Chapter 115: Military Order

After seeing Ding Tongyu off, Tang Xiao patted Lin Luyou’s shoulder.

“See? You’ve got a really important mission!”

Chen Xujia chimed in from the side, “So, how’s it going? I remember you were self-studying SQL a few days ago. Any progress?”

“At my current level, I can definitely understand the code when I read it, but writing it myself… I’m still far from mastering it.”

“No worries, you just haven’t practiced enough yet!” Tang Xiao reassured her with another pat on the shoulder, wearing an expression that said she completely understood. “Starting next Monday—no, scratch that, no need to wait that long—any basic data extraction tasks will be handed over to you! Writing code from scratch might be tough, but copying and tweaking existing scripts should be no problem for you!”

As she spoke, Tang Xiao pulled up Cai Yuyao’s contact from the address book. What better way to learn than by imitation? She planned to have Lin Luyou ask Cai Yuyao for a piece of code to start practicing by adjusting parameters herself. Tang Xiao was confident that with Lin Luyou’s intelligence, a couple of weeks of honing would have her confidently working on her own.

Within moments, Cai Yuyao sent the code to Lin Luyou’s private messages, even adding an encouraging note:

“Cai Yuyao: Keep it up! Wishing you success soon.”

But when the next message popped up, Lin Luyou decided to retract the “Thank you” she hadn’t yet sent.

“Cai Yuyao: Then I can finally be free, hahaha.”

For a brief moment, Lin Luyou felt the weight of everyone’s hopes resting on her shoulders, a solemn sense of duty stretching ahead.

In that instant, she made a solemn vow: “Alright, in these next two weeks, I’ll conquer SQL for sure!”

Whether this was the fearless confidence of a novice or a genuine belief in her ability, only the upcoming Double Eleven sales season would reveal.

***

Having endured a morning’s work and another two busy hours in the afternoon, it was finally time to clock out.

Time had crawled.

Watching the clock tick from 2:59 to 3:00 PM, the surge of energy she’d been holding in suddenly deflated. She slumped in her chair as if she’d lost all her bones.

“Enough, it’s quitting time—hurry up and leave!” Chen Xujia gave her a disdainful look as she nudged her to go. “Go home early and get some rest. Don’t forget, we start again at 8 tomorrow!”

“Got it~” Lin Luyou flicked her right index and middle fingers in a salute at Chen Xujia.

With that, she reached under the desk to grab her small bag and turned to leave.

Once outside the office building, the autumn breeze brushing her face somehow tasted like freedom.

As she walked toward the bus stop, a sudden idea struck her:

Why not head to the café and spend some time with the cats? She had plenty of time now.

But when she arrived at the café’s door, it was firmly shut, with a sign that read “Closed for the time being.”

Of course, it was the weekend. Few companies in the park were open on weekends.

With a hint of disappointment and a pout, she carried a slight regret for not getting her cat fix, and boarded the shuttle back to campus.

Though it was afternoon, the bus was quite full. Lin Luyou managed to snag a seat in the very last row.

As the vehicle rocked rhythmically, her drowsiness crept in. Her head bobbed up and down like a pumpjack at work.

“This stop: College Road. Passengers alighting, please exit in an orderly fashion through the rear door…”

The mechanical female voice announcing the stop jolted Lin Luyou awake. She suddenly stood, wiped her chin—though no drool was there—and said,

“Wait, there are still people who haven’t gotten off!”

With that, she clutched her bag and pushed toward the door.