Chapter 44 Familiar Taste_1

Qin Ming, dressed in an ordinary white shirt, walked into the school gate. Although his attire was simple, his good looks drew several glances from the girls, who couldn't help but steal looks at him.

With the green eyes of the girls upon him, Qin Ming confidently walked down the school's main road, his figure disappearing into the teaching building.

The teaching building had a total of seven stories.

The first floor was the place for experiments, serving as the laboratory for subjects such as chemistry, physics, and biology.

The second floor was for the first year of junior high, the third floor for the second year, and so on, with the uppermost sixth floor being designated for the third year of senior high.

Peking University High School covered a vast area, with several thousand students and teachers combined, including both junior and senior high divisions. Qin Ming had also attended junior high here, then advanced to the high school division after being directly promoted through the first and second preliminary exams at the end of his third year.

Qin Ming made his way to the fifth floor and entered the classroom of senior high first year, class one.

This was the top class of the first year in senior high. As he walked in, he saw many students diligently engaged in their morning studies.

With the end-of-term exams just over ten days away, they all wanted to score well, to enjoy a peaceful and pleasant summer vacation rather than face their parents' "mixed doubles" scolding.

Qin Ming skimmed past them and, recalling the original host's memory, sat back down in his own seat.

Qin Ming's appearance attracted many curious glances, after all, he was part of class one's image, in terms of both looks and grades.

Even though many students were curious about his whereabouts in the past few days, none came to ask. Qin Ming, who preferred to listen to the lectures from a corner, was happy with the quiet.

The original host was a loner. He had no real friends at the school, and although he was better looking than the school's heartthrob and had excellent academic performance, he kept to himself. He was not keen on interacting with others, hated being disturbed, and liked to immerse himself in his own world.

In the school's ivory tower, teachers value grades, while girls look at attractiveness, not as materialistic as the women in society.

In his previous life, if he had had such looks, he would have surely become a ladykiller at school.

As an original host with the potential to be a ladykiller, at first he did receive love letters from admiring girls. But he would only critique the language used in the letters, pointing out grammatical errors, areas that lacked fluency, or where the emotional build-up fell short. He would even kindly edit them, improving the phrasing to make them more poignant.

However, as time went on, he began to ruthlessly toss the love letters into the trash can, because these girls simply did not understand language and literature. Gradually, the girls learned he was an oddball, stopped writing him love letters, and no one wanted to interact with him.

After this ordeal, the original host, in the midst of puberty, occasionally lamented:

Wouldn't it be great if love were as simple as language and literature!

The teachers knew that Qin Ming had taken five days off, and since this was the sixth day, they weren't surprised to see him back at school today.

The morning's schedule included Chinese, math, English, and physics—although the last class should have been physical education, it was canceled due to the PE teacher's chronic illness.

Time flew by, and noon at 12 o'clock arrived swiftly.

"Class dismissed!"

At the Chinese teacher's command, a chubby student grabbed his washbowl-sized stainless steel bowl and charged out first.

The other eager eaters also picked up their food bowls and thundered toward the canteen.

There's a physical law in the high school cafeteria: the bigger the bowl, the more food served. This is because the more drastic the comparison between the meager serving and the colossal bowl, the more even the canteen ladies feel compelled to add more to make it look presentable.

Within two minutes, only a handful of students were left in the classroom. Qin Ming pulled out a regular-sized stainless steel bowl from his desk drawer.

By the time he reached the cafeteria, several long lines had already formed at the food-serving windows.

Finding one of the shorter lines, Qin Ming quietly queued up at the end.

"Qin Ming?"

Just then, a familiar voice called out from behind him. Qin Ming turned his head to see the person speaking was Liu Yueyue.

In that moment, Liu Yueyue's face was bright with a radiant smile, full of surprise.

"I didn't expect it to really be you!"

"I also didn't expect that Liu Yueyue would come to the cafeteria for a meal," Qin Ming responded with a smile.

The cafeteria food tasted average, and many students who came from affluent families and were accustomed to delicacies seldom ate there. Instead, they used the living expenses provided by their parents to dine out every day.

The cheap meals that even dogs would turn their noses up at were a great source for students from average or poor backgrounds to replenish the brain's consumption from learning and to grow their bodies.

Liu Yueyue's family was well-off, but she seemed to lack this realization and, contrary to others:

"I'm not some young lady from the books who is too noble to eat mundane food. Why couldn't I come here? The cafeteria food may taste average, but it's still very balanced in nutrition!"

The two started chatting, and before they knew it, it was their turn. Faced with Qin Ming and Liu Yueyue, the cafeteria auntie unusually refrained from flipping her wok and instead tossed a few extra pieces of meat into their bowls.

Then, they sat down on the cafeteria benches to eat.

In fact, as a qualified top student, Qin Ming's meal card was topped up with a 200 yuan subsidy from the school each month, which was enough to cover most of his meals at school. The cafeteria meals carried many years of memories from his former life, from elementary to high school; one could say he grew up eating these meals.

In this world of 2007, even in Kyoto, a high school cafeteria meal with two meat dishes and one vegetable only cost six yuan. School cafeterias were always cheaper than the outside, and while the taste couldn't compare to that of restaurants, they had the advantage of balanced nutrition and ample protein.

Especially when there was the occasional surprise of an extra dish.

Qin Ming picked out a protein-rich caterpillar from his bok choy and shoveled a bite of rice into his mouth.

Yep, it was the familiar taste.

Looking up, he noticed that the greens Liu Yueyue had picked up also had a caterpillar on them.

"Wait," Qin Ming called out to stop her, but he was a moment too late.

Liu Yueyue, who had already eaten the bug, looked up with her cheeks puffed out, chewing while she eyed him quizzically.

"It's okay, carry on."

"The cafeteria really does provide balanced nutrition."

Qin Ming paused, then decided against telling her the cruel truth.

After finishing lunch, the two went their separate ways. Qin Ming planned to talk to his homeroom teacher. His mindset had changed after time-traveling; staying in a high school classroom now felt empty and meaningless.

A true dragon cannot be contained in a small pond.

He couldn't possibly go through another two years of high school in the usual way; instead, he wanted to take the college entrance exam the following year and get to university as soon as possible.

In the Three-Body World, Qin Ming was just an ordinary high school student. If he didn't continue his studies, what else could he do?

Start a high-tech company?

Lead the development of the era?

Devise ways to counter the Trisolarans?

That was not his concern, it was the concern of the System host, and eventually, he would have to find a suitable host to transfer his researched technologies into this world. He already had a name for the System in mind: Black Technology System for the Academic Overachiever.

There was no rush to confront the Trisolarans. Once the Crisis Era started and the Wallfacer Project launched, every Wallfacer would employ the System; they would all be working for him.

So why should he get involved personally? Wasn't it better to be the man behind the scenes?

Although the nanobots already possessed the potential to serve as the [Task System], they were not perfect.

Moreover, without the relevant support, producing them in the real world wasn't easy. He still intended to create the System following his original plan.

With these thoughts, Qin Ming glanced at the countdown; there were still several days until his next time travel.

He hoped that the next world he would visit would focus on biotechnology. Apart from developing a Biological System, he also wanted to explore the mystery of immortality.

The lifespan of humans was just over a hundred years, and Qin Ming's lifespan would be further consumed by traveling to other worlds. If he didn't find a way to achieve immortality, he would age rapidly in just a matter of years, maybe even not live to see the year 2023 from his past life.

With such a finite life, how could one explore the infinite universe, the ultimate nature of the world, or even catch a glimpse of the end of time?