The person who shouted was Li Zirui.
Li Zirui was wearing sportswear, looking clean and fresh.
As early as the beginning of the freshman year, Li Zirui knew Jiang Yubai. But he didn't know the relationship between Jiang Yubai and Lin Zhixia. Lin Zhixia was so focused on her studies that she had no time to participate in Jiang Yubai's social circle.
Today, the opportunity came, and Jiang Yubai formally introduced: "Lin Zhixia is my girlfriend."
Li Zirui said with a smile: "Lin Zhixia is my mentor, you are older than me."
Jiang Yubai deliberately avoided the topic of "generation points". He observed their equipment and asked casually, "Are you going rock climbing?"
"Yes," Li Zirui pointed ahead, "How about we go together?"
Before she finished her words, Lin Zhixia pushed open the glass door and walked between Li Zirui and Jiang Yubai.
A few minutes ago, Lin Zhixia was still jumping and dancing in the room, circling Jiang Yubai and calling him "Teacher Jiang". But now, she became very dignified and serious, and greeted them politely: "Hello, my name is Lin Zhixia."
Li Zirui nodded at her.
Lin Zhixia asked without hesitation: "Have you finished your homework?"
Li Zirui's smile froze on his face.
Lin Zhixia was also a first-time tutor for undergraduates. She didn't know what to talk about with her classmates in private. After much thought, she decided that talking about study was the safest option, as it would show her concern for the students and help them solve their after-class questions in a timely manner, killing two birds with one stone.
Then, Lin Zhixia asked again: "Have you thought of a topic for your thesis? Have you finished reading the four literature reviews? You said you like to study the HHL algorithm. How is it going? Have you produced any research results in the past two days?"
If Lin Zhixia is interested in an algorithm, given two days, she can basically understand it thoroughly and generate a lot of related associations in her mind.
Putting herself in other people's shoes, she thought Li Zirui was the same as her.
However, Lin Zhixia's series of questions made Li Zirui swallow nervously.
After the tutoring class yesterday, Li Zirui never touched a book again, let alone a paper. He couldn't answer Lin Zhixia's question. He hid behind Jiang Yubai.
Jiang Yubai wanted to laugh, but he held it back.
Jiang Yubai talked to Li Zirui for a few words and calmed Li Zirui's mood. Li Zirui invited Jiang Yubai to go to the manor horse racing in southern England next week, and Jiang Yubai agreed.
Li Zirui smiled heartily and waved goodbye: "Bye, Teacher Lin."
Teacher Lin's tone was cheerful, full of enthusiasm for teaching: "See you next Friday! Don't forget to write your paper!"
Li Zirui started running and disappeared from Lin Zhixia's sight in the posture of a 50-meter sprint.
In the wide corridor paved with wooden floors, the soles of Li Zirui's shoes rubbed against the ground, and the "crunching" sound became farther and farther away.
Lin Zhixia was stunned for a moment and whispered, "He ran away."
Jiang Yubai put his arm around her shoulders and said, "Shall I continue teaching you how to play basketball?"
Lin Zhixia replied, "Okay, Teacher Jiang."
They reentered the squash court.
The four walls formed a private space. Jiang Yubai revealed his true feelings: "Just now I heard someone call you Teacher Lin..."
"What's wrong?" Lin Zhixia asked him.
He started serving and hit the ball for a few times before saying, "Nothing."
Lin Zhixia speculated, "You heard people calling me Teacher Lin. Are you not used to it?"
Jiang Yubai no longer plays basketball.
He held the racket and stood there. The white ball rolled down from his feet. Lin Zhixia clenched his fingers and shook them playfully.
He bent over and approached her, and she whispered in his ear: "In addition to playing the teacher-student game with you, I also want to play the doctor-nurse, the CEO's secretary, the king's knight..."
Before Lin Zhixia could finish her words, the racket fell from Jiang Yubai's hand.
During the years when Jiang Yubai and Lin Zhixia were deskmates, "role-playing" was their first choice for recess activities. At first, it was just a derivative game of the "Exploring the Universe" comic series, but later it gradually developed into an independent entertainment project.
Jiang Yubai repeatedly pondered Lin Zhixia's game plan. In contrast, the squash ball and the racket seemed boring.
"Let's go home now," he suggested.
"Go home?" Lin Zhixia picked up the racket, "Don't you want to play tennis anymore?"
Jiang Yubai tried to convince her: "I have a swimming pool, tennis courts, squash courts, and shooting range at home, but there is no activity room for rock climbing. Come home with me, and we will concentrate on practicing, and your learning progress will be faster."
Lin Zhixia sighed: "I thought you wanted to play a role-playing game with me."
Jiang Yubai was exposed by her on the spot, but he remained calm: "You can play whatever you want."
Seeing how serious and upright he was, Lin Zhixia teased him intentionally, "It's the president-secretary game. I'm the president and you're the secretary..."
Jiang Yubai cooperated and called her "General Manager Lin."
He was calm and self-possessed, as if he had been working in the secretarial field for many years. Lin Zhixia was stared at by him for a moment and was inexplicably shocked. She gave up and said, "I... don't want to play anymore."
Jiang Yubai asked again: "Are you still going to my house?"
"No." Lin Zhixia said firmly.
Jiang Yubai had expected this. He responded, "I prepared strawberry pie and shrimp dumplings. Are you interested in trying them?"
Lin Zhixia hesitated for a long time, but finally followed Jiang Yubai home.
At Jiang Yubai's home, he taught Lin Zhixia how to hold the racket and play tennis. They played from morning to evening, from the squash court to the tennis court, and finally sat by the swimming pool.
The afterglow of the setting sun penetrated the floor-to-ceiling windows and sprinkled on the clear pool water, creating ripples on the surface and interlaced reflections.
Lin Zhixia sat on the edge of the pool, bending over to stir the water.
Jiang Yubai told her that he was receiving training as a "swimming coach" and that after some time, he would be able to give Lin Zhixia one-on-one swimming lessons.
Lin Zhixia looked up at him.
He sat with her on the cool tiles, took her hand and kissed the back of it.
The swimming pool was no longer a swimming pool. The water surface was as broad as the sea, and the waves were as bright as the morning glow. Lin Zhixia smiled and said, "Thank you, Teacher Jiang."
Since the beginning of spring, the weather has gradually become warmer.
Short trips are very popular among students. France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy are all popular weekend destinations. Students depart from London Airport on Friday, arrive at their destination that night, sleep well in the hotel, and explore the local scenery on Saturday and Sunday.
Lin Zhixia saw travel photos from all over the world on WeChat Moments.
Even so, her enthusiasm for learning has not diminished in the slightest.
However, at exactly eight o'clock on Monday morning, she received an email from her tutor.
Her tutor decided to take a month off.
After making inquiries from many sources, Lin Zhixia learned from her Indian senior classmate that the tutor was going to Switzerland for vacation with his wife.
Vacation?
Lin Zhixia was very confused: "But our group is very busy, why would the instructor go on vacation at this time?"
Wen Qi sighed: "Our team is busy from the beginning of the year to the end of the year."
That is true.
Lin Zhixia's group has more than a dozen doctoral students and seven postdocs. Every month, someone submits a paper, someone receives peer review comments, and someone comes up with a new idea... In other words, from the perspective of the entire group, they are always busy.
There is another sentence in the mentor’s email: balance work and life.
Lin Zhixia stared at the email for a while.
She had just finished writing a new paper the night before and was about to hand it in to her tutor for review, but her tutor asked for leave.
Lin Zhixia could only put her thesis aside for the time being. She opened her file and took out four essays (short academic articles) from it - these were all given to her by her students.
Lin Zhixia took out a red pen and graded the students' essays very seriously.
It would be more accurate to say that she was taking notes for the students rather than grading them.
She would circle the imperfect parts of the students' presentations and mark them with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4... Then, she would write a detailed review document on the computer in the order of 1, 2, 3, 4. Her comments were very professional, with fluent and precise English. She sorted out materials suitable for the four students, including various professional books and papers, and added them in the appendix of the comments.
Lin Zhixia spent a whole day to revise four articles. She typed tens of thousands of English words, and her fingers and arms were a little sore.
The salary she earns is really hard-earned money.
This Friday, before Lin Zhixia taught the students, she distributed everyone's homework as usual.
Lin Zhixia said sincerely, "I have taught you four classes, and I can feel your seriousness and progress. Last week, the course "Quantum Computing" issued a major assignment, and you all submitted the assignments on time. The other five teaching assistants and I are responsible for correcting your grades. The score of this major assignment is counted as 10% of the final score, which is quite important. Let's correct the major assignment first. I found that three of you got the last additional question wrong."
Three people made a mistake?
Li Zirui was shocked.
After he finished reading his paper, he looked at the feedback Lin Zhixia gave him. Even though Lin Zhixia's wording was subtle and tactful, he still felt that his paper was written like shit.
He glanced secretly at Wu Pinyan.
Wu Pinyan generously handed her copy of the document to Li Zirui.
Li Zirui looked closely and saw that Lin Zhixia had written to Wu Pinyan: Your point of view is very good. As far as I know, no research group in this field is currently studying this direction. If you have time and interest, you can come to the laboratory and work with us on quantum computing models.
Wu Pinyan smiled and whispered, "Teacher Lin asked me to go to their laboratory. I want to study for a doctorate."
Another classmate named Han Guang interrupted: "I want to apply to MIT..."
Lin Zhixia cleared her throat and said, "Please listen to me."
The classroom suddenly became so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
Lin Zhixia distributed the printed documents to the four students. The first page of the document contained additional questions for this assignment, and the last two pages contained new questions that Lin Zhixia had come up with. She wanted to teach everyone how to draw inferences from one example.
She began to explain the problem: "The code snippet in this problem can only correct a bit flip error at most, but the output state is still problematic. What does this mean?"
Han Guang raised his hand and replied: "It means we must use the complete quantum code."
“Yes, you put it very well,” Lin Zhixia added. “To put it in the context of this problem, in order to correct bit flip errors and phase flip errors, we need to use a complete quantum code [1].”
Lin Zhixia drew pictures on the blackboard and skillfully changed the question type, allowing each student to answer in turn.
Han Guang answered the fastest and was able to expand his thinking.
Wu Pinyan's response was also very quick.
Li Zirui thought for more than ten seconds, and Han Guang clasped his hands together and smiled in his seat.
Li Zirui ultimately failed to successfully answer Lin Zhixia's question.
He found an excuse for himself: "Teacher Lin, I forgot to mention this just now. Thank you for correcting our homework and writing such a long comment. Thank you for your hard work, Teacher Lin."
However, Lin Zhixia didn't buy it.
She turned the subject back to the topic itself.
She constantly guided the students to speak, with a gentle attitude and soft tone.
Even so, Li Zirui still felt the pressure. He looked at his watch from time to time, hoping that this tutoring class would end as soon as possible. After finally making it to 3 o'clock in the afternoon, he was the first to walk out of the classroom and happened to meet Jiang Yubai.
Jiang Yubai asked him: "Have you finished class?"
Li Zirui nodded slightly: "Just now."
Jiang Yubai noticed that he looked strange, so he asked, "Did you listen to the class well?"
Li Zirui's grades were actually OK. His average score for each exam was around 60, and scores above 70 were generally considered excellent. But his previous tutors did not write him thousands of words of feedback every week, nor did they frequently call on him to speak during class. He felt that he was valued by his tutor, but also felt that he was not worthy of her attention.
He sighed and couldn't help saying, "Oh, I don't want to go on vacation this semester. I want to study at home."
The author has something to say: [1] Refer to the homework exercises of the course “Quantum Physics” at the University of California, Berkeley.
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