Chapter 14: Your Friends Are So Weird.
Chapter 14
After going up in the elevator, they arrived at a private room.
Zhu Liheng pushed open the door and entered.
There were probably more than ten people in the private room, both men and women. They all looked quite old, clearly not undergraduates, but more like a group of graduate students and PhD students.
They gave off an aura of successful people and looked very intelligent.
They were gathered around a table, discussing academic topics. Their voices were loud and the discussion was intense.
It was so intense it was like they were arguing, arguing so fiercely that a whole table of dishes had gone untouched.
Lin Jianzhi not only did not understand, but was also shocked.
This was completely different from what she had imagined A University's top students to be like!
She had thought everyone at A University would be like Zhu Liheng - calm, handsome and excellent.
If not, then they would at least be focused on academics, with a strong scholarly aura, and not interested in things outside their field.
But the reality was the complete opposite.
How could these proud geniuses be arguing!
Lin Jianzhi stood stunned in the doorway, not even daring to go in.
At this time, the heated debate gradually died down as everyone collectively turned their heads to look. When they saw it was Zhu Liheng who had appeared, everyone anxiously stood up.
"Zhu Liheng! You say it! Is my algorithm right or not?"
"Right, my ass! It doesn't work in practice! The data matching rate is so low! Your starting point was wrong from the beginning!"
"I'm not wrong, if you have the guts then you say it!"
"Everyone stop arguing, we are a team. What's the use of arguing? Let's just sit down and stab each other twice!"
"Zhu Liheng, why did you only just get here now? They were about to argue themselves to death!"
"......"
Lin Jianzhi took a step back, frightened.
Zhu Liheng first reached out to steady the agitated senior who had rushed over. Then he pulled back and pulled Lin Jianzhi forward.
He pushed her into an empty seat!
Zhu Liheng: "Didn't we agree to have a small dinner gathering? No talk of academics at the dinner table."
With these words, the group of people collectively calmed down and picked up their chopsticks to start eating again.
One of them was named Yu E. He was considered the youngest among this group of top masters. He was the one advising them to stop arguing just now. At this moment he was sitting next to the two of them.
Yu E looked at Lin Jianzhi and asked, "Zhu Liheng, who is this...?"
The others also looked at her curiously.
They didn't dare guess she was his girlfriend, because that would be too outrageous.
It was well known that Zhu Liheng was devoted to academics, had a rich inner world, and was also very busy without any time or need to obtain pleasure from a romantic relationship.
And who could match up to Zhu Liheng?
Lin Jianzhi hurriedly lowered her head, not daring to make a peep.
Zhu Liheng however was calm: "Oh, a student I'm tutoring."
A flash of disappointment went through Lin Jianzhi's eyes. As expected, to him she was just a student he was tutoring.
"Pfft..."
At the table, a female student named Ruan Tang who wore glasses suddenly spit food.
She burst out laughing immediately: "No way, Zhu Liheng? You're tutoring someone? Tutoring what? This young girl looks like she's still in high school."
Zhu Liheng: "Tutoring high school math."
"Hahahaha!" Ruan Tang immediately laughed even more exaggeratedly, her chopsticks almost shaking loose from her grip.
Yu E said in disbelief: "Are you telling us that the past few nights you've been absent, have actually been spent tutoring a high schooler?"
Zhu Liheng nodded: "That's right."
Everyone at the table was speechless, unable to say anything. The atmosphere was strange for a moment.
Lin Jianzhi felt even more upset, her eyes instantly turning red, her nose sour.
The gap was too big, really too big!
It was only Ruan Tang who kept laughing uncontrollably, saying: "The prized student of Professor Xiong turned out to be earning side money by tutoring others! Hahaha!"
Yu E: "Good grief, the bonus from just one of Zhu Liheng's papers is over a hundred thousand, not to mention the earnings of the Yanling Research Lab. No matter how you earn side money it shouldn't be from tutoring high school math!"
Lin Jianzhi looked up in surprise, unable to help but glance at Zhu Liheng.
He was that expensive?
Zhu Liheng's expression was calm: "I didn't charge money."
Ruan Tang nodded, as expected that's how it was. Then she looked at Lin Jianzhi: "You're about to take the college entrance exam right? Then I'm your senior sister from the A University Physics Department!"
In her eyes, the tutoring story was fake. This girl must have talent that caught Zhu Liheng's attention, that was the truth.
Maybe she was the next physics prodigy?
Lin Jianzhi hurriedly shook her head: "No..."
She couldn't get into A University, let alone the Physics Department which required a score of 670.
Zhu Liheng helped her answer: "She's an arts student aiming for B University."
"Ah?" Ruan Tang was extremely surprised: "An arts student looking for you to tutor math?"
Using top talent for trivial matters had reached an unbelievable degree!
Yu E's gaze lingered on Lin Jianzhi as a sudden thought came to his mind.
Could it be...?
In that instant, the way he looked at Lin Jianzhi changed.
"Little girl will be taking the college entrance exam soon right? Eat more." Yu E started piling food onto Lin Jianzhi's plate!
Lin Jianzhi didn't know what to do. She wanted to refuse but also didn't know how.
Upon seeing this, Ruan Tang seemed to grasp the key point. She vigorously stood up to push a large plate of shark's fin in front of Lin Jianzhi.
"Eat this!" Ruan Tang yelled.
The others quickly reacted one after another, all vying to offer Lin Jianzhi food and drink.
Lin Jianzhi was scared silly!
Just what was going on here?
Zhu Liheng reached out to block these senior brothers and sisters, saying: "We've eaten."
Everyone's enthusiasm deflated, but they didn't insist. They spoke some physics professional terminology, then asked Lin Jianzhi for her opinion.
What opinion could Lin Jianzhi have?!
She couldn't even understand what they were saying!
Yet this group of top masters from A University's Physics Department, whether graduate students or PhD students she didn't know, tirelessly stared at her, wanting to include her in practically every topic.
In the end, Lin Jianzhi felt oxygen deprived in her brain.
She was about to suffocate!
Not only that, she also found out at the dinner table that apart from Zhu Liheng, not one of them was an undergraduate. They were all PhD students, some even post-docs!
Even Yu E who seemed young, had already been a PhD student for a year. When he graduated with his Master's, he was the most outstanding of that year.
This dozen or so of them formed a team, each following their own advisor, working with China's quantum mechanics master Xiong Pengtian on a research project.
It could be said that this group before her eyes was usually impossible to meet. They were the cream of the crop among the best in the country.
Yet today, they had all gathered in such a small city like Jingyi!
And Zhu Liheng was the only one in this group who was Xiong Pengtian's personally taught disciple, exceptionally allowed to participate in the research project as a second-year undergraduate student still studying.
Professor Xiong had only taken on three disciples in his life. The first two were already legends in the physics world. The third was Zhu Liheng.
Quantum mechanics - what was that?
Why could quantum mechanics subvert and even change the world?
As a high school senior arts stream student, Lin Jianzhi simply didn't understand.
The more she heard, the more inferior and shocked she felt.
She didn't even know what virtues and abilities she possessed to be able to sit at the same table and eat with these people.
The things they spoke of, the horizons they envisioned, were all things Lin Jianzhi was unable to imagine and could not understand...
On the other hand Zhu Liheng sat there unmoving like a mountain. With just a sentence or two from time to time he could immediately incite heated discussion around the table.
It was evident that these original proud geniuses already saw Zhu Liheng as someone to deeply respect, even revere.