Chapter 78: A Change of Heart
After they dropped Liu Shang off at the school gate, Wu Caiyun watched his figure gradually disappear before sighing softly.
"Old Song, I really don't blame Brother Pan for giving you a hard time."
"Even though I've only known him for a short while, it's clear at first glance that Liu Shang is a good kid."
"He's mature, stable, and sincere. I really like him."
"Instead of being scheming and cunning like you suspected, I think he has a deep-seated integrity to his character."
"Besides, if Professor Xu, Mr. Zhong, and Brother Pan are all optimistic about him at the same time, then our judgment of him can't be wrong."
"If Jiajia were really with a boy like that, I don't think I, as her mother, would object."
Meanwhile, when Liu Shang returned to his dormitory, he was met with an unexpected sight.
Not only was his own dorm room empty, but so were all the other rooms in their major.
The dormitory corridor, which was usually so lively, was now eerily deserted and silent.
He remembered there were no classes today.
But the people! Where had they all gone?
Could there be some major school activity or important event for their major that he had missed?
Already walking on thin ice with his class absences, Liu Shang absolutely did not want any other trouble to crop up.
With a sense of dread, Liu Shang called Zheng Shiwei, the head of their dorm room.
The next moment, he received an answer that left him speechless.
It turned out that Liu Shang had been so busy lately that he had hardly attended any classes.
This had led to extreme disappointment among the many teachers who, like Li Wenzhong, had wanted to witness the "magical" student in action or test his knowledge.
So, one after another, the teachers all issued a warning: it seems your classmate Liu Shang disdains our classes so much that he doesn't even bother to show up anymore?
Fine, then. We'll see you all at the final exam!
No problem! There will be no mercy!
Just like the college entrance examination, the questions will be extensions of the textbook material.
If you don't want to fail, then you'd better summon the same energy you had during the college entrance exam!
If it were only two courses, like Advanced Mathematics and Surfactant Chemistry, the students would have toughed it out.
But now that this was happening in almost every subject, the students were in such a panic they didn't know where to begin.
And everyone felt a strange mix of sympathy and resentment for Liu Shang, the culprit behind it all.
They were really suffering because of him!
A few days later, construction began on the dozen or so wells in the second round of measures by Huahai Company.
With that, Liu Shang became the busiest person in the entire company.
There was no way around it. Due to the advanced concepts of his technology, ordinary people couldn't really help much, so he had to shoulder the entire burden himself.
Sometimes, when there were problems on-site or a construction curve was abnormal, Liu Shang didn't even have time to go back to his dormitory.
Seeing him like this, Mr. Zhong, Xu Tiande, and the others felt for him, and at the same time, their admiration for him grew.
For a kid like Liu Shang, only a freshman, to possess such a hardworking and dedicated nature was truly commendable.
Since that last meal with Liu Shang, Song Guangyuan's attitude toward him had undergone a 180-degree change.
The previous resentment and estrangement had vanished, replaced by a level of concern that surpassed even that of Mr. Zhong and Xu Tiande.
On more than one occasion, Song Guangyuan called Liu Shang into his office and told him not to work himself to the bone and not to do everything alone.
He was still so young; his body wouldn't be able to handle it. He could hand some of the work over to Ma Yuan and the others.
However, Liu Shang's answer was always that he couldn't trust Ma Yuan and the others with it.
This was the final, critical battle. He would just have to endure it until it was over.
Seeing Liu Shang's determination, Song Guangyuan felt for him even more. He directly allocated the best guest room in the company to Liu Shang, allowing him to rest and live there whenever he needed to.
One day, HR Manager Sun walked into Song Guangyuan's office.
"President Song, I need your signature on this special material procurement plan."
"It's for the latest Apple laptop that Song Jia asked for."
"Although it hasn't been officially released in China yet, we can get it through special channels."
Song Guangyuan immediately picked up the plan to look at it. As he did, he recalled the difficult conditions Liu Shang was working under at the sites.
Due to the large number of wells under construction, Liu Shang was worried about confusing the situation of each one, so he had to use a notepad, meticulously recording every detail and all the incoming data by hand.
Seeing Song Guangyuan staring into space, Manager Sun mistakenly thought he found the price too high and began to explain.
"The price of these Apple laptops has always been very high."
"Especially for an unofficial version like this, the price is inflated even more, over ten thousand yuan per machine."
"But it's no wonder Song Jia likes it. Even in the pictures, this Apple laptop is beautiful."
Before he could finish, Song Guangyuan smiled and waved his hands.
"Ah, that's not what I was thinking."
"Jiajia has been wanting this computer for a long time. As long as she's happy, over ten thousand yuan is nothing."
"Old Sun, go back and change this plan. This time, buy two laptops. Give one to Liu Shang."
"Also, this computer is a personal gift to him, not to be recorded in the company's office asset ledger."
"With Liu Shang directing so many wells at once, he really can't do it without a laptop."
Song Guangyuan's last sentence had a slightly defensive tone.
However, in front of Old Sun, who had spent a lifetime in human resources and developed a razor-sharp eye for people, such an excuse was completely transparent.
If it were really just for work, a domestic laptop costing four thousand yuan would have been more than enough.
Why the need for an Apple laptop costing over ten thousand? And why was it being given to him personally, off the company books?
The old foxes at the company, like Manager Sun and Mr. Zhong, had all clearly noticed Song Guangyuan's special fondness for Liu Shang recently.
Now, buying the exact same expensive computer for both Song Jia and Liu Shang was enough to confirm their suspicions.
But choosing not to call him out on it, Manager Sun simply smiled in response and then changed the subject.
Meanwhile, as the construction progressed, the patent that Liu Shang had been waiting for was finally approved.
The CAD drawings that Mr. Zhong had often seen Liu Shang working on in his spare time were, in fact, for a mechanical tool patent he had been secretly developing.
At that time, the fluidic devices used by many construction units in the Fengcheng Oilfield for profile control and chemical dispensing were still located atop chemical tanks that were several meters high.
This was not only troublesome and unsafe, but the mixing effect was also average.
Using the memory from his previous life, Liu Shang had improved the ejector device and the entire dispensing process.
With his new design, mixing chemicals no longer required climbing to great heights. All the work could be done on the ground, and the dispensing effect was also improved to a certain extent.
After seeing the patent and the design, Xu Tiande and Mr. Zhong were, once again, left completely stunned.
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