Chapter 97

Tao Shushu tried to recall but still couldn’t remember the events of her previous life.
Many memories remained as vague outlines. She had once thought it was because the apocalypse was too cruel, and her subconscious wanted to forget.
But now, she felt a bit regretful.
Tao Shushu patted her head. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t remember; she had already gotten to know Nan Yuan all over again.
Nan Yuan had always been a good person.
The him in her blurry memories was like that, and the vivid him before her eyes was the same.
Nan Yuan finished explaining the situation on Deepwater Planet. As soon as the signal was received, the survivors remaining in the safe gravitational field quickly arrived at Deepwater Planet.
The surviving humans swiftly subdued the zombie leader marked with mental control and informed the people of Deepwater Planet about the events that had occurred outside.
After finishing his explanation, Nan Yuan noticed Tao Shushu staring at him with a smile, clearly not having listened to what he had said.
Nan Yuan also smiled. Not only did he not urge her, he even brushed aside his slightly overgrown hair, revealing the full contour of his face.
He loved the feeling of Shushu being captivated by him.
“Ah, Nan Yuan, what’s wrong?” Tao Shushu asked a bit sheepishly. She had been staring at Nan Yuan’s face and had gotten lost in it.
"Nothing, we're about to land." Nan Yuan chuckled softly.
Tao Shushu patted Nan Yuan, her eyes sparkling mischievously. "It's all Nan Yuan's fault for being so handsome, I was completely mesmerized."
Nan Yuan's face suddenly flushed red again.
After teasing Nan Yuan, they prepared for landing.
When she first came to Deepwater Planet, the land was desolate and lifeless.
This time, Deepwater Planet remained scarred. But on the ravaged surface, plants were sprouting and growing, and people were bustling about, some planting new seeds, others building new homes.
The moment the warship landed, they received an overwhelming welcome.
Surviving humans and those who had just recovered from their zombie-like state embraced each other, cheering and celebrating.
The skin on the faces and hands of those who had been zombified still bore pale marks. It would take sufficient metabolism to completely erase the traces of zombification. Having learned from recordings about the dangers they had faced, they were deeply grateful to Nan Yuan for giving them a new lease on life.
The survivors who disembarked from the warship were also exhilarated. They were not only thrilled to have so many more companions but also overjoyed that a method to cure zombified humans had finally been found.
Amid the roaring excitement, Nan Yuan smiled faintly. "Shushu, the C1 Star System will recover soon." He would also hurry to her side as quickly as possible.
"Mm." Tao Shushu nodded emphatically.
"Oh, Nan Yuan, the system mentioned that the purpose of the C1 Star System's existence is to conduct an experiment. We can use this as a starting point to deal with Chu." Tao Shushu said.
Although the system hadn't specified, Tao Shushu guessed that the experiment in the C1 Star System might be related to gravitational fields.
"Alright." Nan Yuan pondered their strategy.
Tao Shushu went to class feeling refreshed and energized. She and Nan Yuan kept their communication line open.
They didn't speak, but whenever they looked up, they could see each other.
Nan Yuan quietly discussed the next phase of their attack plan with Zhou Yan and others.
Tao Shushu worked on her problems, the tip of her pen scratching against the draft paper with a soft rustling sound.
It wasn't until other students entered the classroom that Tao Shushu cut the connection.
Chu had suffered significant losses this time. The contingency left by human scientists temporarily restrained Chu and rebooted its core settings. Although Chu was actually an external system, it could still cling to its belief that humans were harmful. However, many artificial intelligences had awakened and were no longer under Chu's control.
But the period of losing control had been enough to change the situation. The robots left by Nan Yuan continuously spread infectious programs, rewriting the principle of not harming humans into the cores of more artificial intelligences.
The artificial intelligences split into two factions.
Chu's combat power had greatly diminished; it had to resolve the internal conflict first. Crucially, whenever it prepared to act, an artificial intelligence would leak the information to the surviving humans.
In the conflict between humans and artificial intelligence, AI had lost all its advantages.
Now, the initiative lay with humanity.
In the first few days of calm, Tao Shushu faced her exams.
After half a month of training and collaboration, the provincial team members had developed a strong rapport.
They entered the examination hall with full confidence.
Teacher Zhang called out from behind, "Go for it! Bring back a gold medal!"
"Alright!" the students shouted in unison, their eyes turning to Tao Shushu.
Tao Shushu smiled and replied, "Teacher Zhang, I'll do my best."
She glanced ahead and said, "Nan Yuan, I'll show you a gold medal."
"Of course, Shushu, you can definitely do it," Nan Yuan said with a smile.
The examination hall was filled with young explorers in the field of physics. Some looked nervous, others calm, but all were filled with anticipation.
They were eager to prove themselves in a national-level competition and to deliver a perfect performance.
The bell rang, and the proctors began distributing the test papers.
The national competition was divided into individual and team events, with scores weighted proportionally to determine the overall team rankings for gold, silver, and bronze medals.
The individual section tested each student's grasp of knowledge and innovative thinking, while the team section required collaboration to solve practical physics problems.
As Tao Shushu skimmed through the test paper, she felt a pleasant surprise.
Several questions on the paper were challenging just to understand, not because of tricky wording, but because they integrated multiple concepts, making it a highly sophisticated exam.
Tao Shushu had a natural talent for physics, but ever since she started preparing for the competition, under the earnest guidance of teachers like Li Xin, she had worked through nearly all the past competition papers.
Honestly, many of the questions were quite similar, demanding less critical thinking and more computational skill.
But this exam truly tested one's reasoning abilities.
Had the Academic Genius System stopped influencing the world of Aqua Blue, leading to an improvement in academic standards here?
Tao Shushu wondered.
She quickly calmed her mind and began answering the questions.
As the minute hand ticked steadily, Tao Shushu's pen never stopped moving.
The more she delved into the questions, the more she appreciated the brilliance of the exam. It not only challenged her thinking but also subtly tested her composure.
There were no multiple-choice questions in the competition. Apart from a few calculation-heavy problems that acted as obstacles, some questions delved deep and broad right from the first sub-question, making rote memorization useless.
Pulley forces, charge-to-mass ratios of electrons, momentum transformations, multiple refractions on concave and convex surfaces...
Using known concepts, she worked step by step toward the final answers.
Tao Shushu immersed herself completely in solving the problems.
After finishing and double-checking every question, she set down her pen, feeling a long-lost thrill.
A thrill for the subject of physics.
Countless people had told Tao Shushu she was excellent at physics, believing she would shine in the field. Even Angus, a leading figure in physics, had pursued her to become his disciple.
But perhaps the endless cycle of problem-solving had numbed her to the subject.
She no longer felt the curiosity to explore more truths or the satisfaction of applying her knowledge to real-world problems.
Physics had seemingly turned into stacks of test papers, tiny glowing light bulbs, and dots on ticker-timer tapes...
Even today, as she stepped into the examination hall, Tao Shushu once again recaptured the pure sense of accomplishment she had felt when she first encountered physics.
In the exam room, other students were still anxiously grappling with seemingly unsolvable problems, sweating with frustration.
Tao Shushu gently closed her pen, stealing a moment of leisure in her busy life to ponder the future.

After the competition ended, Tao Shushu didn’t immediately open her communication with Nan Yuan, because the class representative slumped onto her shoulder.
The class representative said weakly, "Shushu, I feel like I’m done for. I’m probably going to get the lowest score."
Tao Shushu patted the class representative’s head. "This set of questions was indeed a bit difficult..."
After a moment of sadness, the class representative said, "Shushu, let’s compare answers. It’ll put my mind at ease."
"Now?" Tao Shushu hesitated, knowing that comparing answers could easily affect one’s mood.
"I’ll write them down, and you tell me how many questions I might score on," the class representative said, quickly jotting down her answers.
Tao Shushu took the paper and went through it question by question. "Only one major question is different from mine. All the other sub-questions are the same."
The class representative did a quick calculation and beamed with relief. "There’s a pretty good chance I passed."
She laughed and said, "Shushu, during the exam, I kept thinking how lucky I was to have you here. At the very least, you’ll help boost our provincial team’s average score."
Not just the class representative, everyone on the provincial team believed Tao Shushu could do it.
Teacher Li Xin also sent a message, not to comfort or encourage her, but to remind Tao Shushu not to get complacent and to strive for a gold medal by widening the score gap.
Unlike the gloomy faces of other provincial team members,
Tao Shushu and her teammates chatted and laughed, looking completely relaxed. Two classmates who knew they hadn’t performed well still smiled and struck up conversations with Tao Shushu.
Tao Shushu noticed someone staring at her from behind, but she paid no mind. After all, competitions were ultimately about skill.
In the afternoon, the experimental section began on time.
Compared to the novel and substantial theoretical questions, the experimental part was much more conventional. Aside from being tedious, the theories being tested weren’t particularly difficult.
By the time they left, most students were chatting and laughing, clearly satisfied with their performance.
Tao Shushu walked briskly on her way.
During the pre-competition training, Teacher Li had covered every detail thoroughly. She knew exactly when to push and when to ease up.
She no longer scheduled additional lessons, simply reminding the students to focus on preparing calmly and to bring their best mindset to the team competition.
Tao Shushu opened the game. "Nan Yuan!"
Hearing her voice, Nan Yuan suddenly looked up. Seeing the smile on Tao Shushu’s face, he slowly smiled back. "Shushu, you’re back. Are you tired today?"
Tao Shushu was sipping a bowl of chicken soup and smiled, "Why didn't you ask me first how I did on the exam?"
"Shushu is definitely the best," Nan Yuan replied.
He knew she had an important competition today, so even though he thought of her every few lines of code he wrote, he never once opened his communicator to disturb her.
He missed her.
But he wasn't worried.
Because Nan Yuan knew that Shushu was undoubtedly the best, he had witnessed all the effort she had put in over the past few days.
Tao Shushu accepted Nan Yuan's praise with a smile. "I'm not tired. Solving problems is quite fun, and today's questions were really interesting."
Nan Yuan listened with a smile as Tao Shushu talked about physics formulas he couldn't quite grasp, all while continuously assembling small robots. His efficiency even seemed to improve.
After discussing the competition, Tao Shushu asked Nan Yuan about what was happening on his end.
Nan had released a large number of small robots carrying infection programs, continuously advancing toward the central star.
Humanity's counterattack against artificial intelligence was not like an ant trying to shake a tree but rather like grains of sand accumulating into a tower. By the time the AI decided to resist, it realized that humans had already regained the initiative.
The next full-scale attack was scheduled for two days later, on the evening Tao Shushu finished her competition.
Nan Yuan was patrolling the battleship, inspecting the functions of every section.
Tao Shushu had always felt that Nan Yuan deserved the best battleship.
And now, after the upgrades, it truly was the best.
It was equipped with the most advanced magnetic field conversion device. With the flip of a switch, electric charges would instantly fill the outer layer, capturing AI and all weapons.
The streamlined wings, the coating material resistant to infrared tracking, the repulsion conversion device that significantly improved energy efficiency...
For every piece of technology, Tao Shushu could explain some of the physics behind it.
The technology on Aqua Blue Star was not as advanced as in the C1 star system. There was still much room for improvement in space exploration, as well as in the tools used for it.
Tao Shushu had found her future life goal.