The other person in the eyes

The next day, Xia Ye really went to the training institution and applied for additional classes.

However, her academic background was quite awkward—a graduate of the dance department from a prestigious engineering university.

This was pretty much the same as graduating from the computer science department of Purple Gold Normal University.

Even ordinary universities, despite promoting themselves as comprehensive universities, actually have their strong disciplines, after all, not every one is Tsinghua or Peking University.

Besides a large number of non-strong, ordinary disciplines, there are often some disciplines that piggyback on others.

For example, Purple Gold Information Engineering University should actually be called Purple Gold Meteorological College, because it was purely by relying on its meteorology major that it was rated as a Double First-Class University.

Another example is Purple Gold Normal University, whose most presentable majors are definitely the normal school disciplines.

And yet another example is Zijin Aviation School, where Lin Yuan studied. Its best majors are definitely those dealing with airplanes, followed by various engineering disciplines. The least important are the art disciplines, like the one Xia Ye studied.

Art disciplines in old-school engineering universities always give people a sense of contrast, like "Lu Zhishen holding an embroidery needle."

This also led to Xia Ye only being able to teach regular classes, while Lin Yuan had the opportunity to teach high-end small classes.

Because parents aren't stupid. Zijin Aviation School's reputation as "Purple Gold's third-best" is limited to its engineering disciplines.

After Xia Ye applied for additional classes, her entire day, from morning till night, was fully booked.

Under the current economic situation, adhering to the concept of cost reduction (squeezing) and efficiency increase (exploiting labor), Xia Ye also took on miscellaneous tasks such as internal affairs, administration, and recruitment for parts of the institution. In short, as long as she was free, she would do whatever work was available.

Xia Ye was not a rare commodity like Lin Yuan; she didn't even have the chance to take on an extra class at night.

Because whenever there are economic fluctuations, the most affected are often parents who can only afford ordinary tutoring classes. Parents who can afford tutoring classes at 400 yuan per hour generally remain stable.

Thus, Xia Ye wanted to compete but had no means to.

Finally, at night, she worked part-time at a milk tea shop near the school.

Every time Xia Ye was utterly exhausted, she would recall Lin Yuan's expression.

His brows were tightly furrowed, and his face was full of determination. Xia Ye didn't understand why he could deliver food with such an epic feeling.

Xia Ye was somewhat stubborn at heart; previously, following Song Xiaoxiao to be a maid was entirely because her mind was blanked out after being hit hard upon entering society.

And Lin Yuan was like a bucket of cold water poured over her head, finally allowing Xia Ye to regain her sanity and recognize her true self.

In the days that followed, every time she worked at the milk tea shop at night, Xia Ye would occasionally gaze out onto the street, wondering if his figure would appear.

Xia Ye would even secretly pay attention to every delivery riders who came to the shop to pick up milk tea, hoping to accidentally encounter him and then tell him: I'm no longer working at that place.

Xia Ye wasn't quite sure why she had such a strong desire to tell him. Was it really to tell him, or was it because something was bottled up in her heart, and she just wanted to find someone to talk to?

—

Unlike Xia Ye's concern for Lin Yuan, Lin Yuan had completely put Xia Ye out of his mind.

After paying that thousand yuan, Lin Yuan readily deleted Xia Ye from his mind, lest she contaminate the beautiful dream in his heart. If Xia Ye was once the real-life reflection of the female protagonist in Lin Yuan's heart, she was no longer.

Lin Yuan went to find Liu Huzi that afternoon.

Liu Huzi was a station manager Lin Yuan had followed before, and also the one he followed the longest, and the worst one.

When "the worst" and "followed the longest" are linked together, there must be some special reason.

Because Liu Huzi was responsible for the River West area, which had the most lucrative orders.

Adhering to the principle of "if there's grass on the mountain, there's no need to worry about rabbits not coming to eat," Liu Huzi had many ways to generate income. Helmets for over a hundred yuan each, delivery riders equipment rentals, making you treat him to food and drinks, and so on and so forth.

If you didn't comply? That was easy too.

He would just play jokes on you when assigning orders. Suddenly throwing an out-of-the-way order at you, and you'd just wait to be complained about for being late. Even more disgusting was assigning you orders one by one. He would insist you finish one order before giving you another. Talk about exciting!

Customer complaints would also affect the station manager's income. But he had a solid foundation, so losing a few small sums was nothing to him, while your livelihood couldn't withstand the turmoil.

You said you wanted to complain?

Well, he had the time to waste with you. Anyway, Liu Huzi had a few lackey sub-station managers to do his work for him. If you don't deliver food, can you afford to waste time?

So, as a result, Lin Yuan still had nearly two thousand in wages withheld by Liu Huzi.

Logically, Lin Yuan's crowd-sourced work was paid daily, but Liu Huzi would periodically, out of "concern for your safety," make you change a battery or tire or something. Accumulating over half a year, Lin Yuan had paid up nearly two thousand.

That afternoon, Lin Yuan rode his small electric scooter, which had traversed the streets and alleys of River West, back to the all-too-familiar food delivery rest station.

It was still the same as before; there were still empty free charging ports for electric scooters, but many of the coin-operated charging ports were already in use.

Thankfully, electricity is intangible. Otherwise, Liu Huzi would definitely say: The paid electricity is of better quality than the free one.

Walking into the open-plan rest station, several delivery riderss were sitting on the long benches in the outer area, waiting for their bikes to charge. There was no air conditioning in the outer area, only a few floor fans roaring.

If it was really too hot to bear, there were two self-service vending machines against the wall, with plenty of cold drinks inside. You just needed to select an icon on the vending machine screen: WeChat or Alipay.

Lin Yuan saw Liu Huzi lying asleep on that broken sofa through the glass door. He pushed the door open and kicked the broken sofa.

But Liu Huzi's snoring continued; he must have just finished lunch not long ago, and it was the perfect time for an afternoon nap.

Lin Yuan looked around, then turned and took two cans of cola from the ice chest nearby. He placed one next to Liu Huzi's neck and opened the other for himself to drink.

Drinking ice-cold cola in August, that refreshing feeling went straight to his head.

"What, what, what's going on?" Under the stimulation of the cold, Liu Huzi finally woke up.

"Who the hell are you, coming into my place?" Liu Huzi didn't recognize the refined Lin Yuan at first.

"Brother Liu, don't you recognize me?" Lin Yuan raised the cola in his hand and made a gesture similar to a toast.

"You're... Lin Yuan?" Liu Huzi got up and carefully scrutinized Lin Yuan. "You really got into graduate school?"

Lin Yuan nodded in acknowledgment.

"What's up, came to chat with your Brother Liu?"

"Yes, I just happened to pass by and came to chat with Brother Liu."

"Let me tell you, by the time you finish graduate school, you might still have to come and work with your Brother Liu. Consider that little bit of money you gave me as an early reservation with Brother Liu."

Liu Huzi was accustomed to people who stopped delivering food coming to demand the previously given 'goodwill' money. He naturally assumed that Lin Yuan's purpose in coming was also the same.

Liu Huzi always refused to pay money in such cases, flatly denying the debt, as all that money was collected under the guise of repairing and replacing delivery riders equipment, so he had nothing to fear.

"Brother Liu, you've misunderstood. I came this time to talk to you about cooperation."

Liu Huzi's eyes lit up; as long as Lin Yuan wasn't here for money, it was fine.

"What's up, what good cooperation can Brother Liu have with you?"