Chapter 63: That Handsome Guy of Yours
Only after Liu Shang and the English teacher finished their conversation could the rest of the class clearly hear her say, "Excellent, please sit down."
The English teacher at the front of the podium smiled and said slowly, "I have to say, Liu Shang from the Petrochemical Engineering class truly gave me a surprise today."
"His grammar, vocabulary, and even his pronunciation and intonation are all exceptional."
"Liu Shang's English proficiency has surpassed the requirements for both CET-4 and CET-6. It's on par with the conversational English of a native American speaker."
"His command of the language, with no trace of Chinglish, is so good that even I, as his teacher, feel humbled."
"So, to uphold our fine tradition of education and following the precedent set by two of his other professors, I have also decided that Liu Shang may be exempt from my class in the future."
"And it's not just him. If any other students can reach Liu Shang's level of English, they can receive the same privilege."
"This is precisely the purpose of our university's approach to teaching: to encourage students to take the initiative and learn independently. As long as we achieve our ultimate goal of making everyone outstanding in ability and knowledge, I believe that is the best outcome for our university."
"Of course, thanks to Liu Shang, the average proficiency level of this class has been raised significantly. Therefore, the difficulty of your final English exam will also be raised a level."
"Let's see… we'll proceed with the difficulty of the CET-6 exam. So, I urge you all to study hard and not slack off, lest you fail at the end of the semester!"
Unsurprisingly, the moment the English teacher finished speaking, the classroom erupted in chaos, with cries of dismay everywhere.
Why? We're only in our first semester of freshman year, and we have to take an exam at the CET-6 difficulty level?
Pan Changjiang is 1.6 meters tall, and Yao Ming is 2.26 meters tall. Their average height is 1.93 meters, but does that make them both tall?
Ugh, where did this freak Liu Shang come from?
We strongly demand to change majors…
That night, in Jiang Ruolin's dormitory, Yang Dandan recounted the day's events with an excited expression.
"Hey, did you guys hear? In English class this afternoon, Ruolin's guy made a huge splash again."
"I really didn't expect his English to be so incredibly good!"
"Even one of the most respected English teachers in the school praised him profusely and said Liu Shang doesn't have to attend her class anymore."
"Ruolin! You must have already known your guy's English was amazing, right?"
"Let me tell you, a lot of girls from the School of Economics and Management who share that class are secretly asking about him, so you'd better watch out!"
"That guy of yours is seriously handsome!"
Hearing Yang Dandan's words, the other girls in the dormitory also turned their curious gazes toward Jiang Ruolin.
Jiang Ruolin recalled the time she went to the internet cafe with Liu Shang and witnessed him display his formidable professional English skills on the computer.
A sense of pride swelled within her. She smiled and nodded at her three roommates, which immediately drew envious sighs and whispers from Yang Dandan and Dong Hong.
At that moment, Song Sha, who was always comparing herself to Jiang Ruolin, scoffed and teased Yang Dandan.
"I have to say, Dandan, I haven't seen how amazing Liu Shang's English supposedly is, but the way you're talking is certainly exaggerated enough!"
In Song Sha's mind, how good could the English of a student from China's exam-oriented education system really be?
This only proved that Liu Shang was a little bit talented, nothing more. Compared to family background, connections, and breadth of knowledge, he was utterly unimpressive.
Jiang Ruolin choosing this Liu Shang as her boyfriend was a complete and irrational mistake.
And this was the one area where she was confident she could beat Jiang Ruolin. She would find a boyfriend far superior to Liu Shang, especially in terms of family background!
...
In the early hours of the morning, a sleeping Liu Shang was awakened by the vibration of his phone.
The call was from Wang Wanlin, the crew leader at the construction site. He informed Liu Shang that the injection pressure had suddenly dropped by 2.5 MPa without warning and asked what to do next.
Confident in his plan, Liu Shang remained perfectly calm. He told him not to worry, that everything was fine, and to just maintain the current injection rate.
After hanging up, Wang Wanlin told Zhang Long, who was working the night shift, to keep the operations unchanged and continue the injection.
With that, crew leader Wang Wanlin went back to the on-site trailer to continue sleeping.
When Liu Shang had been on-site, Wang Wanlin had personally handled the night shifts.
But now that Liu Shang was gone, the daytime communication and coordination with Party A couldn't be handled by others. Wang Wanlin had to do it himself, so Zhang Long was assigned to the night shift.
Shortly after Wang Wanlin returned to his trailer, Zhang Long received a call from Ma Yuan at the construction site.
According to company procedure, any sudden changes during construction had to be promptly reported to the technical staff.
So, to be cautious, after reporting the situation to Liu Shang, Wang Wanlin had also reported it to Ma Yuan. This was to avoid taking unnecessary responsibility if something went wrong.
When Ma Yuan answered the phone, still resentful, he immediately deflected, putting it all on Liu Shang. He said that Liu Shang was in charge of that well and that the site staff should call him.
But after hanging up, Ma Yuan couldn't get back to sleep. He began to think about the reason for the sudden plunge in injection pressure.
After a moment, his thoughts began to clear. Based on his experience, the sudden drop in pressure must have meant the blocking agent had broken through large pores, indicating a deep-seated issue. Liu Shang's chosen technical approach, which relied on blocking, was simply not strong enough.
And just like that, Ma Yuan faintly felt he had seized an opportunity to prove himself—an opportunity that was enough to make Song Guangyuan, Xu Tiande, Mr. Zhong, and even the Party A oil production plant see him in a new light.
He was on the verge of making a name for himself!
Having thought it all through, Ma Yuan made his decision and immediately called Zhang Long, who was on duty at the site.
He told him to change the current construction strategy.
Didn't the site happen to have nearly a ton of high-strength expanding plugging particles left over from the last shipment? He instructed Zhang Long to add all of them to the chemical tank and inject them at once.
Hearing Ma Yuan's instructions, Zhang Long was in a difficult position. His crew leader, Wang Wanlin, had just told him to continue construction without any changes, but now the technical engineer, Ma Yuan, was issuing a contradictory order.
Zhang Long said he needed to ask crew leader Wang Wanlin for instructions, but he was cut off by Ma Yuan on the other end of the line.
Ma Yuan told him that with Liu Shang back at school, he, Ma Yuan, was in charge now. "If I tell you to inject it, you inject it. If anything goes wrong, I, Ma Yuan, will take full responsibility!"
Ma Yuan's tone was sharp. As an ordinary worker under Ma Yuan's supervision, Zhang Long didn't dare to refute him. And since it was the middle of the night, he was reluctant to wake crew leader Wang Wanlin over such a "small matter."
So he followed Ma Yuan's orders and began adding the high-strength expanding plugging particles into the chemical tanks at the construction site.
After hanging up the phone, a contented Ma Yuan drifted back to sleep.
In his dream, the construction results soared thanks to his wise and decisive command. Everyone, including Party A, admired him and praised him again and again.
Even the boss, Song Guangyuan, found his opinion of him had changed dramatically. He even deliberately introduced him to his beautiful daughter, Song Jia, and began grooming him to take over the company.
And his rival, Yang Xu, who had always been at loggerheads with him, was now trying to curry favor with him, the company's future successor.
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