My Classmate is 200 Million Years Old - Chapter 145
Lu Yu Chen was very unsatisfied with the outing this time.
There were too many people, Xuan Mo herself was rather distracted too, and he didn’t manage to find a jade pendant — all of which were reasons that had Lu Yu Chen troubled and annoyed.
What’s even more vexing was that there was another guy who drove over to pick Xuan Mo up the moment he’d sent her back to the entrance of her school.
He was angry, anxious, jealous and worried, so he was going to… go back and vent on the punching bag.
Meanwhile, the said culprits of Lu Yu Chen’s poor feelings did not know the crime they had unknowingly committed. Excited and elated, Zhao Jing Lei pulled Xuan Mo into the tall building located in the innermost hilled area in the campus.
The simple building was hidden away by the greenery; it looked like an enlarged version of a farmhouse you’d find in suburban areas, the kind that the farmers would stay in. Regardless, the building didn’t appear particularly fantastic. Other than the fact that it was large, nothing else about it seemed to stand out in a positive way.
There were many youths carrying and shifting gigantic wooden boxes very carefully.
Zhao Jing Lei brought Xuan Mo straight to the seventh floor, the top floor. What laid nestled behind the red door Zhao Jing Lei opened was the crux to the building.
Behind the silver-grey barrier were research personnels donned in white robes rushing around. She also spotted several people dressed in military uniform crossing between the rows and rows of varied machines of different colour.
“There’s a lot of people.” Xuan Mo remarked.
Zhao Jing Lei smiled, a little bitter: “Heh, this is just the beginning. After the documents are submitted, the majority of them will need to go; there won’t be many people left by then.”
“Why?”
Xuan Mo shrugged: “I would like to think I am a trustworthy person.”
“Alright, simply put, the national research centre was originally the authority responsible for all this, but there were some hiccups along the way, and there were people that didn’t want to bear the cost of researching something as vague as this. And so, the pitiful bunch that was abandoned — the rest of us who wanted to continue — decided to register this as an independent research. While our research still falls under national supervision, it’s just that we now settled our own processes, and it’s up to us how far we progress.” Zhao Jing Lei pointed randomly at a few youths, “manpower, equipment, financial costs, we sort everything out ourselves now. We found all the people here and we bear all the costs of this research ourselves. As for the research findings… we probably can’t get much returns from it, the country will be the ultimate winner.”
The more he spoke, the more indignant Zhao Jing Lei got. After riding on the coattails of capitalism for a few years, he was somewhat unsatisfied with their current position. Xuan Mo however seemed completely unaffected, as though their current situation was expected and perfectly acceptable.
To Xuan Mo, she didn’t see anything wrong with this arrangement. This was how the majority of research findings were born back in Coalition, and the people took honour in doing so. Things would be off if everything was government-backed, or everything was privatised.
At midnight when everything had been shifted, the people in white research robes and military uniform swarmed forward to gather at the person-in-charge’s notice. After which, the lot of them left the top floor and cleared out of the research centre in a blink of an eye, leaving in their wake only a handful of people silently tidying the items.
“Your professor is on this project in name, he only drops by occasionally to guide us. The main drivers are the younger researchers that had been in charge of this project in the past. Some of them are your seniors, some are not. Besides them, we also managed to get some of our friends from the military in as security. As for the financial end, there will be someone in charge of liaison. The only request from the investors is that we need to give them the first notice if we come across any technology that can help civilians. Other than that, they won’t check on the exact status of the research…”
“What do I do?” Xuan Mo only asked, too impatient to continue listening.
Zhao Jing Lei was silent for a moment: “Take notes and records…”
“I haven’t even learnt the basics to research journaling yet.” Xuan Mo pulled a mocking smile at him.
“Then it’s time to learn it now.” After confirming that Xuan Mo was with them, Zhao Jing Lei didn’t hold back, “don’t give me such a smile, I guarantee that you’ll be an important asset to this project!”
“Alright.” Xuan Mo didn’t comment further.
“Yi Fei!” Zhao Jing Lei suddenly shouted. A clean-looking youth in white research robes ran over. Yi Fei looked at Xuan Mo before turning to Zhao Jing Lei: “Zone Chief, you called me?”
“Enh.” Zhao Jing Lei pointed at Xuan Mo, “this is your assistant.”
Yi Fei paused: “Wasn’t it Kang Qiao?”
“Second assistant.”
“Okay then… what year? She looks really young.”
“Year one, she hasn’t started the specialised courses yet.”
“…” The expression Yi Fei had on his face was even more bitter than swallowing a fly, “boss, you can’t do this to me…”
Zhao Jing Lei laughed out loud, his hand patting Xuan Mo’s shoulders got swatted aside by her: “Trust me, she’s not your average year one, she’s very capable, more so than most people.”
Yi Fei was at loss before finally sighing: “Let’s hope so… one more assistant is one more head too I guess.”
Zhao Jing Lei brought Xuan Mo around for a quick tour. The research was starting tomorrow, and she didn’t need to stay here waiting overnight for it to start.
The rest of her dorm mates were still awake when she returned to her dorms. The twins and Zhang Yi Ke were sitting together discussing something. When they saw Xuan Mo walking in, they gestured for her to come over in excitement.
Xuan Mo dropped off the item purchased from earlier this afternoon and walked over. She saw that they had an announcement letter in their hand. The announcement indicated that the campus Autumn Sports Fest was happening next Friday.
“Sports Fest! My gosh, our Sports Fest is open to the public, I want to invite my classmates over. Xuan Mo, do you have anything in particular that you want to participate in? What about long distance?”
Xuan Mo had been wanting to change out. When she heard her question, she paused: “I don’t think I said I was participating.”
“Eh, right, you’re not from our course… ahh oh no, you’d be a strong competitor, doesn’t that mean we’ll have no chance against your course in the items that you are competing in?!” Yang Jian screamed, before she slid over, asking secretively, “Xuan Mo, what items are you planning to join?”
Due to the tight school regulations, students didn’t have a lot of free time to themselves. Therefore, the school held mass events very often to cater to the students. Xuan Mo herself however had yet to participate in any so far. As a result, her class rep had automatically skipped past her name when submitting the sign up list. And so, Xuan Mo probably had nothing to do with this upcoming event either: “I’m most likely not involved.”
“What, how is that possible?! There are so many female items! Your class won’t be able to fill up everything even if each female student signed up for two items each, there’s no way you’re not involved?!”
At her words, Xuan Mo realised that she probably won’t be able to skip this event. At that, she remained silent at her dorm mates’ questions.
