Free Web NovelChapter 165: Chapter 163: Am I Fierce?
Lin Ruoxi heard a ruckus coming from the senior Class 2 classroom. She hesitated for a moment before heading over.
It was her responsibility as a supervisory teacher.
Whenever Lin Ruoxi passed a classroom, the atmosphere inside would freeze for a split second.
By the time she was standing at the back door of Class 2, the students inside had quieted down.
Lin Ruoxi didn’t just represent herself; she also represented Director Wang.
However, the students in Class 2 had been with Lin Ruoxi for a year and had some understanding of her personality, so they weren’t overly nervous. They just did her the courtesy of lowering their voices significantly.
Some were chatting in low voices, while others were discussing academic problems.
"For Sister Xi’s sake, I’ll let you off the hook for now. Just you wait until we get back to the dorm," Qiu Mengze said resentfully.
Yi Bing just chuckled, not bothered in the slightest.
This was a common occurrence among the friends. Once they realized it was just a misunderstanding, it was no big deal. A trip to the school’s snack shop in the evening would be enough to smooth things over.
"Thanks, Sister Xi." Yi Bing nodded at Lin Ruoxi gratefully.
If Lin Ruoxi hadn’t cut him some slack, his life at school would have been miserable.
Yi Bing felt there was something unusual about the relationship between Lin Ruoxi and Xue Rui. It seemed she would do whatever Xue Rui said.
Lin Ruoxi was a person of strong principles—to put it bluntly, she had a one-track mind and treated every student the same. Yet, Xue Rui was able to make her break her own rules and make an exception for him.
"They call me Master Extinction. Am I that scary?" Lin Ruoxi asked in a small voice, sitting down next to Xue Rui.
She had looked up what Master Extinction meant online, and it wasn’t a compliment.
Xue Rui was taken aback. ’You, scary? Where on earth do you get the confidence to say that?’
He could make Lin Ruoxi cry just by raising his voice a little.
"They also call you Sister Xi. Why aren’t you asking about that one?" Xue Rui chuckled.
"Well, I started school a little late, so I’m a year older than them. That must be why they call me Sister Xi, right?" Lin Ruoxi said.
She had tried looking it up online but found no results, so she just stated her own assumption.
Xue Rui smiled, not refuting her guess. ’How can this girl be so innocent?’ he thought.
Lin Ruoxi didn’t fully trust answers from the internet. She wanted to hear Xue Rui’s explanation; in her mind, whatever he said was the truth.
"Master Extinction means you’re diligent and conscientious. It’s an affirmation of your work ethic," Xue Rui said, focusing only on the positive interpretation.
The girl was just too sensitive; he was afraid any negative feedback would make her upset.
"Oh, I see."
Lin Ruoxi was very happy. ’So that’s what it meant?’
Xue Rui thought to himself, ’This girl is already eighteen, a legal adult, but her mentality is still that of a child. One little thing can make her happy for ages, and one bad thing can make her sad for just as long.’
"I built the power bank you designed. It just doesn’t have a casing," Lin Ruoxi said. frёeweɓηovel.coɱ
"You built it?" Xue Rui was surprised. He had only mentioned it in passing and drawn a rough schematic. He never expected she would actually build it on her own.
Ever since crypto prices skyrocketed last year, Xue Rui had been sitting on a large pile of cash, feeling adrift.
He felt that waiting until college to start a business would be too late; he needed to use the time he had now to lay the groundwork.
Ever since he started using an iPhone, he’d had to charge it daily. Not only was the charging slow, but the battery life was also short. It was nothing compared to the smartphones from before his rebirth.
He didn’t have the resources to get into the phone business. The market in the coming years would be a bloodbath. Old brands like Nokia, Lenovo, and Coolpad would collapse under waves of price wars, while new brands like LeEco would emerge.
But making power banks was feasible. And what Xue Rui wanted to create was a *shared* power bank rental service.
He recalled the shared power bank market a decade later—a market saturated with devices made from low-quality components that charged slowly and cost a fortune to rent.
What was disgusting was how the companies manipulated the system, deliberately filling up return stations to make it easy for users to rent a power bank but difficult to return it. This forced people to pay overdue fees or even buy the device outright.
A ten-yuan power bank could end up costing a user one or two hundred yuan from their deposit.
It was supposed to be a public utility service for the masses, but the industry was built on unscrupulous profits—a "punitive" business model, in essence.
After all, it’s your own fault for not leaving the house prepared, right? So you’d better be ready to get fleeced by the shared power bank companies...
Xue Rui, however, had no intention of making money unscrupulously. He planned to use the shared power banks primarily to drive user traffic and build his brand image.
Besides, the earlier he entered the market, the less promotional pressure he would face.
He wanted to be a breath of fresh air in the shared power bank industry—and maybe even clean up the market in the process.
"I’ll come over tonight. We’re going to develop a new app. This one will be on a larger scale, and the development cycle will be longer," Xue Rui said seriously.
"Okay," Lin Ruoxi said, pursing her lips. Her heart was filled with an indescribable joy, and she nervously rubbed her hands together under the desk.
’I get to make an app with Xue Rui again.’
Every time they worked on an app, Xue Rui would stay at her house for a long time, and they would talk for hours about their work.
As Lin Ruoxi left the classroom, her steps felt much lighter. She was already thinking about what delicious meal she would make for Xue Rui that evening.
Just then, Gu Muxue arrived at school. She and Lin Ruoxi brushed past each other, making brief eye contact and giving a slight nod.
Although they had spoken before, their relationship was nothing more than that of nodding acquaintances.
Their social circles didn’t overlap in the slightest, and their personalities were polar opposites. Gu Muxue found communicating with Lin Ruoxi to be exhausting.
Besides, she always had to tilt her head up to look at Lin Ruoxi. At 170 cm, she was already considered tall for a girl, but Lin Ruoxi was 175 cm. The feeling of having to look up at another girl was... odd.
Lin Ruoxi, on the other hand, was actually a little scared of Gu Muxue. She couldn’t comprehend Gu Muxue’s bubbly energy and just found her a bit intimidating.
Gu Muxue walked to the back door of Class 2 and motioned for Xue Rui to come out with a glance.
"Xiaorui, I’ve prepared a lot of practice problems for your weaker subjects. Find me when you’re done, and I’ll go over them with you," Gu Muxue said, handing Xue Rui a stack of printed worksheets.
With only a few months left until the college entrance exams, getting Xue Rui’s score up to the cutoff for Chang’an Jiaotong University was a lost cause, but it was still necessary to keep his grades from slipping.
"Alright, Teacher Gu," Xue Rui said with a smile.
This girl had really gone above and beyond for his studies. His current grades were largely thanks to Gu Muxue’s efforts.
Otherwise, with his adult mentality, it would’ve been difficult for him to stick with it this long.
Gu Muxue deliberately put on a stern face and huffed. "Teacher Gu finds your attitude insincere."
"Alright, Teacher Muxue," Xue Rui replied with exaggerated earnestness.
...
As evening fell, Xue Rui and Lin Ruoxi left the school together.
Thanks to Lin Ruoxi’s status as a supervisory teacher, the security guard didn’t stop them and let them pass right through.
Walking down a road so familiar it felt like second nature, Xue Rui gazed at the darkening sky and casually draped his arm over Lin Ruoxi’s shoulder.
"I... I finally stopped growing," Lin Ruoxi said timidly, a happy smile flashing across her face.
She had been so afraid of getting too tall. ’Thank goodness I haven’t grown at all these past few months.’
Xue Rui pinched her cheek teasingly. "Good. Any taller and I’d have to start looking up to you."
Previously, Lin Ruoxi had lived under strained financial conditions with poor nutrition. Once her situation improved, she had a growth spurt and shot up to 175 cm, almost as tall as Qiu Mengze.
Xue Rui thought her proportions were perfect; she had what it took to be a model.
They returned to Lin Ruoxi’s house.
As soon as they walked in, Da Huang poked his head through the crack in the door, shamelessly rubbing his face against Lin Ruoxi’s long legs, his tail wagging furiously.
In the dim living room, the television flickered with gaudy, colorful light. The harsh glare cast across the old woman’s wrinkled face made her look even more ancient.
This scene had been a regular occurrence for a year and a half now; Xue Rui was used to it.
"Grandma, haven’t I told you to turn on the lights when you watch TV?" Xue Rui said, casually flipping on all the living room lights. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
The old woman was afraid of wasting electricity, always penny-pinching in the oddest ways. She didn’t realize that watching TV in the dark was bad for her eyes. Xue Rui had tried to convince her, but it was no use; it was the same every time.
Lin Ruoxi’s personality was a product of her family background, shaped in part by her grandmother’s example.
Xue Rui felt that if he spent too much time with the elderly, he’d become a nag himself.
After dinner, Xue Rui sat down at the computer to write up a project plan for Lin Ruoxi. He would be in charge of the design, and she would handle the execution.
What Xue Rui wanted to build was a lifestyle app, similar to the super-apps for local services and food delivery, but he was self-aware enough to know that starting now was too late to compete with the giants.
He wasn’t trying to steal market share from the giants; he was aiming to create a campus-focused brand.
Universities would continue to expand enrollment in the future, meaning the on-campus student population would reach tens of millions annually—a massive market.
There were many similar campus life service platforms, but none had ever managed to capture the entire national market, not even in the future he came from.
Those campus lifestyle platforms catered only to the current student market. The moment a student graduated, they deleted all school-related apps. The market size was perpetually fixed, yet more and more competitors jumped in, leading to a vicious cycle of hyper-competition...
But Xue Rui’s ambitions went beyond that. He was on the same wavelength as young people; he knew their pain points. He wanted to create an app that students wouldn’t delete after graduation, one that would serve them from university admission all the way to their entry into the professional world...
"I didn’t do a very good job," Lin Ruoxi said, holding a power bank with all its components exposed.
Xue Rui gave it a cursory glance, then tried plugging his phone into it.
Lin Ruoxi was incredibly skilled with her hands. She had designed the circuit board, ordered a custom print online, and done all the soldering herself...
But the result was still crude, a far cry from a mass-produced, finished product.
But that was to be expected. Even a genius can’t create something they’ve never seen before.
Lin Ruoxi had a vast reserve of theoretical knowledge but lacked practical manufacturing experience, so her designs were unrefined.
As his phone’s charging notification chimed, Xue Rui smiled. "This is already incredible."
Hearing Xue Rui praise her again, Lin Ruoxi felt a small swell of satisfaction in her heart.
Others praised her too, but it wasn’t the same. When Xue Rui praised her, she felt genuinely happy.
Seeing Xue Rui turn back to the computer screen, Lin Ruoxi felt like he had forgotten something. She leaned over, bringing her head close and resting it gently on his shoulder.
Xue Rui wondered, ’What is this girl doing? Is she trying to get fresh with me again?’
He turned his head slightly and met her gaze. He saw a hint of anticipation in her eyes...
’Did I forget to pat her head?’ Xue Rui mumbled to himself. He tentatively reached out and patted her on the head.
The corners of the girl’s mouth curved up gently, revealing a contented smile...
