"He spends his days with one girl, then at night, instead of staying in his dorm, he runs off to another one..."

"You’re saying that girl went from being poor to suddenly having a lot of money?" the woman asked, frowning.

She and Qiu Mengze had talked a lot. ’This boy is still too young,’ she thought. ’He actually believes that girl’s success came from her own hard work.’

She had entered the workforce early and had long since realized that hard work rarely changes one’s fate.

This was especially true for people mired in poverty. The daily grind wore them down to the bone. Without startup capital or a platform, how could they possibly skyrocket to success?

She believed there must have been a powerful external force involved in that girl’s success.

And from what she’d heard in the description, the only person who had frequent contact with that girl was the two-timing boy.

"Is that what you call two-timing? I think he seems pretty serious about both of them," the woman muttered to herself.

It wasn’t that she’d never met a scumbag before, but this was the first time she’d seen one who seemed to genuinely care about both sides...

Qiu Mengze’s brow furrowed. Why did her assessment sound almost like a compliment?

"Miss, your values are all messed up."

"???"

...

「Meanwhile.」

The ear-cleaning tools were too numerous and complex. Lin Ruoxi didn’t like the feel of them, and she was afraid she’d hurt Xue Rui if she used them wrong, so she asked for a simple ear pick.

After all, she had promised to clean Xue Rui’s ears.

Now, only she and Xue Rui were left in the private room. It was completely silent.

Using the flashlight on Xue Rui’s phone for light, she sat beside him to clean his ears.

But when she shined the light into his ear, she found it was very clean. It didn’t need cleaning.

"Um, it’s very clean," Lin Ruoxi said.

If it was perfectly clean, there was no need to pick at it; that could easily damage the ear canal.

Xue Rui frowned. "You can’t see clearly from that angle. Try looking from a different one."

The girl nodded obediently and tilted her head to look from another direction.

"I meant look from top to bottom," Xue Rui said. He had the girl sit on the therapy chair, while he moved the stool the technician had used over to the side, then rested his head on Lin Ruoxi’s lap.

Lin Ruoxi’s legs twitched instinctively, and Xue Rui’s head nuzzled against them in response.

’The girl’s thighs aren’t bony,’ Xue Rui thought. ’They’re soft to lie on.’

It was just that her pants were a little coarse, even rougher than his own thick skin, which seriously detracted from the experience.

The girl held up the phone and slowly lowered her head.

’I’m actually very happy inside,’ she thought. ’Usually, I can only look at Xue Rui from this angle when he’s asleep. I feel it’s a completely different way of seeing him, and now he’s resting his head on my lap willingly...’

The corners of her eyes crinkled with a smile as she leaned over to look at Xue Rui’s ear.

Strands of her soft hair cascaded onto Xue Rui’s face, lightly brushing past the tip of his nose. It was slick and ticklish, carrying a faint, fragrant scent of shampoo.

"Um, it’s still very clean," Lin Ruoxi said earnestly.

"I’m not clean," Xue Rui said.

"But it really is clean..." Lin Ruoxi said weakly.

"Then how are you going to prove it?" Xue Rui asked with a smile.

Lin Ruoxi fell into thought. Xue Rui couldn’t see inside his own ear, so how could she prove it to him?

The phone camera wasn’t clear enough. She had no way to prove it to him.

Besides, Xue Rui had now taken his phone back and was playing on it while resting his head on her lap.

’This girl is so dense,’ Xue Rui thought. ’My intention is already perfectly clear. Don’t I just want to lounge on her lap for a little longer?’

In truth, if he just said it out loud, the girl would agree immediately. But he just loved seeing her dazed and clueless look.

He would occasionally tilt his head and press it against Lin Ruoxi’s legs, just to feel them, otherwise he might forget he was lying there.

But every time he moved, the girl would burst into laughter.

"It tickles," Lin Ruoxi said with a laugh, her voice sweet and crisp, much more lively than usual.

The girl gradually realized that the more feedback she gave, the more Xue Rui would deliberately tickle her.

Lin Ruoxi nodded slightly. ’I’m not stupid,’ she thought. ’Xue Rui must like lying on my lap.’

The corners of her mouth curved up slightly as she quietly gazed at Xue Rui’s face.

Xue Rui didn’t say when he was leaving, and she wanted to stay like this for a while longer too.

Although they weren’t speaking a word to each other, the atmosphere was serene and peaceful, as if this was exactly how things were meant to be.

Xue Rui knew Lin Ruoxi was just slow to react and would occasionally say astonishing things. In reality, she would understand the meaning behind them after a short while.

Now, he simply lay on his back on her lap, looking up at Lin Ruoxi from time to time.

Every time he looked up, he would meet the girl’s tranquil gaze, her eyes holding only him.

The girl was a person of few words and would rarely initiate a topic of conversation. Most of the time, she just watched him quietly.

’Thinking about it,’ he mused, ’this is just her personality. She doesn’t like socializing, doesn’t have many friends, and her social circle is incredibly, incredibly small...’

Therefore, nothing particularly interesting ever happened in the girl’s life, so of course she had nothing to share with him.

"I’ve thought of a solution," Lin Ruoxi said in a low voice.

"What is it?" Xue Rui asked with a smile.

"We could install an endoscope on the ear pick. I’ve seen similar devices in the hospital," Lin Ruoxi said.

Xue Rui sighed. ’She really is smart when it comes to things like this,’ he thought.

"A complete device... the cost would probably be very high."

"Well, to lower the peripheral costs, we could link it to a smartphone. Use the phone’s screen. The phone’s 2.4G connection could also transmit the image..."

Xue Rui was slightly surprised. ’A smart, visual ear pick?’

A product like that would be nothing new in the future, but Lin Ruoxi had actually come up with a hardware and software solution in such a short amount of time?

All because he’d casually asked, "How are you going to prove my ear is clean?"

And then... the girl had just advanced the birth of this product by five or six years?

Moreover, her solution sounded very mature, almost identical to the market-tested products of later generations...

"So smart," Xue Rui said, reaching up to touch Lin Ruoxi’s cheek.

However, because he was sitting on the low stool, his hand couldn’t reach the girl’s face.

The girl knew what Xue Rui wanted to do. She obediently leaned her face down for him to pinch her cheek.

Xue Rui sighed. In his past life, the girl was just a teenager who died young. No one knew what kind of genius the world had lost.

"Should we make the ear pick?" Lin Ruoxi asked.

Xue Rui nodded. He thought it was an excellent proposal. "We can," he said.

Over the past year, he had indeed given Lin Ruoxi some tasks, covering both software and hardware design. Most were improvements on existing products on the market or integrations into the mobile internet ecosystem.

In truth, he could do it without Lin Ruoxi. Recruiting an R&D team could accomplish the same thing.

But with a genius mind like Lin Ruoxi’s right here, why would he need to recruit a team?

For one, it saved money and effort.

And for another, it gave Lin Ruoxi an opportunity to grow.

Having multiple departments work together is a very difficult thing. The product team argues with the software team, and the software team passes the buck to the hardware department...

The reason was actually quite simple: the departments didn’t fully understand each other’s workflows.

If a multi-talented, versatile individual were to oversee the entire design, efficiency would increase N-fold.

For now, though, Lin Ruoxi had only designed the first version. Many designs still only existed on paper or as initial prototypes, which the girl had soldered herself from electronic components bought online, just to test basic functions.

These hardware products couldn’t be mass-produced without a complete supporting industrial chain.

So, before the college entrance exam scores were released, he had to take Lin Ruoxi to Shencheng, where the industrial chain was very well-developed.

The two of them sat in silence. Lin Ruoxi hadn’t brought her phone in, so now she was watching Xue Rui play a game.

Xue Rui was playing the tile-matching game that Le You had re-developed. The animations and functions were clearly much more polished than their initial version.

However, after a few rounds, he found it boring. He glanced at the time; they had already dawdled until it was almost eleven.

He wasn’t prepared to spend the night here.

He figured it was about time. His old man and Gu Qingshan should have left by now.

After all, they had already lingered for an hour during dinner, and now he had dawdled for a long time since. The two of them should be long gone.

He walked out and went around to the door of Qiu Mengze’s room, giving it a polite knock.

He thought he could hear Qiu Mengze and the woman debating something. It sounded like they were having a lively conversation.

Xue Rui smiled faintly. ’So it was pretty useful after all,’ he thought.

The woman heard the knock and opened the door, seeing it was the boy from before.

She gave him an odd look. She and Qiu Mengze had just been talking about him.

"Hello, boss," the woman said.

Xue Rui nodded, quite pleased with this woman. She had actually managed to get the clam to say so much.

He pulled a few hundred yuan in cash from his pocket and stuffed it into the woman’s hand. "Alright, we should get going."

The woman’s face lit up with a smile. ’My luck is really good today,’ she thought. She thanked Xue Rui, grabbed her things, and headed for the elevator.

Qiu Mengze gave Xue Rui a strange look. He still thought Xue Rui was a two-timing scumbag.

However, the woman didn’t think so. She said she’d seen plenty of rich men, but few who were so attentive, and her opinion of Xue Rui was actually quite high.

His worldview had been shaken...

Xue Rui turned his head with a smile, only to see two men in the direction the woman had gone, staring right at him.

His smile instantly froze on his face.

Those two men were Gu Muxue’s father and his own old man...

’Holy shit? Why haven’t they left yet?’ Xue Rui cursed inwardly.

He had deliberately wasted time until now! He’d heard them say they would just relax for a bit and then leave, since they had things to do the next day...

But damn it, it was already eleven o’clock! At least three or four hours had passed. They still hadn’t left?

He had thought he was being safe enough, but he still ran into them!

The two men had already spotted him. Gu Qingshan was frowning, his expression grim. He had seen a woman thank Xue Rui and then stuff a roll of cash into her bra...

As for Xie Jianfeng’s face, it was so dark you couldn’t even make out his expression...

"Uncle Gu, Dad, what a coincidence..." Xue Rui forced himself to act calm.

’How the hell do I explain this?’ he thought. ’That money was just a tip for the conversation, definitely nothing else...’

But the two of them had to believe him...

At a time like this, any excuse would sound feeble and weak.

Especially since those two knew he was currently loaded with cash.

Qiu Mengze was still in the room, but from Xue Rui’s words, he also understood what was happening. He felt like he’d been caught in the act, but Xue Rui was the one in the worst spot.

He grinned at Xue Rui, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

’Busted now, aren’t you!’

Xue Rui looked at Qiu Mengze’s gloating expression. ’Get out here, you!’ he thought.

He dragged Qiu Mengze out. "My friend insisted on dragging me here. I really didn’t want to come."