Chapter 300 - 171: Supermarket Receipt

Chapter 300: Chapter 171: Supermarket Receipt

「Two days later, in the afternoon.」

In dorm room 216, the only sound was the incessant clatter of a keyboard.

Chu Ge sat in front of his computer, the screen’s glow illuminating his face.

His eyes were glued to a long string of code on the screen, his brows furrowed in concentration. He was so focused on finding a single, elusive bug that he’d even skipped lunch at the cafeteria.

Behind him, the sound of a doorknob turning came from the bathroom.

CLICK.

Chu Ge subconsciously glanced back, and his fingers, which had been flying across the keyboard, instantly froze mid-air.

Lu Jia walked out of the bathroom.

The kid wasn’t wearing his usual drab gray hoodie today. He had changed into a clean white shirt, its collar perfectly pressed without a single wrinkle, and wore a navy blue knit vest over it.

His hair had clearly just been flattened with water from the tap and was combed neatly into place. A few strands, still damp, clung to his temples.

But it wasn’t the clothes that made Chu Ge stop what he was doing.

It was the look on Lu Jia’s face.

Lu Jia stood before the half-length mirror in the dorm, his hands gripping the hem of his shirt.

His chest heaved violently, and his breaths were audible in the quiet room.

He hadn’t even left the room yet, but his entire face was already flushed a deep red, the color spreading down his cheeks to the base of his neck.

He pressed his lips together tightly, his eyes fixed on his own reflection in the mirror.

Chu Ge swiveled around, propping an elbow on the back of his chair and looking Lu Jia up and down several times.

"Are you..." Chu Ge hesitated. "Heading to a firing squad?"

Lu Jia ignored him.

He faced the mirror, took a deep breath, and slowly let it out.

Then, he turned and strode over to his desk.

On the desk, two A3-sized sheets of paper were taped together, laid out flat. On them was the decision tree for approaching girls, a creation into which he had poured his heart and soul.

The dense web of formulas, arrows, and probability calculations on it had been his safety net for over half a month.

Lu Jia stared at the paper.

For one second, then two.

Then, he suddenly reached out.

He grabbed the massive flowchart, covered in Nash equilibriums and sympathetic nerve thresholds.

RRRRRIP—

The sound of tearing paper abruptly echoed through the dorm.

Before Chu Ge’s astonished eyes, Lu Jia crumpled the two sheets of paper with both hands, crushing them into a giant, wrinkled ball.

Without a second glance, Lu Jia raised his arm and tossed the wad of paper into the trash can by his desk.

Chu Ge was dumbfounded.

He pointed at the trash can, his voice cracking.

"What the fuck, are you insane? You spent months calculating all that, and you just threw it away?"

Lu Jia turned to look at Chu Ge.

His face was still bright red, but his previously evasive eyes now held a look of do-or-die resolve.

"No more calculations."

Lu Jia’s voice was a bit tight, his vocal cords trembling with nervousness.

"Brother Zhuo was right."

He swallowed hard.

"I’m going to walk a straight line."

With that, Lu Jia turned around.

He didn’t hesitate. His steps were slightly stiff as he walked to the doorway, yanked open the door, and left without looking back.

BANG.

The door slammed shut.

Chu Ge sat frozen in his chair.

It took him several seconds to realize what Lu Jia had meant by "walk a straight line."

’That kid... he’s really going to ask for her WhatsApp number.’

Chu Ge turned back, glancing at the dense wall of code on his screen, which was still spitting out errors.

’To hell with this bug.’

Chu Ge grabbed the mouse and saved his work with a sharp click.

Then, he casually shoved the keyboard forward.

’Who gives a damn about debugging code at a time like this?’

He kicked his chair back, rushed out of room 216 like a whirlwind, and threw open the door to 215.

Dorm room 215 was quiet.

Wang Dayong was hunched over his desk, a Zhonghua pencil worn down to a stub in his hand, miserably grappling with a thick copy of *Mechanics of Materials*.

Chen Zhuo was sitting at his own desk.

He was holding a few sheets of wind tunnel test data he’d just brought back from the lab. Sunlight streamed through the window, illuminating his profile as he lowered his head, slowly flipping through and checking the complex fluid dynamics parameters.

"Stop what you’re doing!"

Chu Ge burst into the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

He lowered his voice, but it was brimming with irrepressible excitement.

"It’s happening! Lu Jia just changed his clothes and went downstairs!"

Wang Dayong froze.

The Zhonghua pencil in his hand hovered in mid-air.

Chu Ge caught his breath and continued with the scoop.

"He crumpled up that chart he’d been working on for months and threw it in the trash! From the way he looked, like he was marching to his doom, he’s definitely gone to the main campus road to intercept that upperclassman!"

All thoughts of material stress analysis instantly flew out of Wang Dayong’s head.

CLACK.

Dayong threw the pencil onto his desk, shoved his chair back, and shot to his feet.

"Holy shit, he really went?!"

Dayong’s eyes were wide, his thick Northeastern accent flaring up.

He paced back and forth a couple of times in the aisle between the desks, wiping his hands on his pants.

"This won’t do. This is way too risky."

Dayong’s brow furrowed into a knot as he began to worry.

"Lu Jia’s only sixteen! He’s probably never even held a girl’s hand. He starts stuttering when he gets anxious. If he just rushes over there like a reckless fool..."

Dayong slapped his thigh.

"What if the girl isn’t interested, or what if she’s with her friends and they tease him a little? He’s so thin-skinned, wouldn’t he just hold back tears until he bursts right there on the spot?"

The more Dayong thought about it, the more uneasy he felt.

He reached out and snatched a gray track jacket that was hanging on his bed frame.