As Xue Rui was taking out the trash, he happened to run into his dad.
Xie Jianfeng was just passing by when he suddenly noticed a lot of snapped-in-half CDs in the trash bag Xue Rui was carrying.
Xue Rui also noticed Xie Jianfeng’s strange gaze. ’So it was you!’
"Dad, at your age, you should watch more health and wellness shows," Xue Rui reminded him.
However, the mont he finished speaking, he got a kick.
"I won’t be back for dinner today!" Xue Rui shouted.
It wouldn’t have mattered if he hadn’t shouted; his family was already used to it.
He hadn’t eaten more than a few als at ho in the last few months.
"Starve to death, you little brat!" Xie Jianfeng cursed.
Those were the masterpieces he had collected in his youth.
Even though he didn’t watch them anymore, they were his precious collection...
He had thought stashing them under Xue Rui’s bed was foolproof. Even if they were discovered, he could just shift the bla to his son.
He never expected Xue Rui to snap them all and throw them in the trash!
But... this was the kind of thing he couldn’t even complain about out loud, leaving him feeling incredibly frustrated.
...
Xue Rui went to Lin Ruoxi’s house, just like any other day.
He’d had many ideas recently, like developing a perpetual calendar or a calculator.
This kind of software was simple to develop and had a long life cycle.
「At Lin Ruoxi’s house.」
"For the calculator, add a history lookup option. In the ’more functions’ section, add an inco tax calculator, a mortgage calculator, and real-ti exchange rates..."
Xue Rui pondered for a long ti, laying out his requirents one by one.
He was examining this era with the perspective of soone from over a decade in the future. Even if his ideas weren’t comprehensive, they already surpassed those of most developers.
"Also, a landscape layout. Try to accommodate most users by placing frequently used buttons on the right."
Lin Ruoxi listened intently to Xue Rui’s requests, committing each one to mory.
She watched Xue Rui with an adoring gaze. Whenever he was serious about his work, it was as if he glowed.
"Inco tax, mortgage..." Lin Ruoxi started searching online for the things Xue Rui ntioned, growing more and more surprised the more she read.
She had never even heard of these terms. How did Xue Rui know about them? She glanced back at him from ti to ti.
’Being good at studying isn’t that impressive,’ she thought. ’Xue Rui is the one who’s truly amazing.’
Xue Rui just smiled and said nothing.
These were things even he hadn’t known until after he graduated from college.
College students knew how to solve problems and equations, but they didn’t know how to navigate the hospital registration process, how to file for dical insurance reimbursent, or how to protect their rights when exploited by unscrupulous companies...
For the vast majority of college students, university was just four years of fun. In reality, if they thought back on it, many would find their minds were empty.
Career planning, employnt guidance...
These fluff courses were all fucking useless. In the end, all the hard knocks high school students faced in the real world, college students had to experience all over again.
So even discovered a few years after graduating that they weren’t doing as well as their classmates who had dropped out of high school...
Watching Lin Ruoxi’s slender fingers flit across the keyboard, as if she didn’t even need to think to code, Xue Rui couldn’t help but remark, "A saintly physique tailor-made for the grind."
Lin Ruoxi’s current skill in computer software had already surpassed the level of an undergraduate. She could independently develop and maintain software, and she even handled so of the operations and maintenance work...
He suddenly thought of the job requirents from a decade later: looking for recent graduates, but requiring three to five years of developnt experience, or even demanding that programrs know how to use CAD and maintain server rooms...
This might stump ninety-nine percent of people, but it wouldn’t be a problem for Lin Ruoxi.
By the ti Lin Ruoxi graduated from college, she would be a recent graduate with six years of developnt experience...
But Xue Rui would never let Lin Ruoxi work for soone else. With her personality, she’d be at a huge disadvantage and would be exploited to death by a ruthless boss.
"We’re not under any financial pressure lately, and the ga will keep bringing in a steady stream of inco. If you want to buy sothing, take this and go buy it."
Xue Rui handed his grandmother’s bank card to Lin Ruoxi.
"I don’t need it..." Lin Ruoxi waved her hands repeatedly.
The money she earned from bringing classmates als was enough for her; she didn’t have anything she needed to spend money on.
"You need to learn how to spend money," Xue Rui said with a serious expression.
Lin Ruoxi was just too frugal. She never bought new clothes. The als at her house were only lavish because his mother would occasionally drop so food off, and because he ate there, Lin Ruoxi would buy so more expensive cuts of at.
Being thrifty is a good thing, but not when it’s taken to an extre.
"Girls your age are all shopping online these days. You don’t want a generation gap with your peers," Xue Rui sighed.
He had been just a commoner during his college days, but things were different now.
Young people were so competitive; so were even willing to sell a kidney for an Apple phone.
He didn’t have that competitive spirit anymore... but he couldn’t let Lin Ruoxi suffer the way he had.
He estimated that by the ti of the college entrance exams, with the money from the ga and software, plus another rise in Bitcoin, he’d have a few million to take to university.
He wanted Lin Ruoxi to experience what it felt like to be a little rich girl.
As for Gu Muxue, he didn’t need to worry about her. She was already a top-tier rich second-generation kid...
"Shopping online?" Lin Ruoxi murmured as she accepted the bank card.
She did have sothing she wanted to buy.
’I’ll... I’ll just spend a little.’
Xue Rui didn’t need to teach her, because Lin Ruoxi was very smart and knew how to use search engines to their full potential...
"Rember to buy more expensive things. Don’t try to save money, or you’ll end up losing it," Xue Rui instructed.
Although there weren’t any ultra-cheap shopping platforms yet, the internet was still full of counterfeit and shoddy goods. A lot of the ti, you’d buy sothing passable just because it was cheap, only to find it didn’t work when it arrived. In the end, you’d have to buy the expensive one anyway, pointlessly incurring an extra expense...
With Lin Ruoxi’s naive personality, she could easily be tricked by unscrupulous sellers.
"Mm, I’ll rember," Lin Ruoxi nodded seriously, taking Xue Rui’s words to heart.
Amidst the flurry of work, the weekend passed quickly.
On Monday, Xue Rui noticed that many students were carrying paper boxes.
And Lin Ruoxi’s desk, in particular, was piled high with exquisite little paper boxes, stacked from the floor right up to the desktop.
Lin Ruoxi stared blankly at her seat; she couldn’t even get to it.
"Is it Christmas Eve today?" Xue Rui muttered.
He didn’t have much of an impression of this holiday, other than knowing it was a day for giving apples, and it was most likely a Western holiday.
Society at large didn’t celebrate it. Hedong was an agricultural city where people valued traditional festivals more, and many only celebrated their lunar birthdays.
In truth, the students didn’t really understand the holiday either. They just knew that on Christmas Eve, you could give apples to the people you like.
An apple wasn’t worth much, but it was the best gift one could offer today, so naturally, Lin Ruoxi received a huge pile of them.
As usual, Lin Ruoxi started distributing the "offerings" to her classmates.
This ti, however, it didn’t go so smoothly.
"Sister Xi, I don’t need one, I have so too."
"I don’t need one either. My mom gave a whole bag. Here, have one of mine."
Many people refused Lin Ruoxi’s kind gesture.
All the students had thought to bring apples for their classmates, which resulted in everyone having a huge pile of them...
Lin Ruoxi was stunned. She had made a full round trying to give them away, but she ended up with even more apples than before.
"I’ll take care of them later," Xue Rui said.
"Okay." Lin Ruoxi nodded, a faint smile on her face as she watched his retreating back.
’Whenever she couldn’t solve a problem, Xue Rui would always step up...’
After lunch, Xue Rui gathered a few male students and took the massive pile of apples Lin Ruoxi had received to the logistics departnt.
Xue Rui guessed that the school’s teachers, security guards, and even the cafeteria ladies would receive apples.
But the logistics staff, the ones who quietly fixed pipes in the background, were forgotten in a corner.
It was like how so people worried their air conditioners and computers would break if left on too long, but no one ever worried about the refrigerators and routers that worked 24/7...
That was the advantage of working in the public eye—people rembered you.
"Hey, young man, it’s you again! What brings you here this ti?" a logistics staff mber laughed.
They rembered Xue Rui, the prodigy who had managed to get a permission slip from Director Li.
"Well, it’s Christmas Eve, so our class wanted to bring you guys so apples."
Xue Rui smiled and distributed the large pile of apples to the people in the logistics departnt.
The staff in the logistics departnt were a bit overwheld by the favor. It was the first ti they had ever received such treatnt.
Christmas Eve wasn’t an official holiday, so the school wouldn’t hand anything out. Usually, only staff in other departnts received gifts from students. They never expected to get so this year.
"Thanks a lot."
Joyful smiles blood on the faces of all the staff mbers.
They weren’t valuable gifts, but the fact that a student had actually rembered them ward their hearts.
"Which class are you guys from?" soone asked curiously.
"Class 2, Grade 11," a male student replied.
"What’s your horoom teacher’s na?"
"Xue Xiaying," Xue Rui replied, then led the other students away.
He would be graduating in two years; these social favors were useless to him.
But his aunt was going to be a teacher at this school for her whole life. It was better to leave the favor for her. That’s why he’d said from the start that the apples were from the class, intentionally misleading the logistics staff.
’Hopefully, these guys will be able to make things more convenient for Xue Xiaying in the future...’
During the activity period, Xue Rui went to Class 1 for tutoring as usual.
"Muxue, I found sothing fun recently," Xue Rui said with a grin, taking out a pen.
It was the "invisible ink pen" he got from Xue Yao.
"Look, you can’t see what you write, but it appears when you shine the light on the cap on it," Xue Rui demonstrated for Gu Muxue.
Gu Muxue froze. Why was Xue Rui showing her this?
Her heart pounded. ’Could it be? Did he find the words I wrote on the back of that photo on a whim?’
At the ti, she thought the ink would stay hidden forever, that Xue Rui would never discover her feelings, and that it would be a safe way to express her emotions.
Looking back now, she felt so foolish. The ink would beco more and more visible over ti...
"Wow, that’s amazing! I’ve never seen a pen like this before," Gu Muxue said, feigning surprise.
’This girl reacts fast,’ Xue Rui thought. ’She’s a pretty good actress.’
"I think this kind of pen is perfect for writing a confession, don’t you think?" Xue Rui said.
"Hmph, childish. Who would even see it if you wrote it like that?" Gu Muxue snorted.
"Actually, I think so too. Anyone who uses this kind of pen to write their true feelings probably isn’t very bright," Xue Rui nodded in agreent.
"Mm... You’re right," Gu Muxue said, though she was conflicted inside.
"An apple for you for Christmas Eve."
Xue Rui placed a paper box on Gu Muxue’s desk and left, holding his books.
Gu Muxue breathed a sigh of relief. She had been so nervous just now, and she didn’t know if Xue Rui had noticed.
She opened the box with joyful anticipation, only to find not just an apple, but also a photograph.
She picked it up and saw that it was the very sa photo she had written on for Xue Rui back then.
Gu Muxue’s face instantly turned red all the way to her ears.
’So Xue Rui knew everything. He ca here today just to tease .’
She wished she could find a hole to crawl into. Having her little secret discovered was just too embarrassing!
But then, she rembered how Xue Rui had just tricked her into insulting herself.
She was so angry! Angry and ashad.
Gu Muxue, fuming, passed by the back door of Class 2 and yelled at Xue Rui:
"Xue Rui! You bastard!"
Lin Ruoxi, who was playing on her phone, was so startled by the roar that she almost threw her phone.
She swallowed and glanced cautiously at Gu Muxue.
She murmured to herself, ’She’s so fierce...’
Xue Rui was in a bind at that mont. Chen Tingting had co to give him an apple again and was clinging to his arm, refusing to let go.
Xue Rui’s face lit up. Gu Muxue had co to his rescue.
"Are you giving up on him?"
Chen Tingting was also delighted. Gu Muxue and Xue Rui were fighting. Her chance had co!
"I..." Gu Muxue didn’t know how to answer. It was as if the mont she said she didn’t want him, Chen Tingting would imdiately snatch Xue Rui away.
"So, do you want him or not?" Chen Tingting frowned.
Gu Muxue was about to lose her mind.
Finally, she smacked Xue Rui on the back to vent her anger, and as she left, she dragged Chen Tingting away with her.
Chen Tingting pouted. "Stop yanking by the neck, I can walk on my own."
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