The System is Abstract, Luckily, So Am I

Chapter 150 : I Didn't Expect Him to be a University Grandmaster

Morning.

In the [Warehouse], there were only two spirit stones left. Just in case, Lin Li came to the community park to practice his skills today, which was a rare occasion. He was practicing the odd-numbered physical body chapters.

"Grandpa Zhou, Happy Mid-Autumn Festival," before practicing, Lin Li greeted Zhou Youwei.

Zhou Youwei looked at Lin Li for three seconds and sighed, "You've finally come back. I thought you had given up."

The longing was palpable. Lin Li keenly read the tsundere old man's little thoughts.

"There's no such thing as giving up in my dictionary, Grandpa. I'm not one of those young people who give up halfway," Lin Li said proudly.

Of course, the dictionary Lin Li was talking about was the Oxford dictionary at his home. It was all in f*cking foreign language. That damn Oxford, it really didn't have the word "give up".

Just like how Edison never said the word "give up", after all, that kid couldn't speak Chinese at all.

As for Lin Li's Chinese dictionary, it was filled with things that wouldn't pass review.

"Are you emphasizing that you're a young person? Things are getting interesting. An old steed in the stable still aspires to gallop a thousand miles. I will keep an eye on you, and I will not give up either," Zhou Youwei stared at Lin Li and issued a declaration of war.

"No problem, I won't let you down," Lin Li would prove his perseverance.

Then he began to practice his skills.

Halfway through his practice, Zhang Fang was walking on the path outside the bushes. After seeing Lin Li and Zhou Youwei, she suddenly seemed to remember something and shouted to the two of them, "Old Zhou, Little Lin."

"Hey, what's up, Grandma Zhang," Lin Li put away his fist stance and asked.

"Little Lin, I see you haven't replied to the message in the community group chat. I'm asking now, are you two going to the community activity room to make mooncakes later?" Zhang Fang asked, then showed the bag in her hand, which seemed to be raw materials like flour.

Generally, a good property management would organize some activities during holidays, but it was definitely not a treatment that Lin Li's residential area would have. This activity should have been organized by their unofficial neighborhood committee, who paid for it themselves without asking for anything in return.

In the old residential area, most of the permanent residents were old, and they preferred to organize some activities. Both the participants and the organizers could use this to pass the time.

In fact, it was just an excuse for everyone to get together to do things and chat.

"I'm not going. I'm not interested in making mooncakes or anything," Zhou Youwei was the first to wave his hand.

Lin Li had originally wanted to refuse. After all, it was better to sleep and study with this time. But on second thought, he nodded and said, "Alright, Grandma Zhang. The activity room, right? I'll go over after I finish my exercise and take a shower."

Lin Li still had a "Body Strengthening and Disease Dispelling Pill" in his [Warehouse], which he planned to give to Wu Min. But the problem was that this thing was as big as a traditional Chinese medicine pill. Lin Li hadn't found a reason or opportunity to let Wu Min eat it these past few days.

Making mooncakes himself might be a good opportunity.

"I'm going too," Zhou Youwei immediately changed his mind.

Lin Li and Zhang Fang both turned their heads to look at Zhou Youwei.

Zhou Youwei's old face was still calm, "I'm not at ease with Lin Li going. I have to keep an eye on him."

Lin Li and Zhang Fang were both relieved.

The two of them looked at each other, and everything was understood without words:

Little Lin, you and Old Zhou have such a good relationship.

Yeah, I and Little Zhou have such a good relationship.

...

【For one consecutive month, rise before the hour of the Rabbit to diligently practice the Eight-Stage Body Tempering Art, for a cumulative total of at least half a shichen before the hour of the Dragon (11/30)】

After finishing his exercise, he went back to take a shower and change his clothes. He materialized the "Body Strengthening and Disease Dispelling Pill" in advance, wrapped it in a tissue and put it in his pocket. Lin Li came to the community activity room.

The "Body Strengthening and Disease Dispelling Pill" was now missing a small notch—Lin Li took a little and took it himself. The taste was like traditional Chinese medicine, a bit astringent and slightly bitter, not delicious.

But there were no magical phenomena, such as feeling energy flowing in the body.

This way, he could be more at ease. His mom wouldn't have any strange changes after eating it either.

In the activity room, there were actually not many people. And as Lin Li had expected, basically all of them were from the older two generations or the older generation, and most of them were grandmothers and aunts. Men were extremely rare here. Basically, no one spoke Mandarin when chatting, they were all speaking the Xiling dialect.

Zhou Youwei had not arrived yet.

Zhang Fang saw Lin Li and came over to wipe her hands and asked, "Little Lin, do you know how to make mooncakes?"

"I just watched a tutorial, I should be able to," Lin Li said honestly.

Learning on the spot is not shameful. Before getting the system, Lin Li's life was all about learning on the spot.

"Alright, let me tell you. Here are the materials, here is the already mixed flour, the molds are here, and the microwave is over there. Mooncakes are originally simple. You young people are also smart. If you don't understand anything, you can just ask me or everyone."

"Okay, thank you, Grandma."

After Zhang Fang smiled and nodded, she went back to continue making mooncakes with a few friends while chatting.

As soon as Zhang Fang left, the only young person present came over and patted Lin Li on the shoulder, "Let's go, let's go make mooncakes. I'll show you."

Lin Li: "?"

Bro, who the f*ck are you?

Seemingly seeing Lin Li's confusion, the young man quickly said in a low voice, "You don't want to become the center of the grandpas' and grandmas' conversation later, do you? Saving me is also saving yourself!"

Lin Li: "..."

Young people in a pile of old people are indeed easy to become the focus.

Now there were many gazes sizing up Lin Li, with curiosity.

"Alright," it was indeed better to communicate with young people. Lin Li nodded and followed the other party to the material area.

The fillings provided were few and classic: jujube paste, lotus seed paste with egg yolk, and five-nut. As for the materials for new-style mooncakes, they were nowhere to be seen here.

These three types of mooncakes each had their own merits. Jujube paste had a better texture than the other two, lotus seed paste with egg yolk tasted more fragrant than the other two, and five-nut had more numbers than the other two.

Who on earth invented the green and red silk in the five-nut mooncake? Lin Li felt uncomfortable just looking at this thing. Just looking at it, he could feel a cloyingly sweet sugar taste coming up.

So he did not hesitate to only take the other two types of fillings.

"What's your name? My name is Zeng Zi'ang," the young man introduced himself.

"My name is Lin Li."

Lin Li began to take the flour and use a rolling pin to make the crust.

He glanced at the size of the mold again. It should be no problem to put the "Body Strengthening and Disease Dispelling Pill" in.

"Lin Li, did you come alone?" During the process of rolling out the crust, Zeng Zi'ang asked with some confusion.

"Mhm."

"What were you thinking? It's just seven o'clock in the morning, and you came here alone to make mooncakes?" Zeng Zi'ang was even more shocked. "I thought you were like me, forcibly brought here by your family."

Then Zeng Zi'ang sighed again, "When I just came home from school for the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, they still treated me like a treasure. But it's only been a few days, and they've already started to find me an eyesore."

Lin Li didn't quite understand Zeng Zi'ang's situation.

Wu Min had been home for so long, and Lin Li had never found her an eyesore.

As for how his dear Sister Min viewed him, it should be consistently an eyesore.

"But bro, are you still in school? A graduate student?" Zeng Zi'ang was young, but only relatively young. His appearance had nothing to do with a child. Lin Li would believe it if he said he had been working for a few years.

"I'm a senior now. I also want to be a graduate student, but after I showed my graduation thesis draft to my teacher once, I gave up," Zeng Zi'ang shook his head.

"Why?" Lin Li asked curiously.

"Because my supervisor said my thesis has too much strategic significance."

"Then shouldn't you be even more determined to go to graduate school?"

"But he said the strategic significance lies in that as long as we find a way to let other countries steal my thesis, we can set back their country's technology by ten years. I suspect he was being sarcastic."

"Bro, you can believe in yourself," after a moment of silence, Lin Li encouraged.

"I do believe in myself. I actually think my thesis is okay, but the decision is in the teacher's hands. He doesn't listen to me."

"No, bro. I meant you should believe in your own judgment. Your supervisor was just being sarcastic. You don't have to doubt it," Lin Li quickly explained.

Zeng Zi'ang: "..."

"Lin Li, has anyone ever told you that you're very hurtful when you speak?"

"Everyone says so," Lin Li nodded.

Zeng Zi'ang: "..."

So he's a repeat offender.

"So the undergraduate thesis is already so difficult. What am I thinking about a graduate thesis for? Waiting to postpone my graduation? Plus, my English is not good. I've completely given up on graduate school," Zeng Zi'ang returned to the original topic.

"So bro, are you planning to find a job? Are you interning? Are there any ways to make money?" Lin Li asked curiously.

"No, it's hard to find a job now. I'm preparing for the civil service exam," Zeng Zi'ang shook his head, but then he complained helplessly, "But the current environment is really difficult. I looked at the positions in our Xiling, and the application-to-acceptance ratio is as high as several hundred to one. I don't know what to say. They only recruit one out of several hundred people. They're all crazy.

Sigh, the environment in the past was much better. It's really hard to make a living now."

"Indeed," Lin Li nodded, expressing his agreement on this point. "In the past, there was no administrative aptitude test, no essay writing. You could get in as long as you were castrated."

Zeng Zi'ang: "?"

"That... Lin Li, your 'past' is a bit too far in the past. If it's that 'past', I might not take the civil service exam," feeling a chill down his spine, Zeng Zi'ang was sweating a little.

The 'past' he was talking about was a few years ago. The 'past' Lin Li was talking about was a few hundred years ago.

"Lin Li, what are you studying now? High school?" Feeling a little unable to keep up with Lin Li, and feeling that if he continued to talk about himself, Zeng Zi'ang suspected it would be worse than being surrounded by the older generation, so he changed the topic.

"Mhm, first year of high school," Lin Li nodded.

"What high school?"

"Nansang."

"That's so impressive. I was six points short of Nansang in the high school entrance exam, so I could only go to Xiling No. 1 High School," after praising him, Zeng Zi'ang sighed with some emotion:

"It's really nice. High school is a very magical time. I wouldn't be willing to go back and work hard for three years again, but I will always miss those three years. What's that saying again? What's worth remembering is not the battlefield, but the comrades-in-arms."

"Isn't college life good?" Lin Li asked upon hearing this.

"Of course there are good ones," Zeng Zi'ang immediately retorted.

Lin Li: "?"

"Sorry, sorry, just pretend I didn't say that," Zeng Zi'ang immediately shut his mouth.

I really deserve to die. How could I corrupt an innocent first-year high school student?

"Ahem, life is definitely a hundred times better than high school. Let me describe it to you like this. The first seventeen weeks of each semester in college are equivalent to being able to go to a top-notch massage parlor for a foot bath at any time... Hiss, can you understand this description? You probably haven't had a foot bath. Anyway, you just need to know that it's very, very comfortable and enjoyable."

Lin Li sneered in his heart.

Old man, who are you looking down on?

Who hasn't had a foot bath?

I don't know how many times I've had one. A foot bath is a piece of cake.

But Lin Li then asked, "Then what about after the seventeenth week?"

"Hehe," Zeng Zi'ang suddenly laughed with relief, "College life after the final exam week starts is equivalent to having to drink all the foot bath water from the first seventeen weeks."

Lin Li: "..."

"If you worked hard and didn't go for a foot bath in the first seventeen weeks, then this water won't have any strange smell. You can drink it all in one go."

"But if you went for a foot bath every day for seventeen weeks, this water... is extremely difficult and painful to swallow. It scratches your throat."

Zeng Zi'ang's first half was very perfunctory, but his second half was sincere and heartfelt. There was no doubt which part he belonged to.

Lin Li nodded in agreement.

What a fitting description. It suddenly felt so real.

(End of Chapter)