Sail across the sea

Chapter 349 Surfactants
After dinner, Xia Shihui went to the library with her backpack, while Gao Fan carried his luggage and returned to the dormitory.

"Ha, Sixth Brother, what brings you back!"

Upon seeing Gao Fan enter, Chen Chuanlin, who was sitting at his desk writing something, greeted him in surprise and stood up to help Gao Fan take his luggage.

Pan Chang, the chubby boy who was taking a nap under the covers in the upper bunk by the window, also sat up and waved to Gao Fan as a way of saying hello.

"Let's share these local specialties."

Gao Fan took out two boxes of Maolin-produced lampwick cakes from his bag, placed them on the table, and then casually asked, "Why are there only the two of you? Where are the others?"

"You went to the library, didn't you?" Chen Chuanlin opened the box of glutinous rice cakes, took a piece and put it in his mouth, then handed a piece to Pan Chang, who was sitting on the upper bunk, and answered vaguely.

"Xiao Ba probably went to the Normal University," Pan Chang said.

The "Xiao Ba" he mentioned refers to Wu Zixian, the youngest student in the dormitory.

"So, Xiao Ba and that girl from the Normal University are really dating?" Gao Fan asked with a smile, inquiring about the gossip.

He had created a work-study opportunity for Wu Zixian, letting him sell small commodities at various schools. Through this, Wu Zixian met a girl named Lan Guoping from the Normal University. Later, Gao Fan heard that this girl had a crush on Wu Zixian and had even visited dormitory 449. Gao Fan had heard about this from everyone else.

“That girl definitely has feelings for Xiao Ba,” Pan Chang said. “But Xiao Ba doesn’t seem to be interested.”

Chen Chuanlin analyzed, "That girl comes from a well-off family. Xiao Ba probably feels a gap between himself and her."

"If there's no electricity, why did you go to the Normal University?" Gao Fan asked.

Chen Chuanlin said, "That girl was preparing to go abroad and had been studying for the TOEFL. She said that Xiao Ba was good at English and asked Xiao Ba to study with her, so Xiao Ba went to the Normal University whenever she had free time."

"Could she be planning to take Xiao Ba abroad with her?" Gao Fan guessed.

“Of course he has that idea,” Pan Chang said. “But I asked Xiao Ba, and he said he doesn’t plan to go abroad.”

"By the way, hasn't Wang Yan been saying he wants to go abroad? How are his preparations going?" Gao Fan asked.

Pan Chang said, "We've been preparing for this. When you came back last time, didn't you say that your company has a partner in the United States who can act as a guarantor for him? Since then, he's been even more motivated."

Gao Fan said, "The guarantee is not a problem. In fact, it's not difficult for Peking University students to apply to American schools at all. They'd love for us to apply."

"I heard that working in the US can earn you more in a month than you do in a year back home, is that true?" Chen Chuanlin asked.

Gao Fan nodded: "It should be much higher than the annual salary of an ordinary cadre in China. The average income in the United States is more than 30 times that of us, and every household owns a car."

"Sigh, we're still too poor," Chen Chuanlin sighed. Gao Fan laughed, "Have you ever thought about taking the TOEFL like Wang Yan did and going abroad? I can take care of the guarantee."

Chen Chuanlin looked troubled: "My family still hopes I can find a more stable job. Nobody knows what it will be like to go abroad."

"And you, Fifth Brother?" Gao Fan then looked at Pan Chang.

Pan Chang said, "I'm not as hardworking as Wang Yan, so I definitely won't pass the TOEFL. I'd better work first. Maybe if I perform well at my workplace, I can get a government-sponsored opportunity to go abroad and see the world."

This is the difference between the two. Chen Chuanlin is from Shanxi Province, comes from an average family, and is more focused on finding a stable job. Pan Chang, on the other hand, is from Beijing, has some family connections, and can take shortcuts.

Next, the conversation veered off course again, and Gao Fan learned about the current situations of his other roommates, including Gu Songtao, Hu Dongming, and He Xujie. They were all studying in a routine manner and didn't have many other ideas.

"By the way, Gao Fan, should we continue with the surfactant research project?"

Towards the end of the conversation, Chen Chuanlin brought up an important question.

The topic of surfactants was assigned to Gao Fan's roommates by Gao Fan before the winter break last year. It was agreed that the project would last for two years, during which each student would receive a monthly stipend of 50 yuan.

Besides Gao Fan, there are 7 other students in the dormitory. The monthly cost is 50 yuan, which is 350 yuan, and the annual cost is only 4200 yuan, which Gao Fan can easily afford.

He assigned this project to everyone, mainly to help his roommates with their living expenses. Calling it a subsidy was actually quite extravagant, because in those days, the average monthly expenditure for a college student was only around 20 yuan. With a monthly stipend of 50 yuan, the students of Dorm 449 suddenly became among the richest people on campus.

Gao Fan did this for two reasons. First, it was out of friendship with his classmates. It takes a hundred years of cultivation to share a boat ride, and having college roommates is a great blessing. Gao Fan himself was able to easily make a lot of money, and he couldn't bear to see his roommates eating the cheapest food in the cafeteria every day.

Another reason is that Gao Fan is optimistic about everyone's future prospects. Twenty years later, which Peking University student from the early 1980s isn't a remarkable figure? Sharing some benefits with everyone now will bring immeasurable rewards in the future.

As for whether this project would yield any useful results, Gao Fan maintained a calm attitude. Some results would be a pleasant surprise. If no results were achieved, it wouldn't matter; as a humanoid self-propelled database, Gao Fan certainly wouldn't lack such results.

When Chen Chuanlin asked, Gao Fan smiled and said, "Of course we'll continue. The information Xiao Ba sent me in the early stages was a great help to our company. Based on that information, our engineers developed several new cleaning agents, which are selling well in the Japanese and Southeast Asian markets."

Gao Fan's words were not untrue. Wu Zixian, as the project leader elected by everyone, sent Gao Fan several materials, mainly domestic and foreign literature reviews and photocopies of the original texts on surfactants, as well as some development ideas and preliminary experimental results for cleaning agents.

Gao Fan showed the data to the engineers hired from the Provincial Chemical Engineering Design Institute. The engineers had indeed developed several specialized cleaning agents based on the data. Although they were not yet "sales were good", they had at least earned back the research stipends they had given to their roommates.

Upon hearing this, Chen Chuanlin said somewhat embarrassedly, "Actually, this project was mainly done by Xiao Ba. The rest of us just did some research. Every time we discussed it in the dormitory, Xiao Ba would start, and we just provided some ideas."

"Seventh Brother also made a big contribution. When Eighth Brother went to do experiments, Seventh Brother was the one who accompanied him the most. The eldest brother and the others, including myself, are not as good at hands-on work as Seventh Brother and Eighth Brother," Pan Chang said with a smile.

(End of this chapter)