lcionline Chapter 1277 Yun Rui's sincerity: The third side of the coin
Chapter 1277 Yun Rui's sincerity: The third side of the coin
As autumn turned to winter, Lin Xu wrapped himself tightly in his washed-out sweater and stood in front of the convenience store refrigerator for a long time.
The sandwiches on the shelf were labeled "half price near expiration", and mold spots were faintly visible under the transparent packaging. He finally grabbed two packets of instant noodles and stuffed them into the shopping cart - this was his dinner for the third consecutive week.
Outside the glass door, the wind from the Thames blew dead leaves onto his thin coat. The threads exposed at the hem fluttered helplessly in the wind, just like his crumbling life at the moment.
The scene when I first arrived in Cambridge three months ago seems like a lifetime ago.
At that time, he lived in a single-family apartment provided by Gu Yunqian. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of his study was a neatly trimmed lawn. Professors rushed to invite him to participate in cutting-edge projects, and he was free to use the most advanced equipment in the laboratory.
And now, he was huddled in a basement on the outskirts of the city, with dark green mold covering the walls and the sound of rats scurrying in the pipes all night long.
Whenever the night rain hit the vents above his head, he would always think of Gu Yunqian's cold warning before he hung up the phone: "Dr. Lin, without the support of the Gu family, you are not even a speck of dust in Cambridge."
The incandescent light in the laboratory hurts the eyes. Lin Xu's hand holding the pipette trembles slightly, and the blue liquid in the test tube almost spills out.
"Lin, this data has too much error." Professor Johnson, the instructor, frowned and threw the lab report on the table. His eyes behind the gold-rimmed glasses were full of disgust. "Perhaps you should focus more on your part-time job as a food delivery man."
There were bursts of sneers coming from all around, and several classmates who used to be close to him turned their faces away, as if they were avoiding the plague.
He bent down to pick up the scattered reports, his knuckles scraping across the scratches on the table, marks left by the excitement he had when he published an important paper here last year.
The laundry room late at night was filled with the pungent smell of cheap laundry detergent.
Lin Xu squatted on the ground and stuffed his leaky sneakers into the dryer. In the machine next to him, professors' neat suits were rolling, and the sheen of their cashmere coats hurt his eyes.
My phone vibrated in my trouser pocket. It was a text message from the landlord urging me to pay my rent: "If you don't pay the rent tomorrow, you'll be kicked out with your crappy books."
He stared at the flashing cursor on the screen and suddenly remembered that Gu Yunxi once said that he looked like he was playing the piano when writing code.
At that time he retorted with a smile, but now he doesn't even have the money to buy a second-hand computer to continue his research.
The turning point came on a rainy evening.
While Lin Xu was washing dishes in a Chinese restaurant, he heard two international students in the kitchen talking about a biotech entrepreneurship competition.
The figure of a prize of half a million pounds made him tighten his grip on the steel wool, and his nails left a crescent-shaped bloody mark on his palm.
He ran back to the basement in the rain overnight and found a notebook that had been gnawed by mice under the leaking eaves. The yellowed pages were densely filled with records of his interrupted research ideas.
The lightning outside the window illuminated his shining eyes. He grabbed a pencil and began to calculate. The rain poured down his collar into his back, but it could not extinguish the fire that had been rekindled in his heart.
In order to register for the competition, he mortgaged the only valuable thing he had.
The pawnshop owner examined the item repeatedly with a magnifying glass and finally threw out a few crumpled bills: "This piece of junk is only worth this much."
Lin Xu rushed into the printing shop with the money tightly clenched. When the bound entry materials fell on the judges' table, there was still ketchup on his shirt cuffs - that was the mark left when he delivered the pizza this morning.
On the day of the preliminary defense, the auditorium in Cambridge was packed.
Lin Xu stood under the spotlight, looking at Professor Johnson's mocking sneer below the stage, and suddenly remembered Gu Yunxi's favorite poem: "We look up at the same sky, but look at different places."
He took a deep breath and began to explain his new theory of gene editing. His voice was trembling at first, but became more firm when he got to the key points.
When the data model was perfectly presented on the big screen, the whole audience was so quiet that he could hear their breathing. He saw several professors take off their glasses and wipe the lenses - that was their usual action when they were shocked.
As he walked out of the auditorium, the setting sun stretched his shadow very long.
The phone was vibrating wildly in my pocket as invitations to collaborate with sponsors and emails offering reinstatement in the lab came pouring in.
Lin Xu just stared at the number in the address book that had been locked for three months, his finger hovering over the three words "Gu Yunxi" for a long time.
Finally, he opened his mailbox and forwarded the news of winning the competition to that familiar yet unfamiliar address, with only a brief note: "I hope the ginkgo trees in Cambridge will bloom earlier next year."
As night fell, Lin Xu stood in front of the moldy window in the basement, looking at the college's bell tower in the distance.
The cold wind was still biting, but he knew that he had just won the first round of this game with fate.
And those days and nights of struggling in the mire, those dignity that was crushed and reshaped, will eventually become his sharp weapon to fight back against the Gu family and the fate.
The morning mist in Cambridge had not yet dissipated. Lin Xu stood at the door of a basement on the outskirts of the city, with the wheels of the suitcase in his hand stuck in the cracks of the broken stone slabs.
The text message of the transfer of the five hundred thousand pounds bonus flashed on the screen of his mobile phone, making the dark circles under his eyes even darker.
The smell of burnt wheat wafting from the bakery on the corner reminded him of the three consecutive months when he had to rely on expired bread to fill his stomach. If he chose to move to a new place, he could move into an apartment with a garden next to King's College with just one phone call.
If he were to start his own business, the equipment in the laboratory that had been covered in dust due to funding cuts would seem to be beckoning to him.
He squatted down to adjust the suitcase, his fingertips rubbing over the dents on the suitcase that were gnawed by mice. The scene of curling up in the moldy corner writing code three months ago suddenly became clear, the lab report that Professor Johnson threw on the table, the cold busy tone when Gu Yunqian hung up the phone, and the ginkgo leaf pendant around Gu Yunxi's neck became a shadow in his memory.
Starting a business requires connections and resources, and Gu Jia can make all partners back off with just one sentence;
Moving to a new apartment is just a temporary solution. When the champagne is refilled in the wine cabinet, the inspiration that sprouted in the difficult situation will also rot.
"Mr. Lin, Ms. Anna is waiting for you." The window of the black car was lowered, and cold air filled with the scent of cedar blew in.
Lin Xu threw the suitcase into the trunk. In the rearview mirror, the mottled red brick wall of the basement gradually shrank into a dot.
The leather seats in the car were so soft that his spine stiffened. This long-lost feeling of comfort made him alert - he had been trapped in the comfort provided by the Gu family until he was uprooted.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the New World Group's London branch, the Thames glowed with iron-gray light. Anna pushed the gilded coffee cup over and glanced at the cuffs of Lin Xu's sweater, "Does Dr. Lin intend to use this money to repay Mr. Gu's investment?"
She tapped the contract with her burgundy-painted fingernails. "From what I know, this should be your biggest source of income in the near future, right? If you use it on yourself, it will be enough to help you out in your immediate situation."
Lin Xu turned the ceramic cup, and the heat from the edge of the cup blurred his reflection on the glass. Three months of pizza delivery had worn away too many edges and corners of him. A rainy night in London would not show mercy to someone just because he was a Cambridge PhD.
"Please help me transfer the full amount of the bonus to Mr. Gu." He took out a wrinkled notebook from his backpack. There was a half dried ginkgo leaf between the yellowed pages. "Also, please tell me a message: the debt is settled, but the game has just begun."
The moment Anna raised her eyebrows, Lin Xu had already stood up.
His eyes swept across the huge photo of Gu Yunqian on the wall, and he remembered what the other party said on the phone: "You are not even a speck of dust in Cambridge."
When he walked out of the building, the cold wind and drizzle hit his face, but he smiled - the moment he pushed the bonus back, he was no longer a puppet locked by debt and favors.
This money is like a coin. People only see the two sides of it: “repayment” and “investment”, but ignore the third side: it is the knife that cuts off the shackles, and also the bargaining chip to re-enter the game...