Chapter Text
Chapter One: The Young Man
The atmosphere inside Daxing International Airport was always crowded and noisy, with people from all kinds of countries and cities present, their incessant chatter making the waiting hall busier than it needed to be.
After collecting his luggage from the baggage claim area, Zhou Mingrui stood in the waiting hall alongside his classmates and professors, waiting for the head of their scientific delegation. The three-hour flight from Chengdu to Beijing, especially in the early morning hours, had left him thoroughly exhausted. Combined with his sleepless night before, dark circles had formed heavily under his eyes.
Out of sheer boredom, he began observing the people around him.
That's a foreigner—judging by his appearance, probably German... That girl has a thick accent—maybe she's from one of the coastal cities? That little boy has been staring at the American woman's bag the whole time—oh, he's looking at a teddy bear...
He spent a good while like this. Just as he could barely keep his eyes open, Professor Xing, the supervisor for this group of students, returned and guided them toward the airport exit. In front of the main entrance, a white bus with the academy's insignia was waiting for them. After all the students and accompanying professors boarded, they set off toward the Haidian District.
Traffic was extremely heavy in the early morning hours, causing them to be stuck in the car for several hours before reaching the Zhongguancun area.
When they finally arrived at the science district, they stopped near a hotel that had been reserved in advance by the university. Zhou Mingrui, who had fallen asleep during the journey due to travel fatigue, was woken up by one of his classmates. He dragged himself to his room with difficulty and collapsed onto the bed without any grace, muttering under his breath, "At least I don't have to work for the rest of the day."
The scientific seminar that Zhou Mingrui was supposed to attend wouldn't start until tomorrow, giving him a full day to rest and recharge.
After a few hours of sleep, he finally woke up feeling refreshed. After taking a quick shower and changing his clothes, he left his room to find the other members of his team. When he knocked on each door, there was no response from any of the occupants.
Zhou Mingrui thought in confusion, So where did they all go?
Without a clear destination in mind, he made his way toward the hotel lobby. In one of the corridors, he noticed one of their accompanying professors emerging from around the corner. Like a child who had found their parent, Zhou Mingrui called out happily, "Mr. Meng!"
Meng Linshi, upon hearing his name, turned his attention toward his young student. Zhou Mingrui, wearing a simple white shirt and jeans, stood in front of his mentor after a few long strides. He was roughly the same height as Meng Linshi, with semi-long black hair falling over his forehead and brown eyes peering curiously through his glasses at the man before him.
"Mr. Meng, can you tell me where everyone else is?"
Zhou Mingrui made no effort to hide the curiosity in his tone, glancing behind his mentor as he waited for Mr. Meng's answer. The older mentor, amused by his student's somewhat childlike behavior, replied cheerfully, "Old Xing went to the seminar venue for tomorrow with a few other professors. The rest have gone sightseeing in the parks near the hotel with the other students... Do you want to join them?"
He added the last part as an afterthought. Zhou Mingrui, realizing that almost none of his companions had stayed behind at the hotel, shook his head in disappointment. "No, I'd rather stay at the hotel."
"Hm!? Why?"
Suddenly embarrassed by Mr. Meng's question, Zhou Mingrui scratched the back of his head awkwardly and replied, "There are some things I didn't have time to finish last night. I plan to go over the rest of the papers before Professor Xing gets back, so there won't be any problems for tomorrow."
As he continued speaking, his voice gradually softened until the final words were barely a faint murmur, as if he were deeply ashamed of not finishing his work on time. Mr. Meng said nothing, only gazing at his relatively young student with an affectionate look. Knowing Zhou Mingrui as he did, he was certain that the young man had already reviewed all the papers and presentation texts at least three times before coming and was merely planning to go over them once more out of stress.
Meng Linshi carefully observed his student's appearance. The young man stood around 170 cm tall, with a refined and gentle face, slightly upturned eyes, thin lips, and a slender build that reflected the typical features of a Chinese person. His hair was pure black, with soft, long strands that clung to his neck and forehead. His eyes were a deep brown, nearly black, hidden behind round black-rimmed glasses. Traces of baby fat still lingered on certain parts of his face and figure, giving him a relatively youthful appearance.
After a moment of studying his 21-year-old student, Meng Linshi nodded with a smile. Without trying to dissuade him from locking himself away in his room, he suggested that Zhou Mingrui first have the lunch he'd missed at the hotel restaurant before heading back to his room.
After eating at the restaurant, Zhou Mingrui returned to his room, picked up his laptop, and settled onto the sofa to open the folder related to tomorrow's scientific matters. As Meng Linshi had suspected, Zhou Mingrui had already reviewed everything five times over and was only going through them again for extra peace of mind.
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The next morning, the student team from Chengdu University—comprising students from several computer science-related disciplines—along with their respective professors, set off toward the main venue of the Beijing International Seminar, led by Vice Chancellor Xing.
This seminar, which focused primarily on scientific topics related to physics, chemistry, and engineering, was held at Tsinghua University in the Haidian science district. It hosted international academic conferences, inter-university meetings, and fundamental scientific events in the university's conference halls. Participants came from various countries including China, Russia, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, the United States, South Korea, and others.
After a relatively short drive, the bus carrying the Sichuan University scientific delegation finally arrived at the gathering venue. In front of the conference hall, students and professors of various nationalities had gathered in groups ranging from two to twenty, with some people networking with colleagues from other universities. Benches were placed at regular intervals in the front area—some occupied by people sitting and chatting or working on their laptops, others empty.
Zhou Mingrui, whose youthful appearance stood out sharply among the other team members who were at least around thirty years old, silently followed the others to a relatively quiet spot. Near where they stood, an empty stone bench caught no one's interest among his classmates or professors. After fidgeting for a while, Zhou Mingrui walked over to the bench and sat down, half-listening to the others' conversations while distractedly observing the people around him.
The people next to us look Japanese, and they're all carrying large boxes—maybe robots? A few meters away, there are some Western men and women—I can't tell where they're from from their appearance... Oh, look at their lab coats—could they be chemistry students? How cliché. They don't have to act like stereotypical scientists... The people in front of us look Chinese and they're all intensely working on their laptops... Hey, if you press that hard, the poor thing will break. Their companion is talking to Mr. Xing—haha, that guy looks even crazier than Mr. Xing... Hm?!
Without any expression of his thoughts showing on his face, Zhou Mingrui casually scanned each group of people until his gaze fell on a team with a Russian appearance. The men and women there were all dressed in relatively formal attire, their fair hair standing out sharply among the dark-haired people around them. However, Zhou Mingrui's gaze wasn't fixed on them, but rather on a man who, like himself, was sitting on a bench nearby.
What caught his attention about the other man was his youthful appearance, which, like Zhou Mingrui's, stood out prominently among the middle-aged men and women around him.
He doesn't seem much older than me—maybe 25 or 26? He looks pretty annoyed—he's pressing his laptop keys even harder than those obsessive guys in front of us.
From where Zhou Mingrui sat, he could only make out some of the other man's features—his head was lowered, with blond hair falling over his eyes. He wore a white button-up shirt and black trousers, and the toe of his shiny shoe was tapping against the ground in a sharp rhythm.
The man's figure was partially hidden in the shade of a tree, but Zhou Mingrui could still make out his furrowed brows and tightly pressed lips from this distance. With great speed and intensity, he was wrestling with the laptop on his knees.
Without realizing it, Zhou Mingrui had been watching the man for so long that everyone around him had gone into the conference hall, leaving the man alone on the stone bench.
Professor Meng turned to Zhou Mingrui and gestured toward the entrance of the hall before walking off. Zhou Mingrui, who had been sitting on the uncomfortable grey bench the whole time, stretched a bit and began following his mentor—though half his attention was still on the blond man, who seemed to have yet to resolve whatever conflict he had with the system before him and was growing increasingly frustrated. Glancing at his watch, Zhou Mingrui realized there was still an hour before any of his team's activities would begin, and he decided to head toward the man's bench instead of following Mr. Meng.
As he approached the Russian man, he got a better view of his appearance. His white shirt was perfectly wrinkle-free, stretched across his broad frame. Even while seated, Zhou Mingrui could tell the man would be annoyingly taller than him. The man's golden hair had a slight wave to it, appearing almost white under the sunlight, and his face was distinctly masculine and sharp-featured.
"Excuse me?"
Zhou Mingrui spoke in English, causing the man—completely absorbed in his work—to look up in shock, revealing a pair of blue eyes.
Zhou Mingrui continued in English, gesturing around him, "Your companions left a long time ago."
As if possessed by a spirit, the man stiffly turned his head and looked at the empty courtyard. Meanwhile, Zhou Mingrui read the name on the badge hanging around the man's neck: Grisha Adams.
It looks like this is his first time in such an environment, and he didn't expect the others to leave him behind. But from what I've been observing, it seems like he ran into some problem with his work that made him so oblivious to his surroundings. Should I help him? But it's none of my business... Still, I don't want to leave him to keep wrestling with whatever's on his laptop... Maybe it's something I have no knowledge about, and then I'll just embarrass myself... But what if I can help him?
Zhou Mingrui looked at the man's lost expression for a while, going back and forth in his mind before finally letting out a defeated sigh.
"Mr. Adams, can I help you?" Zhou Mingrui said in English, gesturing toward the man.