"What's wrong, junior?" Sarah Brooks brushed back a lock of hair by her ear, looked mischievously at William Carter and smiled with pursed lips, signaling with her eyes—wasn't he going to say something?

William Carter was silent for a moment, looked Sarah Brooks up and down, debating whether or not he should speak up. In the end, unable to bear the weight on his conscience, he quietly said, "The air conditioning in the library is really strong... If you dress like that, you'll catch a cold."

"......"

Suddenly, Sarah Brooks felt that expecting anything from his comment was just plain stupid.

She had eaten one of the three buns, tied up the remaining two in a plastic bag and put them in her bag. Slurping her noodles, Sarah Brooks glanced at him curiously, but didn't say anything, simply assuming he had a good habit of not wasting food.

The two of them finished eating at about the same time and headed to the library together.

Same old spot—Sarah Brooks sat in the seat next to William Carter, pulled out her exercise book, and buried herself in her work. The change in her look was just to freshen her mood and to satisfy her roommate's interest; it hadn't affected her study rhythm at all.

William Carter, on the other hand, took out his notebook and continued meticulously editing his thesis.

The calculation method that Old Turner had shown him yesterday had greatly inspired his thesis. Seizing the momentum, he planned to select the most important parts of that proof process and include them in his paper.

With that, there were only three difficult points left to figure out. If he pushed a little harder, he might be able to finish the whole thesis before the end of the month!

SCI journal reviews are notoriously slow; a delay of two or three months is nothing. Even a behemoth like AMC, known for publishing a lot of filler, wouldn't be much faster. He really didn't want to drag out the system's task for half a year.

And so, time slipped by unnoticed, and soon it was noon.

After a whole morning of practice problems, Sarah Brooks stretched lazily, glanced at William Carter sitting beside her, stood up, walked over, and gently poked his arm.

"Junior, junior, want to go have lunch together?"

She seemed to have gotten addicted to calling him "junior"—once wasn't enough, she said it twice in a row.

William Carter hesitated, then shook his head. "No, I'm not really hungry yet. You go ahead."

It was Sunday, so the people who recharge meal cards weren't working, and he'd left his phone in the dorm. Wouldn't it be embarrassing to keep mooching off someone else's meal card?

"Are you sure? My treat," Sarah Brooks asked.

William Carter swallowed, thinking of the grilled meat rice bowl at the cafeteria.

In the end, the temptation of food won out over reason. Embarrassed, he nodded and said, "Then... let's go together. Next time, I'll treat you."

After all, the buns were already cold—eating them at noon or at night didn't really make a difference.

"Ah, I'll remember you said that! Come on, let's go, or we'll hit the lunch rush." Sarah Brooks stood up, and as she turned away, the corners of her mouth curled up in a triumphant smile. She was full of confidence, humming a little tune in her heart.

So what if he's a genius? He still can't resist the mature, elegant charm of this goddess of a senior.

However, as William Carter walked out of the library beside her, he didn't notice the pride on her face at all, because at that moment, he was pondering a very serious question.

Should he get the cumin flavor?

Or the black pepper flavor?

Chapter 11 Even a Top Student Has Things They're Not Good At

Day by day, William Carter basically kept to a routine of shuttling between the library and his dorm. Except for going to the cafeteria for meals or occasionally visiting Professor Turner when he ran into a tough problem, his daily routine hardly changed.

Since entering this campus, it was the first time his life had been so regular—and it had lasted for a full half month.

All of this was something he had never imagined.

Finally, just before June 15th, William Carter finished editing his thesis and translated it into English.

It's worth mentioning that a few days ago, while discussing problems with Professor Turner, Professor Turner learned that William Carter was researching "the problem of reconstructing a function and its derivative given partial Fourier coefficients," and that he had written a paper about his findings. Professor Turner showed considerable interest in his research and offered to help revise his thesis if William Carter didn't mind.

On this point, William Carter had a lot of trust in Professor Turner.

Aside from his good character and reputation, Professor Turner had been a professor for so many years and had probably published more papers than William Carter had read books. There was no reason for him to covet a thesis written by an undergraduate. Not to mention, the research topic itself wasn't particularly groundbreaking—even if it solved a problem that had stumped the global mathematics community for years, at most James Turner would just feel proud to have taught such a student.

Only some third-rate universities or advisors who weren't even qualified to be called professors would use graduation as leverage and covet their students' research results.

William Carter didn't know if such academic scoundrels existed at a top university like Jin Da, but one thing he was absolutely sure of: Professor Turner was definitely not that kind of person.