Wang Zheng was speechless. The feeling of being chased out of his own office… an honorary professor indeed. It was obvious that this part-timer was a freshman.
But seeing how he was taking his cleaning job seriously, Wang Zheng felt it was not very appropriate to prepare for his lessons here. Xiao Fei’s office was just right above anyway and so he left his own office…
Wang Zheng came to Xiao Fei’s office and turned on her system. He went through the password verification, and the first screen that popped out was actually a screensaver of an adorable little girl. Guessing from the date at the bottom of the photograph, this little girl was Professor Xiao Fei when she was younger.
He subconsciously touched the girl’s cheeks. The screen changed and entered a photo album.
Password: ???
Wang Zheng subconsciously keyed in the password Xiao Fei had given him.
Password correct.
He had actually entered the album! Looks like this password was frequently used by Xiao Fei.
From when she was a little girl to present day, all of her photos were saved in this album. Most of them were photos from her days of studying abroad at Aslan. There were many good-looking men and women in the pictures. Compared to her now, Xiao Fei had an extra tinge of wildness and energy and youth when she was in university. She was eye-catching even in a group of Aslanians and had an unforgettable look.
This was another side of Xiao Fei unbeknownst to people. In some of the moving photographs, an Aslan boy would always stand beside her. The two of them looked close. Could it be her boyfriend? But it didn’t look like it…
Wang Zheng shook his head and exited the photo album. He didn’t understand why Xiao Fei had saved such personal photographs on the college server.
After logging in to Xiao Fei’s space on the server and keying in the password, Wang Zheng downloaded the lesson materials. He quickly got into the momentum of lesson preparation. The contents for today’s class were not very interesting, and to make it interesting, he needed to prepare well.
Half an hour later, Wang Zheng was ready. When he took the elevator down, it stopped at level three. The part-timer from earlier dashed in, looking excited.
“Huh, you again? Why are you still here? Oh, you said you study physics, right? Professor Wang is taking over Professor Xiao Fei for lecture. Go to lecture theater three quickly, or else there’ll be no seats left.”
Professor Wang? Wang Zheng rubbed his nose. No seats left? Was he that popular?
“Take your time, it’s okay.”
“You’re an inexperienced freshman, eh? You don’t know Professor Wang, do you? He’s one of the first few people who came up with the space navigation theory. Last time he taught a class, he managed to invite a Milky Way top scientist like Mu Fengchun to come here for an academic discussion…”
The part-timer couldn’t help but display his boundless admiration.
Wang Zheng smiled. “You go first.”
“If possible I’ll save you a seat later.”
“Uh, no need.” Wang Zheng shook his head.
“We’re from the same department, no need to be shy about it.”
The part-timer waved and ran off. Wang Zheng shook his head and smiled. How was he being shy? He looked at the time. There were still ten minutes before class began. If he walked at a normal pace, he’d be able to get there in eight minutes. But on his way there, there were indeed many students who were behaving like the part-timer, running and dashing to lecture hall three. There were also a number of girls…. and students who were clearly from the Mech Department!
“Waaaaaaa!”
All of a sudden, a scream erupted from behind.
Wang Zheng turned around and saw two petite girls with good figures gazing at him.
“It’s true!”
“So handsome!”
“Yeeeaaa!”
“Hi, Professor Wang.”
“Hi, Student Wang.”
Waaaaaaa…. The two girls talked amongst themselves, greeted him, and excitedly ran off, chattering softly.
Wang Zheng stared for three good seconds and then shook his head. What was that all about…. Calling him Professor and Student.
“Ah, it’s Professor Wang! He’s cuter than I imagined!”
“Mmmhmm, I thought he’d be fierce.”
“Yeah, yeah, IG team leader…. Thank goodness he’s not those bulky types, he’s my cup of tea.”
On his way, there were a few more girls who caught sight of Wang Zheng. Some were headed to lecture theater three, and some were headed to another class. But regardless, as long as they saw him, they would make a few comments and look at him passionately. Wang Zheng was now Ares College’s No. 1 most popular male.
Wang Zheng smiled graciously. Just then, a girl ran up to him all of a sudden. “Senior, I like you. Let me be your girlfriend!”
She appeared to be a freshman from the Physics Department. Not too far away, a group of girls were looking in their direction. Presumably this girl’s classmates.
“You’re pretty, but too bad, I have a girlfriend.” Wang Zheng shook his head. The feeling of being confessed to for the first time…. was weird. He thought he would be happy, but it made him miss Xiao Shi even more.
The girl blinked. “It’s Senior Ye Zisu, isn’t it? Senior, if you ever break up, you have to look me up. I may not be as pretty as she is, but I have my strengths. You have to try and you’ll know.”
Try….
Were girls these days all so aggressive? Wang Zheng smiled bitterly. How did this have anything to do with Ye Zisu? “You have lots of time, don’t you, talking about these things? Go to class quickly!”
“Hehe, see you in a bit, Senior.”
This girl was clearly attending Wang Zheng’s lecture.
“Ahem. I will deduct marks from anyone who’s late.”
Wang Zheng had no choice but to bring out the ultimatum of a teacher – deducting marks!
The girls immediately split up, giggling away. Wang Zheng smiled in relief. The feeling of being on campus. You could even smell youth in the air.
Because he was getting harassed by the girls, Wang Zheng entered lecture theater three three minutes before the bell rang. He had planned on stepping in right as the bell rang. It would have given him the air of a professor, arriving right on the dot.
This classroom was specially designed for lectures. At Ares College, there were two types of standard lectures. One type was compulsory classes, such as politics and linguistics. No matter which year or department you were from, you had to take these classes. Another type was classes that were in demand. Every department offered classes like that to allow everyone to attend the same class so as to cut down on the resources used.
The class Wang Zheng was to deliver was the latter. Students from numerous departments were allowed to wach it.
Outside of class, everybody could horse around and have fun. But it was in the classroom that the qualities of students from Ares College were displayed. Everybody took their seats very quickly.
Except for…. the part-timer whom he bumped into earlier on at the office.
“So sorry, this seat is taken by my friend. He’ll be here soon.”
The part-timer had really reserved a seat for Wang Zheng.
“The prof’s here. Your friend must have skipped class.”
“What? Tsk. I say, pretty girl, no need to play such tricks. There, my friend’s here. Here, here, sit here.”
The part-timer waved at Wang Zheng and called out to him, failing to notice how the other students around him were staring oddly at him.
Wang Zheng waved back and walked up to him. “What’s your name?”
“No need to be so polite, just call me Zengzi.”
“Thanks, Zengzi, but I don’t think it will be appropriate for me to sit here. You can have this seat, student.”
Zengzi stared at him blankly and scratched his head as if he was afraid of interacting with girls. He stood up and said, “Then I’ll stand with you too.”
Even though it was a huge classroom, there were too many students in the class, and some of them were not from Ares. Most of the seats had been taken up by girls. The men had displayed a spirit of gentlemanliness.
Zengzi smiled and stood beside Wang Zheng. “Hm.. actually, I’m a little slow at taking down notes. Can I borrow your notes to copy later after class?”
It was clear that Student Zengzi had a motive in being so helpful as to reserve a seat for others.
He opened up his Skylink screen as he spoke and logged on to an online shopping page and began marketing his services…
The bell rang.
Wang Zheng chuckled. “I can show you the notes, but it’s better not to promote your services to me. Alright, class, let’s begin. Today we’re going to talk about…”
Wang Zheng said as he walked towards the podium while opening up the classroom’s teaching systems, logging in using the teaching account, and projecting a bunch of formulae on the huge screen.
Student Zengzi gaped. He was watching Wang Zheng speak freely and confidently on the podium, but he was not taking in any of his words…
“Who.. is he? Why is he delivering the lecture?”
The girl who took his seat looked up and glanced at Zengzi. “Didn’t you say he’s your friend?”
“I just got to know him…”
“He’s Xiao Fei’s apprentice, a physics professor specially hired by our department, Wang Zheng.”
Gulp.
Zengzi nervously swallowed his saliva. It was all over now. Just what did he do???
He had chased Professor Wang Zheng out of his own office…
Student Zengzi did not take in a single word that entire lecture.
When class ended, he saw Wang Zheng walk towards him.
“Professor, I didn’t mean it, I….”
“Here are the notes I promised you.”
Wang Zheng slapped him on the back and sent a document over to him via Skylink, saying, “I’m short of an assistant. Would you like to help? The condition is that you have to pay attention in class. I think my lectures are rather interesting anyway.”
The surrounding students chuckled and looked up at Zengzi enviously. The college paid teaching assistants pretty well; the pay was over ten times more than the usual part-time work.
Zengzi blushed. “I, I’ll quit the other part time jobs right away… Professor, earlier on, at the office, I…”
“You did a good job. Keep it up. But when you have time, it’ll be good to memorise the faces of the teaching staff in the college.”
Wang Zheng smiled and left. He had to lecture at most twice a day, and it would only take 100 minutes and he’d be done. What was most troublesome was grading assignments and managing the classes. That was most time consuming. Having an assistant to take care of these things would be nice.
When lectures first began, he faced only freshmen, but in the subsequent lectures, there were students from year two, the same year as Wang Zheng, and even seniors in their third year. Wang Zheng did not like spoon-feeding his students in class. His classes were more like seminars, full of discussions that would guide and inspire students to think and learn physics through exploration.
For the year twos, even if it was content they had learned before, it was worth listening again. Who knows, they might be able have a deeper understanding on the subject.
Ye Zisu came in to listen from time to time as well. Every time she attended class, the atmosphere would be hyped off the charts.
“Wang Zheng, I heard there were junior girls confessing their love to you again today.”
These days, Chen Xiu was the saddest in dorm 007. He had gotten to make quite a few pretty girl friends, but too bad, they all saw him as a little brother. He had collected quite a number of “nice guy” cards.
Looking at Wang Zheng… the heavens were unjust! Forget about pretty girls rejecting him, he actually turned the tables around and rejected pretty girls!
This was indeed an unjust world.