Chapter 178: Do You Top Up Carrots?

Chapter 178 -75: Do You Top Up Carrots?

He wondered if, on this very street, there were three other devices running Rabbit Hole.

Seeing Yu Xian silent for a long time, Shi Zuozhou snapped back to reality and hurriedly opened the Rabbit Hole app on his own phone. The number flickered, jumping to “6.” When Wen Xiao lit up her screen, it ticked up again to “7.”

Shi Zuozhou’s eyes instantly widened. He lowered his voice in excitement, “We aren’t even inside the school right now! How did it spread all the way out here? Our little spark has already burned past the campus gates!”

Yu Xian also hadn’t expected that people outside the university had started using Rabbit Hole. Looking at the flowing headlights and pedestrians through the curtain of rain, a small sense of pride and hope swelled in his heart, briefly overpowering his anxiety and confusion. He wondered if this was what viral growth felt like. To his surprise, this little Rabbit Hole was like a dandelion seed in the pouring rain. Riding on people’s desire for resources and curiosity about new things, it had drifted right into the capillaries of this city.

The group continued their walk along the soaking-wet sidewalk. Before they knew it, the North Gate of JCU stood before them. The light rain pattered down. At the gate, security guards wearing reflective raincoats kept a vigilant eye on everyone coming and going.

Just as they passed through the turnstiles, Shi Zuozhou suddenly stopped in his tracks. He turned around, his gaze darting back and forth between Yu Xian and Wen Xiao before a sly, wicked grin crept onto his face.

“Hey, Old Yu, and you too, Wen Xiao,” he began, pointing at the dark, rainy night behind them and then at the two of them. His tone was dripping with sour teasing. “It’s the middle of the night, and it’s pouring outside. Where exactly were you two ‘discussing academics’ last night? You got back to the dorm so late and left me all alone in my empty room. I’m getting jealous!”

Yu Xian’s heart gave a violent jolt. Although Shi Zuozhou usually seemed careless and goofy, his intuition was sometimes terrifyingly accurate. Yesterday, Yu Xian had gone to an off-campus apartment and listened to his senior classmate talk about the Dream Net Project, returning to the dorm late at night. Because he didn’t want to expose her whereabouts, he had kept his answers vague. But with Wen Xiao standing right next to him, Shi Zuozhou’s question meant their timelines wouldn’t match up at all.

Yu Xian opened his mouth, his brain spinning rapidly as he tried to come up with an excuse to cover it up.

“We weren’t doing anything, Brother Zhou.” A crisp voice suddenly chimed in, interrupting Yu Xian’s thoughts. Wen Xiao stood beside him, adjusting her wind-tousled scarf as she spoke with practiced nonchalance. “We were just discussing the decryption code for that audio file. You know how massive that project is. Sometimes you lose track of time while running data, and before you know it, it gets late.”

She looked up, meeting Shi Zuozhou’s gaze with clear, innocent eyes. “Why do you ask? Do you want to come help us look at the code, Brother Zhou? We actually have a few segments of garbled text we haven’t figured out yet.”

Hearing this, Shi Zuozhou shook his head vigorously and quickly let out an awkward laugh. “No, no, no! I was just asking casually. You guys keep at it.”

Yu Xian let out a sigh of relief. He hadn’t expected that this girl, who usually blushed so easily, would actually help him cover up his lie at such a critical moment. A surge of gratitude welled up in his heart. He turned to look at Wen Xiao, wanting to shoot the kind-hearted girl a thankful glance and say a few words to smooth the whole thing over.

However, Wen Xiao wasn’t looking at him. Her gaze passed right over Yu Xian as if he didn’t even exist.

“Well, it’s getting too late. Yiyi and I will head back now,” Wen Xiao said, looking away and looping her arm through the still-clueless Shao Yiyi’s. “You two should head back to your dorm early too. Bye.”

With that said, she didn’t give Yu Xian a chance to speak. She dragged Shao Yiyi around and marched straight toward the North Campus turnstiles, leaving Yu Xian and Shi Zuozhou with nothing but the sight of her fluffy silhouette from behind.

“Huh? We’re leaving already? Xiaoxiao, slow down, don’t trip!” Shao Yiyi stumbled as she was pulled away, only managing to look back and wave at the two men. “Brother Cos, Brother Zhou, we’re heading off first! Good night!”

The two girls with their hair in buns quickly vanished into the shadows cast by the streetlights, leaving behind only two elongated shadows on the wet pavement. Yu Xian stood frozen in place, his hands shoved stiffly in his pockets as that strange, hollow feeling surfaced in his heart once again.

“Let’s go, Old Yu. What are you looking at? I guess there’s no academic discussion for you tonight, huh?” Shi Zuozhou waved a hand in front of his face, pulling him back to reality. “They’re long gone. We should head back too.”

Yu Xian withdrew his gaze, suppressed the confusion in his heart, and nodded.

After arriving back at the North Campus and saying their goodbyes to Wen Xiao and Shao Yiyi, Yu Xian and Shi Zuozhou headed back to the South District Dormitory.

“Old Yu, do you think Rabbit Hole will eventually become a national-level app? If everyone in Jiangcheng installs it in the future, doesn’t that make us tech tycoons?” Shi Zuozhou was still immersed in his earlier excitement, occasionally whipping out his phone to check the number of active nodes.

“Stop dreaming,” Yu Xian said, throwing cold water on the idea. “Even if that many people actually use it, would you dare claim to be the developer?”

“True…” Shi Zuozhou smacked his lips.

The two of them chatted all the way back to the door of their dorm room. Shi Zuozhou glanced at the time on his smartwatch. “Those two slumber deities have probably already ascended to their paradise of dreams.”

Yu Xian followed closely behind him. But as the door was pushed open, Shi Zuozhou abruptly froze in his tracks. Yu Xian glanced inside and was instantly stunned as well.

Zhang Yang and Li Boxue surprisingly weren’t sleeping. The two of them were sitting rigidly upright at their desks, displaying an intimidatingly serious setup.