The Escort

Two or three days later, the results of the final exam came out.
The Academic Affairs Office announced the ranking of the top 30 in the grade.
Unsurprisingly, Shao Mingwei sat at the top of the list.
Liu Yang barely made it to the top 30. 

The counselor finished the big class meeting and asked everyone to take a group photo before going back.
Shao Mingwei and Liu Yang were talking and laughing as they walked out of the classroom.
On the way, they passed by Zhao Sheng, who was sitting in his seat and staring at his mobile phone, motionless.
Liu Yang glanced at it—it was the ranking table.

Getting out of the door, Liu Yang couldn’t help mocking him in front of Shao Mingwei.
“You say, don’t you think Zhao Sheng has been tired out the whole day?”

Shao Mingwei glanced at him.
“What’s wrong?”

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection.
If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

“It’s nothing,” Liu Yang recalled that although Zhao Sheng’s face just now was expressionless, his face was faintly blue.
He shook his head smugly and said, “I just think this person is very funny.” 

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For nearly three years of being classmates, Zhao Sheng felt that he and Shao Mingwei were evenly matched, and regarded him as an opponent, but he was always unable to compete.
Therefore, he never showed a good face toward Shao Mingwei, and he always creates some presence in front of him to make a little stumbling block.
He thought that like him Shao Mingwei also regarded him as a nail in one’s eyes and a thorn in one’s flesh, and believed that the two were in a state where a monarch could not tolerate another monarch, but Shao Mingwei didn’t want to compare with him at all, not giving him even a bit of attention.
The reason is that Shao Mingwei took a year off before entering school and he was originally one year older than most of his classmates.
In addition, he took on the responsibilities of the family early.
He was precocious and calm and regarded his carefree classmates as his younger brothers and sisters.
Even if some people are confused and worried about their youth, in the eyes of Shao Mingwei, who has encountered tricks of fate and frightening changes in life, it was only a trivial thing.
In addition, he’s busy working around to make money.
Apart from studying and working as an officer in the school, he rarely interacts with people in school.
He really can’t spare extra energy to deal with time-consuming classmate-to-classmate relationships.

At first, he didn’t notice Zhao Sheng at all.
Slowly, he felt that someone seemed to be targeting him, but he had a gentle temper and a low-key character.
He didn’t want to have a conflict with Zhao Sheng, so he thought in amusement that this was the other side of a child’s simplicity.
However, Zhao Sheng probably didn’t realize his good intentions.
He repeated his behavior over and over, and despite Shao Mingwei’s good temper, he was also somewhat annoyed.
He always felt that Zhao Sheng was a fly scampering around.
And when he discovered that Zhao Sheng was extremely intolerant of being ignored by others, he turned a blind eye to Zhao Sheng with a deliberate attitude.
Sure enough, after Zhao Sheng tasted it, he felt so angry that he wanted to vomit blood.
He disliked Shao Mingwei more and more, and his behavior and attitude became worse.
He could faintly see it, along with a few close classmates in the class, but they were both excellent.
And they’re both popular inside the class that none of the classmates wanted to offend.
Besides, the contradiction between the two did not come out in the open, so everyone pretends to not see it.

This time, Zhao Sheng’s average score was two points lower than Shao Mingwei’s, ranking second.
It was clearly listed on the Excel table, and Shao Mingwei also saw it.
When he passed by Zhao Sheng, he naturally saw that his face was not good.
He originally wasn’t thinking about anything, but when Liu Yang mentioned it, he realized that Zhao Sheng was probably indignant because of the ranking.
However, Shao Mingwei didn’t feel anything.
He neither felt delighted in other people’s misery nor was he angry at being hated by others; it can only be said that there was merely a hint of helplessness.

Still has too few things to do, too idle.
Shao Mingwei thought with an expressionless face.

Beijing’s spring is like a rest stop for travelers between winter and summer, with a rugged northern flavor that has fallen into disarray.
People are busy running around in the dusty whirling wind, and before they can feel the gentle spring feeling described in books, in the blink of an eye, they suddenly find that summer has come quietly.

The weather is gradually getting hotter, and it only seems like yesterday that the students in their freshman and sophomore years, far from graduation, were now facing their graduation at the tail end of their third year.
The school was diffused with the smell of turmoil and chaos of every student finding their respective path, and the sense of urgency and anxiety hit them like the heat in the air.

The people around Shao Mingwei are preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination, and a lot of people are preparing to go abroad.
Only a small group of students whose rank is at the bottom of the list that has no perseverance to persist in the postgraduate entrance examination and doesn’t have the plan to go abroad began finding internships to submit their resumes.
There is a saying circulating in their major that “after you leave school, you’ll be promoted to being unemployed”, even if it’s slightly exaggerated, it also shows some truth of the reality: there are very few acceptable jobs that undergraduates can find.
One reason is there are fewer good positions, but the number of competitors is many times higher.
Another reason is they possess excellent professional and personal skills.
Well-known large companies in the industry have strict academic qualifications when recruiting, and almost all graduate students were chosen to work, which fundamentally dispels the idea of undergraduates entering the company.
Only some unknown small companies give out low-cost machinery work, but it drains the passion and wastes talent, and these groups of proud students from the most well-known university cannot bear to be wronged as ordinary students like in a few normal schools.
Gradually, an embarrassing situation of “graduating is unemployment” took shape, and fewer people chose to work directly. 

If everyone is on the path of confusion, panic, and urgency to either study or seek employment, then Shao Mingwei is the most enviable existence in their eyes—excellent grades can completely secure a postgraduate slot just within your pocket, and even the teachers are preassigned.
As a top in their major, at this moment, he must already have a definite goal, preparing the requirements leisurely and unhurriedly and at the same time laughing at the appearance of his under-pressure classmates.

However, this is not the case.
As days passed by, Shao Mingwei still hasn’t figured out whether he wants to continue his studies or work after graduation.
He didn’t tell Min Yu, because he knew that the other party would definitely let him go to graduate school and plan everything for him.
He didn’t want that—like being raised by Min Yu.
He was the other party’s lover, not a child who needed to be taken care of in everything.

Shao Mingwei has always been a person with clear goals and strong mobility.
Whenever he decides on what to do, he will quickly plan and then begin working.
This is the first time in his life that he has hesitated for such a long time.
Like being chased by time, urging him to decide.
He knows when the deadline is but is unable to make up his mind.

He mockingly laughed at himself.
In the end, he was really too greedy.
Not only does he want to maintain his inexplicable self-esteem, but he also doesn’t want to give up his love for his studies. 

In the end, before the announcement of Q University’s graduate school plan, Shao Mingwei looked for information and began to prepare various materials that are usually required for graduate school.
At the same time, he also submitted a lot of resumes to various companies and participated in several online and offline written exams and interviews.
Most of the submitted resumes had no response.
There are also positions that he obtained, but they are not reliable when you look at them.

He gradually became exhausted, his self-confidence received a big blow, and he was more silent than before.
Min Yu, who was considerate and living with him, was just silently observing.
He thoughtfully did not ask, but only cared more about the various details of Shao Mingwei’s life.
Min Yu always gives a space of privacy to others, and he’s confident that no matter what troubles the other party encounters, even if he can’t deal with it in the end, he knows how to resolve it, so he never talks too much.
But in the end, it still concerned his beloved person.
Min Yu felt a little worried and distressed and decided that if Shao Mingwei would stay in this state of being troubled for a while, he would take the initiative to ask him.

On this day, Shao Mingwei finished talking with Professor Xue in his office and was preparing to pack up the data and leave.

“Mingwei, ah,” the professor called, stopping him.