did was sleep in the last row during class a few times and skip a few classes to play games in the computer lab. Is it really necessary to give me a failing grade on the final exam?"

Wang Dayong was sitting at the desk under his bed.

On his desk lay an old newspaper with a piece of dried sausage he had brought from his hometown on it. He held a small apple-peeling knife in his hand and was slowly slicing the sausage into thin slices.

The oil inside the sausage, forced by the indoor temperature, seeped out a layer of glistening oil, emitting a rich meaty aroma.

Hearing Chu Ge's wails, Wang Dayong stopped wielding his knife, picked up a slice of sausage, threw it into his mouth, and chuckled as he chewed.

"You call that skipping a few classes?"

Wang Dayong pointed the tip of his knife at him, mercilessly exposing his shortcomings.

"For half a semester, the politics teacher hasn't seen you in the classroom. During the exam, you even left the last two short answer questions blank. If he doesn't fail you, who will?"

Chu Ge choked for a moment, then irritably rubbed his messy hair.

"I failed politics, fine, but how come I failed math analysis too?"

Chu Ge lay sprawled on the ladder's handrail, looking utterly dejected.

"I really had no idea how to do the last two big questions. I wrote down all the formulas I could think of, filling half a page with them, but the examiner didn't even give me a single point of sympathy. They just crossed them out."

"You should be content. Failing two subjects won't get you expelled. You can just retake them."

Wang Dayong put away the knife, grabbed a tissue to wipe his hands haphazardly, pulled over a chair, turned around, and faced Chu Ge.

"You think life is easy just because you didn't fail any courses?"

Wang Dayong pursed his lips, his tone carrying a hint of complaining.

"The other day, Professor Liu, who teaches electromagnetism in the physics department, insisted that I have a large frame and look like a good candidate for doing experiments, so he asked me to help out in his research group."

Chu Ge became interested and straightened up to ask.

"And then what? What were you asked to do? Were you given access to some country's cutting-edge technology?"

"What kind of cutting-edge technology is this?"

Wang Dayong rolled his eyes, rubbed his lower back, and looked resentful.

"Old Liu's lab is moving recently, and I've been doing all the heavy lifting for him these past two days, moving those old CRT oscilloscopes, which are incredibly heavy, and dozens of boxes of old, dusty floppy disks, all junk left over from the 1980s. I'm not there to be a researcher; I'm just a free mover."

Chu Ge's carefree laughter echoed through the dormitory.

Chen Zhuo sat at his desk, with his back to them.

He didn't join in their conversation of pouring out their grievances; he simply quietly organized the few documents scattered on the table.

These are the wind tunnel test data that Su Wei helped him print out over the past two days. Chen Zhuo has drawn various lines and annotations on them with a red ballpoint pen.

"Hey, Dayong, at least moving some equipment is a form of exercise for you."

Chu Ge jumped down from the ladder, walked unceremoniously to Wang Dayong's table, grabbed a piece of sausage, stuffed it into his mouth, and mumbled something indistinctly.

"Let me tell you, there's some gossip going around in our dorm."

"What happened in your dorm?"

Wang Dayong protectively pulled the newspaper closer to himself.

Chugo pulled over a plastic stool and sat down, lowering his voice and looking mysterious.

"Let me tell you, Lu Jia is definitely not normal lately, he's like his soul has wandered off somewhere."

Chu Ge gestured as he vividly described the scene.

"The day before yesterday afternoon, I saw him buy a can of hairspray from the store at the school gate. It smelled like apples. After returning to his dormitory, he stood in front of the small mirror behind his cabinet door and combed his hair with a broken comb until it looked like a dog had licked it."

"That's not all."

Chu Ge picked up the glass of cold water on Wang Dayong's table, took a sip, and moistened his throat.

"After the lights were turned off last night, I glanced down at him and saw him sitting at his desk. He wasn't even using a flashlight; he was just staring at an old notebook by the dim light from the streetlamp outside the window. After a while, he suddenly let out a long sigh, like a complaining woman. It almost scared me to death when he suddenly said that in the middle of the night."

Wang Dayong was stunned.

"What triggered this? He didn't fail the exam."

"You just don't understand."

Chu Ge, with the air of a seasoned veteran, patted his thigh confidently.

"These symptoms definitely mean he's fallen for some girl, but he's too shy to confess and is just stuck in unrequited love."

Is the door real or fake?

Wang Dayong had some doubts.

"Are you sure you're talking about Lu Jia?"

"How could this be fake? I've tried to subtly ask him several times, but he just wouldn't say anything and kept blushing."

Chu Ge helplessly shrugged.

"Anyway, he's completely out of it right now. Right after lunch today, he changed into his cleanest shirt, put on some hair gel, and sneaked out without even taking a nap."

After hearing Chu Ge's gossip, Wang Dayong shook his head.

He looked down at the half plate of sausages he had just cut and suddenly felt that matters of the heart were truly incomprehensible.

He picked up the tip of the knife, chose the thickest slice of sausage, and popped it into his mouth, chewing and sighing.

"According to you, unrequited love is even more torturous than torture, able to torment a grown person to this extent."

Wang Dayong pursed his lips, looking as if he had seen through the illusions of the world.

"Compared to this, I suddenly feel that being Old Liu's free labor is not so bad."

Wang Dayong patted his thigh and comforted himself.

"At least the work is done steadily. You know exactly how much sweat and effort you put in, so it doesn't bother you."

Chen Zhuo sat in his chair, folded the last document, and tucked it into a dark hardcover notebook.

Listening to Wang Dayong's profound realization, Chen Zhuo turned around and leaned against the edge of the desk.

"Looking at it this way, Professor Liu's suggestion that you move the oscilloscope was indeed spot on."

Chen Zhuo looked at Wang Dayong and said with a smile.

"I guess they probably figured out that you have a good appetite, a stable stance, and your hands won't shake when you move the picture tube."

Wang Dayong had just put a slice of sausage in his mouth when he heard this. He didn't know whether to chew it or spit it out, so he could only swallow it with a bitter face.

"Xiao Zhuo, you're now insulting people without using a single swear word."

Wang Dayong pointed at him.

"If I had known, I wouldn't have shared the beef sauce my mom sent with you."

Chu Ge laughed gleefully from the side.

Chen Zhuo didn't refute, but just grinned, turned around, pulled the backpack on the table over, and put the notebook containing the documents inside.

Seeing Chen Zhuo packing his things, Chu Ge stopped laughing and casually asked a question.

"Xiao Zhuo, are you going to the physics building later?"

Chu Ge knew that Chen Zhuo had been going to a key laboratory every day for the past two weeks.

"Um.

Chen Zhuo zipped up his backpack.

"There's a group meeting this afternoon, I need to go."

"Is it easy to get by in that Vice Dean Fang's lab?"

Chu Ge inquired out of curiosity.

"I didn't ask you to be like Dayong, doing manual labor for them, sweeping and moving things, did I?"

Chen Zhuo slung his schoolbag over his shoulder and walked to the door.

His mind flashed Zhang Yuan's face with its dark circles under his eyes, and the blackboards in the laboratory filled with partial differential equations.

"No need to move anything."

Chen Zhuo grasped the doorknob, his tone casual, with a subtle lightness.

"The senior students are all very kind, but their fluid model is a bit computer-intensive and not easy to work with."

Chu Ge didn't understand the implication and thought Chen Zhuo was saying that the computer was old and needed to be restarted frequently, so he waved his hand dismissively.

"Okay, go ahead then, and come back early after the meeting."

"I'm gone."

Chen Zhuo pushed open the dormitory door and walked out.

The moment the door closed, it shut out the sounds of Chu Ge muttering as he started reciting politics again and Wang Dayong cutting sausages from inside the dormitory.

Stepping out of the somewhat shady stairwell, a wave of heat mixed with the summer heat hits you.

The sun is at its strongest around 2 PM.

The leaves on the trees lining the campus roads were curled up by the sun, and cicadas were chirping incessantly deep in the branches.

Chen Zhuo walked along the edge of the tree shade, trying to step in the shadows that the leaves had left through.

You can see groups of students on the road.

There were girls listening to English on their Walkmans, and boys riding old-fashioned Phoenix bicycles with a stack of books tucked under the back seat.

As I passed the radio station, a soothing pop song was playing from the loudspeaker. The sound was a bit distorted, but it exuded the unique vibrancy and vitality of that era.

Everything was bright, noisy, and full of the youthful energy of a university campus.

It wasn't until Chen Zhuo entered the physics building, climbed to the third floor, and arrived at the end of the corridor that he realized what was happening.

A wooden sign above the entrance reads "Key Laboratory of Fluid Mechanics and Aerodynamics".

Push open the door.

The meeting room, which wasn't very big, was dark, with only two windows open for ventilation.

The air was filled with a strong, almost pungent smell of tobacco.

No one speaks.

There was no sound of typing, nor the sound of pages turning.

It has only been a week since Chen Zhuo last sat here as an auditor.

Last week, although the atmosphere here was oppressive, there were still arguments, and people were arguing heatedly in front of the blackboard about the adaptive refinement parameters of the mesh.

But today, the atmosphere on both sides of the long conference table was as dull as stagnant water.

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