The Bizarre Strategies of the Graduate Recommendation Trailblazers

Room 510, the dorm of eccentrics. Wang Haoran lifted his gaze from his phone and looked out the window at the ink-black night.

Hmm...

To be honest, it was quite surreal.

If someone had told him when he first enrolled that, in this very semester, he would transform from a gloomy male college student with 3D motion sickness into the boss of a gaming studio, Wang Haoran would have definitely scoffed at the prediction.

Although many students at top universities had sky-high ambitions and harbored various fantastical illusions about their lives, illusions were illusions largely because of their ethereal, castles-in-the-air nature. Simply put, it was about feasibility.

Wang Haoran paid a lot of attention to the practical difficulty of achieving a goal. For example, his original plan after the college entrance examination was to find a summer job in the food and beverage industry to save some money for college and buy some electronics. However, after a field inspection at a fast-food restaurant in his hometown, he realized that the cost-performance ratio of such a job was too low, and given his physical stamina, he wouldn't be able to stick it out.

So, he temporarily changed his plan to tutoring and doing proxy grinding for games...

As for being his own boss? No matter what, he would have to finish his studies, get at least a master's degree, and then work as a corporate slave in a company. Only after accumulating enough experience and capital by his early thirties would he strike out on his own.

It could only be said that for Su Bai, money was truly just a number. He didn't even care about taking a loss; he was purely spending money for fun.

Even so, Wang Haoran still felt that he had to work hard. He couldn't let Brother Bai down. Let alone how much money they would make, he had to at least make the studio look decent.

His thoughts were still quite pure. Some people, upon taking their partner's money, would only think about lining their own pockets, brushing off the actual business with half-hearted efforts. However, Wang Haoran still fell into the category of the clear and foolish innocence typical of college students.

He was going to check out office spaces tomorrow. The appointment was in the morning, so Wang Haoran didn't stay up late playing games. He planned to go to bed at eleven.

Surprisingly, Xue Tao didn't stay up late tonight either. He got ready for bed at almost the same time as Wang Haoran.

"Holy crap, why are you sleeping so early too?" Xue Tao was shocked.

"Me? I have a tutorial class tomorrow morning," Wang Haoran said casually. At Jiangcheng University, tutorial class was a universal social excuse. The scheduling for these classes was so chaotic anyway that it wouldn't be strange to have one at any given time.

It was even possible that a teaching assistant, being too busy recently, would squeeze out some time during meal hours to explain problems to a few students in the cafeteria. Such things were not impossible.

Wang Haoran couldn't be bothered to tell the others about his business venture. His personality was even more low-key than Su Bai's. Su Bai would at least occasionally act weird and show off, but Wang Haoran was basically in stealth mode.

"A tutorial class, sigh." Xue Tao didn't think much of it and sighed. "Tell me, why were the two math courses in the midterm exams so unfriendly to me? Everyone else got around ninety... Sigh..."

He let out a series of heavy sighs.

Fortunately, Lord Shanghai wasn't in the dorm. He had gone out to accompany his girlfriend. Otherwise, he would probably have a lot of common ground with Xue Tao.

He also felt like he had been targeted.

"Maybe it's just bad luck. It'll be fine by the finals," Wang Haoran said expressionlessly.

In fact, he had no idea how many points this guy Xue Tao had actually scored. According to the customs of Jiangcheng University, students could only check their own exam scores on their personal campus accounts.

Since Xue Tao hadn't said anything, the others naturally knew nothing.

The main reason was that his score was too embarrassing. After browsing the class group chat for a while, Xue Tao deduced that his score would most likely be at the bottom of the class.

Aside from the rare few eccentrics who had actually failed the midterms, he was the worst performer.

78 points. For someone determined to get a postgraduate recommendation, it was undoubtedly a bolt from the blue.

Damn it, am I really this bad?

Xue Tao couldn't help but doubt himself.

Doubt as he might, he still maintained his dignity, keeping his score a secret from the others. Most importantly, he couldn't let Chu Mingzhe know.

Losing to others was one thing, but Lord Shanghai was his, Xue Tao's, archenemy. If his score was lower than his archenemy's, wouldn't he be too ashamed to keep on living?

Therefore, Xue Tao was extremely eager to know Chu Mingzhe's score.

After thinking it over, he decided to ask Su Bai for help.

[Xue Zhitao: Brother Bai, help me ask Lord Shanghai about his midterm exam score.]

[Xue Zhitao: [Nose Pick]]

[Crispy White Goose: Huh?]

[Crispy White Goose: Why don't you just ask him directly? Is it something too embarrassing to mention?]

[Xue Zhitao: [Shy]]

[Crispy White Goose: ...Bro, don't gross me out.]

Su Bai laughed out of sheer annoyance. What exactly was this weirdo trying to pull here?

After a while, seeing that Su Bai had no intention of helping him, Xue Tao decisively changed the subject.

He then asked Su Bai if he was interested in participating in some Freshman Tech Innovation Competition.

Su Bai expressed no interest.

Even if he were interested, there was no way he would team up with Xue Tao for this kind of competition. It was bad enough that this guy was incompetent, but he also had a bad temper and a lot of bizarre ideas. Teaming up with him for any group project in any course was pure torture.

Su Bai felt that his team choices for his college career were already set in stone. Generally speaking, a team required four people, so having Shengsheng and the Wan sisters was enough.

The former would carry the team, the latter would do the grunt work, and Su Bai would just lie back and coast to victory.

Win!

Then again, Su Bai hadn't expected Xue Tao to suddenly start thinking about tech innovation competitions. It felt like this wasn't his area of interest at all, including things like algorithms and programming.

In fact, Su Bai remembered clearly that when school first started, Xue Tao had made some shocking remarks in the class group chat, saying things like there was no future in technology, that tech workers were just corporate slaves making wedding dresses for others, and that truly capable people should go into management.

Although there was nothing wrong with this statement from a certain perspective, damn it, who would hire someone like Xue Tao to be a manager?

He didn't understand either technology or management.

At that time, everyone in the group chat had already noticed the early signs of Xue Tao's electronic pet attributes.

However, no one could have probably imagined that just half a semester later, our classmate Xue Zhitao would actually start aspiring to join a college tech competition. It was truly laughable.

This piqued Su Bai's curiosity to watch the drama unfold. After asking a few more questions, he finally figured out Xue Tao's ultimate goal.

It turned out he was eyeing the extra points for postgraduate recommendation that came with various competitions.

His logic went roughly like this: his exam scores were poor, so he felt the need to make up for it with other factors. Otherwise, how could he secure a postgraduate recommendation...

To be fair, this line of thinking was truly bizarre, making Su Bai's scalp tingle.

Bro, you should probably consider whether you'll fail your finals first...

Su Bai remembered hearing from some senior students that the midterm exams in the first semester were all very easy. They were meant to help the kids transition from their high school state. Basically, a normal person would score at least 85 points. Scoring below 80 indicated a mismatch with the college courses and a potential risk of failing.

Although he didn't know Brother Tao's exact score, Su Bai felt that he probably belonged to this category...