Chapter 151: Didn't expect it to be a university expert

Morning.

In the 【Warehouse】, there were only two spirit stones left. In order to be prepared for any unexpected needs, Lin Li came to the community park to practice today, practicing the odd-numbered physical chapters, which was a rare occurrence.

"Happy Mid-Autumn Festival, Grandpa Zhou." Before practicing, Lin Li greeted Zhou Youwei.

Zhou Youwei looked at Lin Li for three seconds and sighed: "You finally came back. I thought you had already given up."

The longing was overflowing in his words. Lin Li keenly read the little thoughts of the tsundere old man.

"The word 'give up' doesn't exist in my dictionary, Grandpa. I'm not one of those young people who give up halfway." Lin Li said proudly.

Of course, the dictionary Lin Li was talking about was the Oxford dictionary in his house, all in foreign languages. Damn Oxford, it really didn't have the words "give up."

Just like how Edison never said the words "give up," after all, that guy couldn't speak Chinese at all.

As for Lin Li's Chinese dictionary, it was full of things that wouldn't pass censorship.

"Emphasizing that you are a young person? Things are getting interesting. An old steed in the stable still aspires to gallop a thousand miles. I will keep watching you, and I won't give up either." Zhou Youwei stared at Lin Li and issued a battle declaration.

"No problem, I won't let you down." Lin Li would prove his perseverance.

Then he began to practice.

Halfway through the practice, Zhang Fang was walking on the road outside the bushes. After seeing Lin Li and Zhou Youwei, she suddenly remembered something and shouted to the two: "Old Zhou, Little Lin."

"Eh, what's up, Grandma Zhang." Lin Li put away his fist stance and asked.

"Little Lin, I saw you didn't reply to the messages in the community group, so I'm asking now: are you two going to the community activity room to make mooncakes later?" Zhang Fang asked, then showed the bag in her hand, which seemed to be raw materials like flour.

Generally, good property management will organize some activities during holidays, but this was definitely not a treatment that Lin Li's community would have. This activity should be organized by their unofficial neighborhood committee, paying out of their own pockets without expecting a return.

In old communities, most of the permanent residents are elderly and prefer to organize some activities. Whether they are participants or organizers, they can use this to pass the time.

Actually, it's just finding an excuse for everyone to gather together to do things and chat.

"Not going, I have no interest in making mooncakes or anything." Zhou Youwei waved his hand first.

Lin Li originally wanted to refuse, after all, it's better to sleep and study with this time, but on second thought, he nodded: "Alright, Grandma Zhang, the activity room, right? I'll go over after I finish exercising and take a shower."

In Lin Li's 【Warehouse】, there was still a "Body-Strengthening and Disease-Removing Pill" that he intended to give to Wu Min to eat, but the problem was that this thing was like a Chinese medicine pill, exceptionally large. Lin Li hadn't found a reason or opportunity to let Wu Min eat it these past few days.

Making mooncakes himself might be a good opportunity.

"I'm going too." Zhou Youwei changed his words immediately.

Lin Li and Zhang Fang both suddenly turned their heads to look at Zhou Youwei.

Zhou Youwei's old face remained calm: "I'm not at ease with Lin Li going, I must keep an eye on him."

Lin Li and Zhang Fang were both relieved.

The two looked at each other, everything was in silence:

Little Lin, your relationship with Old Zhou is really good.

Yeah, my relationship with Little Zhou is really good.

【Rise before the hour of Mao for one consecutive month to earnestly practice the Eight-Section Brocade Body-Forging Technique; before the hour of Chen, accumulate at least half an hour (11/30)】

After finishing the exercise, he went back to take a shower and changed his clothes. He materialized the "Body-Strengthening and Disease-Removing Pill" in advance, wrapped it in a tissue in his pocket, and Lin Li came to the community activity room.

The "Body-Strengthening and Disease-Removing Pill" now had a small chip missing—Lin Li took a little bit himself. The taste was just like Chinese medicine, a bit astringent and slightly bitter, not delicious.

But there were no magical phenomena, such as feeling energy circulating in the body.

This way, he could be more at ease; Mom wouldn't have any strange changes after eating it.

In the activity room, there weren't many people, and just as Lin Li expected, they were basically all from the older generation, and mostly grandmothers and aunts. Men were extremely rare here, and they basically didn't use Mandarin when chatting; they were all speaking the Xiling dialect.

Zhou Youwei hadn't arrived yet.

Zhang Fang saw Lin Li, walked over, wiped her hands, and asked: "Little Lin, do you know how to make mooncakes?"

"I just watched a tutorial, I should know how." Lin Li said honestly.

Learning on the spot is not shameful. Before getting the system, Lin Li's life was all about learning on the spot.

"Okay, let me tell you, here are the materials, here is the flour that has been mixed, the molds are here, the microwave is over there. Mooncakes are simple to begin with, and you young people are smart. If there is anything you don't understand, you can ask Grandma or everyone."

"Okay, thank you, Grandma."

Zhang Fang nodded with a smile and went back to continue chatting and making mooncakes with a few friends.

Just after Zhang Fang left, the only young person present walked over and patted Lin Li on the shoulder: "Let's go, let's go make mooncakes, I'll take you."

Lin Li: "?"

Who the fuck are you, buddy?

Seeming to see Lin Li's confusion, the young man whispered quickly: "You don't want to become the center of conversation for the grandpas and grandmas later, right? Saving me is also saving yourself!"

Lin Li: "..."

A young person in a pile of elderly people is indeed easy to become a focus.

Now there were quite a few gazes looking at Lin Li, carrying curiosity.

"Okay." It's indeed better to have a young person to communicate with. Lin Li nodded and followed the other person to the material area.

The provided fillings were few and classic: red bean paste, lotus seed paste with egg yolk, five nuts. As for the materials for new-style mooncakes, they couldn't be seen here at all.

These three types of mooncakes each had their own merits. The red bean paste tasted better than the other two, the lotus seed paste with egg yolk smelled better than the other two, and the five nuts had more numbers than the other two.

Who invented the green and red silk in five-nut mooncakes? Lin Li felt uncomfortable just seeing this thing. Just looking at it, he felt a cloying sweet sugar taste coming up.

So he didn't hesitate to choose only the other two for the filling.

"What's your name? I'm Ceng Ziang." The young man introduced himself.

"I'm Lin Li."

Lin Li began to take flour and use a rolling pin to make the dough skin.

He also glanced at the size of the mold; it should be no problem to put the "Body-Strengthening and Disease-Removing Pill" inside.

"Lin Li, did you come alone?" During the process of rolling out the dough skin, Ceng Ziang asked with some confusion.

"Yeah."

"How could you be so self-destructive, coming here alone to make mooncakes at seven in the morning?" Ceng Ziang was even more shocked. "I thought you were like me, brought here forcibly by your family."

Then Ceng Ziang sighed again, "When I first came home from school for the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, they treated me like a treasure, but it's only been a few days, and they've already started to find me unpleasant."

Lin Li didn't quite understand Ceng Ziang's situation.

Wu Min had been home for so long, and Lin Li had never seen her find him unpleasant.

As for how Sister Min viewed him, it should be consistently unpleasant.

"But brother, are you still in school? A graduate student?" Ceng Ziang was young but also relatively young. His appearance had nothing to do with a child. Lin Li would believe it if he said he had been working for a few years.

"I'm a senior now. I also wanted to be a graduate student, but after I showed my graduation thesis draft to my teacher once, I gave up." Ceng Ziang shook his head.

"Why?" Lin Li asked curiously.

"Because my supervisor said my thesis had too much strategic significance."

"Then shouldn't you be taking the graduate entrance exam even more?"

"But he said the strategic significance is that as long as we find a way to let other countries steal my thesis, we can make their country's technology regress by ten years. I suspect he was being sarcastic."

"Brother, you can believe in yourself." After a moment of silence, Lin Li encouraged him.

"I do believe in myself. I actually think my thesis is okay, but the decision-making power is in the teacher's hands; he doesn't listen to me."

"No, brother, what I just meant was that you should believe in your own judgment. Your supervisor was indeed being sarcastic; no need to doubt it." Lin Li explained quickly.

Ceng Ziang: "..."

"Lin Li, has anyone ever told you that you speak very hurtfully?"

"Everyone says so." Lin Li nodded.

Ceng Ziang: "..."

So he's a repeat offender.

"So the undergraduate thesis is already so difficult to handle, what am I thinking about for a graduate thesis? Waiting for delayed graduation? Plus my English is not good, so I gave up on graduate school completely." Ceng Ziang returned to the original topic.

"So brother, are you preparing to find a job? Are you interning? Do you have any ways to make money?" Lin Li asked curiously.

"No, it's hard to find a job now, so I'm taking the civil service exam." Ceng Ziang shook his head, but then complained helplessly: "But the current environment is really difficult. I looked at the positions in our Xiling, and the application ratio is even hundreds to one. I don't know what to say. Hundreds of people are competing for one spot; they must be crazy. Sigh, the environment used to be better; now there's really no way to survive."

"Indeed." Lin Li nodded and expressed approval for this.

"There was no policy, no essay writing before; as long as you were castrated, you could get ashore."

Ceng Ziang: "?"

"That... Lin Li, your 'before' is a bit too far back. If it's this 'before,' I might not take the civil service exam." Feeling a chill in his crotch, Ceng Ziang was sweating profusely.

The "before" he was talking about was a few years ago; the "before" Lin Li was talking about was a few hundred years ago.

"Lin Li, what are you studying now? High school?" Feeling a bit unable to keep up with Lin Li, and talking about himself, Ceng Ziang suspected it would be better to be besieged by the older generation, so he changed the subject.

"Yeah, freshman in high school." Lin Li nodded.

"What high school?"

"Nansang."

"That's amazing. I was six points short of Nansang in the high school entrance exam and could only go to Xiling No. 1 High School." After Ceng Ziang praised him, he sighed again:

"It's really good. High school is a very magical time. I wouldn't be willing to go back and work hard for three years, but I will always miss the time of those three years. How does that saying go? What's worth missing is not the battlefield, but the comrades-in-arms."

"Is university life not good?" Lin Li asked upon hearing this.

"There must be good ones." Ceng Ziang retorted immediately.

Lin Li: "?"

"Sorry, sorry, just pretend I didn't say that." Ceng Ziang closed his mouth immediately.

He really deserves to die. How could he pollute an innocent freshman in high school.

"Ahem, life is definitely a hundred times better than high school. Let me describe it to you like this: the first seventeen weeks of each semester in university are equivalent to being able to go to a top-tier massage parlor to soak your feet at any time... Sss, can you understand this description? You probably haven't soaked your feet. Anyway, you just need to know that it's very, very comfortable and enjoyable."

Lin Li sneered in his heart.

Old thing, who are you looking down on?

Who hasn't soaked their feet?

He didn't know how many times he had done it, and soaking was even easier.

However, Lin Li then asked: "What about after seventeen weeks?"

"Hehe." Ceng Ziang suddenly smiled with relief. "University life after the final exam week starts is equivalent to you having to drink all the foot-soaking water from the previous seventeen weeks."

Lin Li: "..."

"If you worked hard and didn't go to soak your feet in the first seventeen weeks, then this water has no strange smell at all, and you can drink it all at once."

"But if you soaked your feet every day for seventeen weeks, this water... swallowing it is exceptionally difficult and painful; it scratches your throat."

Ceng Ziang said the first half very perfunctorily, but the second half was said with deep feeling. There was no doubt which part he belonged to.

Lin Li nodded in approval.

What an apt description; it immediately felt real.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 152 =====