Chapter 46: The Unreachable Cool God (21)
After that day, Yu Zi’an worked hard, spending less time on He Wenqu and dedicating most of his free time to studying.
His system was extremely pleased, but also a little heartbrokenāalthough Yu Zi’an’s grades improved again in the mid-term exams, he only ranked second.
As for first place?
Huo Xian had become so strong that he simply didn’t give others a chance to surpass him. He scored full marks on the Chinese composition, achieving a perfect score on the entire exam. The graders were practically tempted to give him extra points for his neat handwriting and the overall presentation of his paper. He wasn’t human; he was a god.
Undeniably, Huo Xian, a superhuman student in the rocket class, served as a great motivator for his classmates. The scores he achieved were impossible for ordinary people, proving that anything is possible and that effort leads to improvement.
Therefore, the learning atmosphere in the rocket class instantly entered a phase resembling the final sprint of the college entrance examination. In a word: Charge.
Huo Xian didn’t care about the impact he had. His current coursework wasn’t his focus; his focus remained on research.
Days passed busily and fulfillingly, making time fly by incredibly fast.
Before long, another college entrance examination arrived. This year, six students from Experimental High School No. 1 applied to take the exam early. All six were from the rocket class; five were approved, and one application was rejected. Unfortunately, the rejected applicant was He Wenqu.
After entering the rocket class, He Wenqu hadn’t slacked off. He had a good foundation and was intelligent, but there wasn’t a single weak student in the rocket class. After a year of diligent study, he had improved, but his classmates had also improvedāsteadily and consistently. He, however, lacked consistency and occasionally got distracted.
However, this wasn’t the main reason He Wenqu was rejected. The real reason was that someone in He Wenqu’s family discovered his youthful infatuations, and with more than one personā¦ Just as in the original owner’s memories, after Yu Zi’an started to focus on his studies and grew distant from He Wenqu, He Wenqu couldn’t help but try to get closer again. Furthermore, with the system’s help, Yu Zi’an had undergone a near-complete transformation, becoming another dazzling presence at No. 1 High.
In short, he had fallen in love.
Unlike the original owner’s memory, even though He Wenqu showed affection for Yu Zi’an, he didn’t cling to him. This might be because he was sitting next to Huo Xian, or perhaps he hadn’t completely let go of Huo Xian yet, and Yu Zi’an didn’t reciprocate He Wenqu’s feelings.
To get back to the main point.
Huo Xian’s joys and sorrows were unrelated to He Wenqu and Yu Zi’an’s. After his parents checked his admission ticket and stationery one last time, he entered the examination hall.
Without his parents’ instructions, Huo Yuan took over: [Huo Xian, you must relax, don’t put too much pressure on yourself. Just treat it as a regular exam.] After a pause of several seconds, he nervously added: [It’s okay if you really can’t answer, I can give you some hints.]
[Huo Yuan, cheating on the college entrance exam is illegal.] Huo Xian said.
Huo Yuan paused, then said seriously: [Then let the police arrest me.]
Huo Xian: […] Where did he learn this?
He let out a breath and reassured him: [Don’t worry, think about my usual exam scores. Do you think I’ll do poorly?]
Huo Yuan hesitated: [But this is the college entrance exam; many candidates perform poorlyā¦]
[Have you ever seen me perform poorly?] Huo Xian asked.
Huo Yuan thought carefully and said: [No, never.]
[That’s it then. I won’t be one of those who perform poorly. Trust me, give me some encouragement, okay?] Huo Xian coaxed him gently.
[Mm-hmm, Huo Xian,å ę²¹ (jiÄyĆ³u)!] (Add oil! – a Chinese expression of encouragement.)
When the test papers were distributed, the still apprehensive Huo Yuan was no longer nervous. The difficulty of the papers was moderate. Many candidates in the examination hall were experiencing accelerated heartbeats, nervousness, and sweating, but Huo Xian wrote as if possessed, his thinking as clear as ever, his handwriting elegant and beautiful.
One day, two daysā¦
When the last exam ended and he walked out of the examination hall, the sky seemed a few shades bluer.
After the exam, Huo Xian took leave and didn’t go back to school. He went to Beijing. Unexpectedly, Yu Zi’an was on the same flight and their destinations were the same.
Hua Jin greeted them. It was only then that Yu Zi’an realized that while he was desperately trying to catch up with and surpass Huo Xian, Huo Xian had already reached a different level entirely. He, like everyone else, could only look up to Huo Xian, leaving him with a bitter and complex feeling.
[Why did Yu Zi’an also go to the research institute?] Huo Yuan was very puzzled.
Huo Xian knew the answer and reminded him: [The private room for He Wenqu’s birthday party was on the second floor.]
[You mean, Bai Haihan waited downstairs for so long, and finally met Yu Zi’an, gave him his email address and then guided him?] Huo Yuan guessed, [That’s impossible, right?]
[Nothing is impossible,] Huo Xian chuckled, [Only this reason can reasonably explain Yu Zi’an entering the research institute. The top research institute in China isn’t something just anyone can get into.]
Huo Yuan was silent for a long time, then said softly: [Huo Xian, I think you’re boasting.]
Huo Xian calmly asked: [Don’t you think I’m excellent?]
Huo Yuan was speechless.
=v=
Once you enter the research institute, it’s hard to leave.
Everything from the outside world seemed to be cut off. Fortunately, Huo Yuan could connect to the internet and checked Huo Xian’s scores as soon as they were released. The results were self-evident. Huo Xian continued his myth from No. 1 High, shocking the entire country as the first ever national full-score top scorer without any extra points.
With the journalist’s investigation, Huo Xian’s identity as a second-year high school student was also exposed. His photos were posted online and instantly gained countless fans. For a time, the name “Huo Xian” swept the internet. Many entertainment companies came knocking, wanting to sign him for a debut, but Huo Xian’s parents stopped them and refused.
After hearing about the situation from Huo Yuan, Huo Xian stopped paying attention. He filled out his college application at the research institute, then went to Huada University only to register, and that was it. Even the exams were taken at the research institute and then sent back to the school.
He was like a seed that had separated from the tree and grown its own roots, ready to thrive no matter how many winds and storms the future brought.
A year later, Huo Xian went abroad for further studies. After studying abroad for two years, he returned to China and used his experiments to break the tradition of academic papers, exceptionally becoming a formal researcher at the institute.
Two years later, he shouldered the heavy responsibility of leading a special research team.
Five years later, after seven years at the research institute, during which he only saw his parents three times, Huo Xian finally left the research institute.
The happiest people about Huo Xian’s temporary departure from the research institute were the researchers and assistants on his team. To use an inappropriate phrase, “Huo Xian’s heart was as cold as his face was handsome”. Everyone on his team, including Hua Jin, who knew him from the beginning, went from seeing him as a cold and handsome man to seeing him as a cold-faced demon. Every day, people secretly cursed him, but to no avail.
“Achooā” As the car drove out of the research institute, Huo Xian sneezed.
The special bodyguard in the front passenger seat immediately asked worriedly: “Professor, are you alright?”
Huo Xian’s current status in the research institute was sufficient to earn him the title of “Professor.” He had broken the existing cognition and processes of the scientific research community. His abilities, which defied the research institute’s usual practices, made people willingly put him on a pedestal. Even for a single trip out, besides the two overt bodyguards, there were dozens more hidden in the shadows.
Only a very small number of people knew what Huo Xian had actually researched in these seven years.
Anyway…
“I’m fine.” Huo Xian replied, as cold as ever.
The two bodyguards were used to Huo Xian’s cold personality, and they knew that he was just cold and aloof, not easy to get close to, but he was actually a good person.
Huo Yuan had something to say: [Could it be that your subordinates are secretly gossiping about you?]
Huo Xian seriously replied: [Be confident, remove the “could it be”.]
Huo Yuan: […]
A long time ago, shortly after Huo Xian returned from his studies abroad and was approved to have his own team, because the project Huo Xian was researching was a key national research project, the team was full of talented people. Logically, Huo Xian was young and lacked experience, so he shouldn’t have been able to attract many people, but this was a world that valued appearance, so many young researchers were captivated by his beauty and joined his team.
Only after actually joining Huo Xian’s team did everyone realize that Huo Xian’s personality was incredibly cold and that he was meticulous about his research. He was strict with himself and with his team members, and before long, everyone trembled at the sight of him. Huo Xian didn’t yell or say harsh words, but his aura was incredibly oppressive.
Of course, now Hua Jin looked at Huo Xian as if he were a class enemy. There was no other reason; Hua Jin was the person in the team with the strongest practical abilities besides Huo Xian and was also the one most severely exploited by him.
[Huo Xian, if you continue to be so cold and unapproachable, you will have no friends.] Huo Yuan worried, he had lived in the human world for ten years and had learned a lot about human relationships. Watching Huo Xian grow from a young boy into the handsome and tall man he was now, he felt the emotions of an old mother and worried about his social life.
Huo Xian leaned back in his chair, squinting his eyes, a faint smile playing on his lips: [I don’t need friends, just tools to help me.]
Huo Yuan worried even more: [Hua Jin and the others will scold you again if they know you treat them as tools.]
[Hmm? Did you go to their group chat again?] Huo Xian’s voice rose at the end.
Huo Yuan had accidentally joined the researchers’ group chat while surfing the internet. Led by Hua Jin, they were all complaining about Huo Xian’s unapproachability. He had reported this discovery to Huo Xian, and thenā¦ he was educated about not peeking. But still, he occasionally secretly went there, keeping a mental note of those who had gossiped about Huo Xian.
To his surprise, the person who complained the most was Hua Jin.
emmmmmmā¦
Hua Jin had secretly had a crush on Huo Xian beforeā¦
Huo Yuan felt a little guilty, caught red-handed: [Iā¦ just casually took a peek.]
Huo Xian chuckled softly.
The two bodyguards in the front heard the laughter and looked through the rearview mirror. Seeing the faint smile on Huo Xian’s incomparably handsome face, they were slightly startled and then looked at each other, thinking of the same thing: No wonder they said that Professor Huo single-handedly raised the overall appearance level of the research institute. His looks and temperament were truly incredible!
27-year-old Huo Xian had already shed the youthfulness of his high school days. He had a towering height of 1.9 meters, broad shoulders, a narrow waist, long legs, and captivating features. His every move was elegant, like a walking pictorial. If he were a star, no one would doubt it.
His itinerary today was to visit his alma mater, Huada University, and then return to Haicheng.
Although it was his alma mater, from the time he was admitted to Huada University to today when he went to transfer his household registration, he had already had a house in Beijing. However, his household registration was still at the school, and today was the opportunity to take care of it.
Coincidentally, Huada University had a lecture today, and the speaker was a familiar faceāYu Zi’an.
Yu Zi’an had developed a new type of life raft. Made of special materials, the life raft could be folded into a size no larger than a palm when not in use and would rapidly expand when activated, with an opening large enough for a person to enter. It had the essential life-saving functions of waterproofing, shock resistance, pressure reduction, and short-term fire resistance and could be used for emergency survival in the event of natural disasters or accidents.
After completing all the procedures, Huo Xian prepared to wander around Huada University for a while.
After walking for a while, he encountered two peopleāHe Wenqu and Yu Zi’an.
Wellā¦ what a coincidence, wasn’t it?
Only, the atmosphere between the former childhood friends wasn’t very good.
As Huo Xian approached, he happened to hear Yu Zi’an say: “What we had is in the past. Now, I have a lover, and I love him very much. Please stop bothering me.”
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