You're My Glory ✔

Chapter 31

"I missed them when I was sorting things out."

Yu Tu looked around to inspect the room and asked, "Where is my earliest desktop computer?"

Mrs Yu thought for a while. "You said you won't be using it anymore, plus the machine is old, so I moved it to the bicycle storage area downstairs."

Yu Tu asked her for the storage area key and then went downstairs and moved the desktop computer back up. Mrs Yu brought a cleaning rag to help him wipe the dust. "The computer is from so long ago. Why did you suddenly think to dig it out? I had totally forgotten about it. Otherwise when the old TV set was sold last time, I would have had the people take this away along with it. It takes up space, but it also can't be sold for more than a few dollars."

Yu Tu smiled, "Don't do that."

Then he said, "The monitor can be sold, but keep the main processor."

The computer had not been used for so long. The boot up was extremely slow. Mrs Yu had already left. Yu Tu watched the screen slowly light up. That desktop from so long ago of the infinite starry sky was displayed before his eyes.

He adjusted the settings, connected it to the internet, and then opened QQ (instant messaging software. originally OICQ means Oh,I Seek U).

The QQ on his mobile phone had been logged into all along, so naturally no new messages popped up on the computer. However, this computer still had the old chat history of ten years ago.

He stared at it for a short period of time. Only then did he go look for Qiao Jing Jing's number and click open the chat history.

A string of cute, pink typeface immediately popped up before his eyes.

Exactly the typeface she would use. Yu Tu was not surprised. He could not help but turn the corners of the mouth a little upwards. However, when he started to read the contents of the chat history, the smile started to become bitter.

He really had been too cold and distance at that time.

His replies were always extremely brief and simple, revealing the perfunctoriness in his politeness, so much so that one time, when she asked a very basic question regarding the first cosmic velocity (orbital velocity), he even directly suggested that she look it up on Baidu (Chinese search engine).

Later he simply did not reply to her.

Yet she persisted and diligently kept looking for a topic.

For example ——
"I saw in a forum all of you discussing the gap between China and the US in aerospace technology. Is the gap between us and them really so big >_<?"

For example ——
"There is a lively discussion in the group. Do you think that humans can really immigrate to Mars?"

Much later, she finally gave up.

The fingers turned the mouse wheel. He looked at these very few lines of dialogue over and over again. Yu Tu practically wanted to go back and say to himself of more than a decade ago, "How can you be so impatient?"

The mouse wheel turned and scrolled to the bottom again. Suddenly Yu Tu's gaze fell on the words "in the group" in the last sentence. He remembered that at that time, the aerospace forum had had a group in QQ for aerospace enthusiasts. Could it be she also had been in that group?

He immediately found that group and entered Qiao Jing Jing's QQ number into the search box in the group chat history.

A bunch of hits immediately popped up.

She really had been there.

In the group, she used the same pink typeface. At first, she just cautiously chipped in to the discussion. The group consisted of mostly men, and they were very friendly towards this senior high school girl, completely unlike his coldness. Occasionally, a few childish questions from her would still be explained to her in detail by somebody.

Consequently, her chatting in the group grew more and more lively and was not at all like how she chatted with him individually, so cautious and solemn.

Yu Tu slowly browsed through. From time to time, hints of a smile would show on his face, perhaps because of her childishness and liveliness at that time, or perhaps because sometimes she was really a little silly ——It was obvious that group of people had answered her question incorrectly, yet she was still there with tones of admiration.

Soon, the chat history reached the last few pages.

Qiao Jing Jing was saying goodbye to the people in the group.

Hand Can Pick Stars: In the future, I won't be coming here to play.

Vast Universe: What's wrong? Your parents won't let you?

Hand Can Pick Stars: No, I want to study hard. O(∩_∩)O When I've been admitted into my target university, I'll come again and look for all of you to play.

Constellation: Which is your target?

Hand Can Pick Stars: Tsingua.

Yu Tu couldn't help but feel a bit shocked.

At the time, this had also caused a burst of exclamations in the group.

Peng Peng: Wow, girl. You can't judge a person by appearance!

Young Master Evil: Very ambitious.

Hand Can Pick Stars: In fact, I don't have big aspiration =-= But I recently confessed my feeling to a person I like. He seems to find my grades to be too low, so I want to be admitted into the same university as him. Maybe he'll like me then?

Weaver Girl's Constellation: Men don't look at that... Pick Stars, are you not beautiful enough?

Hand Can Pick Stars: I'm very beautiful ah – –

Fish Head: Be low key.

Hand Can Pick Stars: Oh – –

Hand Can Pick Stars: Anyway, after I've thought about it over and over again, my only shortcoming is that my grades are not good enough. . . So I intend to work hard.

Hand Can Pick Stars: But in fact, my grades are around the top 200 in the city.

Fork: Top 200 is already pretty good. You're almost guaranteed to get into one of the key universities.

Hand Can Pick Stars: But every time, he is the top 1 in the entire city.

Fork: ... That's not bad.

Weaver Girl's Constellation: That is a very big gap.

Hand Can Pick Stars: Ya. Anyway, I'm still not quite focused enough on my studies. If I am a little more serious, I should make some progress.>__<

Hand Can Pick Stars: I think that I can work a little harder O(∩_∩)O

The teenage Qiao Jing Jing had used emoticon that she would not now use anymore to optimistically express her determination that she would try hard this one time.

Whereas the 30-year-old Yu Tu, looking at this record from more than a decade ago, felt his eyes suddenly start to sting.

Suddenly, he was unable to look directly at this chat log, his hand propping his forehead, thoroughly shamed.