Cosmic Love Affair

Chapter 20 Sagittarius III

Xie Li was hugging a thin blanket, tossing and turning on the bed like a pancake.

The other guy was just too outstanding. He really belonged to a completely different world from him, and they didn't even match in terms of type. No matter how he thought about it, it seemed quite impossible.

Not to mention that there was Song Yi in between.

Xie Li curled his lips. Just thinking about Song Yi still felt a bit weird.

He turned over again. He knew it might sound a bit self-flattering, but he always felt that those stars were there just because of him.

However, for several days in a row afterwards, Tan Ke didn't contact him at all, as if he had vanished into thin air.

He wanted to send a message to Tan Ke proactively several times, but when he opened the WeChat interface, he didn't know what to say.

Come to think of it, his communication with Tan Ke had always been one-way. The other party comforted and helped him, while he couldn't do anything for the other side.

It seemed like Tan Ke didn't need anything, and it also seemed like he couldn't do anything.

It wasn't until a week later that he got news of Tan Ke.

At noon, while having lunch in the school canteen, the TV there was broadcasting financial news, mentioning that the partner of a local financial company, Changjing Investment, had gone to the US for negotiations and intended to take over a certain pharmaceutical group in North America.

Xie Li let out a sigh of relief. So he was just busy. But then his heart felt a bit sour.

It seemed that after a brief intersection, the two of them had returned to their respective orbits again.

For the first time in his life, Xie Li had a secret and huge wish - he wanted to become someone who could stand shoulder to shoulder with the other person, running on the same orbit.

Cheng Guang was a bit worried about Xie Li's sudden surge in fighting spirit, fearing that the kid might have been stimulated by something related to the Houxue Award.

“Li, why don't you go back and rest? I think we'll have to stay up all night for this. It's just a waste of time to stay here,” Cheng Guang said.

It was already nine in the evening.

Xie Li was still squatting in the office with no intention of leaving, which made Cheng Guang feel embarrassed to leave the work to his junior and go home himself.

The computer on the office desk was testing the newly added program module.

Xie Li was lying on another table, with his back to Cheng Guang, studying the data that the project had just simulated.

This project was a collaboration between Shen Zhichuan and the Moscow Institute of Physics, and it consisted of two parts.

The first part was to simulate the process of dark matter in the early universe collapsing under the influence of gravity to form dark matter halos.

The second part was to further simulate, based on the first part, the process of primordial gas being drawn into the dark matter halos by the gravitational pull of dark matter, and after being compressed by gravity and triggering nuclear reactions, forming galaxies and galaxy clusters.

The Moscow Institute of Physics had already completed the first part, and when they handed it over, they mentioned in the email very casually that the side of Lan Da just needed to deal with the large-scale gravitational effects, fluid dynamics processes, and add a bit of nuclear reactions and chemical processes after excitation.

However, the simulation results made by Xie Li and Cheng Guang were very different from the expectations.

They found that the number of stars obtained from the simulation was far greater than the estimated number in the universe.

Xie Li was lying on the table, poking the keyboard of his laptop irregularly: “I think there's a problem here, there definitely is.”

Cheng Guang was still adjusting the simulation parameters: “Could it be that we made a mistake somewhere?”

Xie Li rubbed his hair hard, looked up and stretched, and then realized it was already very late.

He hurriedly shooed Cheng Guang home: “Why is it so late? Senior, go home quickly. Don't stay here with me. I'll leave after this result comes out. You go first, hurry up and leave.”

Cheng Guang indeed missed his wife and children at home, so he didn't make any more polite remarks, saved the file, and left.

As soon as Cheng Guang left, the office became quiet instantly.

The early summer night was gradually filled with the chirping of insects.

The moon climbed up to the rooftop of the office building, peering at the young man who was deep in thought inside.

The night breeze, carrying the humid and hot air of Lanjiang's summer night, rose unsteadily, followed the summer atmospheric circulation, made a turn over the Pacific Ocean, and finally turned into a heavy rain in New York in the morning.

Tan Ke hurriedly walked out of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, took the umbrella handed by the doorman, and strode into the car that was already waiting under the rain corridor.

“They've set up an ambush and just chose this time to wait for us, without any sign beforehand,” Fang Xian cursed angrily, “These Anglo-Saxon bandits are just good at playing dirty tricks.”

Tan Ke had a stern look on his face and didn't say a word.

Changjing Capital had sent two partners to New York this time specifically to discuss the acquisition of Medic shares.

After lengthy negotiations with the financial team of the Windfield family who held the shares, on the day after the pricing model and delivery method were determined, they were informed by the representative of Medic that before starting the acquisition, they must first go through the review of the US Investment Committee.

Changjing was caught off guard.

“Getting angry is of no use,” Tan Ke said, “The question now is what to do next. Are we going to cooperate with the review?”

Fang Xian sensed the implication in his words: “You're planning to just back out?”

Tan Ke lifted the headrest behind his neck; he had been working at such an intense pace lately that his neck was feeling a bit uncomfortable.

“Do you still remember why we decided to shift our focus back to our home country in the first place?” Tan Ke turned his head.

Fang Xian fell silent for a moment.

Changjing was a rare financial company in the US capital market where all partners and senior executives were Chinese.

The culture on Wall Street was heavily dominated by white people. In a place that claimed to be the most democratic and free in the world, there was in fact a deep-seated racial discrimination and a sense of racial superiority.

The idea of shifting back to the home country was proposed by Fang Xian.

On one hand, as an Asian-led investment company, it was not easy for Changjing to break through alone in the heavily fortified white culture. On the other hand, the domestic market was developing rapidly, with foreign capital pouring in to get a share of the pie.

Rather than fighting for the leftovers on someone else's turf, it was better to come back and develop the local market, defending our own territory.

Fang Xian thought for a while and felt that backing out could also be a solution: “Yes, even if we pass the review this time, they will always come up with endless tricks to drive out foreign capital. This current setup is nothing but a trap set by Medic because they fear that we might become the major shareholder and gain too much say, so they want to use the investment committee to suppress us at this point, in order to gain more advantages in the subsequent negotiations.”

“They're afraid of inviting a wolf into their house,” Tan Ke summarized, “They want the money, but they don't dare to trust the funds from the East.”

Fang Xian was annoyed: “I'm to blame for this. I didn't consider this aspect beforehand…”

Tan Ke interrupted his self-reproach: “No, this matter serves as a reminder to us. We shouldn't just focus on foreign pharmaceutical companies. Instead of spending money to buy Medic's shares and then waiting for them to develop new drugs to sell at a high price to the domestic market to make a profit, it's better to directly support our own pharmaceutical research and development.”

Fang Xian was silent for a moment.

The car sped down the Avenue of the Americas, with raindrops hitting the windows, blurring the steel jungle outside into a dim alien world.

After a while, Fang Xian suddenly said: “When I was at Oxford, my teacher asked me what my motto was.”

He proudly raised his eyebrows at Tan Ke, “I said my motto is to study for the rise of China.”

Tan Ke finally couldn't help it, and the two looked at each other and burst into laughter.

Fang Xian rolled down the window and blew a loud whistle towards the street, then patted the driver, “Let's go, we're not playing with these jerks anymore, let's go home!”

Changjing suddenly dropped the matter and booked tickets to leave on the same day.

Fang Xian even paid out of his own pocket to upgrade the team's seats.

The entire first-class cabin was filled with Changjing's people, who were all flattering and praising Boss Fang, making quite a lively scene.

Fang Xian couldn't bear it and went to sit next to Tan Ke.

Tan Ke was unusually not resting and was playing with his phone.

Fang Xian glanced over and immediately expressed his dissatisfaction: “Didn't you say you don't use WeChat?”

Tan Ke nonchalantly locked the screen: “Just keeping up with the times.”

After saying that, he pulled down the sunshade, adjusted the seat, put on an eye mask and headphones, clearly indicating that he wanted to sleep and wanted Fang Xian to leave.

Fang Xian had no choice but to go and play with his subordinates.

Tan Ke was just lying there, not asleep.

He had just been looking at WeChat and suddenly regretted leaving the country without a word.

The last message between him and Xie Li was Xie Li's expression of gratitude.

He was not used to using WeChat.

For online communication with clients and subordinates, he either used emails or made phone calls. WeChat was not a very convenient tool for work communication.

It was only after Xie Li asked him for his WeChat ID that day that he registered one.

On the day of the scholarship re-examination, Tan Ke was extremely busy and didn't open WeChat until he got home in the early morning. He saw Xie Li thanking him in a very polite tone.

Perhaps when one is tired, they can't think very rationally. At that time, he just felt discontented.

This discontent continued until he went on a business trip abroad a few days ago, and then he realized what he was really discontented with.

The discontent stemmed from a sense of loss, and the loss was due to Xie Li's not-so-enthusiastic politeness.

But just now he suddenly realized that Xie Li was not the kind of person he had interacted with before, or the type he often dealt with - those who understood each other without words, just by a glance.

Xie Li was not like that.

Xie Li was just a small, fluffy little cub, who didn't know the rules of the jungle. If he expressed gratitude, it was genuine gratitude, with a bit of awkwardness.

Tan Ke thought to himself, so this time it's raising a cub, and it seems quite promising.

Xie Li went to Professor Fang's house on Friday. He hadn't been there for a long time and wanted to check on the progress of the manuscript.

However, Professor Fang was not at home. The housekeeper said he had gone to the hospital for a follow-up check and would be back later.

His grandfather was not at home either, so he had to sit on the balcony and wait by himself.

The yellowwood outside the courtyard wall cast a large shadow, stirring up warm breezes.

Xie Li leaned back in the rattan chair and began to doze off.

In a daze, he felt a shadow falling on him, and then he heard someone say, “Sleeping here like this, you'll be sunburnt into a little black egg in no time.”

Xie Li opened his eyes.

Tan Ke was standing right in front of him, hands in pockets, looking down at him with a smile in his eyes.