Math professor returns to routine

Chapter 491 Hard Things

Yangcheng.

An old residential area.

Deng Rui was standing alone on the street with a schoolbag on his back, and next to him was a suitcase that was a little higher than his knees.

Under his feet, the shadows cast by the surrounding street lamps bloomed like lotus flowers.

"Xiao Rui, what are you doing standing on the roadside? Aren't you going home?"

An elderly voice came into Deng Rui's ears.

I turned around and looked in the direction where the sound came from.

In the mottled light and shadow, a short and thin figure walked towards him, and his slow footsteps were accompanied by bursts of "click-click" sounds.

Soon, a figure walked out of the darkness, came into the light, and stood in front of Deng Rui.

Deng Rui recognized the visitor. She was his mother-in-law who lived in the same apartment building. His full name was unknown, but he only knew that her surname was Liang.

Frost-stained white hair, overlapping wrinkles, hands as dry as dead wood, and dark brown skin dotted with large and small age spots.

The old man is like a history book, recording the traces of the passing of time with his own body.

"Good evening, Grandma Liang." Deng Rui greeted her politely. Seeing that she was pulling a bulging bag, he smiled and said, "Are you picking up bottles again?"

Grandma Liang smiled kindly and replied, "I can't sit still, so I pick up some plastic bottles and cans to supplement my family income."

Having said that, as far as Deng Rui knows, the conditions at Grandma Liang's home are not bad at all, on the contrary, they are quite good.

During the holidays, Deng Rui would see a white Land Rover appear in a nearby parking space, which was Grandma Liang's home.

As for why a well-off family would still go outside to pick up bottles, God knows.

Maybe it was due to past experiences, or maybe it was really as Grandma Liang said, she couldn't sit still and picked it up to pass the time.

"You are dressed like this," Grandma Liang looked Deng Rui up and down, then glanced at the suitcase next to him, "Are you planning to travel?"

"School is about to start in two days. How can we have time to travel?" Deng Rui said with a smile.

"Look at my memory! I'm old and my brain isn't working well. I forgot you were already a college student! By the way, where did you go to college?"

"The capital, Wudaokou Technical School."

"Wudaokou Technical School? It's one of the best universities in the country! It's hard to get in, right?"

“It’s a very difficult test.”

Years of hard work and perseverance, facing all kinds of temptations, and competing with hundreds of thousands of opponents, it is not difficult or impossible.

Grandma Liang suddenly took a step forward, grabbed Deng Rui's wrist, and pinched his arm several times. She frowned slightly, half distressed and half reproachful, "You are a boy of 1.7 to 1.8 meters, but your arms are so thin. Is the school food not good, or do you want to save money by not eating?"

"Grandma, is this your first day meeting me? I have always been this size and I can never gain weight."

Deng Rui was a little helpless. Although his family was poor, they were far from unable to afford food. Besides, the prices in the school cafeteria were not high, and the school had policy subsidies, so he had no worries about three meals a day.

Granny Liang pretended not to hear anything and took out a thick stack of banknotes from her pocket, ranging from a dime to a hundred. She took out two of the largest denominations and forced them into Deng Rui's hands.

"Grandma will give you some money. Buy some milk and fruit when you get to school to build up your body. If you are still so thin even in college, girls won't like you."

It’s best not to be liked by girls to avoid trouble.

Deng Rui just kept repeating these words in his mind but didn't dare to say them out loud, as he would definitely be scolded if he did.

"Thank you grandma, I will buy it."

Only after seeing Deng Rui put the money into his pocket did Grandma Liang smile again.

"When will you come back next time, Qingming Festival, May Day, or summer vacation?"

Deng Rui hesitated for a moment and replied, "I may not come back until next winter vacation."

"Forget about Qingming Festival and May Day, but you won't come back during the summer vacation?"

"The summer vacation is very busy. I have to participate in competitions and work a summer job. I don't have time."

"Other people's children have a lot of free time after going to college, but you are the opposite. You are even busier than in high school. We are thousands of kilometers apart, and you can't even see each other." Grandma Liang's tone was full of complaints.

Deng Rui just smiled and said nothing.

"Oh, forget it, if you don't want to come back, then don't come back! You are a student, and your priority is studying after all."

"Thank you for your understanding, grandma."

"But let me make it clear in advance that if I don't see you gain weight next year and you're still as thin as you are now, I'll go find your mother! Do you understand?"

Deng Rui had a headache.

Can you refuse an elderly person’s reasonable request?

Obviously it can't be done.

"I try my best."

After listening to the lecture for nearly five minutes, Deng Rui finally sent away Grandma Liang, this big Buddha.

Looking at her back as she walked away, Deng Rui sighed from the bottom of his heart.

"Old man, this is so scary!"

You can’t talk about it, you can’t scold it, and you can’t escape from it. It’s a unique hard-control artifact.

Deng Rui reached into his pocket and his fingertips touched two slightly worn banknotes.

Some images that he thought he had forgotten but were actually buried deep in his heart kept coming to his mind intermittently.

Grandma Liang has been around ever since I can remember. The two of us are not related by blood, but it's better than being related by blood.

When he was young, Deng Rui always loved to go to Grandma Liang's house, almost once a day, because there was delicious food.

Jelly and sugar water in summer, sweet potatoes and fried chestnuts in winter, as well as special cakes and endless seasonal fruits every now and then.

Later, when I entered junior high school, I had a heavy workload. I had to work from 7 am to 9 pm every day and rarely had weekends to rest. I went to Grandma Liang's house less often and our relationship gradually became distant. Then one day, I never entered Grandma Liang's house again.

Now it seems that I am the only one who has become unfamiliar. As for Grandma Liang, their relationship remains the same as before, and they are still a good old woman and a good child.

Deng Rui looked towards the location of Grandma Liang's house, tracing back the past according to his memory, trying to remember what Grandma Liang's house looked like.

The specific details have become blurred, leaving only a hazy beauty with a halo.

"Next Spring Festival, let's go to pay New Year's greetings to Grandma Liang!"

……

About ten minutes passed.

A black SUV appeared at the end of the road and soon stopped in front of Deng Rui.

The back door of the car opened and Wang Linghua jumped out.

"Sorry, I took the wrong road just now and kept you waiting."

After several days, Wang Linghua looked no different. She was still as clean and beautiful as ever.

Deng Rui shook his head, signaling her not to worry, and asked, "Where is the luggage?"

"Put it in the trunk."

The two of them came to the back, and the trunk door opened automatically. From the edge of the door, Deng Rui recognized the make and model of the car.

Ideal L9

I don't know how much this car will cost.

Can it be bought for three hundred thousand?

After putting their luggage away, they got into the car one after another.

Wang Linghua sat in the inner seat first, and Deng Rui sat in the outer seat later.

As soon as he got in the car, Deng Rui shuddered.

There were two pairs of eyes looking at him, one from the driver's seat and the other from the front passenger seat.

The light inside the car was dim and visibility was low. Deng Rui could not see the faces clearly, but he could make out the general outlines. The driver was a middle-aged man and the passenger was a middle-aged woman.

At first glance, it seems that these two should be Wang Linghua's parents.

Out of courtesy, Deng Rui spoke first to greet.

"Uncle, aunt, good evening."

The king's father nodded in response, and the queen's mother said, "Good evening."

Wang Linghua and Deng Rui sat down safely and fastened their seat belts, and the car started and set off.

Drive out of the residential area with complicated road conditions and enter the open and smooth expressway.

Deng Rui stared blankly at the street scene outside the window that was rapidly receding.

The time spent on public transportation is always boring, and the best way to kill boring time is to empty your mind, imagine yourself as a salted fish, lying motionless on the chopping board, looking up at the stars.

Suddenly, the dark starry sky became as bright as day.

Deng Rui came to his senses and found that it was Wang Linghua who held the phone in front of him, with the tip of her nose no more than five centimeters away from the screen.

"Deng Rui, have you ever eaten this?"

"Hold it farther away. It's too close to see clearly."

"Oh." Wang Linghua stepped back slightly with the phone in hand.

What appeared in front of Deng Rui was a photo.

There was a square wooden table with a copper pot in the middle. The pot was divided into two halves, one clear and one red. Dozens of ingredients were placed around it, almost occupying the entire tabletop.

“Isn’t this a very common hot pot?”

"No, no, no, this is hot pot in the capital."

“How is it different from our local ones?”

Wang Linghua put the phone away, and the faint blue light illuminated her serious face.

“I heard the ones in the capital are more authentic.”

Deng Rui was speechless for a moment and didn't know how to respond.

“What does the authentic smell taste like?”

"I haven't eaten it before, so I don't know. I'll take you to a whole meal when I have the chance."

Upon hearing this, Wang's father, who was driving the car, sat up straight and turned down the volume of the car stereo.

The Queen Mother, who was sitting in the passenger seat, also tilted her head slightly and turned her attention to the two people in the back seat.

"Deng Rui, are you the Deng Rui from Chunhua High School?"

Deng Rui was a little surprised by the Queen Mother's interruption.

"Auntie, do you recognize me?"

"I recognize him, of course I don't." The Queen Mother smiled and said, "He always gets first place in the exams and gives speeches at every parents' meeting to share his learning experiences. How can I not recognize him?"

"It's just a little fight between high school students. It's not worth mentioning. I'm sorry to have embarrassed you, auntie." Deng Rui said modestly.

Wang Linghua on the side rolled her eyes speechlessly.

I thought Deng Rui was an honest man, but it turns out he is a pretentious person.

"I heard that you were admitted to Wudaokou Technical School. What major did you choose?" Queen Mother asked again.

"Civil engineering." Deng Rui replied truthfully.

At this time, Wang's father interrupted and said, "The employment environment for civil engineering has not been very good in recent years! It is not as popular as before. In the past, people would come to you to grab a job before you even graduate from school, but now there are more people than jobs, and many people change careers as soon as they graduate."

Deng Rui thought for a moment and replied, "It's OK! An industry cannot reap dividends forever. Where there is glory, there will be decline. A dozen years ago, the real estate industry was booming and the status of civil engineering, which is closely related to it, rose with it. Now that the momentum of the wild development of real estate has passed and it has fallen into a downturn, the enthusiasm for civil engineering has naturally cooled down.

However, civil engineering has only returned to its rightful place, which does not mean that it is going to die. Food, clothing, shelter and transportation are the four basic needs of life. Unless humans become extinct, civil engineering will not be without a living soil. In addition, my country is a country with a large infrastructure. There are major projects every year, such as old city renovation and new city development, as well as foreign aid. As long as you have knowledge in your head and can endure hardships, it is not difficult to find a job in civil engineering. "

Speaking of being at a disadvantage, Wang Linghua recalled what she saw online, where a civil engineer went from joining the company to running away with his money.

"After you graduate from civil engineering, do you have to work on construction sites?"

Deng Rui couldn't figure out whether Wang Linghua was genuinely curious or just making a joke.

"Then let me ask you, those of you who study law, do you have to go to court to fight lawsuits after graduation?"

"Of course not! The people who go to court to litigate are prosecutors, judges and litigation lawyers. The rest of the people who work in corporate legal affairs and civil servants in the system who are not in the judicial system do not need to go to court."

Deng Rui followed Wang Linghua's instructions and replied, "It's the same for us civil engineers. Only those working on the front line of construction units need to go to the construction site to spread the plaster. Design, scientific research, and management in the back don't need to do that, at least not every day. Even if they go to the construction site, they don't need to spread the plaster themselves."

Wang Linghua looked thoughtful and said, "If I remember correctly, you are working in the field of bridge social networking?"

"How do you know?" Deng Rui was surprised.

"you said before."

"Did it?" Deng Rui searched his memory, but it was all blank. "When did it happen? Why can't I remember it?"

"Last year, after the winter break of our senior year, the master treated us to a meal," Wang Linghua reminded.

"Now that you mention it, I remember it now. It seems like you were confused about the future and wanted to cry..."

Wang Linghua curled her fingers into claws, firmly grasped Deng Rui's shoulders, and said with a smile: "Just forget the things you shouldn't remember, okay?"

The light flashing outside the car window shone on Wang Linghua's face. Although she had a smile on her lips, she looked particularly creepy.

Out of consideration for his own safety, Deng Rui nodded obediently.

"Very good." Wang Linghua let go of Deng Rui's shoulders and restrained her smile. "For a designer like you, what kind of employment units and career paths are there?"

"I know of two types: one is the design institute, and the other is the scientific research team of a university. The former takes orders from the client, while the latter teaches and educates people and conducts research and development. Sometimes they also work with the design institute to tackle tough problems."

"What's your job? Just sitting in an office and drawing on a computer?"

"Designing a bridge involves many areas, and drawing structural drawings is just one of them. Other areas include exploring the hydrological and geological conditions of the bridge's location, selecting the bridge's structure, wind and earthquake resistance design, construction methods and feasibility analysis, etc. These cannot be solved by drawing drawings alone, and require repeated discussions and field tests."

"It gives me a headache when I hear that. Fortunately I didn't choose engineering as my major." Wang Linghua said thankfully.

Deng Rui raised his eyebrows and asked, "Is studying law easier than engineering?"

Thinking of the several law books on the bookshelf in the school dormitory, which were at least as thick as a finger joint, Wang Linghua's slight sense of gloating suddenly disappeared.

“Oh, studying is so hard!”

(End of this chapter)