Chapter 141: Two Reports

Early on Saturday morning, Lin Luyao skipped her usual sleep-in. After finishing breakfast, she grabbed her printed thesis proposal and headed toward the faculty building.

Because it was the weekend, the administrative and faculty building appeared exceptionally quiet. On each floor, only a scattering of professors could be seen bent over their desks, hard at work.

Following the directional signs to the fifth floor, Lin Luyao soon spotted the prominent sign reading "Department of Finance Office."

Although this semester she had been constantly busy with either campus recruitment or working at Max, she had never been to the office specifically to look for a professor. However, over the past four years, she had frequently visited the academic buildings, frequently tracking down professors across these very floors. Out of all of them, she had sought out Wen Chuan the most. Sometimes she came alone, and other times she dragged Jiang Xiaohan or other classmates along with her.

She was quite familiar with the route.

Because Professor Wen Chuan held a full professorship, he was entitled to a private office. Though not very large, it easily had enough room for ten students to stand inside.

Knocking on the glass door of Wen Chuan's office, Lin Luyao called out softly:

"Professor Wen, are you in? It's Lin Luyao."

Upon receiving an affirmative reply, Lin Luyao pushed the door open and poked her head in first.

Lifting his gaze and catching sight of her, Wen Chuan immediately took his hand off the mouse. He relaxed, leaning back into his chair, and rested his hands crossed over his abdomen:

"I figured it was you. Is the thesis proposal finished already?"

"Professor, you guessed way too accurately! There's no mystery left at all, leaving me with zero sense of achievement..."

Lin Luyao muttered in a playful complaint as she placed the printed proposal onto Wen Chuan's desk.

"Ha, what kind of groundbreaking thoughts could possibly be in that head of yours? Was that really hard to guess?" Wen Chuan took a second pair of glasses out of the case on his left and swapped them. In the brief interval, he shot Lin Luyao a glance. "Besides, your sense of accomplishment comes far too easily. You get a sense of achievement just because I guessed right? Shouldn't a true sense of achievement come from getting an A from me?"

"Getting an A from you would be... hehehe."

Though Lin Luyao did not finish her sentence, her lively facial expressions fully conveyed the words left unsaid.

"After getting an A from me twice, are you now ready to get a swelled head? Confidence is a good thing, but don't let it turn into carelessness! It's not that easy to pass my courses. It's not unheard of for someone who got an A in the past to fail later on."

Wen Chuan spoke in jest, yet it was also a reminder. Although he had the closest relationship with Lin Luyao outside of class, this did not mean she could expect any special favors or lenient treatment from him.

If there was any special treatment at all, perhaps it only manifested as higher demands rather than any lowering of standards.

"Did you write two of these?"

Quickly flipping through the proposal, Wen Chuan frowned as he looked up at Lin Luyao.

"Mm-hmm. I was worried you might not... approve of the second one."

Lin Luyao's concern was not unfounded. Of the two research directions she had in mind, the first had a much closer tie to finance, analyzing the relationship between monetary policy and the term structure of interest rates; the other placed greater emphasis on macro analysis, concerning the development and prospects of micro-loan banks in China.

If Lin Luyao had been allowed to choose for herself, she undoubtedly would have preferred the second one.

Having spent over a month at Max, she discovered that while she didn't care for the numerical calculations in the financial sector, she had fallen in love with data analysis within a commercial environment.

Yet she had not forgotten what Wen Chuan said during the previous meeting—that he would only accept thesis topics related to stocks and banks. Although the title of the second topic skirted the edges of his requirements, the actual empirical analysis process within it fell entirely short of his standards.

"If you don't follow my requirements, then you can either change your advisor or change your topic."

To this day, Lin Luyao could still vividly recall the expression on his face when he uttered those words.