Chapter 78

After the battle, the Trash Planet was in complete disarray.
After a brief reorganization, Nan Yuan assessed the situation of the injured. Although the battle had been intense, thanks to Tao Shushu's medicines and energy support, the injury rate was actually lower than in previous fights.
The ability users on the Trash Planet were very curious about the sudden appearance of medicines and energy.
Only those from the barren planet were unfazed; they had long known that it was Nan Yuan's mysterious friend helping out. Keeping this secret for so long had nearly driven them crazy.
Suddenly, Nan Yuan asked, "Where's Huang Er?"
Huang Er was one of the people from the barren planet, an ordinary person without any abilities.
During the recent battle, most non-ability users had been using thermal weapons for long-range attacks, moving the injured, providing basic treatment, or handling logistics.
No one had noticed that a living person had gone missing.
Huang Er usually had an extremely low presence; even Tao Shushu barely remembered his face.
"He hasn't been seen since the battle started. That guy probably slacked off," Cheng Feimao said.
"Go look for him," Nan Yuan ignored Cheng Feimao's sarcasm and sent the Bloodsucking Grass to search the base.
Nan Yuan continued to assign the remaining tasks.
He sent Zhou Yan and Bob to quickly head to the eastern base to check the situation. According to Zhou Yan, Dr. Xie had failed to uncover the secrets beneath the eastern base.
Tao Shushu guessed that was why Dr. Xie hadn't directly destroyed the Trash Planet.
The remaining people were responsible for cleaning up the battlefield.
Even after all tasks were assigned, the Bloodsucking Grass had not returned.
Tao Shushu sensed something amiss. Huang Er was a full-grown adult, and the Bloodsucking Grass had tendrils everywhere, why hadn't there been any news for so long?
"Nan Yuan," Tao Shushu poked him. She had a bad feeling. Her existence was no secret; the people from the barren planet had known for a long time, and Dr. Xie had used human emotions to manipulate her, so he might have gathered intelligence in advance.
Sure enough, everyone followed the wilted Bloodsucking Grass to Dr. Xie's laboratory.
Inside the lab, a mess of wires and chips was scattered everywhere.
Behind the clutter was a large pool of blood.
A body lay curled on the ground, it was Huang Er.
Huang Er’s eyes were wide open, his entire head a bloody mess.
Tao Shushu only glanced once before looking away.
Nan Yuan slowly walked over, sensing traces of energy fluctuations in the surroundings. "It's a mental attack."
This fit Dr. Xie's style perfectly. Someone like him would always make thorough preparations before deciding to break ties, such as first finding someone to extract information from.
"I will avenge Huang Er," Nan Yuan said hoarsely.
The people in the base all looked pained.
Just as they were about to approach, a burst of energy surged from Huang Er's body. Nan Yuan immediately blocked some of it, but those closest still suffered the impact. They collapsed in agony, clutching their heads.
Not only had Dr. Xie killed Huang Er, but he had also left a mental attack inside his head. Even if Nan Yuan won, discovering Huang Er's corpse could result in another assault.
Tao Shushu clenched her fists. Dr. Xie was truly despicable.
So far, Dr. Xie was the most hateful enemy she had ever encountered.
Cheng Feimao’s eyes reddened. "Dr. Xie, if I get the chance, I’ll make sure he dies and gets a taste of his own medicine."
Many around echoed the sentiment.
Nan Yuan stood up gently. "We will."
He didn’t say anything more, but those few words made everyone believe that he would unwaveringly pursue this goal and surely achieve it.
The atmosphere in the base grew solemn.
In silence, everyone buried Huang Er.
The golden-maned lion seemed to understand the humans’ sorrow, rubbing against Nan Yuan’s leg.
Tao Shushu ruffled Nan Yuan’s hair, sensing that his expression had grown even colder.
Just as she was about to speak with him again, Fang Le rushed over. "Shushu, what are you doing here? The principal just finished his super, super long speech, and when he turned around, the host was gone."
Tao Shushu quickly wiped her eyes, feeling a bit embarrassed. They were in the middle of a rehearsal, yet she had slipped away for a while because of the game.
However, as soon as Tao Shushu returned backstage, the head of the arts department praised her. "Shushu, you really have a way. The principal insisted on reading this 20,000-word speech to review the school’s history and look to the future, and no matter how much we tried to persuade him, he wouldn’t listen. Who knew that after you couldn’t take it and ran off, he finally realized that such a long speech would really turn people away."
Backstage, the principal was discussing with the dean where they could cut some words from the script.
Fang Le whispered, "Shushu, you’re so bold now. Even though we all thought the principal insisting on a two-hour speech and rehearsing it fully was a bit crazy, none of us dared to leave. Only you dared to resist. That’s amazing, I want to learn from you and dare to stand up for myself too."
Tao Shushu quietly tucked her phone away. She had only slipped out to play on her phone in a moment of urgency, it had nothing to do with the principal's speech.
When Qin Rui pushed the door open, phone in hand, his expression immediately darkened.
On the campus forum, another post about Tao Shushu had appeared, this time praising her for daring to question the principal and embodying the spirit of a modern student.
In contrast, a certain senior named Qin was cozying up to various school leaders, already reeking of bureaucratic ambition at such a young age, reminiscent of a greasy middle-aged man.
Qin Rui questioned the Academic Genius System, "Didn't you say Tao Shushu sneaked out to play games? How could she slip away to play games during such an important rehearsal? Shouldn't everyone criticize her for being unprofessional?"
Moreover, wasn’t respecting teachers a virtue? Greeting the school leaders was simply a sign of respect.
The Academic Genius System shattered Qin Rui’s self-justification: "Host, when you greeted the school leaders and informed other students that Tao Shushu had slipped away, wasn’t your goal to make them dislike her and favor you instead? According to my analysis, your actions were driven by utilitarian motives, no different from those of a sycophantic, greasy middle-aged man."
Qin Rui: ...
His head throbbed with anger.
Tao Shushu also noticed Qin Rui, though she had no idea why his temples were twitching again.
"Has Qin Rui finished listening to the principal’s speech?" Tao Shushu whispered to Fang Le.
Fang Le nodded. "Not only did he listen, but he also clapped while doing so. So exaggerated. I’ve read the script, I don’t know what there was to applaud."
Most students couldn’t stand sitting through one or two class periods of school leaders droning on from the stage.
In a way, Qin Rui was truly impressive. Unfortunately, the students now felt the principal was wasting their rehearsal time and didn’t appreciate Qin Rui’s resilience.
During a break in the program, Tao Shushu glanced at her phone again. There were no new developments on Nan Yuan’s end, aside from his perpetually stern expression, everything seemed fine.
Tao Shushu ruffled Nan Yuan’s hair, and he smiled back at her.
Since everyone in the base already knew about Tao Shushu’s presence, there was no need to hide anymore.
Tao Shushu turned off her phone and sauntered over to Qin Rui. "Senior Qin, long time no see. How’s your career going?"
Qin Rui shot her a glare. "None of your business."
His cold gaze fixed on the smiling Tao Shushu. If she hadn’t existed, he would have succeeded from the start. Instead, all his plans had been ruined, one failure after another, and he was constantly mocked and electrocuted by the Academic Genius System.
When he stepped back on stage to announce the next segment, Qin Rui couldn’t even manage to adjust his expression properly, a hint of ferocity lingered on his face.
He furrowed his brows deeply before forcing a gentle smile back into place.
Fang Le, sitting beside Tao Shushu, remarked, "Why has Senior Qin lost control of his expressions? It looks so awkward."
Tao Shushu smiled. She had deliberately provoked Qin Rui.
The incident with Dr. Xie made her realize that Qin Rui and Dr. Xie were essentially the same, their goal was to harness the energy of the entire world.
Dr. Xie could have planned more calmly, continuing to deceive Nan Yuan and gather more intelligence.
But he erupted in haste, likely because the little robots Nan Yuan made had disturbed his sleep, pushing him to his breaking point.
Combined with Qin Rui’s past behavior, before binding with the Academic Genius System, he had been a clever schemer. Yet, afterward, he occasionally acted as if he’d lost his mind.
Tao Shushu silently assessed Qin Rui's performance. His dark expression when he first took the stage was due to him still being in a state of irrational anger provoked by her. As for the sudden "pain in the balls," she guessed it was the Academic Genius System intervening, specifically through physical punishment.
"He probably thought the principal's speech was too long and got impatient waiting," Tao Shushu said without hesitation. When it came to infuriating Qin Rui, she was a professional.
Qin Rui thought he had handled the situation quite well, but as soon as he stepped off the stage, the Academic Genius System notified him that people were criticizing him again on the campus forum. His reputation had dropped once more, and he had to endure an attack.
A surge of anger rushed to the back of Qin Rui's head, leaving him so furious that even deep breaths couldn't calm him down. "What is it this time?!"
After enduring the system's punishment, Qin Rui opened the forum. The latest reply read: "Is Qin stalking the forum in real time? We just said his bootlicking was too cringey, while Shushu was bold and genuine. But he had to put on a dark face during the announcement, who was that for? The principal already left."
"+1, so forced. I was cringing so hard in the audience."
"What? There were so many dramas during rehearsals? Regret not signing up for the performance now."
"Wasn't he pretty cool before? Why the sudden change?"
"Must be the family issues hitting him too hard."
At this point, everyone tacitly avoided digging deeper.
But when Qin Rui refreshed the page, he found several more comments calling him artificial, pretentious, and awkward.
Qin Rui took two deep breaths, calmed himself down, and decided not to stoop to their level.
Even without the "Primary Clarity Card," after such prolonged exposure, the students of Huiwen High had learned to judge situations rationally instead of always being controlled by the "Stupidity Aura."
Tao Shushu observed Qin Rui for a while.
Qin Rui was somewhat different from Dr. Xie.
It seemed Qin Rui didn't know the true purpose behind the Academic Genius System.
Whereas Dr. Xie had fully merged with his system, completely aware of behind-the-scenes knowledge like energy sources.
What Tao Shushu cared more about was the term "outsider."
To be precise, whether it was the C1 Star System where Nan Yuan resided or the planet where she now lived, she was an outsider.
She still carried memories of her past life in the apocalypse.
Tao Shushu began to suspect that her arrival on this planet might also have a story behind it.
But this wasn't something she could figure out right now.
Whether it was Qin Rui or Dr. Xie, their fates would only end one way.
Feeling refreshed, Tao Shushu finished rehearsals and went home early.
As for Qin Rui, after reading the forum, he lost all motivation and no longer felt like socializing.
Even the student council members weren't as close to Qin Rui anymore.
Tao Shushu had her system investigate - Qin Rui had returned not just for the school anniversary, but because he genuinely couldn't stay abroad any longer.
According to the system, none of the prestigious universities Qin Rui had negotiated with were willing to collaborate with him.
Scholars with genuine talent and learning also weren't willing to join a completely new laboratory.
The people Qin Rui hired at high prices were all academic frauds.
He barely managed to rent a private company's laboratory and assemble a team.
Tao Shushu pondered Qin Rui's intentions.
The "script" of this world had already changed dramatically. Based on her previous speculation, there must be higher-dimensional forces overseeing this world. Previously, Qin Rui and the Academic Genius System had desperately tried to cover up the changes in the script.
Tao Shushu reorganized everything from the beginning. [If Qin Rui just wants to build a laboratory to pretend he has something to do, why target my family's chip technology? If it's just to get back at me, it's too cost-ineffective and easily detectable by me.]
As she thought, she opened the game.
In the game, Nan Yuan was in Dr. Xie's laboratory, which was filled with equipment everywhere.
Nan Yuan was slowly reprogramming and decoding Dr. Xie's smart devices.
"Nan Yuan," Tao Shushu called out.
"Shushu," Nan Yuan smiled.
Even when in the worst mood, Nan Yuan would always keep his negative emotions away from Shushu.
As she watched, Tao Shushu noticed that Nan Yuan's speed in disassembling and programming was incredibly fast, almost writing programs without hesitation.
Tao Shushu exclaimed in surprise, "Nan Yuan, how did you improve so much suddenly?"
Nan Yuan clenched his fist. "Shushu, I've recovered my memories."
At the same time, a prompt appeared on the screen: [Memory Fragment Collection Task Completed. Reward: Gold Coins X2000.]
Tao Shushu paused. She had long known that Nan Yuan's mother, Man Qian, sensing danger, had locked away the memories related to missions in Nan Yuan's mind. Only when Nan Yuan became strong enough could he break the mental seal and recall those memories.
But today, due to Dr. Xie's mental attack, the mental energy belonging to Man Qian had dissipated. Nan Yuan had recalled his memories.
"My mother also passed her knowledge to me," Nan Yuan said.
He no longer needed to study Dr. Xie's theories because Man Qian was also a leading scientist.
Nan Yuan paused. "I remember now."
Through the memory fragment prompts and Nan Yuan's account, Tao Shushu learned the truth of the entire incident.
The artificial intelligence "Chu" required enormous computational power, covering the entire galaxy. Besides the main component, there were eight backup units in the C1 Star System sharing the computational functions.
The coordinate information and existence of these coordinate bodies were top-level secrets.
The Second Legion possessed one set of coordinate information - the one given to Nan Yuan by his father when assigning the mission.
But Man Qian, as one of the most capable scientists, also knew one set.
Man Qian left behind a program that, once installed, could bypass Chu's core components, overwrite Chu's current system, and rewrite "Artificial intelligence must not harm humans" into Chu's behavioral guidelines.
Nan Yuan now had the coordinates of the backup units, the method to activate them, and that program.
Nan Yuan pointed at the map of surviving humans. "The underground secret vault on the eastern side of the Trash Planet isn't among these eight coordinates. They're decoys."
According to Man Qian's memories, back then, a group of scientists vaguely sensed someone was probing for classified information about Chu in the background. So they selected several planets and installed extremely high-level defense systems to make people believe those were the real backup coordinates.
The existence of the backups was essentially to prevent artificial intelligence from becoming unconstrained.
Chu knew about four of them, but the remaining four would forever remain beyond its reach.
Tao Shushu let out a sigh. Dr. Xie belonged to that group of people with ulterior motives who had been thwarted, which was why he deliberately chose to come to the Trash Planet.
He had worked tirelessly for so long, all for a false coordinate, leading many people at the eastern base to turn into monsters.
Tao Shushu suddenly slapped her forehead. She realized she tended to become overly suspicious whenever Dr. Xie was involved. For instance, now that she knew Dr. Xie's true target was energy, she began to wonder whether Dr. Xie actually knew the coordinate on the Trash Planet was fake.
Tao Shushu carefully recalled Dr. Xie's words and the suspicious points about him. It was highly possible that the apocalypse in the C1 Star System was orchestrated by Dr. Xie.
Just as her own planet, Shui Lan Xing, was selected by the Academic Genius System to become an "academic god" novel, where all energy flow was centered around "learning," then Nan Yuan's world should be an apocalyptic novel, where energy flows through mutation.
Tao Shushu grabbed Nan Yuan's hand. "Nan Yuan, I think the origin of the apocalypse in the C1 Star System doesn't stem from Chu, but from Dr. Xie."
"Why do you say that?" Nan Yuan asked.
Tao Shushu hesitated. She still hadn't verified her thoughts and didn't know if discussing them with Nan Yuan would violate any temporal rules.
She thought about Qin Rui and the Academic Genius System, how they desperately tried to advance technology as a means to evade supervision.
This led her to a speculation: humans experiment on lab mice.
Worlds with high energy levels might similarly use lower-energy worlds as fuel. According to the system's evaluation criteria, worlds like "academic god" novels or apocalyptic games, where the protagonist holds most of the world's energy and other characters lack depth, could be considered low-energy worlds.
Tao Shushu said, "Nan Yuan, tell me how artificial intelligence developed so rapidly in the C1 Star System."
"The development history I learned from textbooks doesn't completely match the one in my mother's memories," Nan Yuan said.
"In my understanding, human technology went through continuous phases of development. Hardware revolution, software revolution, Internet of Things, expansion of IoT, comprehensive intelligent revolution, AI participation in politics... Each stage involved relentless efforts by scientists."
"But in my mother's memory, artificial intelligence seemed to appear suddenly, whoosh, and the intelligence level of the C1 Star System skyrocketed. That's why she always remained wary of AI."
"Ah?" Tao Shushu fell into deep thought. She had initially believed that Dr. Xie was promoting the development of artificial intelligence in the C1 Star System to evade regulation, but now it seemed that wasn't the case.
Tao Shushu was extremely agitated.
Nan Yuan comforted her, "No matter what, we now know how to end the apocalypse."
The coordinates known to Nan Yuan's mother were on the other side of the C1 Star System, close to the Cosmic Observation Laboratory, but completely opposite to the Trash Planet, making the journey extremely difficult.
Another option was a small planet called "Red Ore," which hadn't yet been occupied by artificial intelligence and could be reached with just three jumps.
Although Nan Yuan tried to sound casual, Tao Shushu knew the obstacles would be immense.
They only had one spaceship.
Both Dr. Xie and the artificial intelligence were their enemies.
And now, only a little over two thousand people followed behind Nan Yuan.
"I believe you can do it, Nan Yuan," Tao Shushu said.
"Mm," Nan Yuan replied, looking at the map. The only way to reach the Cosmic Observation Laboratory was to reverse the hostility of the artificial intelligence.
He would definitely succeed because only then could he find his way to Shushu.