Chen Zhuo didn’t interrupt them.
He could see that although Chu Ge was cursing and complaining, the spark in his eyes when he met a kindred spirit was unmistakable.
Their bickering over the past half-month hadn’t made them enemies. Instead, through all the nitpicking and constant scrapping and rebuilding, they had developed a sense of mutual admiration.
"Brother Zhuo."
Chu Ge suddenly spoke, his eyes still glued to the screen.
"This guy’s actually pretty damn good. He just sent me a few prototype sketches he drew himself. His train of thought is incredibly clear. He’s even thought about how to use campus emails for the initial user cold start."
Chu Ge hit the Enter key, sending over a block of refactored table structure code.
"He said he just dropped out of school in Country M and came back not long ago. Now he’s gathered a few classmates and is getting ready to build this thing for real. They’ve even picked out a name."
Chen Zhuo turned around and replied casually.
"Sounds like a passionate, ragtag crew."
"Isn’t it, though?"
Chu Ge chuckled.
"They don’t even have a decent lead back-end developer. He’s learning and applying as he goes. But..."
Chu Ge paused what he was doing and turned to glance at Chen Zhuo.
"But... he asked if I’d be interested in acting as a technical consultant, helping them build the underlying framework online. There’s no pay—not a single cent—but he offered me equity, in black and white."
Chen Zhuo looked at Chu Ge.
"You want to take it?"
"I’m not doing anything else anyway."
Chu Ge fished another lollipop out of the transparent jar, fiddling with it in his hand.
"In the past, I’d build an inventory management system for some small-time boss, and at most, I’d get a final payment of a few thousand yuan. And they’d be breathing down my neck, changing the requirements every day. If I work with this guy, even though there’s no money, if this thing actually gets tens of thousands of users..."
Chu Ge paused, his eyes glinting with undisguised ambition.
"How awesome would that be?"
Chen Zhuo nodded, offering no interfering advice.
This was Chu Ge’s own track to run. He had the most instinctual love and nose for code and the internet.
"Just be careful."
Chen Zhuo patted the back of Chu Ge’s chair.
"Just don’t get sold and end up helping them count the money. After all, you’ve never even met the guy."
Chu Ge bit open the wrapper and popped the candy into his mouth.
"Him, sell me out? With that shoddy database of his, he should be thanking his lucky stars I don’t leave a couple of backdoors in it. I’ll have the core algorithm in my hands. He can’t run anywhere."
The chat window pinged again.
Xing: "I’ll email you the full database table structure tomorrow afternoon. Help me look over the refactoring plan. Time is tight, so it’d be best if you could get me a first draft by tomorrow night."
Chu Ge tapped on his keyboard.
Chu Ge: "Depends on my mood. Not looking at it tonight. Going to bed."
After sending that, Chu Ge immediately changed his MSN status to "Away."
He stretched out with a big yawn, his joints cracking and popping loudly.
"Alright, I’ve asserted my dominance for tonight."
Chu Ge stood up and glanced at Lu Jia, who was still frantically scribbling annotations beside him.
He walked over and knocked sharply on Lu Jia’s desk twice.
Lu Jia jumped, pulling off his bulky headphones and looking up blankly.
"What is it?"
Lu Jia pushed up the glasses on the bridge of his nose.
"It’s almost midnight, man. Are you planning to practice your listening skills until dawn?"
Chu Ge pointed to the alarm clock on Lu Jia’s desk.
"You’ve got Real Analysis at 8 a.m. tomorrow. It’s Old Zhang’s class. If you miss roll call, he’ll dock all your participation points. Go wash up and get to bed."
Lu Jia glanced at the time and sucked in a sharp breath, hurriedly gathering the scratch paper and thick, original-language textbook on his desk.
"I’m going to wash up."
Lu Jia grabbed his wash cup and hurried to the private bathroom.
Watching Lu Jia’s hurried retreat, Chen Zhuo smiled and said to Chu Ge,
"You should get some rest soon, too. Looks like you’ve got a mountain of candy wrappers over there."
"Heading to bed now."
Chu Ge yawned and started shutting down his computer monitor.
「Back in Room 215.」
Wang Dayong had already finished his laundry. He was using a hanger to put the freshly cleaned t-shirt on the clothes-drying rod on the balcony.
Chen Zhuo walked over to his own desk and sat down.
He didn’t go to wash up right away. Instead, he opened the two thick mechanical assembly manuals on his desk.
On the page was a cutaway view of a turbofan engine’s interior, densely marked with various machining tolerances and material stress limits.

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