Chapter 87: 087 I’ll Make You Play Dumb
“Sister Lu, I can tell you’re teasing me. I hope you won’t do this again in the future.”
After saying this, Wang Heng shut his mouth and calmly met Lu Qi’s gaze.
Lu Qi leaned back, resting against the chair back, and smiled: “Okay, since you don’t like it, I won’t tease you anymore. Let’s talk about something else. How are the courses at school?”
Wang Heng: “They’re okay.”
Lu Qi: “Do you need me to tutor you? Advanced Mathematics, Linear Algebra, and such—I haven’t forgotten them yet…”
Wang Heng hurriedly shook his head: “No need, really no need. These things are simple to pass as long as you master the strategy.”
Lu Qi slightly raised an eyebrow and teased: “You’re satisfied with just passing? I thought you were going for a scholarship.”
Wang Heng: “No need to force that. The salary you give me, Sister Lu, is way better than any scholarship.”
Lu Qi laughed: “Your skills and contributions aren’t comparable to that little salary either.”
Wang Heng said seriously: “Thank you for the compliment, Sister Lu. You’re too kind.”
Faced with such a dry response, Lu Qi was momentarily at a loss for words.
After a brief silence, Wang Heng spoke again:
“Sister Lu isn’t eating either, right? Then I’ll finish these two off, go back to work first, and you can call me if there’s anything.”
With that, he picked up the two mostly eaten buckets of instant noodles and left.
He poured out the instant noodle soup, threw away the trash, then returned to his workstation to continue writing code, without going back to Lu Qi’s office.
Meanwhile, in that office, Lu Qi opened the window all the way to let the instant noodle smell dissipate from inside the house as quickly as possible.
“You brat, I told you to play dumb!”
She leaned against the windowsill, looking out at the overcast sky outside the window, and sneered.
Glancing at her own profile reflected in the window glass, Lu Qi suddenly felt a bit regretful—too bad she didn’t smoke; otherwise, lighting one up right now would give her even more of a queenly vibe.
So, should she try smoking one?
After a brief moment of thought, she gave up on the idea. After all, rationally speaking, smoking harms the body and is very likely to shorten one’s life. If it wasn’t an addiction, just for the so-called vibe, it really wasn’t worth it.
She sat back in the chair and opened the code submitted by Wang Heng.
Because he was a part-time temp worker with much shorter work hours than others, the amount of code Wang Heng submitted was naturally much less. But compared to the code written by other subordinates, Wang Heng’s work achievements were always the most satisfying to Lu Qi.
Clear logic, complete structure, even the comments written clearly.
“Intelligent, and good at playing dumb. Impressive.”
After reading this code and running it once to confirm no bugs, Lu Qi then looked at another subordinate’s code. Soon, her brows furrowed.
“The front part is fine, but this section… what the hell?”
————
Wang Heng got off work.
His work days were Saturday and Sunday, which were overtime for other colleagues, while most other industries still had two days off. So the subway after getting off work wasn’t too crowded.
Wang Heng walked into the subway carriage and suddenly saw a familiar figure.
The man was tall and handsome, wearing over-ear headphones, looking at the advertisement outside the window, seemingly lost in thought. That stern profile had a real vibe of a female-oriented novel’s male lead. And though his clothes weren’t designer brands, just simple casual wear, they were fitted and showed off his upright figure perfectly.
This handsome guy was Wang Heng’s roommate of long standing, Wang Ke.
Around him, several girls were secretly eyeing Wang Ke. Some were university students, some were workplace white-collar older sisters, all with appreciative gazes tinged with expectation, who knows what they were expecting.
But strangely, the two girls closest to Wang Ke were looking at him with odd gazes. There was no appreciation in those looks; instead, there was some… contempt?
And it wasn’t just girls; there were also two boys nearby staring at Wang Ke, whispering and snickering.
Why was that?
Wang Heng walked over and patted his roommate’s shoulder.
Wang Ke removed his left headphone, turned his gaze, and immediately grinned: “Yo, Teacher Wang!”
Wang Heng stared at his headphones and finally understood why the two girls closest to him had those expressions.
“What are you listening to?” Wang Heng asked, pointing at the headphones.
“Kugimiya Rie’s insult compilation! Super great!” Wang Ke answered with a cheerful smile.
Wang Heng: “…”
Of course he knew Kugimiya. She was a super voice actor in two-dimensional anime, especially good at voicing loli characters, particularly tsundere lolis. The legendary ‘Kugimiya Four Cutes,’ the four most popular tsundere loli characters, were terrifying existences that could make a bunch of otakus bleed from the nose.
Tsundere loli insults like “It’s not for you,” “I don’t like you at all,” “Loser,” “Pervert pervert big pervert,” had addicted countless otakus.
Clearly, Wang Ke was one of the deeply addicted ones.
So how did that saying go? When you see a cool handsome guy wearing headphones on the subway, you can never imagine what he’s actually listening to.
However, Wang Ke’s current situation was particularly awkward.
Wang Heng still pointed at his headphones and said, “Your headphones are leaking sound.”
Wang Ke: “…Huh?”
Wang Heng: “Everyone within three meters can hear your Kugimiya ranting.”
Wang Ke fumbled to pull out his mobile phone and paused the playback. He looked around and noticed people giving him looks, then quickly took off his headphones and stuffed them into his pocket with the phone.
Wang Heng sighed: “Xiao Ke, you should know Kugimiya herself isn’t a loli, right?”
Wang Ke: “I know, she’s a voice actor who debuted over a decade ago; of course she can’t be a loli.”
Wang Heng: “By your standards, she’s definitely an old woman, auntie level. So why are you still so obsessed?”
Wang Ke argued: “But this old woman can capture the essence of a loli! I don’t care about the person; I just appreciate that essence!”
Wang Heng glanced around: “…Keep it down. If you keep yelling, even I’ll be seen as a pervert.”
Wang Ke scratched the back of his head: “Okay, we’ll talk about this back at the dormitory. By the way, I wanted to ask you—got off work this late? Is Penguin Company that busy?”
Wang Heng nodded: “I’m one of the better ones, only coming on weekends. Others, there’s tons doing 996.”
Wang Ke, also a computer science major, asked innocently: “What’s 996 mean?”
“Work from 9 a.m., off at 9 p.m., six days a week,” Wang Heng said meaningfully. “You’ll understand after graduation.”
Wang Ke couldn’t help but click his tongue: “That scary, huh…”
Wang Heng chuckled lightly and changed the topic: “Taking the subway this late—what were you up to?”
Wang Ke replied: “Tutoring a relative’s kid. My aunt’s child, just started junior high, not doing great in studies, so she asked me to tutor on weekends.”
Wang Heng sensed some potential danger and immediately asked: “Boy or girl?”
“Of course a boy…” Wang Ke glared at him and protested, “Hey, what’s with that relieved expression? I’ve told you already I won’t commit crimes!”
The word ‘crime’ had barely left his mouth when half the carriage turned to stare. The girl sitting next to Wang Ke gasped and quietly scooted away.
Wang Heng coughed, faced forward properly, looking just like ‘I don’t know this guy.’
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