“Please don’t look so pitiful,” Professor Guo said exasperatedly. “Yuemu’s group does indeed have more difficult problems to solve. An additional person will add great strength to the team. What’s more, Tan Mo has a better grasp of ancient literature from the Warring States Era than Yuemu’s team. She will be a great help to us, and it would be a pity if she didn’t join Yuemu’s team.”
“Oh, right, Tan Mo, how many words do you recognize?” Shen Hongshan asked.
“I have never kept track or calculated that.” Tan Mo shook her head.
“True.” Shen Hongshan nodded his head. “No one has time for that.”
“Come on, let me explain how our team works.” Wang Yuemu didn’t waste any more time. She grabbed Tan Mo and started to introduce her to the process.
“We divide the materials and assign everyone a portion. It’s called teamwork. You should familiarize yourself with your assigned words, and, whenever you come across something you don’t understand, you should print it out and paste it onto the whiteboard. If someone else knows the answer, they will write it down. If no one can help, then you should check the dictionary.” Wang Yuemu continued to explain, “To be honest, that’s as simple as it gets, and I have nothing else to add. I will give you a section of the transcript later.”
After Wang Yuemu gave that introduction, she checked out her assigned share.
It was a thin little booklet.
“Try this first. Because this is a big project, it’s quite troublesome to undertake. Hence, everyone usually only gets a small section at any one time. If you do too much at one go, it will really suck away your brain power,” Wang Yuemu explained. “Once you’ve finished, you can let me know. I’ll give you another part. That’s basically it.
“Since everyone’s class schedules are different, there are no fixed times for our meetings. Like today, for example, a few of our fellow groupmates didn’t come because they’re having a class.” Wang Yuemu took Tan Mo over to the wall.
A miniature whiteboard was hanging on the wall.
A list of names was written on the whiteboard.
Wang Yuemu and the team all had their names written on it.
This was the name list of all the team members.
At the end of every name, a stipulated time was listed.
Sure enough, she heard Wang Yuemu explain, “This is the name list for our team. The time period listed at the end indicates their available times.
“We paste all the words we cannot recognize onto the board. When we aren’t around, other people can come and check out the whiteboard. If they recognize a word, they will write the answer next to it, and this way, we would be able to see it the next time we return.”
Tan Mo nodded her head. She understood.
It basically functioned like a messaging system.
“Take a look at your class schedule. Find a suitable time and write it behind your name.” As Wang Yuemu said this, she added Tan Mo’s name at the bottom of the list. “You’re not obligated to come every day. After all, everyone has their own commitments and if you’re unable to make the stipulated time you have listed, you can simply take leave. There will be no issues.”
From the looks of it, it didn’t seem strictly compulsory to attend these meetings.
However, these students had taken the initiative to grab this opportunity. They wanted to immerse themselves into the realm of research and everything was done voluntarily.
If they had a choice, they would wholeheartedly devote all their extracurricular time to this. They would sacrifice whatever little break time they had to do this.
Hence, taking leave from the project wasn’t really an issue. No one would give up on their research time to rest and play.
“That’s about it. I can’t think of anything else.” After thinking for a moment, Wang Yuemu was unable to think of anything else. “Once you’ve been here longer, you’ll slowly get familiar with everything, and you’ll be able to acquaint yourself with the nitty-gritty details.”
Tan Mo nodded her head.
When Wang Yuemu noticed that she was still holding onto the documents, she said, “This will be your desk. At the moment, you don’t have a computer. We’ll apply for it later. When we first established this research team, the school gave us resources according to our initial numbers. Otherwise, it would have been a waste if we left one computer unused.
“Everything will work much faster with a computer,” Wang Yuemu explained. “Without a computer, it would be quite inconvenient to do your work. You should spend the afternoon familiarizing yourself with this place.”
There was no rush to start work immediately.
Tan Mo nodded. She took out her class schedule from her bag. “I shall write down my times first.”
Tan Mo wrote down her available times according to the free time on her schedule.
After all, Wang Yuemu and the rest of the team majored in Chinese. They could easily make arrangements among themselves.
She majored in finance, and she still had to finish her homework from her other courses.
What’s more, she needed to attend Professor Zhao’s classes as well.
To be honest, she wasn’t doing this out of excessive self-confidence. In the future, she was most likely going to have to join Professor Zhao’s research team as well.
From what she had gathered from Wu Xiaoye, she’d have to join sooner or later.
Hence her schedule was already completely packed.
However, at this time, she had yet to join Professor Zhao’s team. So Tan Mo aligned her times with the other people’s, setting aside the same amount of time as everyone else.
If Professor Zhao requested her participation as well, she would negotiate with Professor Guo and ask him to shorten her commitment on this end.
After all, she wasn’t doing this because she was lazy or unmotivated. If Professor Zhao and Professor Guo were bent on competing for manpower, it had nothing to do with her.
If Professor Guo had an opinion on this, he should go and find Professor Zhao.
However, based on her productivity and efficiency levels, Tan Mo felt that she would be able to complete the same amount of work as everyone else even if she reduced her commitment time.
After writing everything down, Tan Mo wandered around the research room to take a look.
The research room wasn’t big. She focused on observing how everyone did their work.
This way, she’d be able to cooperate accordingly once she officially joined the team.
Wang Yuemu and the team didn’t expect Tan Mo to start work immediately either.
She had just arrived today.
What’s more, Tan Mo didn’t even have a computer yet.
Wang Yuemu didn’t laze around either. She immediately went to print the application form for a new computer and went to find Professor Guo to get his signature.
“The computer will probably be here tomorrow,” Wang Yuemu told Tan Mo with bright eyes.
Hence, it was fine if she decided to just look around today.
From tomorrow onward, it would be hard work.
Tan Mo: “……”
During their conversation, a few new words had been printed out and put up on the white board.
Tan Mo had already familiarized herself with the work processes. Since she was free, she decided to go and take a look.
If she recognized any of the words, she would write the answers down.
If she didn’t, she would try her best to search for the answers.
Although she still didn’t have a computer, she was capable of checking a dictionary.
Once Tan Mo joined the team, Wang Yuemu’s team was surprised to discover that their productivity levels had increased drastically.
Their output was twice the usual.
Pu Xinyan stood up and stretched. “Why don’t we stop here today? My neck can’t take it anymore.”
“Mine either.” Ling Zumu also stood up.
“All right, let’s stop here today. We have been very productive, and we have already passed our daily quota.” Wang Yuemu saved her work and rearranged her documents so that they would be easier to locate the next day.
“Although we haven’t recognized many words, we need to keep standing up to paste the words onto the board. It’s a good chance for us to exercise and rest,” Wang Yuemu said with a grin as she stood up.
