Chapter 74

Gu Lanchun met with Jia Xu and used her personal experience to prove to him that Tao Shushu was not someone who would steal others’ talents.
When evidence of "certain individuals" hiring internet trolls and sending divisive messages was laid out before him, Jia Xu, having regained his rationality, began to see the problem.
Jia Xu felt a wave of fear. If Tao Shushu hadn’t noticed that the security guard had been bribed on the day of the competition and intervened in time, he would have stormed into the school with ill-intentioned reporters, causing a scene. That would have become a lifelong stain, impossible to wash away.
What angered Jia Xu even more was that the person sending the divisive messages was adept at hiding their identity, making it impossible to trace who it was.
Having nearly been used without even realizing it, Jia Xu angrily tried to track down the newspaper that had contacted him that day, only to find that the unscrupulous tabloid was solely focused on stirring up trouble for clicks, with no regard for the well-being of those involved.
Jia Xu could no longer bring himself to smile.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
When Gu Lanchun said, "Why were you still thinking about mocking others right before the exam? If you had focused on yourself and kept your mouth shut, and reviewed the formulas one more time before the test, you wouldn’t have only realized something was wrong during the exam."
Jia Xu felt like crying but had no tears. Now, everyone’s impression of him was: "the boy from Yancheng Yancheng No.1 Highschool who went crazy over the exam difficulty."
He looked over the test questions, they weren’t difficult. With his ability, he could have scored in the top one percent among all competition participants. His original plan to secure a spot through the competition was completely ruined.
Each school had a limited number of spots for the competition. At Yancheng Yancheng No.1 Highschool, a few students who had scored slightly lower in the internal selection and hadn’t qualified for the competition came to mock him: "If someone’s psychological resilience is so weak, they shouldn’t take the exam. Taking a spot and then having a public meltdown, embarrassing the school, what’s the point of hogging a spot if you can’t deliver?"
"Hah, I suspect some people act all high and mighty at school but can’t perform when it counts. I suggest the school implement the same security checks as in the competition to prevent certain people with ulterior motives from acting tough at school only to embarrass themselves outside."
Jia Xu’s grades were earned through genuine effort, but the fact remained that he had failed to bring honor to the school in a competition that mattered.
Jia Xu was just about to engage in a verbal battle with his classmates in the competition group chat when he heard Gu Lanchun say, "Now you know how awful it feels to be falsely accused."
"By the way, I'm also curious, were you deliberately being so nasty that day because you were afraid the competition was too strong? Trying to break the top contenders' morale off the field?" Gu Lanchun asked.
Jia Xu suppressed his anger. He still didn’t know whether his knowledge would be stolen again. Gu Lanchun suggested he directly participate in international competitions instead, as long as he won, he could still earn medals recognized by prestigious universities.
After hearing the whole story and listening to Jia Xu’s reluctant apology over the phone, Tao Shushu was in high spirits.
She even made a recording to play for the class monitor at school on Monday.
Once the apology was given, Gu Lanchun nodded in satisfaction. "By the way, I’m sure you won’t be foolish enough to treat Shushu as an enemy anymore, right?"
Reverse psychology. Jia Xu gritted his teeth. He often used this tactic when mocking others, and now that it was being used against him, he couldn’t escape it either. "Of course. I can still tell who the real enemy is."
"Good. We suspect the mastermind is overseas. If you really compete abroad, they’ll have plenty of opportunities to get close to you. It’d be a disaster if you got tricked again."
"I’m not that stupid." Jia Xu’s face burned with embarrassment. "I’ll set ‘Tao Shushu is a good person’ as my phone wallpaper and look at it every morning."
"Great." Gu Lanchun waved goodbye to Jia Xu, thinking to herself how useful the reference books Tao Shushu had sent over really were.
With the Gu family’s assistance, the true circumstances of several minor characters were brought to light.
Luo Liming’s death was no longer a secret.
Before the struggling Luo family could manipulate public opinion, every dirty deed he had committed was exposed.
Even the already imprisoned Old Master Wang was dragged out and criticized all over again.
Luo Liming had once been somewhat famous, hailed as a talented male idol with a group of fans.
Upon learning his true nature, those who had once idolized him were utterly disgusted, exclaiming they had been deceived by his persona.
Luo Liming was a graduate of Huiwen Highschool. On the school’s forum, in alumni class groups, and among close-knit circles of graduates, criticism ran rampant, blaming Luo Liming for being too scheming and hypocritical.
After witnessing the uproar on the forum, Tao Shushu couldn’t help but shake her head. If the backlash against just one Luo Liming was this intense, she wondered what would happen when Qin Rui’s downfall came.

Qin Rui was not having an easy time.
Tao Shushu was dedicated to exposing fraud. She promptly communicated with Professor Angus, clarifying that she and Qin Rui were not aligned, and warned Angus not to believe Qin Rui’s claims.
Angus held Tao Shushu in high regard. Discovering that his admiration for her talent had been exploited as a tool for Qin Rui’s deception infuriated him. He personally wrote a column article detailing the theoretical flaws in Qin Rui’s roadshow presentations.
The Qin family had invested a fortune, and initially, Qin Rui did manage to recruit some talented researchers. Even the princess of F county was captivated by his blueprint.
However, as soon as Angus’s article appeared, leading figures in the academic world began to question it. Qin Rui couldn’t provide a coherent explanation during the confrontation, and those who had been overly enthusiastic quickly sobered up, realizing that Qin Rui was essentially running a Ponzi scheme.
Everyone has dreams of changing the world, but Qin Rui’s dream had no feasibility whatsoever, it was a complete scam.
The university laboratory Qin Rui had rented also refused to continue collaborating with a fraud.
Everyone felt that Qin Rui was trying to gather them together just to steal their achievements.
When scholars from other fields heard about the physics community’s assessment of Qin Rui, they too backed away.
Qin Rui’s plans ended before they even began, not a single experiment was ever started.
There are no secrets in high society circles. The Qin family had spent a huge sum only to achieve nothing, not even making a splash, and the news quickly made its way back to Yancheng through those with ulterior motives.
The Qin family’s earlier quiet takeover of the Luo family’s business had already angered some families who were too slow to get a share of the profits.
Now, these families spared no effort in tripping up the Qin family, either by deliberately causing trouble in business, sacrificing some profits to snatch major clients, or by reporting the Qin family’s usual irregularities to authorities, just to annoy them.
Li Anyu’s voice was full of excitement. "Shushu, you have no idea. That Mrs. Qin, the one who loves buying bags the most, doesn’t even have time to have her assistent deliver bags for her to choose from now. My mom was the first to get the limited edition bag, and she’s over the moon."
Tao Shushu didn’t understand why being the first to carry a bag was such a big deal, but that didn’t stop her from feeling happy.
She was delighted to see Qin Rui and the Academic Genius System suffer.
Yancheng Yancheng No.1 Highschool was a boarding school.
When Jia Xu returned to school, he faced a few more sarcastic remarks. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. Although Gu Lanchun had said that the mastermind behind it all was powerful and he had no evidence to report to the police, Jia Xu just couldn’t let it go.
First, he put his talent for insults to use and wrote a scathing letter to Qin Rui.
But even after sending it, he wasn’t satisfied. What if Qin Rui didn’t read it? He decided to do a little more.
So, Jia Xu stayed up late into the night, yawning repeatedly, his eyes bloodshot, until he finally completed his masterpiece, a mystical story. Once upon a time, there was a certain Qin who had no real talent but was full of vanity, so he learned to steal others’ talents.
Jia Xu described all the dark arts he knew as the methods used by this Qin. His family had accumulated wealth for generations using these despicable, underhanded tactics, so they never valued money and never considered the feelings of their victims.
When writing this part, Jia Xu put himself in the story, pouring his emotions into it.
Finally, he warned people to cherish their talents and stay away from this Qin.
Jia Xu often visited physics forums to discuss challenging problems with netizens from around the world.
His English wasn’t great, so he used a translation tool to render his venting story into English before finally lying down to rest.
In his dreams, he was still cursing Qin Rui.
On the other side, although the machine translation lacked the essence of the original, the story, filled with mystical elements, still caught some attention amidst the dry physics problems.
Late at night, while Tao Shushu and the others were sound asleep.
In a laboratory far across the ocean, Qin Rui had failed yet another experiment. He was never particularly skilled at lab work to begin with. He opened his phone and asked the Academic Genius System, "I’ve almost drained the Qin family’s liquid assets, and still no school is willing to collaborate?"
"According to my detection, you’ve been blacklisted by all reputable universities now. Moreover, the few researchers who were willing to discuss things have just messaged, saying they’re no longer interested."
Qin Rui’s eyelids twitched violently. "What happened this time? Don’t you know?"
"I only care about whether you can achieve your goal. You should know that the competition results will be out soon."
A sharp pain shot through Qin Rui’s temples, as if an electric current were jolting inside. "I can definitely do it."
"Really?" the Academic Genius System inquired. "Hand over your consciousness entirely to me, and all your suffering will vanish."
Qin Rui sneered coldly and decided to investigate for himself what new setback had caused all his collaborations to fall through.
Just then, Qin Rui noticed an unfamiliar email in his inbox.
He was about to ignore it when the Academic Genius System spoke up: "It’s an email from Jia Xu, the male supporting character."
Qin Rui opened the email, and the next moment, he was greeted by elegant Chinese prose:
"Oh no, oh no, surely there isn’t someone who can’t even conduct their own experiments and has to steal others’ talents, right? Can you not walk on your own without stealing? If experimental physics doesn’t work out, you could always try theoretical physics. Oh, wait, I forgot you might not even have a brain, so you resort to stealing a high school student’s talent. If you have neither hands nor brains, I suggest staying far away from physics. Don’t go through your whole life without producing a single experiment or research paper!"
Staring at his fruitless experiment, Qin Rui was so enraged that he smashed the magnetic field instrument.
"The male supporting character Gu Haoning’s talent is roasting people. Do you need it?" the Academic Genius System asked.
Qin Rui’s mind was filled with nothing but fury.
"Admitting you have no talent is also a form of enlightenment," the Academic Genius System remarked.
Qin Rui’s eyes nearly burst with rage.
"Fine," the Academic Genius System said. "At least this proves I’m not monitoring your email content. Also, I suggest you change your experimental direction. This school only has two magnetic interferometers, each costing three million."
Furious, Qin Rui smashed his phone as well.

Tao Shushu slept very well that night.
As soon as she woke up in the morning, she opened her phone and checked on Nan Yuan.
Nan Yuan was now able to assemble more complex robotic circuits.
Watching Nan Yuan soldering chips, Tao Shushu smiled and said, "My parents’ company also manufactures chips. The ones they make are more mainstream."
"Really? What type?" Nan Yuan asked without pausing his work. He loved the little details Shushu revealed during their casual chats, constantly piecing together a mental sketch of the world she lived in.
Tao Shushu picked up a product manual and began introducing the items one by one.
The product introductions weren’t particularly interesting, but Nan Yuan listened attentively, occasionally discussing a few points with Tao Shushu.
Tao Shushu noted down all the points Nan Yuan mentioned. The C1 Star System where Nan Yuan resided had more advanced technology, and his evaluations were quite insightful. She underlined several feasible suggestions, perhaps she could show them to her parents to potentially improve the craftsmanship of the Tao family’s company.
After breakfast, Tao Shushu didn’t log off. Sitting in the car, she reviewed vocabulary words while occasionally chatting with Nan Yuan, who was focused on his tasks.
Nan Yuan paused his work. Shushu’s attitude seemed to have changed over the past few days, she was clearly spending more time with him.
Sometimes, they didn’t have the chance to interact, each busy with their own tasks.
But just knowing she was watching made him feel inexplicably happy.
On the screen, Nan Yuan smiled faintly.
When the car arrived at school, Tao Shushu said goodbye to Nan Yuan.
The system seized the opportunity to report on Qin Rui’s misfortunes from the previous night. It seemed to have refined its language skills recently, vividly describing Qin Rui’s miserable state and even taking credit: [Jia Xu’s machine translation was truly awful and unreadable, so I independently translated it to achieve the spread among foreign scholars.]
[Jia Xu is really something,] Tao Shushu chuckled. [You’ve worked hard too. Keep an eye on the other supporting characters.]
Tao Shushu also read the scathing letter Jia Xu had written. To be fair, the only reason Jia Xu hadn’t been beaten up for his sharp tongue was that they lived in a society governed by law.
It really hit Qin Rui’s sore spots.
After skimming through Jia Xu’s mystical stories, Tao Shushu commented, [It’s well-written, but don’t spread it too much. We don’t want Qin Rui to find out.]
She was afraid Qin Rui might get so angry he’d try to steal Jia Xu’s talent again.
Starting the day with a good laugh at Qin Rui’s expense put Tao Shushu in an excellent mood, even boosting her study efficiency.
The academic atmosphere in Class One had genuinely improved. Even the noise during breaks had lessened, as everyone encouraged each other to achieve better results in the next exam.
One classmate remarked, “Shushu, we counted, you have the most awards in the student recognition segment of the school anniversary.”
“It’s a shame our class can’t win a collective award this time. Next time, we must get the highest average score.”
“Right, let’s all study hard and catch up to Shushu.”
“Okay!” Tao Shushu smiled. “Let’s work hard together.”
After the second class, Tao Shushu went to the physics department office to retrieve something from Li Xin.
She happened to run into Zhang Hai, the homeroom teacher of the international class.
Zhang Hai coughed twice. “Tao Shushu, the competition results will be out soon, right? Don’t be nervous, your performance isn’t something teachers need to worry about.”
Tao Shushu smiled. “Yes, I’m confident.”
Zhang Hai was momentarily speechless. “Students who study physics usually choose to study abroad. I heard Professor Angus admires you quite a bit. How about it, Tao Shushu? Would you like to transfer to the international class? You could start preparing for overseas studies early.”
Zhang Hai’s skin was thicker than a city wall.
Tao Shushu replied with a smile, “I like Class One. I don’t like the international class, and I especially don’t like you, Teacher Zhang. So, could you please stop blocking my way?”
Zhang Hai's lips twitched with rage, but thinking of the honor that would come from mentoring a student appreciated by Professor Angus, he forced an awkward smile and held back. With even thicker skin, he said, "It's fine, Shushu. The international class will always welcome you. If there are areas where our philosophies don't align, I can learn and improve, hehe."
"Enough, Zhang Hai. Save your schemes," Li Xin sneered. "Tao Shushu, come get the materials."
"Okay." Tao Shushu walked toward Li Xin's desk but didn't forget to add to Zhang Hai, "Well, there's nothing to be done, Teacher. After all, it's quite difficult to start over from scratch."
Zhang Hai was so angry his nose and face seemed out of place, yet Tao Shushu was now a star in the principal's eyes. Fuming internally, he didn't dare vent his anger. It was all Su Momo's fault, acting all capable but turning out to be all show and no substance, causing him to offend Tao Shushu. Sigh.
Tao Shushu had no idea about Zhang Hai's thoughts, and even if she had, she wouldn't have cared. After clarifying a few doubts with Li Xin, she returned to the classroom to continue studying.
With the school anniversary approaching, the class began rehearsing performances again.
Fang Le went around confirming schedules with each participating student, saving Tao Shushu for last. She said sympathetically, "Shushu, you just finished the competition, and now you have rehearsals. You hardly have any time to rest."
Tao Shushu smiled. "Last week, I was excused from rehearsals to prepare for the competition, which was already considerate. I rested over the weekend, so it's fine."
"You're so good, Shushu," Fang Le sighed.
"Shushu, are you superhuman? No wonder I can't be a top student, wuwuwu," Li Anyu fake-cried beside Tao Shushu.
Tao Shushu laughed. "It's about efficiency."
"I remember you told me before to find a goal, study first, and do other things only after achieving it. I used my idol's videos as motivation, but now, to avoid studying, I've even stopped watching my idol's videos," Li Anyu wailed again.
Tao Shushu chuckled. "That just means your love for them isn't strong enough. Find someone you'd be willing to see every day."
"Where would I find that?" Li Anyu cried out, her gossip radar suddenly pinging. "Hmm, Shushu, the way you said that... you've found that person, haven't you?!"
This time, Tao Shushu didn't deny it. Thinking of Nan Yuan, a big smile spread across her face. "Yes."
"Who is it?! Who, Shushu, tell me who it is! When did this happen? How come I didn't know?" Li Anyu instantly got excited.
Tao Shushu held back the excited Li Anyu. "It's that online friend I mentioned before. Let's go, it's time for the flag-raising ceremony on the field."
The sunlight was warm. Bathed in the sun, Tao Shushu joked and played with her classmates as they headed to the field.
Someday, Nan Yuan would also breathe the same air she breathed and feel the same sunlight she felt.
Tao Shushu smiled at the thought.
And so, Tao Shushu returned to her busy life. With the school anniversary the following Monday, Class One began rehearsing every evening.
While juggling her regular studies and physics competitions, she hadn't achieved outstanding results yet, but she was firmly on track to reach the finals.
With the system and the Gu family keeping a close watch, and the competitions always being fair, Qin Rui and the Academic Genius System couldn't pull any tricks. For Qin Rui and the Academic Genius System, it was like watching Tao Shushu inevitably succeed while they could only wait helplessly for the final verdict, like a dull knife slowly cutting through flesh.
Tao Shushu, on the other hand, wasn't too concerned about her results; she had always maintained a good mindset.
Xun would occasionally chat with Tao Shushu, showing thoughtful care every day.
After learning that Xun's creator was Nan Yuan of this world, Tao Shushu developed a fondness for Xun by extension. Sometimes, when she needed to look something up, she would seek Xun out.
Xun spared no effort in promoting itself. "Don't you want to take me from that charlatan, Shushu? I can do so many things."
"Charlatan" was Xun's nickname for Shen Yichen.
Tao Shushu laughed. "No. I hope you can live according to your creator's intentions."
"But my creator likes you a lot, so I like you too." Xun made a pitiful, pleading expression.
"Mm, I know." After saying this, Tao Shushu coldly closed Xun's interface, though a gentle smile she hadn't even noticed appeared on her face.
No matter how busy she was, Tao Shushu made time to chat with Nan Yuan every day.
Nan Yuan had fed the Bloodsucking Grass many energy spheres, and it was gathering more and more intelligence.
Dr. Xie was "protected" by Nan Yuan but still maintained his sickly, harmless persona.
He taught Nan Yuan diligently every day.
Nan Yuan studied earnestly, pretending not to notice that Dr. Xie sent artificial intelligence into his room daily to rummage through his things.
Dr. Xie never brought up Man Qian again.
Nan Yuan didn't mention it either.
With Dr. Xie no longer causing trouble, Nan Yuan carefully replaced the defenses on the Trash Planet and had people gather more materials to make gas masks.
Even if the artificial intelligence launched a sudden attack, the Trash Planet could hold out for a while.
Tao Shushu updated the survivor map again. The artificial intelligence had recently been counterattacking, capturing more planets.
The urgency of dealing with the artificial intelligence weighed increasingly heavily on everyone.
Finally, Zhou Yan sent back a message.