America: I came here to study, not to show mercy.

Chapter 194 Meisai
Mid-January is winter, almost the coldest time of the year in Princeton. The dim lights illuminate the snow on the roadside grass, and the cleaned paths crisscross between the dormitories.

Around six o'clock, the world was already shrouded in darkness. There weren't many students walking on the path. They either hid their hands between their arms or put them in their pockets, keeping their heads down and hurrying along.

Inside the detached two-story dormitory, the heating was humming and spreading warmth. A man and four women were standing in front of the kitchen island, and they were all momentarily stunned.

An eerie silence was spreading. Li Xiaoen swallowed hard, suddenly feeling a heat rising all over his body. He took a deep breath without making a sound and quickly calmed down.

"Well, I'll do it."

With what he thought was a bright smile, Li Xiaoen reached out to take the cup, but Su Feier dodged it with the cup in hand. Immediately afterward, a gentle voice, like a devil's whisper, reached his ears.

"You didn't wash your hands, I'll do it."

"..."

"I was holding the cup, not touching it with my hands."

Li Xiaoen quickly explained, turning his head to look at Su Feier and blinking twice. Unfortunately, whether the meaning was not conveyed or was conveyed incorrectly, the girl not only did not agree, but her gaze gradually turned resentful.

Alarm bells rang in her mind. Feeling the astonished gazes of the other girls, Li Xiaoen's mind raced. She grabbed Su Feier's hand holding the glass, drank all the juice in one gulp, and then let go.

"Yes, the fruit is very fresh, so the juice made from it is naturally delicious."

Pretending not to notice the frowning gaze that Suffer was giving him, Li Xiaoen felt a mix of emotions, but on the surface he still nodded and gave his assessment.

He used to only get these ambiguous gestures and being waited on by saying many nice things to Suffer. Now that the girl is taking the initiative, he feels uncomfortable in this situation.

Coming to her senses, Victoria took a deep breath and nodded with a smile.

"Okay, dinner is ready. Let's go eat."

Only then was the eerie atmosphere in the kitchen broken, and everyone came to their senses, carrying food back and forth to the dining table outside the kitchen.

With the warning temporarily lifted, Li Xiaoen took a deep breath, but felt a layer of sweat all over his body and moved his limbs uncomfortably.

"Sean, you look hot."

As she approached the young man, Serafina looked up at him, smiled knowingly, and gave a sarcastic remark.

"The room is heated, and I haven't even taken off my clothes yet when I came in."

Rolling his eyes, Li Xiaoen noticed the sweaters Victoria and the other girl were wearing underneath their aprons after they took them off. The sweaters were close-fitting and clung tightly to their bodies, outlining their hot and eye-catching curves.

“Here, Sean, try some of the bread I bought.”

At this moment, Serafina smiled strangely and tore off a small piece of bread and handed it to him.

"If you bought it yourself, there's no need for this."

Li Xiaoen's face darkened. After being "tortured" by Su Feier, he had no kind words for this woman who was kicking him when he was down. "The bread is delicious, and considering the price you paid, it's within the normal range."

How do you know this bread is expensive?

Serafina was taken aback.

"Let's put it this way."

As Li Xiaoen took off his coat, he looked at the other person helplessly and explained, "Would you buy cheap bread? Even bread whose price has little impact on quality."

"That makes sense."

Seraphine pursed her lips and nodded helplessly. Noticing the young man's amused gaze, she became a little annoyed and handed the bread back to him.

"You eat it!"

"Can't we be a little more reasonable?"

Li Xiaoen helplessly raised his hand to stop them, just as Victoria, who had just returned, noticed the two of them and came over to pull Serafina away.

"Alright, stop playing around and let's go eat."

Victoria offered a gentle word of advice.

She withdrew her hand, stuffed the bread into her mouth, glared at the other side resentfully, and then turned back to the dining table.

Turning back from watching Serafina's departing figure, Victoria looked at Sean Lee, pursed her lips, and sighed helplessly.

"It was Serafina who insisted on doing it this way. Don't you think it's incredibly boring?"

Li Xiaoen shrugged and smiled helplessly at the girl in front of him, "What's so great about bread that you bought, is it?"

"You're wrong, Sean."

To his surprise, Victoria rolled her eyes and flatly denied it, saying, "It's your problem."

"..."

While Li Xiaoen was in a daze, Victoria glanced towards the dining table and then lifted her leg to stand close to the young man.

“Much profit… … ”

Instantly alert, Li Xiaoen called out in a low voice.

Without answering, Victoria looked down, took a piece of candy from her pocket, unwrapped it, held it in her hand, and then held it up to the young man's mouth.

Blinking twice, Li Xiaoen met those slightly defiant emerald green eyes, and subconsciously lowered his head to put the girl's candy in his mouth.

The candy wasn't very sweet, but it had a delicate fragrance of flower petals, unlike the overly sweet candies that are common in America. It suited his taste perfectly.

"delicious."

Li Xiaoen nodded to Victoria, but a sharp pain shot through his lower back, causing him to furrow his brow again.

The pain stopped abruptly, and Victoria immediately withdrew her hand, picked up the last straw, and turned to leave quickly.

Is this what they call slapping someone and then giving them a sweet treat?
Li Xiaoen couldn't help but let out a long sigh, scratched his hair in frustration, and then washed his hands and went outside.

He could understand Suffer's sudden change of heart and couldn't say anything to her, but it would undoubtedly change many things in the future. Perhaps his peaceful university life would be gone forever.

Just thinking about this made Li Xiaoen's teeth ache.

He had to swallow his own bitter pill, and even with a sweet candy in his mouth, he couldn't shake the feeling in his heart.

Fortunately, Suffer did not do anything after that. After a quick dinner and a few more casual chats on the sofa in the living room, around 8 p.m., Li Xiaoen said goodbye.

From a distance, his two-story dormitory building was still pitch black. Li Xiaoen took out his phone to check the messages and learned that Daniel was still working hard in the cold at the moment.

The bigger the storm, the more expensive the fish. This saying also applies to America. Looking at Daniel's excited post on his phone about his high hourly wage for part-time work, Li Xiaoen suddenly remembered the community manager who braved the wind and snow to deliver steaks during winter break.

Even in this most developed and free country, there are still many people who work tirelessly, just like Daniel...

Well, at least I won't be deceived by a woman and end up losing both money and love.

Li Xiaoen sighed and switched to the "hacker" chat group that Haskel had introduced.

The group consisted of only six people, including him. The conversations covered a wide range of topics, mostly exchanging knowledge about computer information attack and defense. There seemed to be no trace of illegal or criminal activity. Li Xiaoen also knew some of this knowledge, so he chatted with them briefly.

"Hacked into the website of an unscrupulous company?"

Seeing everyone in the group encouraging him to bring up the challenge, Li Xiaoen, who had just entered the room, immediately stopped in his tracks.

With a slight frown, Li Xiaoen carefully examined the website's introduction and challenges, then paused, lost in thought.

The first two days of the new semester passed quietly, filled with both peace and busyness. At 4:50 p.m. on Friday, while the other students were happily welcoming their three-day holiday, Li Xiaoen arrived on time at the small meeting room that Professor Alaric had arranged for them.

The MCM modeling competition's questions were released at 5 PM. The entire conference room was already prepared, and Amelia and Ethan were waiting there with composed expressions.

"Relax a bit. This competition lasts for four days. If you keep going like this, you might not be able to keep up mentally before you even finish writing your papers."

With Alaric absent, they had to complete the four-day competition on their own. Sean Lee greeted them with a smile and sat down in front of his computer.

He couldn't help but yawn, drawing sidelong glances from Amelia and the other woman.

"Please, can you be serious?"

Taking a deep breath, Amelia couldn't help but speak.

"Don't worry, it won't interfere with the competition at all."

Li Xiaoen offered a word of comfort, but then yawned, which unfortunately drew a scrutinizing look from the girl.

Indeed, after successfully hiding his IP address, he had been trying to access the website mentioned in the group since yesterday, secretly cracking and infiltrating it. The novel experience kept him working until 1 a.m. last night before he came to his senses.

Compared to these, the math competition in front of him clearly held little interest for him.

"Time's almost up, let's choose our topics first."

Glancing at the time on the computer, Li Xiaoen raised his chin, and the two of them snapped out of their daze, looking simultaneously at the already lit screen on the side, which displayed the official website of the competition, COMP. Neither of them moved; the only one who could possibly be connected wirelessly was Li Xiaoen. The two turned to look at the young man, momentarily taken aback.

"Time is up."

Li Xiaoen spoke slowly, and the website on the screen refreshed, opening the various topics for this competition.

A: Sending drones: Developing an aerial disaster relief response system

B: Eco-games

C: Time of departure from the Louvre
……

The three of them slowly browsed through all the topics from beginning to end before exchanging glances.

"I'm fine with either option; you can choose the one you feel most confident about."

Faced with the two blank stares, Li Xiaoen nodded and handed over the decision-making power.

"I'm responsible for data visualization and paper writing, but it's up to you people who actually contribute the technology to decide."

Amelia shook her head and said softly.

"So, you're saying I'm the only one left to decide?"

Ethan raised an eyebrow, pointed to himself in surprise, and only calmed down after receiving glances from the other two. He carefully chose his words and looked at Sean Lee, "Sean, how about we choose topic C?"

"That works too. It would be more fun for us to make similar escape games."

Li Xiaoen nodded with a smile, exchanging a glance with Ethan, both understanding the meaning in each other's eyes.

In fact, the problem overview of this topic C has some characteristics of the West. Basically, France is experiencing more and more terrorist attacks, and the Louvre, one of the world's largest and most visited museums, asked them to design a model for emergency evacuation of tourists.

While he was having a good time, Li Xiaoen had already logged onto the Louvre's official website and displayed the five floors of exhibition halls on the screen.

"Let's first set up the framework for implementing the model."

Li Xiaoen took a deep breath and looked at the two people on either side. "The problem can be broken down into two simple steps: a three-level, progressive fastest-time evacuation model for visitors from the exhibition hall to the passageway, and then to the exit..."

As he spoke, Li zoomed in on the Louvre's exhibition hall diagram on his computer, pointing out several halls that resembled the Mona Lisa's portrait.

"At the same time, the most basic visitor data is not evenly distributed across the fifth floor of the Louvre. Popular galleries like the Mona Lisa undoubtedly have more visitors, while less popular galleries have fewer visitors. Therefore, we still need to collect data on the distribution of visitors throughout the Louvre..."

"Oh, yes."

Amelia nodded repeatedly upon hearing this, her head down as she rapidly typed on the keyboard. Then she looked up again, "Should we take the timing into account? Different times, such as the few hours before the museum opens in the morning, and the few hours before it closes?"

"The distribution of tourists also varies at these times."

"Wouldn't Sean's data, which can be used as the raw data for the model, be too redundant if we also consider the impact of time?"

Seeing this, Ethan quickly interrupted.

"Let's use the popularity of each exhibition hall as the raw data for now."

Li Xiaoen smiled helplessly and raised his chin. "After all, the points Amelia mentioned were just supplements and improvements. I think we can simply add more later."

"it is good."

The two nodded, and Amelia spoke up again, "I found out that France did a survey on the popularity of exhibition halls. See if you can use it as a reference..."

After simply outlining the general implementation framework, the three of them spent several hours researching and discussing, taking a short break to grab dinner, and then immediately gathered again under the cover of night to finally begin developing the model.

Professor Alaric was right, but also wrong. In the early stages of solving the problem, Amelia, who was only in a supporting role, was busy searching for and reviewing a large amount of information. Even when Sean Lee occasionally looked up, he could see the girl frowning and looking at the computer with focused attention.

From this perspective, it seems that he himself is the one who has more free time.

Finding it somewhat amusing, Li Xiaoen, after quickly finishing his work for the day, saw that the two were still focused, so he simply threw himself into the task of hacking and penetrating the website.

In this era, after the early hacking and virus-spreading incidents for various purposes, website breaches are no longer as simple as they used to be. Even now, as someone who works in the computer industry, he has hardly heard of any hacking incidents.

Unlike the black and green pop-ups and densely packed code I saw as a child, there were no progress bars or anything like that. Instead, there was only tedious code modification and repeated attempts at each level.

At one point, after successfully accessing the website's backend, Li Xiaoen paused for a moment, his chin resting on his hand in boredom.

"Sean..."

Having noticed the young man's idle behavior early on, Amelia, who was drinking water, asked, "What are you doing?" when she saw his reaction.

As she spoke, she got up and moved to stand behind Li Xiaoen.

"..."

Are you that bored?

Amelia looked away from the website on the computer screen, which was clearly unrelated to the competition topic, and looked down at Li Xiaoen with a helpless expression.

"I've finished my task for today and am now waiting for your progress."

Li Xiaoen rolled her eyes, not saying anything aloud. She looked up at Ethan, who was also letting out a long sigh and leaning back in his chair, and said, "Have you finished today's tasks? It's getting late, let's go back and rest."

"Oh, good."

Upon hearing this, Ethan quickly broke free, smiling and nodding repeatedly.

Seeing that the young man had made his decision without asking her, Amelia opened her mouth but refrained from asking him to look up information during his free time.

Could this be the nerd that this scumbag was talking about?

She took a deep breath and began to doubt herself for the first time. Noticing that the two boys had started packing their things, she hurriedly went back to pack as well and followed them out.

It was 11:30 p.m., and it was another three-day holiday. The entire teaching building was dark, with only a few lights on, perhaps from groups still engrossed in the modeling competition.

The campus was nearly deserted late at night, with only the dim yellow light of the streetlights illuminating the way back. After saying goodbye to Ethan at the fork in the road, and seeing Amelia turn to walk in another direction, Sean Lee simply followed her.

"It's too late, let me take you home."

As the girl turned to look at him, Li Xiaoen nodded and said.

"Oh, thanks."

Amelia hesitated for a moment, but did not refuse.

Walking silently, looking down at the shadows of the two pulling each other ahead, Amelia couldn't help but turn her head to look at the young man beside her, who was focused on his phone. "Sean, thank you."

"Ok?"

Li Xiaoen looked up from her phone and glanced at it. "Didn't you already say thank you?"

"Um……"

Amelia gave a light hum, then turned her gaze back to the path they were walking on, and casually asked, "Can I ask you a question?"

You can ask, but I may not answer.

Li Xiaoen shrugged nonchalantly, which earned him another sidelong glance.

Amelia rolled her eyes at the young man and asked directly, "You get along so well with those rich girls, have you fallen for any of them, or rather, will you choose one in the end?"

"..."

"Why do you ask?"

Li Xiaoen didn't answer but asked a question in return.

"I'm just curious. Is it wrong for me to want to know what a scumbag like you is thinking?"

"Row."

Li Xiaoen nodded. "But I can also refuse to answer that question."

"What a scumbag! An irredeemable scumbag!"

After hesitating for a while, Amelia turned around and shouted, quickening her pace as she ran into a brightly lit dormitory building ahead.

"Turning kindness into enmity, abandoning the bridge after crossing the river?"

Li Xiaoen raised an eyebrow, and for a moment he was so angry that he laughed.

Even if he's a jerk, he didn't scumbag her.

Are all girls this empathetic?

(End of this chapter)