Chapter 744: We

April 18, Sunday.

1:00 PM, Materials Research Institute.

“Director Song.”

Wang Sidong had just returned to his desk after delivering documents to the office when he saw a tall woman in a trench coat stepping out of the elevator.

Song Yao asked: “Where’s Xu Qingzhou?”

Wang Sidong reported: “Professor Xu just left the lab; he should be resting now.”

Song Yao nodded, picked up her lunch box, and walked toward Xu Qingzhou’s office. She pushed the door open—no one inside.

She pursed her lips, went to the break room, and there he was, fast asleep. “This guy, who knows how long he stayed up last night—he never listens, always making people worry.”

She shook her head, gently closed the door, and turned to sit at his desk.

Xu Qingzhou hadn’t been home in days; she had cooked lunch and brought it over for him.

She didn’t sit around waiting idly. She rotated her chair, pulled out a copy of Classical Harmonic Analysis from the desk, and began reading slowly.

Time slipped away.

2:10 PM.

The young man stepped out of the break room, yawning, and saw the girl leaning back in her chair, studying him up and down.

“Great, here comes the inquisition.”

Xu Qingzhou silently cursed his luck.

“Awake?”

Song Yao lifted her eyes to look at Xu Qingzhou.

Bloodshot eyes, stubble, messy hair—he radiated exhaustion.

“I woke up hungry. I kept dreaming about the smell of food—I didn’t realize it was kind, beautiful Teacher Song bringing me lunch.”

Xu Qingzhou sat down at a side table with the lunch box and began praising it.

“Don’t give me that look like I’m some kind of monster.”

“How could I? Even when scolded, I’ve got to eat first.”

“Hmph, you know you’re in the wrong?”

Song Yao propped her chin on her hand, watching the young man wolf down his food.

How to put it—Xu Qingzhou was unkempt, disheveled, yet his entire aura was strangely appealing.

“Maybe it’s like that weird thing he likes—the so-called ‘broken beauty’ he finds in me during my period?”

"A bit weird."

Song Yao subtly looked away. “Done?”

“Finished.”

Xu Qingzhou slurped his soup. They had spent three days completing the precise alignment of the magnet and vacuum chamber, embedding the superconducting magnetic film exactly into the chamber’s annular groove.

They also deployed the quantum sensing monitoring system, embedding diamond NV-center sensors into the vacuum chamber’s inner walls.

This morning, they began the negative-triangle joint test, which will last three days.

“Didn’t you say you’d finish last night?”

Song Yao frowned.

He’d called last night saying he’d come home for the weekend, then messaged this morning saying something came up—so she ended up playing nurse again.

“We ran several risk-control contingency plans; it took longer.”

Xu Qingzhou took a sip of pork rib soup—and instantly felt reborn.