Lu Jia concluded.
"So, approaching her in the cafeteria is too risky."
Chen Zhuo rubbed his chin.
"You have a point. The environmental pressure is definitely an issue."
Chen Zhuo agreed, his tone serious.
"Then what about a different place?"
Lu Jia moved the tip of his pen to the middle branch.
"Scenario two: the foreign language corridor on the third floor of the library."
"It’s a semi-enclosed space, usually not many people around, and the lighting is rather dim. On a cloudy day, the corridor’s illuminance is only about one hundred fifty lux."
Lu Jia’s brow furrowed even tighter.
"From a spatial and lighting perspective, I could indeed reduce the safe distance to under a meter, even walk side-by-side with her."
"But..."
Lu Jia tapped his forehead with the end of his pen.
"I’ve run the calculations from a psychological and physiological standpoint."
"In a relatively narrow, dimly lit, semi-enclosed corridor, if I, an unfamiliar male, suddenly get that close to start a conversation, it would give her an intense feeling of being spatially pressured."
"This sense of pressure would directly trigger her sympathetic nervous system, increase adrenaline secretion, and put her on high alert. In that state, she’d most likely see me as a potential threat, not a younger student she could exchange contact information with."
Lu Jia sighed.
"So, the library corridor is a no-go, either."
Chen Zhuo picked up his water cup and blew away the tea leaves floating on the surface.
He looked at Lu Jia with the kind of tolerant and helpless expression an adult has when watching a child’s pointless antics.
"You’re worried about crowds in an open space, and worried about scaring her in a semi-enclosed one."
Chen Zhuo took a sip of water.
"So, based on your deductions, it’s a dead end?"
"It’s not completely impossible."
Lu Jia gritted his teeth, the tip of his pen landing heavily on the rightmost branch of his scratch paper.
That branch was densely packed with drawings of various velocity vectors and angles.
"Scenario three: a dynamic intercept on the main campus road."
Lu Jia stared at the branch as if he were facing a world-class mathematics problem.
"This one’s the hardest."
"I’ve tested it. Her average walking speed is approximately 1.2 meters per second."
"To avoid creating hostility by intercepting her head-on, which would make her feel like I’m cornering her, I must adopt a strategy of approaching from her rear flank."
Lu Jia drew two parallel dashed lines on the paper with his pen.
"My plan is to approach from her left rear blind spot at a relative velocity of approximately 1.5 meters per second, then slow down to match her pace."
At this point, Lu Jia’s voice even held a trace of terror.
"But Brother Zhuo, do you have any idea how hard that is?"
Lu Jia looked at Chen Zhuo, his face a mask of despair.
"This requires absolute vector synchronization! The moment I start to speak, my cadence and speed must be perfectly identical to hers."
"There are always people riding bikes or fooling around on the side of the main road. If any external variable appears and causes my cadence to be out of sync with hers for even half a second..."
Lu Jia took a deep breath.
"...I’ll either end up in front of her or fall behind, and the situation will descend into at least three seconds of extreme awkwardness."
"In that kind of mobile, awkward atmosphere, the social mortality rate is as high as ninety percent!"
After describing the three scenarios, Lu Jia’s hand went limp. The pen rolled across the desk and clattered to the floor.
He slumped back, his head thudding against the back of the chair.
"I’m doomed."
Lu Jia muttered to himself.
"No matter how I combine the scenarios, no matter how I adjust the variables, as long as I can’t be sure of her mood at that exact moment, her blood sugar level, or whether she has any friends within a three-meter radius..."
"...the success rate of approaching her will forever be an unknown quantity."
The dorm room fell silent.
The wind blowing in from the window made the huge sheet of scratch paper on the desk rustle.
Chen Zhuo sat in his chair, having quietly listened to Lu Jia’s grand, ten-minute-long dissertation that fused game theory, psychology, and kinematics.
He slowly placed the water cup in his hand on the desk.
Chen Zhuo turned his head to look at Lu Jia, who was slumped in his chair. He wasn’t smiling; his expression could even be described as sincere.
"Lu Jia."
Chen Zhuo’s voice was very steady.
"Actually, if you just took these two sheets of scratch paper and walked right up to talk to her..."
Chen Zhuo pointed to the tree diagram on the desk.
"I guarantee your success rate would be one hundred percent."
Lu Jia’s eyes, which had grown dim, suddenly lit up.
He shot upright as if he’d grasped a life-saving straw, his breathing quickening.
"Really?"
Lu Jia’s brain immediately began to whir, trying to use his theoretical knowledge to explain Chen Zhuo’s statement.
"Do you mean I should use this rigorous logical deduction model to showcase my meticulousness as a science student, thereby creating a sort of intellectual attraction and breaking through her standard social defense mechanisms?"
The more Lu Jia talked, the more sense it made to him. He even bent down to pick up the pen on the floor, ready to add this brand-new variable to his formula.
Seeing him take it so seriously, Chen Zhuo slowly shook his head.
The hint of a smile in his eyes finally broke through completely.
"No."
Chen Zhuo looked at Lu Jia and, with slow deliberation, twisted the knife.
"She’d just think you’ve suffered some kind of serious mental trauma."
Lu Jia’s hand, reaching for the pen, froze in mid-air.
"Out of a desire to placate an emotionally unstable person, and out of fear that you might suddenly snap..."
Chen Zhuo picked up his water cup and took a sip.
"...she would absolutely write down her WhatsApp number for you immediately, and then get as far away from you as possible."

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