Chen Zhuo chuckled softly.
"It’s nothing serious. I just wanted to give you a little reminder."
Chen Zhuo pointed at the computer screen of Chu Ge, who sat across from him.
"That lightning-fast database of yours... the sparse matrix algorithm used for dimensionality reduction at its core... If I remember correctly, I’m the one who casually worked that out for you on a piece of scratch paper one night last month, right?"
Chu Ge froze.
He blinked, staring at Chen Zhuo, and swallowed hard.
Chen Zhuo leaned back in his chair. He looked at Chu Ge with an innocent expression, but the meaning behind his words was crystal clear.
"When you make it big in the future, I don’t care if you go mooching off the school’s server farm. But since you’re using my matrix, shouldn’t you leave a backdoor for me?"
Chen Zhuo spread his hands, his tone carrying a hint of shameless entitlement.
"I occasionally have some data to run myself, so share a little computing power with me. Also, I won’t charge you a licensing fee for the base architecture, so charging a little rent isn’t asking too much, right? For example... how about treating the dorm to some barbecue from the Li Family’s place every now and then?"
The dorm room fell silent for two seconds.
Then, Wang Dayong couldn’t hold it in and burst out laughing.
Chu Ge let out a long breath and wiped a hand over his face.
"Damn."
Chu Ge glared at Chen Zhuo.
"Brother Zhuo, you scared me to death! I thought you were going to ask me to do something huge."
Chu Ge patted his chest.
"No problem! Forget a backdoor, I’ll set you up with a super admin account with the highest privileges! And what’s a little barbecue? From now on, I, Chu Ge, will cover all our dorm’s late-night snacks!"
Chen Zhuo smiled and raised the can in his hand, sealing the deal.
Chen Zhuo turned his head to look at Wang Dayong.
Wang Dayong was still sitting on the small stool.
The metal lump in his hands had been polished with sandpaper until it gleamed, revealing its original texture.
In front of him also lay the declaration of intent form.
The form was still blank.
"Dayong, what about you?" Chen Zhuo asked.
Wang Dayong stopped what he was doing.
He tossed the piece of metal in his hand a couple of times, feeling its heavy weight.
He looked up, first at Chen Zhuo, then at Chu Ge.
Wang Dayong had a simple and honest expression, but his eyes were bright.
"I used to think that mechanical engineering was all about drawing blueprints."
Wang Dayong’s voice was soft, and he spoke slowly, as if thinking aloud.
"You draw a circle on the blueprint, and a lathe can turn out a circle. You draw a straight line, and a milling machine can cut a groove. I used to think that as long as the blueprints were accurate enough, there was nothing in this world that couldn’t be made."
Wang Dayong lowered his head, looking at the piece of metal in his hand.
"But last time I went to the underground workshop to help Senior Zhao Peng and the others with that base, I realized I might have been wrong."
Chu Ge leaned in, eager to listen.
"The dimensions on a blueprint are static, but these chunks of iron, these lumps of copper... they’re alive."
Wang Dayong rubbed the edge of the metal with his thumb.
"They have their own temperaments."
"The moment the machine tool starts spinning and the temperature rises, a steel pipe expands, and an aluminum pipe expands too. The blueprint clearly specifies a tight tolerance for a perfect fit, but once it’s on the machine, everything changes."
Wang Dayong looked up, his eyes shining with the unique excitement of a young man who has just discovered a whole new world.
"Later, I nested the aluminum pipe inside the steel one, letting their thermal expansion and contraction cancel each other out. The moment they were fitted together, it was a perfect, seamless match. Not off by a hair."
Wang Dayong rubbed his hands together.
"At that moment, I suddenly felt that compared to drawing rigid, lifeless lines on paper, I was much more interested in the temperaments of the materials themselves."
Wang Dayong broke into a wide grin.
"Take an ordinary piece of iron, add a little carbon, a little manganese, heat it in a furnace, and quench it... its hardness, its toughness—everything changes."
Wang Dayong held up the metal block in his hand, letting it catch the sunlight from the window.
"No matter how precise the machine or how brilliant the blueprint, if the underlying material doesn’t cooperate—if it can’t withstand the high temperatures and pressure—then whatever you make is just a piece of junk."
Wang Dayong put down the metal block and picked up the pen on the desk.
"I feel... really grounded when I’m handling these materials. It’s like I can feel when they’re brittle, and when they’re tough."
Wang Dayong no longer hesitated.
On his form, he wrote with deliberate, forceful strokes.
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, specialization in Metallic Materials.
After he finished writing, Wang Dayong put the pen down, scratched the back of his head, and looked at Chen Zhuo and Chu Ge with a slightly sheepish smile.
"I’m picking this one."
Chen Zhuo looked at Wang Dayong.
He saw the piece of metal in Wang Dayong’s hand, saw the intentionally forceful strokes of his writing, and saw the pure conviction in his eyes.
Chen Zhuo didn’t offer any high-sounding praise, no phony compliments like "the future of the nation’s heavy industry depends on you."
Chen Zhuo simply sat there and gave a gentle nod.
"It suits you," Chen Zhuo said.
"Metal doesn’t lie. If you understand its temperament, it’ll work for you."
Chen Zhuo raised his soda can in a toast to Wang Dayong from across the room.
"Dayong, if you ever create some new, high-temperature resistant alloy in the future, remember to save a piece for me. I happen to need a drop-proof paperweight."
Wang Dayong blinked, then broke into a hearty laugh.
"Deal! Xiaozhuo, as long as I can forge it, I’ll make you the biggest one!"
The atmosphere in the dorm room became relaxed and cheerful.
Everyone had found the path they wanted to take.
Chu Ge chose computing power and worldly ambition; Dayong chose metal and grounded certainty.
Just then, Lu Jia, who had been silent the whole time, finally moved.

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