Guan Zai finished saying everything in one breath, and then he criticized, "Old Yu, you did not have this bad habit of being such a poser before."
Yu Tu:
"… At the beginning, I won five days in a row, so they revoked my card game membership."
"When you talk like this, you're even more pretentious. Restraint ah. You already look handsome, and on top of that you're a poser. Give others a chance to live, okay?" Guan Zai said seriously, "The purpose of my call is to warn you…"
"You must continue your posing, ha ha ha." He burst into laughter over the phone. "Don't give a glimmer of hope to the brothers of other institutes. When you come back, I'll bestow you the title of 'The Pride and Glory of Our Institute' to you!"
Yu Tu:
"… Is your wife by your side? Give the phone to her."
Yu Tu directly expressed his wish that he did not want to talk to him anymore.
Shen Jing took the phone.
Yu Tu immediately asked about Guan Zai's health condition. Shen Jing sounded much more relaxed than before, and she also did not try avoid having Guan Zai hear. She talked about the progress of the medical treatment and said it was much better than expected.
"You've asked so much, but you actually don't know a damn thing!" Guan Zai snatched the phone back. "Chief Sun called to inquire about whether you have a girlfriend. How should I answer?"
He chuckled. "How about I answer that you like your high school classmate Qiao Jing Jing?"
Yu Tu was taken aback for a bit but then immediately understood. Guan Zai probably watched the video forwarded by the work group in WeChat. A while ago, the video of the KPL exhibition match he participated in had finally spread to the work group in the institute and attracted a lot of attention. Guan Zai was so smart; he definitely would have connected it to what he had said in Xi'an.
"Didn't you brag that the girl likes you? I watched the video and felt that lady is really interested in you. But you're still running around as a bachelor; what's up with that?"
Yu Tu gave a wry smile and sat down on the sand, holding his mobile phone. "Before, I'd always been thinking, what can I give her? No money, okay, but I may not even be able to always keep her company."
She was very delicate, tended to act like a spoiled child, needed people to indulge her, and lived exquisitely and comfortably all the time.
He was initially been full of joy. But one day, when he bowed his head, he discovered that his palm was so rough. He simply could not reach it out to take hold of such a pearl.
Guan Zai was silent for a long time over there, and Yu Tu also didn't talk. They remained on the line like this. After a while, Guan Zai said, "Yu Tu, my wife said, that's not how things are counted."
Then he scolded, "Are you a blockhead?"
This was the first time in his life that he was scolded like this, but Yu Tu actually smiled. He raised his head to look up at the starry sky, purer than other places, above him and sincerely admitted, "You are right."
When he returned to Shanghai, there were still more than ten days until the Spring Festival. Yu Tu first went to visit Guan Zai and was once again ridiculed for a long time.
After a few days of work, one day when he was eating in the cafeteria, Da Meng suddenly said, "On this work trip, who did you learn your new catchphrase from?"
Yu Tu was surprised, "What?"
"You didn't realize it yourself? You love to say, 'Everyone, let's work just a little bit more, a little harder.'" Da Meng complained, "It's the same catchphrase the head teacher of my senior year in high school used. I'll get shivers from the top of my head when I hear it."
After he finished saying, he continued to eat his meal. But Yu Tu held his chopsticks and stared blankly for a while. When he lowered his head again to pick up some food again, there was a smiling expression in his eyes.
There was an additional habit to Yu Tu's daily life routine — writing letters.
Every night after returning home, no matter how late it was, before going to bed he would unfold a sheet of stationery and write a letter.
The content of the first letter was about the first cosmic velocity. This question is very simple, but it also involves some theories and formulas that people usually don't understand. Yu Tu tried as much as possible to explain this complicated subject matter in simple terms.
The second letter compared the level of China's aerospace technology to foreign countries.
On the snow-white letter paper, under the light from the desk lamp, Yu Tu wrote out everything methodically—
"This question is too broad, so I may have to use a lot of letters to answer you. In this letter, let's first talk about the history of the development of the modern aerospace …"
He finished writing the letter before going to bed. The next day, he took it and dropped it into the mailbox outside the work unit. By the time Spring Festival holiday arrived, he had mailed out ten letters altogether.
When he dropped the last letter before the New Year into the mailbox, Yu Tu thought, if during the Spring Festival holiday, there was no…
Then after coming back, he had no better option but to start talking about immigration to Mars.