Studying at Western University starts with a knife-forging competition

Lin Yuan put his backpack on the chair and looked at him.

The silence lingered in the air for a few seconds.

"We have an agreement," Lin Yuan said, his voice low but tense.

Matt opened his mouth, then closed it again.

"No bringing people back. No smoking marijuana in the dorm." Lin Yuan's gaze remained fixed on him. "I've always followed the rules. What about you?"

Matt placed the bag of potato chips on the coffee table, rubbed his face vigorously with both hands, and when he put his hands down, his face showed genuine regret.

"I was wrong, buddy. Really, I'm sorry." His voice was a little muffled.

Lin Yuan didn't speak, just looked at him and waited.

Matt wiped his face again. "I really didn't bring her back... she just clung to me."

"She cornered me on my way back from the library," Matt said. "She got straight to the point and said she needed money. I said, 'Sure, how much do you need? I'll lend it to you.' She said, 'I don't mean I'll lend it, I mean I need it.'"

"And then you brought her back?"

“I didn’t!” Matt’s voice rose a little, then fell back down. “I said no. And then she came right up to me. Right there on the street, with so many people around, she just pressed herself against me. I pushed her away, and she said—” He paused, his Adam’s apple bobbing, “she said if I pushed her away, she would get her sorority involved and accuse me of sexual harassment.”

Lin Yuan looked at him.

"Her exact words," Matt said, "'I can wipe out your entire social circle on the East Coast with just one tweet.'"

"Are you afraid of this?"

“I’m not afraid of her,” Matt said in a muffled voice. “I’m afraid of her sorority. They’re really good at propaganda. Last year they got rid of a professor because he made a sexist joke in class. You know what that professor did? He said, ‘Men are usually better at spatial reasoning than women.’ Just that one sentence. It went viral on Twitter, and three days later the university announced his suspension pending investigation.”

Matt leaned back on the sofa, staring at the ceiling.

"My family runs a private equity firm. The worst thing in this industry is a bad reputation. If my dad sees my name associated with 'sexual harassment,' he'll break my legs first, regardless of whether it's true or not."

Lin Yuan remained silent for a while.

"How much money does she want?"

"She didn't give a specific number. But she said her group's summer activity funding wasn't approved and they need to find sponsors."

"Why don't you just ask you for money directly?"

“She wouldn’t dare,” Matt said. “Asking for money directly is extortion. Our legal department isn’t going to back down. But this way—” He made a vague gesture, “she came to me herself and then said I took advantage of her. Who can tell the difference? All she has to do is stir up public opinion. In the end, no matter what the truth is, my name will always be preceded by three words: sexual harassment. Once those three words are stuck on me, I can never wash them off.”

Lin Yuan didn't speak.

"And she wants to latch onto me," Matt added, his tone unusually weary. "It's not about the money. She wants to use this relationship to tell others that Wayne's youngest son is pursuing her. Her group needs this kind of buzz. Rich man's son, feminist leader—this script is ready-made for online traffic."

Lin Yuan stood in the middle of the living room and listened to Matt's words from beginning to end. Then he spoke.

"So you really—with her—"

"No." Matt sat up straight, his expression shifting from annoyance to seriousness, then slumped again, and said in a regretful tone, "Okay, yes."

Lin Yuan looked at him.

"She initiated it," Matt said, unconsciously scratching the back of his head. "Before I could even react, she was already—"

He made a vague gesture and didn't finish his sentence.

"Then what."

"And then—" Matt's expression became somewhat subtle, as if he were savoring the moment or organizing his thoughts, "I admit, she really is very good. Not in a... you know, not that stiff way. She knows it. How should I put it, her technique is excellent."

He said this with an unexpected sense of appreciation, like someone who doesn't know much about wine who has accidentally tasted a good vintage Bordeaux. Although he can't pinpoint exactly what's so good about it, his body has already made the judgment for him.

"I was just getting into the swing of things," Matt sighed, gesturing towards the door. "And then you came back."

Lin Yuan stared at him for a few seconds. Matt didn't look away, but his face showed an innocent "I can't help it" expression.

"Don't bring him back," Lin Yuan said.

"No more."

"Whatever the reason."

"I promise."

Lin Yuan nodded, picked up his backpack, and walked towards his room.

"Lin Yuan".

He stopped.

Matt leaned back on the sofa, tilting his head to look at him, his expression shifting from serious to a half-smile. The speed at which this man switched from one emotion to another was roughly the same as the speed at which Lin Yuan changed the gears on the belt sander.

"If you'd like," Matt said, "I can introduce you to a few."

"What are you introducing?"

"Female classmate," Matt grinned, "a proper female classmate. Not the kind you see today."

Lin Yuan turned around and looked at him.

“Some girls didn’t do very well on their finals,” Matt said, speaking as casually as if discussing what to eat tomorrow, “and they need tutoring. You know, Asian students—especially Chinese students—are very popular in these situations.”

Why?

"Because you guys are good at exams," Matt said, spreading his hands. "That's a stereotype, I know. But stereotypes can sometimes be a useful passport. I know a few, they're all good-looking and normal people. They just need a little help with math and statistics. You tutor them, they treat you to dinner, and after dinner—"

"No."

"Are you sure? One of them is a cheerleader."

"No."

"Blonde hair. 1.7 meters tall."

"Matt."

"Okay, okay," Matt said, raising his hands in surrender. "I should have said something."

Lin Yuan turned and continued walking towards the room. As he reached the door, Matt's voice came from behind him again.

"You're not short of money, are you?"

Lin Yuan turned around and glanced at him.

"I don't need it," he said. "And I don't want to get involved in this messy stuff."

"What's wrong with that? She just wants to find a boyfriend who's good at math to help her with her studies."

"Then what."

"And then what?" Matt looked completely innocent. "Tutoring is tutoring. You're overthinking it."

Lin Yuan didn't reply. He pushed open the door and went into the room, placing his backpack on a chair.

He turned off the system panel, lay down, and stared at the ceiling.

Before closing his eyes, he habitually opened the system's storage compartment and took a look.

A semi-transparent grid interface floated in the corner of the field of vision. Most of the grids were empty, with only the first few lit up, containing some food packets and miscellaneous items—all accumulated from daily tasks and barely touched. In the bottom right grid, a small pile of gold coins was neatly stacked, its edges gleaming with a matte light in the virtual interface.

More than two hundred.

He'd been in the US for almost two years, and the system would occasionally slip a gold coin or two into his mission rewards. At first, he didn't know what they were, but later he looked them up—pure gold, in excellent condition, without any identifiable minting marks. He hadn't spent much of it, only taking one out during his freshman year of college to test the waters, where he sold it for a good price at a gold coin shop in the city. The shopkeeper examined it closely for a long time, asking where it came from. He said it was a gift from an elder in his family. The shopkeeper didn't ask any more questions, counting out a few banknotes and handing it over.

He never touched those gold coins again after that. When he wasn't short of money, they lay quietly in his storage compartment, like a bank account he had almost forgotten about.

Lin Yuan turned off the storage interface, turned over, and folded the pillow in half to put under his head.

I have class tomorrow. Monday's class is from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break in between. I'll cut half of the braised beef and bring it to Robert, and keep the other half for Matt. I'll heat up the oxtail soup in the morning and put it in a thermos to take with me.

Robert arrived at the workshop at 9:30, forty minutes earlier than usual, just to get something hot.

Lin Yuan's lips twitched slightly as he thought of this. Then he pulled the blanket up and closed his eyes.