The First Order

Chapter 311 The young man in the library

Ren Xiaosu’s life suddenly became peaceful. Every morning after breakfast, he would lead Wang Yuchi and the other students in their physical training. He would practically push them to their limits before stopping.

While they were training, Luo Lan leaned against the wall and commented, “You guys are too reckless training like that. It’s neither methodical nor scientific.”

Then Ren Xiaosu remembered Luo Lan was a capable military leader, so he would definitely be proficient at this. He looked at Luo Lan and said, “Don’t just mouth off like that. If you say that my methods aren’t scientific, how ’bout you show us how to do it then?”

“Hehe.” Luo Lan’s eyes narrowed and revealed a shrewdness in him. “Don’t try to goad me into training them for you. No way!”

“I can share our food with you,” Ren Xiaosu said firmly.

“Are you that nice?” Luo Lan didn’t quite believe it.

The difference in their meals had become apparent. The food the Yang Consortium provided for Luo Lan and his men were steamed buns, napa cabbages, and pickled vegetables, while Ren Xiaosu and company were given lots of meat to eat. Ren Xiaosu had never lived so comfortably before. He even had drumsticks to eat every day without fail!

When the drumsticks and braised pork were placed onto the table, the aroma even wafted over the wall to the other side. Luo Lan, who was next door, almost cried from craving it!

Ren Xiaosu said, “You are responsible for drawing up training plans for them and supervising their training. Then you and your men can come over and eat together every day.”

There were only four people next door, including Luo Lan himself. Fatty Luo had come here as the representative of the Qing Consortium for negotiations, so he could not bring too many people with him. As such, Ren Xiaosu estimated it and felt it shouldn’t be much of a problem to share some food with them.

Luo Lan rubbed his hands gleefully and said, “I feel so bad about it, but I’m not doing this for your food. As the elder brother of the Qing Consortium’s CEO, would I lack that little bit of food? I just wanted to help you all because I thought your training plan was not methodical at all!”

“Yes, yes, yes, you’re absolutely right,” Ren Xiaosu said as he did not have time to argue with him.

“But I’m a little curious. What are you training them for?” Luo Lan asked. “If you’re not planning on letting them join the military, this strength training won’t be useful for them at all. Without a proper system to train in, an individual’s strength will never be able to stand up to a supernatural being’s strength.”

Ren Xiaosu ignored him. He couldn’t possibly say it was so Wang Yuchi and the others could take more nanomachines into their bodies in the future, right?

Indeed, the significance of their training would not be that great if they didn’t have the nanomachines. But the reason why Ren Xiaosu made them train was so they could gain better control of the nanomachines in the future. They would have to at least reduce the delay to less than 0.1 seconds so they could become combat effective.

If he had the support of eight “nanosoldiers,” it would be a considerable level of combat strength. Besides, there would be more than eight of them if he included Yan Liuyuan, Li Qingzheng, and the others. Even the female students were starting to train themselves spontaneously.

Initially, Ren Xiaosu had not planned to let the female students participate in battle. But after going through so much hardship, they had also grown up a lot.

As for where the nanomachines would come from, Ren Xiaosu would have to find a way to get them. Wasn’t the Yang Consortium manufacturing nanomachines as well? Since the palace could reset the Li Consortium’s nanomachines, it could definitely reset the Yang Consortium ones as well.

Ren Xiaosu, who had been completely set free, would head to the library every morning. The first time he arrived at the entrance of the library, he realized it was not open yet. It wasn’t until 10 AM that he finally saw a middle-aged man with unkempt hair arrive.

When the man saw Ren Xiaosu waiting at the entrance, he was taken aback. “You’re here to read?”

“That’s right.” Ren Xiaosu nodded. “Doesn’t the sign here state that the library opens at 8.30 AM?”

“Oh.” The man said, “People usually only start coming in the afternoon, and there are very few visitors to the library as well. So it doesn’t really matter if I come in a little late. How about this? If you come early in the future, call me in advance and I’ll be here to open the door for you.”

Then the uncle wrote a string of numbers for Ren Xiaosu. It was his home telephone number.

Ren Xiaosu was a little puzzled. Why was this so different from what Wang Yuchi had described? It seemed like anyone could just walk in and read whatever books they wanted with the library’s current level of security. Was there even a need for a library card?

Meanwhile, the man wondered where this kid had come from. Did he suddenly vow to study hard now that it was winter break, in the hopes he could strive to become a useful pillar of the stronghold in the future? His enthusiasm would probably subside after a few days, right?

This was what happened to his neighbor’s child. During the holidays, he would come up with plenty of lesson plans for himself. If everything proceeded according to plan, the child would definitely become an academic expert of his generation and contribute to humanity’s improvement.

However, a plan was ultimately just a plan.

When the library was first built, the Yang Consortium would even deploy soldiers to guard it. This was to prevent people from stealing the books. But later on, they realized the stronghold residents were not even interested in reading books after they graduated from high school. On the contrary, when a small-time celebrity released a new song in the stronghold, swarms of people would gather to attend the press conference.

With time, only a middle-aged man was left here to look after the library.

The next day, Ren Xiaosu woke up at 7 AM and gave the man a call to have him open the library so as to prevent yesterday’s situation from happening again.

On the third day, it was the same.

By the tenth day, the man thought something was strange. After opening the library in the morning, he pulled Ren Xiaosu back. “Hold on!”

Ren Xiaosu was stunned. “What’s the matter?”

The man, who had dark eye circles after playing mahjong all night, sucked his teeth and said, “You’ve been coming here every day. Don’t you need to rest?”

“It’s not like reading books makes me tired.” Ren Xiaosu was confused. “So why would I need to rest?”

“I’ll be honest with you.” The man said, “It wasn’t easy for me to save up some money to buy this job in the civil service. I heard that a librarian’s job is easy, and I wouldn’t have to work from dawn til dusk. But since you arrived, it feels like I have to slog as hard as I used to ten years ago!”

Ren Xiaosu looked at An Yuqian with surprise. “Then what can I do?”

“Don’t you think you should treat me to breakfast?” An Yuqian said with a dark expression.

Ren Xiaosu scrutinized An Yuqian. “Are you so poor that you don’t even have money for breakfast?”

“Hahaha,” An Yuqian laughed long and hard. “Kid, how dare you say I don’t have enough money for breakfast? Although, you couldn’t be more right about that….”

Ren Xiaosu slapped a ten-yuan bill into An Yuqian’s hand. “Go and eat breakfast. I won’t join you since I still have a lot of books I want to read.”

Wang Yuchi and the other students would come to the library every afternoon to study from 1 to 6 PM. Since they could not borrow the books out of the library, they could only read them here.

Ren Xiaosu felt he was worse at studying than Wang Yuchi and the other students, so he had to spend twice as much time trying to make up for it.

When An Yuqian returned to the library after breakfast, he deliberately went to check on Ren Xiaosu. In the huge library, Ren Xiaosu was the only person sitting quietly at a table. The flipping of pages from time to time was the only sound that could be heard in the entire library.