Chapter 88: The Troubled Chemist (2/2)

”Dean Jiang, what a pleasure. I hope to receive more of your teaching.”

Ms. Jiang’s smile was quite warm and natural. It was comforting to Ye Chong’s eyes as his expression grew gentler.

”Well, it was not really a teaching. Just a few heads up sometimes. Mr. Ye, you can always come and drop by my office if you have any question regarding alchemy in your mind,” she kindly replied.

”Thank you very much. Certainly I will,” Ye Chong responded with courtesy.

They bade farewell to each other. ”Well, Mr. Ye Chong isn’t as unfriendly as I had heard…” muttered Ms. Jiang.

Ye Chong entered the class of the day. It was not Ms. Jiang who conducted the lesson. It was someone else, a female teacher he had never seen before.

Looking at the varies flasks scattered on the table, along with tubes and tubes of reagents, Ye Chong was dumbfounded. He looked at the teacher who was being truly helpful as she did not seem to feel like talking, shutting her mouth tight at her desk. His eyes scanned through the items in blank dismay, he laid his hands over the flask and he withdrew them. As being still less competent than a greenhorn in the lab, he simply had no idea where to begin.

Frowned, Ye Chong noticed how the girls around him were eyeing him the whole time.

”Ye.” Just when Ye Chong was lost on the lesson, a voice came weakly by his ears, ”C-Can I… you know… Can I group… Can I group with you?” Only then he realized there was someone by his side, as the intonation caught Ye Chong’s attention. It was familiar.

He raised his head, ”Is that you?” He saw someone standing right in front of him with her head lowered. Her fingers twiddling the skirt of her faculty uniform. It was Xiu. Her head was so low that Ye Chong could not see her face. But he could tell that she seemed pretty nervous as her shoulders were shaking.

The lab lost its usual hustling and muffling as everyone paused their works. Someone nearly dropped the thermometer in her trembling hands. They looked at two of them with their mouths wide open unconvincingly. Mr. Ye Chong was the celeb in the academy and the shrinking violet Xiu was outrageously fearless today to have a talk with the celeb himself. It was an earth-shattering sight. The whispers were gone too by then. The classroom was dead silent.

Xiu who seemed to have noticed everybody’s incoming sights were lowering her head much more, as her cheeks reddened. Ye Chong was wondering if her neck would be broken as she lowered her head further. He lifted his head and glared at the girls around.

His cold sight caused everyone to retreat their stares right away as the hustling continued. The girls started acting they were busy carrying out their experiments all of a sudden. A dramatic acting it was too as one could hear the exaggerated clinking and clanking in the lab.

Xiu’s appearance was like an angel coming from the sky to Ye Chong in rescue of his terrible day. Still he inhibited his emotion as expressionlessly he replied, ”Yes, you can.”

”So they knew each other!”

”Oh my gosh!”

”This is one more story to our tea session later.”

”Stop thinking about tea, we should do some research.”

”On them?”

”No stupid. Only him.”

Sharp gossips of exclamations rushed through the group of girls who were all ears to the conversation between Mr. Ye Chong and shy girl Xiu the whole time. Such a Columbus discovery! ”I never knew Xiu was such a chaser!” Their impression towards Xiu grew complicated.

”Rea-” Xiu swiftly lifted her head, ”Really?” she asked in disbelief. The polished face of hers dinted with a hint of scarlet, a beautiful moment of embarrassment to be perceived.

”Of course,” he nodded his head. Ye Chong hurrahed in his mind as there was finally an assistant to guide his way out of this glassware jungle.

And so Assistant Xiu started a brief tutorial for Ye Chong. It went well.

Maybe.

…

… …

”So… Th-this is the Ga…ga…Gallo-blue culture medium. It is one of the 15 types of basic mediums you would use. And… And…what it does is… it helps speeding up the… g-g-growth of plants… by…by producing… I mean, providing the necessary nutrients for the process… Umm…”

”Also… the heater is very easy to use. You just… you just… set the temp…temp…temporal? W-what… oh, the temperature at the processor, b-b-but you have to be careful… that… umm… what was it again… umm… uhh…”

…

Could I ever exit the jungle in one piece?

Especially under the aid of this troubled chemist?