In August, Liu Chen handed a small USB drive to someone brought by Mr. Shen, along with her ideas and experimental data.
Afterward, Liu Chen left the Shen residence and returned to C City, as if nothing had happened.
In fact, Liu Chen didn't consider it a significant event. To her, it was like finding a penny on the street and handing it over to a police officer.
In C City in August, it was already past eight in the morning, and the heat was palpable. The entire city, viewed from afar, seemed to have its towering steel and concrete buildings radiating distorted heat waves, signaling how unbearably hot it was outside.
Liu Chen glanced out the office window at the factory grounds, then lowered her head, pressing her phone with both hands. She `@`ed the logistics department in the QQ work group:
"Starting today, turn on the water mist spray at eight in the morning and shut it off at five in the evening."
As soon as the message was sent, mist began to spray from the sides of the pedestrian walkways below. Fine droplets of water fell to the ground and evaporated instantly.
However, as time passed, the scorching ground was finally subdued. The mist continued to fall, wetting the ground and changing its color from grayish-white to dark gray.
Inside the workshop, employees who felt restless even with the air conditioning on gradually found their anxieties soothed.
The Meimei factory was operating very smoothly. Professor He Long was leading his students in the additive production workshop, but their time there was limited. Most of their time was spent tinkering in the new product research and development lab that Liu Chen provided for free.
Of course, according to Liu Chen, she provided everything needed for the R&D lab, but she would take one-third of the profits from any successful outcome.
It seemed like Liu Chen was getting the better deal, but in reality, her terms were very reasonable, and even somewhat generous, considering the equipment and materials in her new product R&D lab.
Because the new product R&D lab was occupied, apart from observing and learning for two hours each day, she had little else to do.
The overseas market, which had been stirring due to her lawsuit, had now fallen silent.
Liu Chen suddenly found herself with a lot of free time. After an initial period of two days of readjustment, she quickly adapted.
Then, she decided to fulfill a small wish she had made shortly after her rebirth.
Learning to swim.
This was Liu Chen's first time learning to swim in both of her lives. Unlike when she was first reborn, her face was now very recognizable to the public. Therefore, going to a regular "youth swimming center" or "swimming gymnasium" was no longer appropriate.
If she were to go, photos of her learning to swim would likely be all over Weibo by the next day. This wasn't vanity; it was a fact.
So, Liu Chen chose the only five-star hotel in C City that had swimming instructors. The hotel had opened just last year, and their swimming pool was open to the public. If swimming lessons were included, it cost four thousand yuan a month.
When the average price of most properties in C City was only five thousand yuan, a four-thousand-yuan swimming lesson was considered quite luxurious.
As a result, the hotel's swimming pool had very few external guests.
And the hotel's guests themselves showed little interest in the rooftop pool.
Thus.
This glass-roofed swimming pool on the hotel's rooftop felt as if Liu Chen had booked it exclusively. On the entire floor, there was only Liu Chen and a coach in her early thirties whom Liu Chen had personally selected.
The coach wore a one-piece swimsuit that clung tightly to her body. Liu Chen knew at a glance that the muscles beneath this swimsuit were definitely beautiful.
Liu Chen, wearing a black swim cap and a black and white one-piece swimsuit, stood in the 1.5-meter deep pool. Her feet were on the mosaic tile bottom, and her arms, exposed to the water's surface, were gripping the edge of the pool.
"Take a deep breath through your mouth, then submerge your head, exhale slowly through your nose, try to extend the exhalation as much as possible, and then lift your head out."
Liu Chen followed the coach's instructions, submerging her head. Her eyes, through the goggles, gazed at the world beneath the water.
It was quiet underwater.
Liu Chen could feel her own breathing, small bubbles escaping from her nostrils.
Perhaps because she was the only one in the entire pool, the water surface was very calm. Sunlight streamed through the glass ceiling of the pool and refracted in the water.
Liu Chen had exhaled all the air from her mouth. She lifted her head out of the water.
Then, she saw Ren Yu, wearing a bathrobe, walking toward her.
"Cough, cough, cough!!! Cough!"
Liu Chen, who hadn't choked on water while practicing holding her breath underwater, was now startled by Ren Yu standing at the edge of the pool and choked, losing her breath.
"Take a drink of water, don't panic."
Ren Yu unscrewed a bottle of Meimei Niu from the side and handed it to Liu Chen, telling her not to panic.
Liu Chen couldn't help but roll her eyes, then took the Meimei Niu from Ren Yu's hand, wiped the water droplets from her face with one hand, raised the bottle, and took two sips.
"Learning to swim, why didn't you tell me?"
Ren Yu asked, while at the edge of the pool, he removed his bathrobe and casually threw it onto a nearby beach chair.
Liu Chen, standing in the pool, had to look up to see Ren Yu's face and speak to him.
Ren Yu, not yet twenty-two years old, stood by the pool. His skin, likely pale from being busy with work and not having had much sun exposure for a long time, had a fair complexion. However, the slightly bulging pectoral muscles and the perfect V-line beneath them clearly told Liu Chen that the owner of this body was by no means a scrawny "white boiled chicken."
Ren Yu was like an ocean. The surface appeared calm, but if you plunged your head underwater, you would discover unfathomably deep currents.
Below the V-line were a pair of strong, powerful legs, which were now walking beside Liu Chen.
"Splash!"
Ren Yu directly entered the pool from the edge.
The calm pool churned with waves because of Ren Yu's entry, much like Liu Chen's heart.
It was beating wildly.
The 1.5-meter-deep pool was clearly too shallow for Ren Yu. As he stood in the pool, Liu Chen could clearly see the entire contour of his pectoral muscles.
Liu Chen quickly took a breath and submerged her head. This time, following the coach's instructions, she slowly relaxed her body, pretending to be a blade of grass on the water's surface, gently swaying with the ripples.
Soon, her relaxed legs floated up due to the water's buoyancy. With the push of the waves, Liu Chen even felt the grip of her hands on the pool edge being pulled backward.
"Hoo..."
She had exhaled all the air she had inhaled and had to lift her head from the tranquil underwater world. Her hands, like a first-grader's in class, were overlapped as she rested on the edge of the pool.
The afternoon sun grew more intense. Light filtered through the skylight, hit the water's surface, and then refracted into the water. Liu Chen could clearly feel that the temperature of the entire pool had warmed up.
Ren Yu, who had entered the water earlier, seemed to be genuinely there just to swim, moving steadily and quietly in the pool.
"Miss Liu, you've been in the water for half an hour. You can come up to rehydrate and rest before continuing, or we can consider today's lesson finished. The remaining time will be added to tomorrow."
As a swimming coach at a five-star hotel, Coach An was very aware of her surroundings. She had already recognized her student as the incredibly popular campus beauty and scholar online, and she also recognized the young man as her boyfriend.
So, she quickly took the opportunity to tactfully suggest ending the session, not wanting to intrude on the young couple's date.
Liu Chen hesitated for a moment. She felt that while she wanted to learn to swim, there was no need to rush it within a few days, as she didn't have any KPIs to meet.
"Okay, thank you, Coach An. I'll finish my lesson for today."
Coach An smiled gently at Liu Chen and nodded.
"Miss Liu, goodbye. But don't worry, someone is always watching behind our cameras. If anything unexpected happens, I'll be here immediately."
Liu Chen nodded.
"Okay, thank you, Coach An."
"It's no trouble. Ensuring the safety of the swimming pool is my duty."
With that, Coach An picked up her thermos and walked towards the changing room in her swimsuit. As Liu Chen watched Coach An's retreating back, she prepared to walk to the ladder from the pool.
"She's warning me that there are cameras in the pool, so I shouldn't get too touchy with you."
Ren Yu said this in a tone as casual as commenting on how sunny the afternoon was, but it made Liu Chen cough continuously. Just as she was recovering her breath, she felt a cool hand gently patting her back.
"Scared by a single sentence? If the company you ruined knew about this, their founder would be furious!"
Hearing this, Liu Chen felt a mix of anger and amusement. She turned around to look at Ren Yu standing beside her. His head, covered by a swim cap, was smooth, and due to his long hair, there was a slight bulge at the back of his head.
Ren Yu, accustomed to seeing Liu Chen with her long hair flowing or neatly tied up, couldn't resist reaching out and poking it.
Liu Chen found this kindergarten-like behavior from Ren Yu utterly speechless. She intended to poke him back somewhere, but as she lifted her hand from the water and extended a finger towards her chest, she looked at Ren Yu's fair skin and didn't know where to poke him back... httpδ:/m.kuAisugg.nět
"Ahem, you continue swimming. I'm going up for some water."
With no other option, Liu Chen turned away, dropped a sentence, and quickly went ashore, turning her back to Ren Yu. Liu Chen felt her cheeks burning like a fever, hot to the touch. Without even looking, she could guess that her cheeks were likely very red.
To prevent Ren Yu from seeing her "rosy cheeks," Liu Chen faced away from the pool, bent over, and picked up the bottled water from the small coffee table by the pool.
Ren Yu stood in the pool, watching Liu Chen's retreating back. Because of the one-piece swimsuit, the outfit clung tightly to Liu Chen's body, with no embellishments, perfectly showcasing her slender waist, perky buttocks, toned thighs, and slender calves.
Ren Yu gazed at Liu Chen's back, his eyes fixed. Then, just as Liu Chen was about to turn, he turned his head and dived into the pool, floating face down in the water.
Liu Chen, after drinking her water, saw this scene. However, she didn't think much of it. She simply assumed Ren Yu might be tired from swimming, especially after he had been showing off his swimming prowess like a salesperson promoting their wares.
However, seeing Ren Yu looking tired, Liu Chen narrowed her eyes. She silently slipped back into the pool and slowly walked through the water, quietly approaching Ren Yu, intending to scare him.
Two meters, one meter, half a meter. Now!
"Ah!!! A ghost!!!"
Just as she was about to succeed, Liu Chen felt a distinct sensation on her ankle. A hand, a hand was grabbing her!
Almost instantly, Liu Chen screamed while retracting her leg and kicking backward violently!
Only then did Liu Chen truly feel the resistance of the water, and a sense of helplessness washed over her.
"Silly, it's me."
A single sentence shattered Liu Chen's fear, and the hand that had grabbed her ankle loosened. Liu Chen's mind seemed to restart, pausing for a second before she realized that Ren Yu was the one who had grabbed her ankle.
Thinking of this, and then recalling how she had closed her eyes, screamed, and flailed her limbs, along with the presence of the swimming pool cameras.
Liu Chen felt defeated.
She thought this was probably the first time she had experienced such extreme embarrassment since her rebirth.
"In the pool, you cannot determine danger based on water depth. If you get a leg cramp or a heart attack, even a depth of 1.5 meters is enough to sink you to the bottom. Chen Chen, if you want to learn to swim, you should first follow the safety manual. Horseplay is not allowed in the pool."
Liu Chen stood in the pool, listening to Ren Yu, her head slightly lowered.
Perhaps seeing Liu Chen's downcast, pathetic look, Ren Yu fell silent after speaking and embraced Liu Chen, gently patting her back.
"I'm sorry, I was too harsh. You can hit me."
After saying this, as if to prove his sincerity, Ren Yu took a step back, gently held Liu Chen's wrist, and guided her slightly cool hand to pat his chest.
When Liu Chen came to her senses, she saw this scene. Her old face flushed red, and she quickly pulled her hand back, rolling her eyes and huffing, "I'm too lazy to hit you. I was just thinking."
Seeing that Liu Chen had returned to her usual self, Ren Yu finally relaxed and pressed, "Thinking about what?"
Liu Chen blinked, her eyes looking at Ren Yu earnestly, as if asking and stating at the same time, "I was wondering if you are reliable enough to teach me to swim."
Upon hearing this, Ren Yu's mind immediately went to the image of Liu Chen drinking water. Before he could figure out how to answer, he felt a warm rush in his nose.
Then he heard Liu Chen anxiously say, "You're bleeding!"