Are you and Chongming planning to keep this a secret forever?
"Are you and Chongming planning to keep this a secret forever?"
42.
In the past, only professors attended the year-end banquet at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology. However, during those years of transition due to the changing environment, professors cherished their students and treated them like precious gems. The banquet gradually turned into a gift-giving contest. Even the stingiest or poorest professors would give their students a red envelope as a New Year's gift to encourage them to continue their research in the coming year. From then on, the Institute of Nuclear Energy Technology established the tradition of the entire institute attending the year-end banquet.
The organizers are assigned by laboratory, and they take turns each year. This year, it's the Heavy Ion Laboratory's turn to host. Wen Chu and Nie Mumu, who are working on the project, and Niga will also be helping out. The entire Heavy Ion Laboratory is mobilized, but it's still not enough to fully support the year-end banquet of the entire Institute of Nuclear Research.
However, the graduate students on the 12th floor have always been united and friendly. Last year, when Guan Shaoxiao was the only student in the accelerator lab, everyone on the 12th floor worked together to make things happen. This year is no exception.
Senior Sister Hui and Guan Shaoxiao arrived earlier than Chongming and Lanjian. Seeing the two of them arrive together, Senior Sister Hui tacitly agreed that Chongming had gone to the school to pick up Lanjian and bring her to the hotel. Guan Shaoxiao, however, knew better. Yesterday, at the Zhong family banquet, the two of them might have been hanging out together again.
He was worried that Lan Jian and Chong Ming's relationship was ambiguous, so when they were alone, he whispered to her, "Are you and Chong Ming planning to keep this a secret forever?"
Lan Jian was a little confused by his sudden question, "What are you hiding?"
Guan Shaoxiao was a little exasperated, "You two are dating!"
"When did we start dating?" Lan Jian carefully recalled her "confessions" to Chongming, which seemed to have never revealed that the two of them were dating. "If we were dating now, what would be the difference between that and a seamless transition?"
Lan Jian's last sentence sounded guilty—the emotional connection wasn't seamless, but the wedding date shouldn't be chosen too perfectly.
"Then why do you keep going to his house for no reason? Don't tell me you're going to play games!" Guan Shaoxiao shut Lan Jian down before she could try to dodge his words again. "Besides the time you got drunk, there was also the time a few days ago after watching a movie when you said you were going back to the lab to get something, and then you didn't come back and told me to leave first. Don't think I don't know that you left with Chongming later. I was on the phone with my friend in the car when I saw you two get off together. He didn't take you back to your dorm."
This Guan Shaoxiao, if it were wartime, he would definitely be good at being a spy... Meng Lanjian almost tore the tablecloth off the sign-in table in an attempt to save face.
"I was just being playful. I went to his house to play video games."
After thinking for a long time, Guan Shaoxiao could accept that Lan Jian was unwilling to be open and honest, but he felt that Lan Jian was being secretive and worried that she was being deceived by Chongming, who was so skilled. So he continued to expose her without mercy, "What game console does Chongming have that my lab doesn't have? Or does he have more game accounts on which gaming platform than I do? Haven't you gotten tired of playing games at my place yet?"
"He has a QuestPro! You don't, do you?"
Meng Lanjian was secretly applauding himself for finding a brilliant excuse when he suddenly heard Guan Shaoxiao and Guan Bo, known as the "know-it-alls of the Twelfth Floor," reveal a truth—
"How could someone who gets VR sickness possibly buy a QuestPro? At least make your story believable, Meng Lanjian!"
Upon hearing this, Meng Lanjian was stunned for a long time. Guan Shaoxiao thought she had finally run out of words and could no longer deceive him, so he temporarily put the matter aside and continued with his work. After a while, he noticed that she was not moving, so he looked up and asked her what was wrong.
How do you know about VR in Chongming?
"Didn't you go to the tech expo together last year? Ma Yue casually mentioned it during a chat later, saying that he got dizzy from VR in Chongming, which was a stark contrast to how crazy you were about it."
We were really having a blast at the time, and afterwards we just assumed that our senior brother had kindly gone to buy water for everyone and that's why we didn't get to try Lanjian. I felt a mix of emotions.
It was a pleasant surprise, but not a cause for great joy; it was also a source of confusion and frustration.
It's like applying a cotton ball soaked in alcohol to a wound for disinfection. You know it's a good thing, but you still have to go through the pain before it gets better.
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Throughout the day, the banquet hall was bustling with people. Lan Jian and Chong Ming were busy with their own things, and it wasn't until lunchtime that they shortened the distance between them and sat at the same table for lunch. The host for the evening was Ye Ni, a second-year master's student from the nuclear medicine laboratory, while Chong Ming was in charge of coordinating the entire year-end banquet. She would occasionally consult with Chong Ming about the procedures, and the two of them also sat together at lunchtime, eating and discussing things.
Lan Jian was separated from the two by Senior Sister Hui and Zhuang Huiting, and was only focused on eating when Zhuang Huiting, who was sitting next to her, tugged at her sleeve and asked, "You and Ye Ni haven't made up yet?"
"What reconciliation?" Meng Lanjian was playing dumb today. "When did I ever get together with her?"
“That’s true,” Zhuang Huiting not only knew the discord between Lan Jian and Ye Ni perfectly well, but could even be said to be the fuse that ignited their relationship breakdown. “I don’t think she took it seriously at all, she’s really something.”
Meng Lanjian scoffed coldly, "Don't talk about such disgusting things while eating."
As she spoke, she put a piece of stir-fried eggplant into Zhuang Huiting's bowl, which was her favorite dish.
"I was going to tell you something even more disgusting, are you going to let me say it or not?"
"If you speak any louder, Senior Sister Hui will pour you a cup of tea so you can start talking."
Zhuang Huiting glanced at her senior sister Hui next door, who was having a lively discussion with Chongming and Ye Ni about serious matters and had no interest in listening to gossip.
"Do you remember the student Han Li mentored before? He was also from Beiluan, the one that Senior Sister Hui said looked like a 'vixen'."
"Tan Xiaoxiao? A little girl with the same ABB name as our Nie Mumu, and both of them have the water radical."
“You have a good memory. On her first day in the lab, she introduced herself as the ‘Xiaoxiao’ from ‘Xiaoxiao Muyu Zigui Ti’. Later, I mistakenly remembered her as Tan Muyu and called her ‘Tan Muyu’ instead… Lao Guan and Lao Tong laughed about this for half a month.”
Old Tong is a senior professor teaching undergraduates at the Nuclear Engineering Institute, but he has a playful personality and was the thesis advisor for Zhuang Huiting and Guan Shaoxiao. Old Tong's office is on the sixth floor, but now that there are no new students in the Nuclear Engineering Institute, he has fewer classes and often comes to the twelfth floor to visit.
What happened to Tan Xiaoxiao?
"She openly has a crush on Chongming, and she's been pursuing him very openly. Haven't you seen her come to your lab to deliver things or visit Chongming to ask him questions?"
Lan Jian had heard too much gossip about people on the 12th floor being "interested" in Chongming. Chongming had been confessed to before, even though he wasn't single. Moreover, after Ma Yuehe told everyone that he had broken up with his girlfriend, he became incredibly popular, like a limited-edition sneaker. Every now and then, people in the 12th floor students' group would encourage each other to "confess to Senior Chongming."
Even Guan Shaoxiao once said when everyone was gossiping, "Only you girls would fight tooth and nail over who's the twelfth floor's most handsome guy. We guys all agree that Lan Jian's guy is the most handsome."
Before he said that, Meng Lanjian was arguing with Zhuang Huiting, a junior student from the same department who was obsessed with girls: "I think the most handsome person on the twelfth floor is Han Li, according to my aesthetic standards."
Meng Lanjian had no idea that there was a young and promising man in her family's laboratory.
...
"I didn't know that." Meng Lanjian thought to herself, I've even seen her confess her feelings, why would I care about such trivial things as giving her gifts or asking her questions?
"I heard that she plans to change her tutor in order to pursue Chongming. My Huanghuang has already agreed and is just waiting for Xue Xiang to give his approval."
Undergraduate students are often immature and frequently switch labs to explore different areas, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Meng Lanjian didn't seem to mind, saying, "Then our lab might have two casual female students from ABB."
Zhuang Huiting was defeated by her reply, rolled her eyes at her, and continued eating.
Xue Xiang arrived early in the afternoon. Just as he came in, Lan Jian was about to borrow tools from the front desk, so Xue Xiang stopped him and had a rare, serious conversation with him. After borrowing the tools, Lan Jian returned home feeling rather down. Chong Ming was busy communicating with the lighting technician, and Ye Ni followed him like a spotlight.
The position of following behind Chongming was always held by Meng Lanjian, and only by her.
At this moment, Lan Jian felt a pang of jealousy and suddenly remembered the time when she had a disagreement with Ye Ni.
The matter wasn't actually complicated. It was simply because when Lan Jian first came to Nanjing University to pursue her doctorate, she actually frequented the nuclear medicine lab more than her own. Zhuang Huiting and Han Li, whom she considered the most handsome guy on the twelfth floor, were both there. Ye Ni was also Han Li's student at that time, a year younger than them. Every time Lan Jian went to have lunch with Zhuang Huiting, she would subtly ask Han Li if he wanted to join them. Han Li always assigned tasks during the students' lunch break, so Lan Jian's question was always unnecessary.
After being refused two or three times, Lan Jian stopped asking. Han Li, on the other hand, felt embarrassed and would ask Ye Ni if she wanted to go buy food with him. Ye Ni was still a well-behaved college student at the time, and dared not disobey her seniors' "questions," so she always joined the group of people buying food.
More than a year later, Lan Jian and Han Li became teaching assistants for the same class. Lan Jian would occasionally wait for Han Li to finish his experiments in the nuclear medicine lab so they could go back to the dormitory together. If she arrived early, she would sit in his seat and wait. Sometimes, when Ye Ni was around, Lan Jian would invite her to walk back with her, thinking it wasn't safe for a girl to walk back to the dormitory alone in the woods on a dark and windy night. In her mind, she had watched the junior student Han Li was teaching on this topic progress all the way to her master's degree, and even if they weren't close friends, they were still good classmates from the research institute.
But Ye Ni never thought that way.
She walked with Meng Lanjian and Han Li once and found herself unable to join their conversation, feeling like an outsider being "deliberately forced into the topic." Ye Ni, with her keen intuition and meticulous nature, had long since discerned Han Li's feelings for Meng Lanjian. While Meng Lanjian appeared familiar with him, she wasn't truly close, suggesting he was indifferent. Ye Ni, on the other hand, harbored feelings for Han Li and chose to stay in the nuclear medicine lab to pursue her master's degree, hoping to gain proximity. Although she knew Han Li didn't reciprocate her feelings, and that this matter had nothing to do with Meng Lanjian, her territorial instincts stirred up a storm of frustration within her.
When Meng Lanjian asked her again if she wanted to go back together, Ye Ni not only refused outright, but also went to Professor Huang Yi to complain, saying, "Recently, people who aren't from the lab have been coming here, and it feels like it's having a bad influence on the lab."
Upon hearing this, Huang Yi realized it would negatively impact the lab, a serious matter, and decided to give the graduate students a warning. Huang Yi was a very controlling person; since Ye Ni was tight-lipped and she couldn't get any information out of them, she called everyone in the lab for "heart-to-heart talks." Several students, after being bombarded with questions like "Have you made any friends from other labs recently?", spilled everything. Zhuang Huiting, on the other hand, was shrewd. While she appeared to be the most gossipy, she knew exactly what could and couldn't be said, and thus learned what Ye Ni had mentioned from Huang Yi.
Not many people usually come to visit the lab. Only Guan Shaoxiao and Meng Lanjian come more often. Ye Ni and Guan Shaoxiao don't have many opportunities to meet. If Ye Ni's words weren't directed at Meng Lanjian, then who else could she be talking about?
She felt indignant on Lan Jian's behalf, but couldn't do it openly. In her distress, she simply told Lan Jian the truth.
Why is it that students from the Nuclear Research Institute occasionally visiting other labs during their breaks is treated like they've done something wrong? Lan Jian had never been treated this way before. She went directly to Professor Huang Yi's lab and apologized, saying she didn't know that students from the Nuclear Research Institute couldn't freely enter and leave the nuclear medicine lab, and that she wouldn't go there anymore. Huang Yi was also embarrassed by Meng Lan Jian's actions. She had originally intended to make a show of force, knowing that those who knew better would understand and wouldn't dare to go again.
Unfortunately, Meng Lanjian was neither sensible nor the type to keep quiet about things he knew.
She knew Huang Yi was pointing fingers at her. Even if she was a teacher, she hadn't done anything wrong, so why should she swallow her anger?
After Meng Lanjian apologized, Huang Yi not only dared not offend her, but also had to coax her to resolve her inner conflict.
On the one hand, Meng Lanjian was the last disciple of Director Zhong Shiqing. On the other hand, Zhong Shiqing had always been quite critical of her initial refusal to accept Meng Lanjian as a student. She later learned that Zhong Shiqing's original intention was to train Lanjian to go abroad to C University. Therefore, it didn't matter which laboratory she went to in the early stages. Having someone accept her would allow the Nuclear Research Institute to challenge the higher-ups at the university based on the Nuclear Peace Treaty. The most important thing was to delay her "retirement" by a few years.
Zhong Shiqing's favoritism
Everyone at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Research knew him. On the bright side, under his leadership, the institute was united, and the solidarity and loyalty between teachers and students could be seen in small matters. However, his weakness lay in the fact that if anyone wronged one of his students, it was as if they were slapping him in the face, making it easy to offend him. He was impartial on important matters, but on minor issues that could be overlooked, he would become manipulative and suddenly become unreasonable.
Xie Daquan from the accelerator lab once gave a teaching assistant position that should have been given to Guan Shaoxiao to an undergraduate student who claimed to be from a "poor family". After learning the truth, Zhong Shiqing reprimanded him.
The Nuclear Research Institute stipulates that professors must prioritize reserving their own teaching assistant positions for their graduate students; otherwise, these positions cannot be counted towards the professor's time allowance for crediting off course hours each semester. Being a teaching assistant for a professor's courses is considered a lucrative and relatively easy position, so it's understandable that professors would prioritize their own students.
Zhong Shiqing learned of this by chance and, after investigating, discovered that the college student was not on the list of impoverished students in the college and came from a very wealthy family. He wanted to become a teaching assistant purely to earn more pocket money for playing games. After giving Xie Daquan, who was unaware of the full situation but thought he was being kind, a severe dressing-down, Zhong Shiqing immediately refunded half of Xie's tutoring hours for that semester.
When Guan Shaoxiao learned of this, he pleaded with the director for Xie Daquan's sake, saying that he was not short of money and had known about and agreed to the matter, and had not been wronged. Zhong Shiqing sighed meaningfully, "Xiao Guan, there is no room for negotiation on this matter. This kind of thing cannot be started. I have the same requirements for all professors in the Nuclear Research Institute. There is no reason to make an exception for Xie Daquan alone."
For the collective benefit of other graduate students, Xie Daquan taught three make-up classes in the following semester.
Huang Yi didn't want to become another Xie Daquan, whom Zhong Shiqing thought was ostracizing the other students on the twelfth floor, even refusing to let them into her own lab. Sometimes, mistakes are made over small things. So Huang Yi chatted gently with Meng Lanjian for half an hour, brewing coffee herself with a moka pot. Before ending the conversation, she specifically reminded Lanjian that she could visit the lab often; she had never stipulated that students on the twelfth floor couldn't enter the nuclear medicine lab.
Meng Lanjian smiled insincerely at her for half an hour, agreeing to everything. After leaving, he turned right and walked to the other end of the corridor, never stepping into the nuclear medicine laboratory again. He treated Ye Ni as a complete stranger, brushing past her without even glancing at her.
Chongming was only partially aware of this matter because Lanjian had asked him one day, "Senior, do you think it would be a bad thing if I went to other labs so often?"
Chongming rarely left the heavy particle lab to visit other people's labs, so he was completely unaware of the rumors circulating outside. When Lan Jian asked him this question, he assumed that Lan Jian had suffered some injustice outside, so he said to her firmly yet gently, "You are a member of the Nuclear Research Institute, and you are allowed to go to any laboratory. If any laboratory does not allow you to go, then tell me, and I will ask my teacher to make the decision for you."
After saying that, he added, "I know you won't deliberately disturb others when they are busy with experiments, and you rarely go in during their working hours. Even with Guan Shaoxiao, you usually only go to see him when Professor Xie is not around. I know all of this."
As time passed, Meng Lanjian recalled Chongming's words, "I know all of this," and gazed at his tall and handsome profile in the distance, a bitter smile appearing on his lips.
But there are still so many things you don't know.
@Author: Since it's all just "daily life at the nuclear research institute," I decided to grind out 5,000 chapters to present to you (to make up for not updating this week, haha!).
@Arrogant and shameless Lanjian who is unaware of impending danger: In terms of looks, Han Li is my dream girl!
@SuddenlyBehindTheSpiritChongming: I'm someone you never even thought of, a male?
@Lanjian who gets roasted for being stubborn: Actually, a girl's ideal type and the person she likes are usually not the same type!
@Han Li, who is serving in the military, touched the top of his head: Does my ideal type match this hat?
@Zhuang Huiting who only hates her best friend being an idiot: Meng Lanjian, are you confused?! What are you being so dramatic about? Go for it, sister!
@cao碎了心老妈子关邵霄: Who voted for me during the 12th floor's most handsome guy election? Who? Come out! A single vote is shameful, okay?!
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