The Sedimented Shanghai Gentleman

During the first year of college, most students still have a lot of ambition.

As time goes by, the proportion of those with ambition gradually decreases.

This is actually the same as going to work. When you first join a company, you are full of grand aspirations, but then you start to slack off and get paid to sit on the toilet.

Even the best universities are no exception.

At this moment, in the legendary Room 510, Xue Tao was rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

"This competition seems pretty simple. It doesn't require much of a foundation, as long as you're willing to grind. I feel like we could give it a try."

Xue Tao extended a team-up invitation to Chu Mingzhe.

Chu Mingzhe, however, scoffed at the idea. "Forget it. I think I should participate in a more prestigious competition."

"Heh, you can't get fat from one bite. If you only focus on the prestigious ones, you might end up just participating for the sake of it and get absolutely nothing out of it."

"That's absolutely impossible. I've been seriously buckling down lately, and I feel like my high school studying power has returned!"

The guy from Shanghai's face radiated a slightly adolescent arrogance.

At this time, Chu Mingzhe's complexion didn't look too good.

One of the reasons was that he had been tormented too severely by his crazy landmine girlfriend recently.

To be honest, sometimes you really have to believe in fate. There was definitely a reason why this girl ended up with Chu Mingzhe. Would a normal person fall for him?

It was fine before they started dating, but as soon as she got into the role of a girlfriend, she started acting crazy every day. Chu Mingzhe had effectively become her emotional trash can.

This left Chu Mingzhe a bit bewildered. What happened to the promised sweet romance? Where exactly was the sweetness, he wondered?

In any case, he couldn't taste a hint of sweetness.

On the other hand, watching Su Bai and Chen Yusheng go to class together every day was incredibly sweet.

Sigh, Brother Bai was on a completely different level, full of charm. He couldn't compare to Su Bai. But the question was, were normal couples really as troublesome as Leilei?

So recently, Chu Mingzhe asked around among the guys with dating experience in his social circle, and came to the conclusion that—

Nowadays, very few girls are easy to deal with.

This immediately made him feel a lot better.

So Chu Mingzhe had no choice but to continue enduring the pain and pleasure, dating his crazy girlfriend while finding some real work to do, so she wouldn't constantly harass him.

Studying was a great excuse.

Oh no, it wasn't just an excuse!

Based on the level he showed in the midterm exams, if he didn't buckle down, he risked failing his classes this semester.

Chu Mingzhe was originally hoping to get recommended for graduate school. Or rather, his parents had high expectations for his studies. Parents in Shanghai usually cared extremely much about their children's grades. Not just high school grades, but even college performance was a classic subject of comparison.

And Chu Mingzhe's generous allowance naturally came from his parents coughing up the cash. If he failed a class this semester...

Next semester, he probably wouldn't even have a dating budget!

Therefore, for this very fundamental reason, Chu Mingzhe had recently started to buckle down.

Taking classes seriously... at least looking like he was taking them seriously!

Spending time in the library after class... sometimes the study room. The main thing was to avoid his rival, Xue Tao. If Xue Tao went to the library, he would go to the study room, and vice versa.

That's how rivals were.

After all, they both liked to post on social media about studying hard. It wouldn't be cool if they clashed in the same setting.

As for the competitions he needed to participate in outside of his regular coursework, Chu Mingzhe had already found his teammates.

—Teammates he got through his parents' acquaintances.

Although they were all from Jiangcheng University, their majors and grades were all different.

It looked very diverse and proper.

It had the vibe of a protagonist group in a youth novel, awesome!

Therefore, it was absolutely impossible for Chu Mingzhe to team up with Xue Tao. The team already had him holding them back... ah no, you couldn't say holding them back. It should be called a green rookie phase. If they added Xue Tao, there would be slightly too few people actually doing the work.

Some competitions restricted the number of participants. What if the maximum was three people? Wouldn't that mean some teammate would have to drag him and Xue Tao along?

Carrying two people was too much effort.

It was better to have two people carry one.

At this moment, in the newly created small group chat, Chu Mingzhe saw that his teammates had already started discussing the competition.

This competition was hosted by the Computer Science Department, and the sponsor was White Night Ventures. Hmmm... never heard of them. It was probably some shell company started by a senior over in the startup park. It didn't matter.

One of the teammates was a junior female student from the Mechanical Engineering Department who wanted to transfer to the Computer Science Department for her master's.

Perhaps out of an eagerness to gather information, this senior girl often chatted with Chu Mingzhe and was quite enthusiastic. This gave Chu Mingzhe the rare joy of feeling valued by a girl.

After all, there weren't many girls in the Computer Science Department. As for other channels to meet girls, Chu Mingzhe had joined a few clubs. The problem was that as a college freshman, he was a new face. Furthermore, Chu Mingzhe wasn't exactly a social butterfly; he carried a bit of an idol complex and hadn't really mingled well yet.

Naturally, no girls paid attention to him.

At this moment, after posting the promotional link for the competition in the group, the senior girl tagged Chu Mingzhe and mysteriously started gossiping.

[I heard this competition is funded by a student from your department. That's so awesome!]

[When will I ever reach that level...]

Huh?

A student actually funding a competition...

This was really quite unusual.

Because Chu Mingzhe had been buckling down recently, he had sought out a lot of advice from upperclassmen.

College students nowadays were not like before. In the past, as long as you went to class step by step, found an internship after graduation, you would naturally find a job.

Now, you had to grind out all sorts of credentials just to fight for an internship opportunity.

You could only say that the times had indeed evolved...

For small competitions like this, they usually looked for off-campus sponsors. Even the cheapest events cost tens of thousands of yuan to run... For slightly more normal ones, the funding was in the six figures. What kind of college student spends six figures to host a competition?

A pure rich kid.

Speaking of rich kids, the first image that flashed through Chu Mingzhe's mind was actually Su Bai. Although a college freshman becoming an event sponsor was truly absurd, it really seemed like something Su Bai would do.

The watch he wore and the car he drove both had fantastical price tags.

He often spent thousands or even tens of thousands on a regular meal.

Spending over a hundred thousand to host a competition didn't seem strange. After all, Su Bai had a pretty good relationship with several teachers in the department. Previously, Chu Mingzhe thought it was because of Xia Lin, but looking at it now, it was definitely not just because of Xia Lin...

Simply being on good terms with a certain counselor wouldn't earn you that much special treatment.

It still came down to actual power and capability.

Chu Mingzhe clicked on the link and took a look. White Night Technology... Hiss... Could it really be Brother Bai's company?

Holy smokes, he's already playing around with companies. By the time they graduate, will Brother Bai be considering going public?