It was not Lu Ze's birthday, but he could understand his roommates' thinking. After surmounting this pit, his life would begin anew.
He felt hot, a surging current of warmth in his heart. Boys…they wouldn't bring their feelings to their mouth, nor would they say 'brother this ''brother that' over and over again. However, their actions could enter deep into one's heart, never to be forgotten for one's entire life.
Lu Ze forced himself to raise his pounding head and cleaned himself. Then, he went to transfer money for his younger sister. If he couldn't even remember this matter, he might as well hang himself and end his misery.
Today was the first day he skipped classes and slept till noon. Eating lunch, he again picked up a textbook and soaked the knowledge inside with even greater vigor. As for the final exams approaching in three days? Was it even worth considering? Normal students were studying while howling in anguish at this moment, but Lu Ze was not a normal student. He was one hell of a student!
After yesterday's affair, he felt that if he couldn't have a romance, then so be it; his family was the most important. He must bring his family to good times and be a worthy man.
Like that, he returned to his sleepless schedule once more. Everyday, he revised until twelve in the night and then woke up at five am the next day, going to the dining hall to work. Even while making egg soup, he would be revising something in his mind.
He found a several-year-old, second-level architect test online and decided to give it a try. However, he easily passed with high marks.
A college graduate was permitted to become a certified architect only after two years of experience. However, he passed the exams even as a first year student. This was the gain from his efforts.
After the exams, Lu Ze was called by the class professor. She gave an opportunity to him, an opportunity to earn money.
He was the most frightening student she'd ever taught. A first year student's design had already reached the department head's table and was being displayed in the corridors of the college.
This design even made the teachers feel a bit of inferiority. It was not because Lu Ze was already better than the teachers, but because his creativity was always supported by the latest resources and products, riding the wave of the country's latest trends of interior designing.
On the other hand, the teachers, to some extent, had stopped to look for resources in the market long ago. Interior designing was such a field. Its rate of advancement was not slower than electronics, and might even be faster. One's best work could lose its prime at any moment.
Lu Ze had gained a lot of face for her. Moreover, his family circumstances were crystal-clear to her. Therefore, she helped Lu Ze to be introduced to teachers' peers in the business line. He found work in a medium-sized interior design company.
Lu Ze called home and informed his family that he would not be returning for the summer vacations. He grabbed a few sets of clean clothes and headed to the company.
The living space was the dormitory for the sales personnel provided by the company, and food steamed buns along with pickled mustard tuber. In this manner, he began his work from the very first day of the vacation.
His monthly salary was fifteen hundred yuan. It was the price offered by the boss because he didn't have experience. However, Lu Ze accepted it without hesitation, because his aim was not the fixed wage.
He had his own computer in the company, and he had to create some small designs in place of the designer. For any design that passed, he would get five hundred yuan.
In thirteen days, his design earned a thousand yuan.
After a month, he began to receive medium sized designs, at least above the hundred meters mark, fetching two thousand and five hundred for one. Consequently, due to a designer resigning, the company ran short on manpower, allowing him to receive a complete villa design for the very first time. No matter if it passed or not, he would receive a compensation of eight thousand yuan.
Half a month later, the boss asked Lu Ze if he wanted to work as a regular employee. He would be paid in accord with per square meter!
However, Lu Ze declined, because his family cared about the degree too much and wanted to have a college graduate from their family. If he dropped out, his father would die from anger.
Two months later, the boss watched Lu Ze pack his things and leave with regret. This summer vacation earned Lu Ze thirty thousand yuan and a designer's contact. Henceforth, if the designer were too busy, he could give some to Lu Ze. With that, the designer would have less work, and he would make free money. Thus, he was obviously quite willing.
In this manner, although the money Lu Ze earned would be less per design, the quantity could make up for it. As long as he worked hard, he would not be making any less than before.
His time had finally come!
Holding the money, Lu Ze went to GOME Electronics and bought a seven thousand yuan phone for Nannan, and then bought a desktop computer for himself, costing almost twenty thousand yuan.
Thus, he had less than eight thousand yuan left on him. The second year started, and he had to pay tuition fee, accommodation fee, and a variety of other fees, leaving him only with two thousand yuan.
He then bought a feet-washer for his father and a set of cosmetics for his mother, leaving him with only five hundred yuan, once again falling to the rock bottom.
However, everything had changed for the better, hadn't it?
When the college opened, the three roommates found that Lu Ze had again undergone a huge transformation. His temperament had become unusually steady. He didn't seem like a student, but like a white collar…no, even better...like a businessman.
However, he turned into an otaku and quit the dining hall work. Apart from going to classes...no...he even skipped a lot of classes. He remained cooped inside the room and didn't read books but worked on computer graphics.
Even if they opened their eyes at two or three in the night, they could hear the heat wave and high-speed fan noise as the computer rendered images.
After half a month, Lu Ze again changed. He bought a few high-end clothes: not the sports type, but the mature type.
When he wore the clothes, there was no incongruity. With sideburns, a swept-back hairstyle, western pants, leather shoes, and a metal wrist-watch, he looked like a mature man. However, this didn't change the feelings between them. Instead this bunch, who originally had drifted somewhat apart due to their different hobbies, under the sentiment of just returning back from home, created such a ruckus in the dormitory whenever Lu Ze was free that it seemed like Iraq, seeming as if their roof would explode apart one day.
Since Lu Ze's transformation was too big, the girls from his class, and even the neighboring class, began to pay attention to him. His temperament seemed very man-like, moreover a handsome-man like.
Some exchange contacts with him and sent him casual messages. However, Lu Ze's rate of replies, which was once in two hours, ate their patience up.
An audacious one even confronted him in the class and asked for a clarification. However, Lu Ze's reply left them speechless. Some boys, who proclaimed the grapes sour because they couldn't have them, couldn't help but say, "Showoff!"
That was because Lu Ze had said, "I'm too busy with work. I don't have time to date. If you chat with me, you'll most likely feel ignored. So, you might as well not chat, thank you!"
Seeing Lu Ze showing off, the boys rebuked furiously, "Do you even attend classes? You're working? Is your work gaming all day? You're too pretentious! If you only like gaming and don't like girls, just say so!"
Only Lu Ze's roommates knew that his words didn't have a single lie: He was indeed too busy. A person who was rendering designs until past midnight wasn't busy in their eyes?
He was so busy that they were embarrassed to ask him for their assignments, so busy that he was even spending money to have others sketch for him. This was how the big brother rolled!
However, at this point, the female students chasing after him finally disappeared completely.
At his family's side, Lu Ze sent at least fifteen thousand yuan per month, allowing his family's troubles to ease by many times. Lu Nannan was also finding a high school to continue her studies after working for a year, finally removing the blade in Lu Ze's heart.
Nevertheless, Lu Ze saw that girl several times. He saw her becoming an official couple with her boyfriend, saw her become alone, and then saw her roaming with her friends again. Her emotional journey didn't seem to have smooth sailing.
Until one day in the second half of the second year…