140. A Carefree Routine

Because of Umaru Doma, Jiang Yu started his journey to school a little later than usual. Even so, by the time he reached the classroom, most students were still on their way.

However, there were always exceptions.

For instance, Tomoya Aki, who woke up early every day due to his morning part-time job, would arrive at the classroom early only to... fall fast asleep.

As for another acquaintance of Jiang Yu’s, her arrival time was unpredictable; sometimes she would be very early, and other times she would slip in just before the bell rang.

Today, it was the former.

Consequently, the moment Jiang Yu stepped into the classroom, before he could even sit down, he was greeted by the girl.

"Good morning, Jiang Yu."

"Ah! Good morning, Kato."

After a casual exchange of greetings, Jiang Yu took the two introductory programming books he had brought in his bag and placed them on Megumi Kato’s desk. "Here, these are the textbooks we talked about yesterday."

Megumi picked up the heavy books, examined them for a moment, and said with a smile, "Thank you, Jiang Yu."

Jiang Yu returned the smile, pointed at the books, and added, "Take your time with them; there's no need to rush. After all, the club's progress isn't at a stage where the programming side needs to worry yet. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me anytime. Ah—though, I’d actually recommend checking Google first. Also, there’s this website with free tutorial videos; if you follow along with the books, it should be quite easy to understand."

As he spoke, Jiang Yu took out a pen and paper and jotted down a URL.

It was a site similar to the MOOC platforms from his previous life, aimed at helping self-taught students, though primarily targeted at university-level learners.

Megumi took the slip of paper, tucked it into her bag with a sense of solemnity, and said gratefully, "I really am putting you to a lot of trouble, Jiang Yu."

Hearing this, Jiang Yu sighed slightly, looking somewhat helpless. "I've told you not to be so formal, haven't I? We’re friends, right, Kato? Isn't it normal for friends to help each other out? Besides, having a like-minded companion is something I’m very happy about."

Megumi froze at his words. It took a long moment before her serious expression softened, a faint, delicate smile playing on her lips. She nodded, then began to browse through the books.

Seeing this, Jiang Yu smiled, turned around, and took out his phone to check the manuscript for the new work Utaha Kasumigaoka had sent him yesterday.

The two books he gave Megumi covered the basics of the C language and game design. That said, he wasn't sure if he was qualified to give advice on the latter.

After all, the only software he had truly mastered was RM. Back then, after finishing C and C++, he had followed the trend and self-taught Java, but in the end, it was nothing more than a "proficient in multiple programming languages" label on his resume.

Though he often mocked himself like that, it was thanks to these "byproducts" of his game development journey that he managed to land a decent job right after graduation...

Even now, whenever he recalled the tedious work of data importing and text scripting, Jiang Yu still felt a headache coming on.

Shaking off the stray thoughts, Jiang Yu focused on his phone screen. It might be a bit improper to say, but as a high school student, he had gloriously spent the entire day reading Kasumigaoka’s new manuscript.

During lunch, he had even asked Tomoya to pick up a meal for him. Thinking about it, he felt a twinge of envy toward the protagonists in galgames whose younger sisters always prepared bento boxes for them...

While reading the manuscript and eating bread, he felt a bit dejected, yet simultaneously felt that having a younger sister who needed his care wasn't so bad after all...

Caught in this contradictory state of mind, Jiang Yu finished his lunch break.

The three afternoon classes naturally ended while he was lost in the manuscript. Once the homeroom teacher announced the end of the school day, Jiang Yu stood up, lazily stretching his back, which had grown stiff from sitting all day. He then began to pack his belongings, preparing to head home.

Having visited the audiovisual room yesterday to check on the club's progress, he had no reason or intention to go again today. Therefore, when Tomoya asked him about it at noon, Jiang Yu had declined without hesitation.

He felt more and more that his time was insufficient, though that was entirely his own doing. When you keep finding tasks for yourself, you find you don't even have the luxury of slacking off.

Everything was his own choice; to say he couldn't do it or to give up would feel like betraying his own convictions.

Thus, a disciplined schedule was born: school, home, cooking, part-time job, writing, and game development.

The next three days followed the same rhythm, with the only change being that his daytime school activities were replaced by secretly writing on his phone during class.

Feeling the crunch for time, Jiang Yu returned to the arduous path of writing on his mobile device. While the efficiency was far from ideal, it was still better than sitting in the classroom listening to things he had already learned. Moreover, in terms of depth and breadth, the curriculum was less demanding than what he had studied in high school back in the day.

This led the graduate, who had survived "hell-mode" difficulty, to feel as if he had returned to the starting village. Of course, it was only thanks to his suddenly acquired eidetic memory that he could be so leisurely in doing what he wanted.

As for Megumi, who had just started her foray into programming, she would occasionally ask him some baffling questions. Recalling his own learning process, Jiang Yu remained patient, answering her doubts one by one.

Naturally, he had also developed some immature ideas regarding Utaha Kasumigaoka’s new work. He planned to organize his thoughts into a more coherent structure before discussing them with her.

The only thing that deviated from his original plan was that he had intended to set a timer for the home Wi-Fi to shut off, but he abandoned the idea because Umaru Doma had suddenly become self-disciplined with her schedule.

His remark about "letting her experience the fruits of a telecommunications student's study" naturally became an empty promise.

Jiang Yu didn't dislike this situation; in fact, it was better that Umaru could be self-disciplined, even if he didn't know the reason why.

Life often requires a degree of blissful ignorance. Because of this, Jiang Yu never asked why Umaru had suddenly become so disciplined, and naturally, Umaru had no intention of volunteering the reason.

Would this girl, who was incredibly thin-skinned at critical moments, ever tell her older brother that it was simply because she didn't want to be left too far behind by him?

Not to mention how Jiang Yu might react, Umaru herself felt she could never bring up such an embarrassing topic with a straight face.