The First Task (Ming'er)

"Yes...!" Ming'er replies more enthusiastically than before. He feels more confident now that he sorts of knows what's going on.

"I like that confidence," Professor Williams remarks with a chuckle, "Given your knowledge and expertise in e-books, I'm sure you'll be able to excel as my research assistant."

Ming'er nods even though he doesn't understand what Professor Williams is saying.

/Yes, whatever she's talking about, that sounds about right...!/

"Anyway, here's your first task," Professor Williams says as she takes a file from under her desk and places it on the table.

Ming'er blinks. He didn't think that Professor Williams would pull a file out from under the table just like that. It was almost as though she'd pulled it out of thin air.

/Huh, I guess there must be some sort of storage space under this desk.../

Ming'er shakes the thought away as he opens the file that Professor Williams had placed on the table. To his surprise, the text on the papers inside the file were typed out in Chinese.

Ming'er silently thanks his lucky stars as his eyes glaze over the text of the paper on top.

"A total of 100 children aged between three to six have responded to the survey on the three e-book apps," Ming'er murmurs under his breath as he speed reads, "Panda Chinese, Ace Chinese, and Learn Chinese."

/Those must be the names of the e-book apps that I'm supposed to help research on./

/They all sound stupid./

"My job is to collate all of the responses in...an excel sheet...?" Ming'er trials off.

/An excel sheet?/

/What the hell is that?/

/Based on what I've seen so far, I'm pretty sure it's one of those squares on the surface of my mysterious-looking box./

/I'm pretty sure it's in the laptop too./

/I don't know what an excel sheet is yet, but I guess it has something to do with organizing and collating data.../

Ming'er thinks to himself as he shrugs.

/Whatever, I'll figure it out later./

"I'm not sure what you're saying, but I'm pretty sure you're on the right track," Professor Williams chuckles.

"Yes, Yvonne," she confirms, "Your first task is to collate the responses that the children we've surveyed have given in regards to three different Mandarin e-book apps."

"Oh," Professor Williams suddenly says with a slight furrow. She'd just noticed that Ming'er had come empty-handed.

"You forgot your laptop?" she asked.

Ming'er recognizes the word 'laptop', but doesn't understand anything else.

/Laptop?/

Ming'er furrows internally.

/Is she...asking me if I have a laptop?/

Ming'er glances at Professor Williams' laptop.

/Well, isn't that a laptop?/

Ming'er didn't know why Professor Williams was asking him such a silly question.

/Why is she asking me whether or not I have a laptop when there's clearly one there?/

And so, Ming'er nods.

"Yes," he replies, just like all the other times that he'd said the overused word.

"Oh," Professor Williams replies with a slight furrow. Just then, she turns around and opens the cabinet behind her...and takes out another laptop!

Ming'er looks on with wide eyes.

/Why does this Professor Williams seem to be pulling things out of thin air like it's nothing...?!/

"It's okay, Yvonne," Professor Williams hums, "Thankfully, I have a spare laptop that you can use."

She then places the laptop on the table. Ming'er is confused for a moment.

/Why did she take out another laptop?/

/There's one right there...!/

Ming'er notices how Professor Williams had placed the laptop closer to him. He looks up at her as though he's trying to confirm whether he thinks she's telling him what he thinks she's telling him.

/Oh, she put it pretty close to me./

/Is she asking me to take this laptop instead...?/

Ming'er decides to trust his instincts and accepts the laptop. It seems to be the right choice as Professor Williams grins at him.

"Anyway, take your time collating the responses, okay?" Professor Williams reassures, "It's okay if you can't collate all of them by today, just do as much as you can by 6pm."

Ming'er nods along as he slowly opens the laptop. He recalls the way that Professor Williams had opened her laptop earlier and mimics her actions.

However, Ming'er couldn't help but be worried that he might accidentally break the laptop or something.

After all, Ming'er and his classmates have to handle fragile items back at Qilin Academy all the time.

Incidences of broken items and the punishments that were accorded to them thereafter have taught them to be careful and wary.

As such, Ming'er opens the laptop so slowly and carefully that it was as though the laptop was about to shatter into pieces at any time.

Professor Williams furrows slightly at Ming'er's odd behaviour, but decides to shake it off.

After all, Ming'er doesn't seem to be feeling very well today. Professor Williams is grateful that he'd turned up despite this (albeit being slightly late) decides to go easy on him.

Besides, it's only his first day at work (as well as his first time) as a research assistant.

"Alright, I'll leave you to it now," Professor Williams hums as she pats Ming'er on the shoulder, "I've got to go down to the undergraduate office for a bit."

"Let me know if you need anything, alright?" Professor Williams smiles before she walks out of the door and shuts it behind her again. "Good luck, Yvonne!"

The room falls into silence as soon as Professor Williams leaves.

Ming'er stares blankly at the door for a moment before he blinks.

/Right, I've got a job to do./

Ming'er cracks his knuckles, straightens his back, and lets out a soft sigh. It's what he would usually do before his cultivation sparring sessions.

Ming'er taps on one of the keys, expecting a lockscreen like the one on Yuying's phone to appear.

To his surprise, however, the laptop that Professor Williams had passed to him didn't seem to have a password.

It simply unlocks to show the default laptop background.

There's a few squares that remind Ming'er of the ones he'd seen on his mysterious-lookkng box on the screen.

One of them catches Ming'er's attention. It's a green square with the word 'Microsoft Excel' beneath it.

Ming'er instantly has a feeling that this is the app that he's supposed to access.

He looks at the instructions on the paper again just to make sure. Sure enough, the words match.

/This must be the excel sheet thing that I'm supposed to collate the responses on...!/

Ming'er thinks to himself as he hovers the cursor over the little green square and clicks on it.

Something pops out from the green square as soon as Ming'er clicks it. It's a grid-like sheet that kind of reminds him of a brick wall, if the bricks were really flat and thin and if the wall was 2D.

Ming'er wrinkles his nose slightly as he tries to figure out how he's supposed to collate the responses on this brick wall-like sheet.

/Whatever, I'll figure it out./

Ming'er gives up after staring at the screen for two minutes straight.

/I'll just take a look at the responses first.../

And so, Ming'er flips to the next page of the file, where the first response is.

Ming'er speed reads the first response and almost bursts out into laughter.

-

Name: Tan Xiao Cheng

Age: 5

Gender: Male

Question 1: Which is your favourite app?

Answer: None

Question 2: What do you like about Panda Chinese? How would you rate it on a scale of 1 to 10?

Answer: Nothing, 0

Question 3: What do you like about Ace Chinese? How would you rate it on a scale of 1 to 10?

Answer: Nothing, 0

Question 4: What do you like about Learn Chinese? How would you rate it on a scale of 1 to 10?

Answer: Nothing, 0

Question 5: Do you think your Chinese has improved by using these Mandarin e-book apps?

Answer: No

Question 6: Do you have anything else to add?

Answer: Chinese sucks

-

"Oh my," Ming'er murmurs to himself, trying his best not to snigger, "This kid really hates Chinese."

/Isn't he Chinese, though?/

/Why would he hate learning his own language?/

/That's kind of sad./

Ming'er purses his lips as he thinks about his experience in this world thus far.

Even though many of the people on this world looked like the people in his world, most of them seemed to prefer speaking English over Chinese.

Ming'er clicks his tongue as he shakes his head slightly in disapproval.

/What's wrong with this world?/

/Why do all of the Chinese people seem to speak in English, dress scandalously, and have crazy hair colours...?/

Ming'er shakes off this thought as he reminds himself about his task.

"Let's collate this response," Ming'er murmurs to himself as he glances back up at the laptop, only to realize that he didn't know where to start.

Ming"er was still clueless as too how the excel sheet worked.

Just then, Ming'er recalled how double tapping on the mousepad resulted in the text that he'd put the cursor over getting highlighted.

And so, Ming'er hovers the cursor over the first box and double taps on the mouse pad...

Sure enough, the selected box gets highlighted, and a vertical line appears and disappears on it.

/Oh, I think it worked! It looks like I've selected the box./

Ming'er then racks his brains to figure out how he was going to write words without the use of a brush.

Just then, Ming'er remembers the way that Professor Williams had effortlessly moved her fingers all over the keyboard.

Ming'er glances down at the keyboard.

/If I press a key, the alphabet that's on that key would appear.../

Just as Ming'er was about to press one of the keys, he feels a sharp pain by his ear.

Ming'er instinctively clasps a hand over his ear as he doubles over and groans. He doesn't know why, but his head is spinning.

Ming'er clutches at his chest with his other hand. The dull ache in his chest that he'd felt earlier was coming back.

"What...what's going on...?" Ming'er groans as he squeezes his eyes shut. The pain by his ear, his head, and in his chest was starting to get unbearable.

/Help...I need to get help.../

Ming'er stumbles out of his seat and towards the door. He grabs the handle and opens it roughly. The pain is so bad now that it feels like it's searing right into his skin.

"P-Professor Williams..." Ming'er mutters under his breath. He has no idea where she is.

Ming'er doesn't know how long he'd stumbled down the corridor for, but the pain was getting worse with each step that he took.

Just then, Ming'er turns a corner and sees a flight of stairs below him.

He tries to step back, but it's too late.

Before he knew it, Ming'er was falling through the air. His body collided harshly with one of the steps on the stairs, and another, and another...

That wasn't even the worse part. Ming'er ear was now stinging with a pain that was even more intense than the one before. The ache in his chest wasn't subsiding either.

The combination of the stinging pain at his ear, the throbbing ache in his chest, his spinning head, and his body colliding against the steps made Ming'er's vision turn blurry.

The last thing that Ming'er remembered before his world turned into black was a horrified voice crying out to him.

"Yvonne...!"