Chapter 236 Assessment
The restaurant Jin Nan mentioned was not big, but it was very quiet and clean. Rong Yuan was very satisfied with it. As for the food, it was indeed better than what Rong Yuan usually ate, but it was not worth his special trip - or rather, in his opinion, food was not worth coming here to taste, even if it was an imperial meal.
The cook in the small restaurant was a lame old man, who was strong and full of energy when he spoke. It seemed that he could live at least another 30 years. The waitress was a girl of 17 or 18 years old. She blushed quietly when she saw Rong Yuan, and walked around their table twice with the teapot in her hand. She left reluctantly amid the old man's shouting.
While eating, the scene of Rong Yuan holding the child out and wiping his hands when leaving was still lingering in Jin Nan's mind. He thought, Rong Yuan is really an interesting person.
These past few days, they seemed to be hanging around doing nothing, but Jin Nan had been evaluating Rong Yuan in his heart, and he believed that Rong Yuan felt the same way.
It’s just that in the past, when Jin Nan thought Rong Yuan was just a young and famous scientist and tried his best to protect him, Rong Yuan already had a deep understanding of him; and Jin Nan really got to know Rong Yuan only in these few days.
He had always heard this name from Jin Yang many years ago, and knew that he had a very good friend in City A. However, his family did not have the habit of checking the background of just anyone they knew, or even sending precious troops to monitor them. Since Jin Bai and his wife were sure that the child was fine, they were naturally relieved.
In Jin Yang's words, Rong Yuan was naturally a perfect person: kind, smart, strong, independent, hardworking, rigorous, etc. In the words of Jin Bai and his wife, he was a quiet and a little lonely, but a good child with almost no shortcomings.
——It must be said that this was largely because Jin Bai and his friends’ morality did not allow them to speak ill of their son’s savior behind his back, and also because Jin Yang cared about Rong Yuan, and Rong Yuan’s social status and conditions at the time could not pose a threat to Jin Yang, so saying a few good words would not have any impact. Unexpectedly, Jin Nan had a very good impression of Rong Yuan because of this long period of misleading, so he did not look at Rong Yuan with suspicion for a long time.
After getting to know each other, Jin Nan felt that Rong Yuan was like a book. You never knew what was on the next page. Even when you thought you knew him well enough, your previous ideas would be overturned at any time.
Just like when he eats, he cherishes food and is not picky about food, but he never allows himself to eat too much; he eats very carefully and seems to be enjoying the deliciousness of the food, but in fact he doesn't care at all about the taste, even if he cooks the kind of dark food that is comparable to poison, he can eat it without changing his expression; you think he has a dull sense of taste, but then you find out that he can actually easily taste the cooking time, the amount of various seasonings, and the freshness of the ingredients in a dish, he just doesn't care about these things.
But at least Jinnan could be sure of this: he was not a truly ruthless person.
So, should he go a step further?
…
“Ding Dong——”
When the doorbell rang, Rong Yuan did not take his eyes off the e-reader, but simply replaced the content of the Bhikkhu Star Language with a famous Earth book.
Emilida jumped up to open the door, but after a while no one came in. Rong Yuan frowned and looked up, and a figure suddenly rushed in from the entrance.
"Rong Yuan!"
A familiar, excited shout successfully stopped Rong Yuan's counterattack, and the intruder successfully threw himself into Rong Yuan's arms and hugged him tightly.
Rong Yuan was not excited when he saw the girl in his arms. He just calmly pulled his arm out. He wanted to pull the girl off, but suddenly he felt a little wetness on his neck. His arm froze for a moment, and he patted the girl's back somewhat stiffly.
Aimirida blinked her big eyes and looked at them curiously. Seeing Rongyuan's embarrassment, she covered her mouth and laughed secretly. Jinyang put the car keys on the shoe cabinet, changed his shoes and washed his hands, poured himself a glass of water, and was very calm and comfortable.
After a long time, the girl finally let him go, sniffed, wiped her tears, and sat down beside him. She stared at Rong Yuan intently, her eyes moist, her cheeks flushed, and there was a burning emotion in her watery eyes, as if there was a flame burning in them.
Rong Yuan leaned back uncomfortably before saying, "Long time no see, Zhou Yuan."
"Yes, it's been a long time." Zhou Yuan couldn't help but burst into tears after saying this. Jin Yang handed over a box of tissues in time. Zhou Yuan took two and wiped her tears and snot. She sobbed and said vaguely: "After so many years... I thought you didn't like us anymore..."
During the time when Rong Yuan was away, Xiao A never took the initiative to contact Rong Yuan's former classmates and friends in order to avoid being exposed. It was fine for others, anyway, Rong Yuan had basically been in a state of seclusion since his senior year of high school. Jin Yang knew a little about the inside story. Only Zhou Yuan felt like she was suddenly abandoned. Although she still had shares, the lack of contact made her inner sadness and depression gradually settle. She could only bury herself in crazy work, hoping that the increased performance would allow Rong Yuan to see her progress and efforts.
In fact, Jin Yang had hinted to her. But for Rong Yuan, it was impossible to say it too clearly, and it could only be "tacitly understood". But Zhou Yuan's thoughts at that time were not in line with Jin Yang's. She always felt that she was abandoned by Rong Yuan because she was too stupid and incompetent. Therefore, she squeezed herself to the extreme in the past few years, desperately chasing after that unreachable figure. And now, when she saw Rong Yuan in person, the pressure and panic accumulated over the years suddenly hit her, and Zhou Yuan couldn't help crying. She finally stopped, and she would sob from time to time.
Rong Yuan didn't say anything.
In fact, Zhou Yuan's feeling was not wrong. If he didn't look back, everyone would be left behind by him in the end.
In the past four years, Zhou Yuan's changes were the most obvious. If Rong Yuan had seen her just after she came back, he might not have recognized her.
The girl had lost a lot of weight, probably less than 100 pounds, and looked much prettier. She wore light makeup, with thin eyebrows and big eyes, a long neck, clear collarbones, and thin arms and legs that looked easy to break. It was just that she hadn't rested for a long time, so she had dark circles under her eyes, some fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and her skin wasn't very good. The hardships of the past still left subtle marks on her: her hands weren't thin enough, her face wasn't white enough, and on her arms, you could still see faint scars from the beatings from her stepfather.
Zhou Yuan finished her graduation defense this morning, and Jin Yang told her the news that Rong Yuan had returned. As expected, she didn't care, she hung up the phone, picked up her wallet, bought a plane ticket and ran back, without even packing her luggage. At this time, she was still wearing the shirt and suit skirt she wore for the defense, but she changed her feet into sneakers for convenience, which looked very mismatched.
After the excitement subsided, Zhou Yuan also noticed this. She groaned and covered her face, lamenting why she always left such a bad impression on everyone she met.
"I heard that you had your graduation thesis defense this morning. How was the result?" Rong Yuan took the initiative to speak, which was rare.
"It's OK, it went pretty smoothly." Zhou Yuan said gloomily. It's not that she didn't want to say that she was better, but she ran back without waiting for the results. At this time, Rong Yuan had lost confidence and was worried about what would happen if he failed the defense.
The atmosphere became awkward.
——Say something! Zhou Yuan! You can do it! Find a topic!
Zhou Yuan kept encouraging himself in his heart, but did not make a sound for a long time. It was because Rong Yuan next to him was a natural topic terminator and always hated meaningless greetings.
"Drink some water." Jin Yang poured her a cup of hot water and handed it to her, then asked, "What are your plans after graduation? Do you want to continue your studies? Or do you want to help the company? Or go abroad for further studies for two years?"
Zhou Yuan blurted out subconsciously: "You are not--" Do you know?
Before she could say the last three words, she suddenly realized why Jin Yang asked that. She nervously grabbed the corner of her clothes, glanced at Rong Yuan, lowered her head, gritted her teeth and said, "I want to enter the research institute."
Rong Yuan was a little surprised. There were many research institutes in the Sugar Country, but the one she was talking about was probably only one.
Once the arrow is shot, there is no turning back. Zhou Yuan paused and continued, "I got a double degree in college. My major is the same as yours, biophysics and structural biology, and my minor is optoelectronic information science and engineering. I was planning to take the entrance exam for the institute in August this year."
Zhou Yuan said it simply, but anyone who knew her a little bit would know how much difficulty was contained in her words.
The two majors she mentioned are both majors that many people devote themselves to but still find it difficult to learn well, not to mention that they are almost unrelated, so you can imagine how difficult it is to learn. She chose these two majors because she had made up her mind from the beginning to enter the graduate school. Originally, undergraduate graduates like her had no chance, but in the past two years, Noah felt that it was too restrictive to only accept people recommended by universities and other research institutes each time. The most important thing was that it had identified several good seedlings but had no way to get them in. After scratching its head for a while, it came up with the idea of this assessment - regardless of nationality, race, gender, age, education, experience, or whether or not they have won awards and honors, as long as they can pass its professional exams, they can get additional qualifications to enter the graduate school.
When this condition was put forward, most people's first reaction was that the exam must be very difficult, so the number of applicants did not increase dramatically like Noah's. Most of them were foreign scholars and spies, as well as some young people who were ignorant of the world and self-righteous. For these people, Noah gave them very difficult test questions in order to justify throwing them out.
So that year, the number of admissions was: zero.
This further deepened people's impression that the test must be extremely difficult and Dr. Rong was just teasing us. The next year, Noah transformed himself into a little angel on QQ and persuaded two of his favorites to take the test. He knew what they were good at, so he naturally gave them test papers that seemed difficult but were within their knowledge range, and successfully attracted talents to his own cup.
Therefore, there is a big secret in this exam - it is not those who pass the exam who can be selected, but those who are selected who can pass the exam. If Rong Yuan does not come back, then in order to prevent Xiao A from being exposed in front of Zhou Yuan, Noah will definitely eliminate her.
But now Rong Yuan decided not to go easy on her or make things difficult for her and to give her a fair chance.
So Rong Yuan nodded and said calmly: "Then go and try it."
Hearing such a cold sentence, Zhou Yuan was overjoyed and nodded vigorously.
"Um!"
Jin Yang: What should I do if I suddenly feel that my friend is a bit of a scumbag?
