Chapter 10: The R&D Engineer Goes to the Factory to Tighten Screws

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“Big-Head Bear! Forget ditching me, but you actually made me get up in the middle of the night to pee! Don’t you have any sense of public decency?!”

At eleven-thirty that night, Lu Mingfei, who had no friends to speak of, had slaughtered the members of the group chat until they were utterly routed. At long last, Lao Tang came online, only to be greeted by a torrent of abuse.

“Sorry. I’ll do it again next time.” Lu Mingfei apologized at lightning speed, entirely unrepentant. Lao Tang was so furious that he began howling:

“Get online! If I don’t beat your dinner out of you today, I’ll change my profile picture to a black-and-white memorial portrait!”

Lu Mingfei froze, then instinctively glanced at Lao Tang’s hapless panda avatar. What difference would changing it make? It already looked like a memorial portrait.

Who had he learned such shamelessness from?

Did American universities teach the art of being thick-skinned and ruthless now?

With the guest of honor finally present, Lu Mingfei stopped tormenting the innocent members of the group and began a loving exchange of blows with Lao Tang.

To express his apology for standing Lao Tang up, Lu Mingfei maintained an impeccable performance throughout. He lost six rounds in a row without letting anyone notice anything amiss, prompting Lao Tang to suspect that Lu Mingfei had been deliberately holding back.

Lao Tang even came to believe that he had a slight edge in skill, and that it was only thanks to his anger buff that he had beaten Lu Mingfei back step by step, forcing him to struggle desperately before ultimately claiming an unfortunate victory.

“All right, let’s stop here for today. You have class tomorrow.”

Though somewhat reluctant to stop, Lao Tang still typed out a reminder urging Lu Mingfei to go to bed.

“Class? What class? My good looks have crossed the ocean and spread throughout Chicago. I’ll probably be going to college in the United States in the second half of the year. I’ll come find you in New York then.”

With a spicy snack hanging from his mouth, Lu Mingfei’s fingers flew over the keyboard as he urged Lao Tang to start another game.

Shilan High School had strict rules, but it was relatively lenient with students who had already decided to give up the national college entrance examination and study abroad. Its attitude was essentially: You can come if you want; if you don’t, that’s fine too.

Of course, anyone planning to stay away from school for an extended period needed to have a guardian request leave. Otherwise, if anything happened outside, the parents would come looking for the school and demand an explanation.

Given his aunt’s habit of taking advantage wherever possible, Lu Mingfei figured that as long as the school refused to refund the tuition, he would have to keep attending until the very last day.

But none of that mattered. He was going to laze around at school anyway, and the teachers had long since given up on carving this rotten piece of wood.

“You passed the interview?”

“Not yet. It’s the day after tomorrow.”

“I see… What a pity. I started working as soon as I graduated from high school. Otherwise, I could have given you some advice.” Lao Tang sent a dejected panda sticker.

“It’s only an interview. Why would I need—”

Lu Mingfei’s fingers abruptly stopped above the keyboard. He stared at the words “I started working as soon as I graduated from high school,” and the smile on his face slowly stiffened.

Wasn’t Lao Tang a dual master’s graduate in Materials Science and Engineering and Mechanical Engineering?

How had he suddenly become a chosen laborer?

A research engineer at a Fortune Global 500 company reduced to tightening screws on a factory floor? Was that even plausible?

Lu Mingfei was confused, baffled, and utterly unable to make sense of it. In the end, he could only attribute the discrepancy to changes in the timeline.

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More than Lao Tang’s educational background, what worried him was the enormous change in his identity and life trajectory. If that had changed so drastically, did Coach Kang—famous across the internet for his handsome features, broad back, and narrow waist—still exist?

Had he perhaps turned into a delicate, fair-skinned pretty boy?

Lao Tang had no idea what Lu Mingfei was thinking and was still considering what he could do to help.

“Oh, right. I remember your spoken English isn’t very good. Want me to help you with your pronunciation?”

As a Chinese American who had grown up in the United States, Lao Tang’s English was astonishingly authentic.

Looking at the confident panda sticker that appeared below, Lu Mingfei suppressed his worries and politely declined Lao Tang’s offer.

“No need. I’m extremely fluent.”

Lu Mingfei had always been good at learning languages. He also frequently traveled abroad for competitions, and over time had picked up several foreign languages.

In particular, whenever he came to the United States, he would stay with Lao Tang for a while. The two of them would play games and fling around C-level English at breakneck speed, so Lu Mingfei’s spoken English improved rapidly.

“I was afraid you’d get jealous, so I won’t tell you that I’m fluent in several languages.”

“As if I’d believe that. If you’re not going to sleep, I’m logging off. I still have to go to work later.”

Life was not easy. Lao Tang sighed.

Everyone was struggling to stay alive. He was living in New York, a city plagued by one disaster after another, so he had to struggle even harder just to survive.

“Log off, log off! Attack, attack!”

…

The next morning, Lu Mingfei climbed out of bed feeling refreshed.

They had battled until three or four in the morning. He had slept for only two or three hours, yet he was already brimming with energy. The recovery power of youth was truly terrifying.

He checked the group chat and discovered that Lao Tang had still been there half an hour earlier, imparting his secrets of victory and proclaiming that, with a record of eight wins and four losses, he had ascended to the throne of the group’s number-one expert.

The other members had been very obliging, chanting like a broken record:

“Mingfei has fallen! Lao Tang must rise!”

Lu Mingfei put away his phone and smiled silently.

Sure enough, friends were the best cure for a bad mood. The loneliness he had felt upon waking to an empty pillow slowly faded away.

After washing up, he could not be bothered to tidy himself up. He walked straight out the door with his hair in disarray. After all, his wife was not there, and no one would see him anyway.

On Monday morning, the roads were filled with office workers hurrying along.

They wore immaculate clothes and played the role of beasts of burden in spotless offices, while Lu Mingfei could only bite into a fried dough stick and enjoy his freedom alone.

The joys and sorrows of different people were not shared. All he saw was a giant helping of karmic reward.

There was also the unhurried composure of his classmates being driven to school in luxury cars.

But he was not envious in the slightest. He had once been an esports legend who endorsed automobile brands, after all, and the cars he drove were all premium editions gifted free of charge by the sponsors.

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He arrived at Shilan High School without incident. His alma mater had not changed at all; it still radiated an air of wealth and refinement from every corner.

Female high school students in blazers and skirts could be seen laughing and chatting all along the paths. They were probably discussing some male celebrity or handsome male classmate.

Lu Mingfei greatly admired the youthful energy radiating from them. He found himself wondering how he might get hold of a new girls’ school uniform.

It was not that he wanted to try cross-dressing. He merely wanted, once his birthday came around, to have his wife put it on so they could reminisce about their youth.

Relying on his hazy memories, he found his classroom. The moment he stepped inside, the formerly noisy room fell briefly silent.

A group of girls stared in unison at the unfamiliar male student standing in the doorway, their eyes half wary and half curious.

Who was this?

No idea.

He looked all right, though.

Dozens of gazes landed on him. Lu Mingfei came to his senses at once. He looked at the hostile crowd of girls, then at the handful of boys, and silently retreated to the doorway.

He glanced at the class sign and confirmed that this was indeed the class he had once belonged to. But why had it changed from science to liberal arts?

Lu Mingfei stood at the classroom entrance in deep thought, his expression as solemn as that of the monk Tang Sanzang after accidentally wandering into the palace chambers of the Queen of Women’s Kingdom and being caught red-handed.

He took out his phone and tried to find his way back into the group through the class-chat name. But after one look, he was struck by disbelief.

Which genius had come up with “Our Class Group”?

Just as he was debating whether to trouble the class monitor into coming out and claiming the missing student, a beautiful girl with an imperious air and a rising, commanding voice happened to pass by. With a single shout, she snapped him back to reality.

“Lu Mingfei, why are you standing outside someone else’s classroom like an idiot? Peeping?”

The perfectly timed call nearly made Lu Mingfei turn around with tears in his eyes and ask, “Wukong, is that you?”

But when he followed the voice and looked over, the emotion on his face instantly transformed into astonishment.

“Su Xiaoqiang? What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean, what am I doing here?” The girl standing in the middle of the corridor planted one hand on her hip. Her features were striking and sculpted, with the refined beauty characteristic of someone of mixed heritage. Everything about her clothes, styling, and accessories exuded luxury.

Without a doubt, she was the kind of wealthy woman who could save a man twenty years of hard work.

And not merely wealthy—she was a top-tier heiress whose family literally owned a mine.

Lu Mingfei had no intention of asking her to support him. He walked up to the beautiful yet aggressive girl and opened with a single question:

“Weren’t you already admitted to Fudan University? Why are you still coming to school?”

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