The person calling out was Li Zirui.
Li Zirui was dressed in sportswear, looking clean and fresh.
Back when the first semester of freshman year began, Li Zirui had already met Jiang Yubai. But he didn’t know about the relationship between Jiang Yubai and Lin Zhixia. Lin Zhixia was completely focused on her studies and had no time to participate in Jiang Yubai’s social circle.
And today, the opportunity came. Jiang Yubai formally introduced, “Lin Zhixia is my girlfriend.”
Li Zirui laughed and said, “Lin Zhixia is my tutor, so you’re a generation above me.”
Jiang Yubai intentionally avoided the topic of “generations.” He observed their equipment and casually asked, “Are you going rock climbing?”
“Yes,” Li Zirui pointed ahead, “why don’t we go together?”
Before he finished speaking, Lin Zhixia pushed open the glass door and walked right between Li Zirui and Jiang Yubai.
A few minutes earlier, Lin Zhixia had been jumping around in the room, circling Jiang Yubai and calling him “Teacher Jiang.” But now, she became very dignified and proper, politely greeting them: “Hello, I’m Lin Zhixia.”
Li Zirui nodded at her.
Without thinking, Lin Zhixia asked, “Have you finished your homework?”
Li Zirui’s smile froze on his face.
This was Lin Zhixia’s first time being a tutor for undergraduates. She didn’t know what to chat about with students in private. After thinking about it, discussing academics seemed the safest option. It could both show her care for the students and promptly resolve their after-class questions, killing two birds with one stone.
So, Lin Zhixia asked again, “Have you decided on your paper topic? Have you finished reading the four literature reviews? You said you like researching the HHL algorithm, so how’s it going? Have you achieved any results in the past two days?”
If Lin Zhixia became interested in an algorithm, given two days, she could master it thoroughly and generate a multitude of related ideas.
Putting herself in his shoes, she assumed Li Zirui was just like her.
However, this series of questions from Lin Zhixia made Li Zirui nervously swallow.
After that tutoring class yesterday, Li Zirui hadn’t touched the material again, let alone read any papers. He couldn’t answer Lin Zhixia’s questions. He hid behind Jiang Yubai.
Jiang Yubai wanted to laugh but held back.
Jiang Yubai chatted with Li Zirui for a few sentences, soothing his emotions. Li Zirui invited Jiang Yubai to go horseback riding and play ball at an estate in southern England next week, and Jiang Yubai agreed.
Li Zirui laughed generously and waved goodbye: “Bye, Teacher Lin.”
Teacher Lin’s tone was very cheerful, brimming with enthusiasm for teaching: “See you next Friday! Don’t forget to write your paper!”
Li Zirui took off running, with a fifty-meter sprint posture, disappearing from Lin Zhixia’s sight.
On the wide corridor paved with wooden floors, the sound of Li Zirui’s shoe soles rubbing against the ground, “scratch-scratch,” grew fainter and fainter.
Lin Zhixia was slightly stunned and whispered, “He ran away.”
Jiang Yubai put his arm around her shoulders: “Shall I continue teaching you how to play?”
Lin Zhixia agreed: “Yes, Teacher Jiang.”
They walked back into the squash court.
The four walls formed a private space. Jiang Yubai revealed his thoughts: “Just now I heard someone call you Teacher Lin…”
“What about it?” Lin Zhixia asked him.
He served the ball, hit a few shots, then said, “Nothing.”
Lin Zhixia deduced: “When others call me Teacher Lin, you heard it and felt uncomfortable?”
Jiang Yubai stopped playing.
He held the racket, standing in place. The white ball rolled from beside his foot. Lin Zhixia gripped his fingers and playfully swung them.
He bent down close to her, and she said in his ear: “Besides wanting to play the teacher-student game with you, I also want to play doctor-nurse, CEO-secretary, king-knight…”
Before Lin Zhixia could finish, the racket fell from Jiang Yubai’s hand.
During those years when Jiang Yubai and Lin Zhixia were deskmates, “role-playing” was their first choice for between-class activities. Initially, it was just derivative games from the “Exploring the Universe” comic series, but later it gradually developed into an independent entertainment project.
Jiang Yubai repeatedly savored Lin Zhixia’s game planning, and in comparison, squash and rackets seemed bland.
He suggested, “Let’s go home now.”
“Go home?” Lin Zhixia picked up the racket. “We’re not playing anymore?”
Jiang Yubai tried to persuade her: “I have a swimming pool, tennis court, squash court, and shooting range at my home, just no rock climbing room. If you come home with me, we can focus on practicing, and your learning progress will be faster.”
Lin Zhixia exclaimed, “I thought you wanted to play role-playing games with me.”
Caught on the spot by her, Jiang Yubai remained calm: “You can play whatever you want.”
Seeing him so rigorous and proper, Lin Zhixia intentionally teased: “CEO-secretary game, I’m the CEO, you’re the secretary…”
Jiang Yubai very cooperatively addressed her: “CEO Lin.”
He was as steady and composed as if he had been struggling in the secretary field for many years. Lin Zhixia stared at him for a moment and inexplicably backed down. She conceded: “I… don’t want to play anymore.”
Jiang Yubai asked again, “Still want to go to my place?”
“No,” Lin Zhixia said firmly.
Jiang Yubai had anticipated this. He responded: “I’ve prepared strawberry pie and shrimp dumplings, are you interested in trying them?”
After repeated hesitation, Lin Zhixia eventually followed Jiang Yubai home.
At Jiang Yubai’s home, he taught Lin Zhixia how to hold the racket and play ball, hand in hand. They played from morning until evening, from the squash court to the tennis court, and finally sat by the pool.
The last light of the setting sun penetrated the floor-to-ceiling windows, sprinkling on the clear pool water. The water’s surface rippled, with overlapping reflections.
Lin Zhixia sat on the edge of the pool, bending down to touch the water’s surface.
Jiang Yubai told her that he was undergoing “swimming coach” training, and after a while, he would be able to provide one-on-one swimming tutoring for Lin Zhixia.
Lin Zhixia looked up at him.
He sat with her on the cold tiles. He held her hand and kissed the back of it.
The pool was no longer just a pool; the water surface was as vast as the sea, the light on the waves as brilliant as the morning glow. Lin Zhixia smiled and said, “Thank you, Teacher Jiang.”
*
Since the beginning of spring, the weather has gradually warmed up.
Short trips were very popular among students. France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy were all weekend holiday destinations. Students would depart from London airports on Friday, arrive at their destinations that evening, sleep well in hotels, and tour local attractions on Saturday and Sunday.
Lin Zhixia scrolled through travel photos from around the world in her WeChat Moments.
Even so, her enthusiasm for learning hadn’t diminished in the slightest.
However, at eight o’clock on Monday morning, she received an email from her advisor.
Her advisor had decided to take a month-long vacation.
After inquiring from various sources, Lin Zhixia learned from her Indian senior that her advisor was going to Switzerland with his wife for a vacation.
Vacation?
Lin Zhixia was puzzled: “But our group is very busy, why would the advisor go on vacation at this time?”
Wen Qi sighed: “Our group is busy from the beginning of the year to the end.”
This was indeed a fact.
There were more than a dozen PhD students in Lin Zhixia’s group, as well as seven postdoctoral fellows. Every month, someone would submit a paper, someone would receive review comments, and someone would come up with new ideas… In other words, from the perspective of the entire group, they were always busy.
There was also a sentence in the advisor’s email: Balance work and life.
Lin Zhixia stared at the email for a while.
She had just finished writing a new paper the night before last and was about to submit it to her advisor for review, but her advisor had taken leave.
Lin Zhixia could only temporarily set her paper aside. She opened a folder and took out four essays (short academic articles)—these were all from her students.
Lin Zhixia took out a red pen and very seriously graded the students’ articles.
Rather than saying she was grading, it would be more accurate to say she was making notes for the students.
She would circle areas where the students’ expressions were inadequate, mark them with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4… Then, she would write a detailed review document on the computer in the order of 1, 2, 3, 4. Her comments were very professional, with fluent and precise English. She organized materials suitable for the four students, including various professional books and papers, adding them to the appendix of her comments.
Lin Zhixia spent an entire day correcting four articles. She typed tens of thousands of English words, and her fingers and arms were a bit sore.
The salary she earned was truly hard-earned money.
By Friday of that week, before Lin Zhixia taught her students, as usual, she first handed back everyone’s homework.
Lin Zhixia sincerely said, “I’ve taught you four classes now, and I can feel everyone’s seriousness and progress. Last week, the ‘Quantum Computing’ course released a major assignment, and you all submitted your work very promptly. I and five other teaching assistants were responsible for grading your work. The score for this major assignment counts for ten percent of the final total score, so it’s quite important. Let’s first correct the major assignment. I found that three of you got the last additional question wrong.”
Three people got it wrong?
Li Zirui’s heart skipped a beat.
After reading his paper and then looking at the feedback Lin Zhixia gave him, even though Lin Zhixia’s wording was tactful and euphemistic, he still felt that his paper was written like garbage.
He stole a glance at Wu Pinyan.
Wu Pinyan very openly handed her document to Li Zirui.
Li Zirui looked closely and saw that Lin Zhixia had written for Wu Pinyan: “Your viewpoint is very good. To my knowledge, no research group in the field is currently studying this direction. If you have time and interest, you can come to the laboratory and work on quantum computing models with us.”
Wu Pinyan had a smile on her face and whispered, “Teacher Lin invited me to their laboratory. I’m going to pursue a PhD.”
Another classmate named Han Guang interjected, “I want to apply to MIT…”
Lin Zhixia cleared her throat: “Please listen to me.”
The classroom instantly became so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.
Lin Zhixia distributed the printed documents to the four students again. The first page of the document was the additional question from this major assignment, and the next two pages were new questions from Lin Zhixia. She wanted to teach everyone how to infer from one instance to another.
She began explaining the problem: “The code snippet in this problem can correct at most one bit flip error, but the output state still has issues. What does this indicate?”
Han Guang raised his hand to answer: “It indicates that we must use a complete quantum code.”
“Yes, you’re right,” Lin Zhixia added, “In the context of this problem, to correct bit flip errors and phase flip errors, we need to use a complete quantum code[1].”
Lin Zhixia drew diagrams on the blackboard, skillfully changing the problem type, letting each student answer in turn.
Han Guang answered the fastest and could even expand on the ideas.
Wu Pinyan’s response was also very quick.
Li Zirui thought for more than ten seconds, and Han Guang had already folded his hands and smiled in his seat.
In the end, Li Zirui failed to successfully answer Lin Zhixia’s question.
He found an excuse for himself: “Teacher Lin, I just forgot to mention, thank you for correcting our assignments and writing such long comments. You’ve worked hard, Teacher Lin.”
However, Lin Zhixia didn’t fall for this.
She brought the topic back to the problem itself.
She continuously guided the students to speak with a kind attitude and gentle tone.
Even so, Li Zirui still felt pressure. He occasionally glanced at his watch, just hoping that this tutoring class would end quickly. Finally enduring until three o’clock in the afternoon, he was the first to leave the classroom and ran into Jiang Yubai.
Jiang Yubai asked him, “Is your class over?”
Li Zirui nodded slightly: “Just ended.”
Seeing his unusual expression, Jiang Yubai asked, “Did the class go smoothly for you?”
Li Zirui’s grades were decent. His average score for each exam was around 60, with 70 or above generally considered excellent. But his previous tutors had never written thousands of words of feedback for him every week, nor had they frequently called on him to speak during class. He felt both that he was valued by his tutor and that he didn’t deserve her attention.
He sighed and couldn’t help saying, “Ah, I don’t even want to go on vacation this semester. I want to stay home and study.”
Author’s note: [1] Reference: University of California, Berkeley “Quantum Physics” homework problems