Chapter 50: Chapter 50: Worthy of a Page in History
"So, what’s next?" Chu Bamboo fell into deep thought. ’It seems like there’s no point in staying on this current timeline anymore, is there?’
"Maybe I should just kill myself and go back to the Real World!"
Chu Bamboo patted his cheeks and ground his teeth. "Perfect. I can test how long it’ll take for poison to kill me in my current state."
Suddenly, a terrifying explosion echoed from outside the corridor.
Immediately after, the ground shook violently, and a massive cloud of dust and smoke billowed into the base from the corridor.
Chu Bamboo: "???"
’What’s happening now? An earthquake?!’
Previously, because Guan Fei and Wall Announcements were still above, Chu Bamboo hadn’t told Nuwa No. 17 to close the main gate.
"Hmph!"
"Argh..."
Two extremely short, agonized cries. ’Were those the voices of Guan Fei and Wall Announcements?!’
His mind reeled as his expression turned cold and solemn. He tensed up, his eyes fixed on the dust-filled entrance.
Then he saw it—a brilliant, scorching light source... The dust couldn’t even obscure this terrifying light, which was like the beam of a high-powered flashlight aimed directly at him.
A fierce wind kicked up, tearing the dust apart.
An unclothed man appeared before him.
Although the man wore no clothes, his entire body was shrouded in a faint white light... Despite being naked, one could only make out the pure white wings on his back, his pure white hair, and his pure white pupils. His body itself was impossible to see!
Of course, one could also see his face, completely devoid of any emotional fluctuation—
Zhang Hai!
Chu Bamboo’s pupils contracted. ’How could it be him?’
In the next instant, a pure white light spread outward.
"Wait!" Chu Bamboo subconsciously reached out to push forward. Then, he saw his palm, at the very moment it touched the light, rapidly dissolve like snow in the sun. The speed was beyond extreme.
He didn’t even have time to feel the pain before the light shone on his face.
...
6:00 AM.
In the apartment.
Chu Bamboo’s eyes flew open. He bolted upright, taking a couple of sharp breaths, a look of bewilderment on his face.
"...What the hell?"
’Why did Zhang Hai attack me?’
’And that form of his... no matter how I look at it, it was just like an Angel, right?’
"No, I’ve got it all wrong!" Chu Bamboo realized belatedly. "In the ruined timeline, Zhou Ze’s attitude made it clear: the fact that people like Li Kang, Ning Linglong, and Guan Fei—who are obviously Transcendents, or ’monsters’ as Zhou Ze calls them—didn’t attack me is what’s truly surprising..."
"Conversely, this means that in the ruined timeline, most Transcendents are indeed very dangerous! Irrational, madly slaughtering ordinary people..."
"It’s highly likely that Zhang Hai is one of them!"
"But then again... the strength Zhang Hai displayed this time..."
Chu Bamboo felt that this small glimpse of Zhang Hai’s power seemed far greater than Li Kang’s.
"From this perspective, dying this time might not have been a completely bad thing? At least I got to gauge some of Zhang Hai’s strength... If Zhang Hai were really protecting me, he could probably fend off that assassin, whether they’re in the Second Realm or Third Realm."
As Chu Bamboo thought of this, his eyes flickered. "Perhaps I should test it?"
...
After his daily workout, it was time for class.
The first class of the day was, as usual, taught by Professor Chen.
"Students, next semester the university might offer some new elective courses related to AI. I saw some of you were worried about AI taking your jobs... Well, you might want to consider taking these courses to learn more about how to use AI!"
"Also," Professor Chen said, his expression a little strange as he griped, "you’ve all probably seen the public opinion online, right? Because our province and city fell completely behind in this round of the AI competition, the higher-ups have been a bit... provoked!"
"It hasn’t been announced yet, but the government should be rolling out a series of related policies soon! In the future, if any of you want to start a company related to AI, hmm, the level of support you receive will be higher than for companies in other industries! The approval process will be faster, too... and it’ll be given higher priority."
After a brief pause, Professor Chen added with a sigh of admiration, "Actually, I have a student... a fourth-year senior of yours, in fact! He’s starting a business in this very field right now, and he’s been quite successful. His future is limitless!"
"No way, is AI really that easy to get into... A fourth-year can do it? Shouldn’t you at least be a graduate student, or have a Ph.D.? I feel like that fourth-year is probably just scamming investors!" Lin Xia, who was sitting to Chu Bamboo’s left, muttered under his breath.
On Chu Bamboo’s other side, Zhou Bai—his dorm leader and a very good friend—heard this and his eye twitched. He shot a sidelong glance at Lin Xia across Chu Bamboo. "You should be glad Old Chen is willing to talk about this stuff! It’s actually useful... though he’s being way too vague."
"Sigh, why can’t he talk about the specifics of how to scam... ahem, how to pull in investments from all sides, how to persuade investors and gain their trust. And he’d better also mention what to do if the project goes belly-up, so you don’t get thrown in jail by your furious investors..."
Chu Bamboo: "..."
Lin Xia: "Playing with that tired old Sun Wukong meme, are we? The one where the master offers to teach you all these amazing Divine Techniques, but you refuse them all! You only want to learn the illegal stuff, like how to overturn the Underworld and alter the Book of Life and Death, the kind of thing that gets you locked away for five hundred years the moment you’re exposed, right?"
"Ahem!" Professor Chen coughed pointedly.
In an instant, Chu Bamboo’s "guardians" on his left and right shivered, sat up ramrod straight, their faces solemn as they stared intently at the blackboard.
Professor Chen shot them a look but didn’t make things difficult for them, continuing his lecture. ’Of course,’ Chu Bamboo suspected, ’it’s probably because Professor Chen didn’t even hear what kind of treasonous things they were discussing.’
’Otherwise, their GPAs for the semester would have been guaranteed to take a massive hit!’
"You should have heard his name! It’s Zhao Shao!" Professor Chen said with a smile. However, the classroom was completely silent, which made his expression stiffen for a moment.
"...Zhao Shao?" Chu Bamboo’s expression changed slightly as he repeated the name a few times.
"You over there! It seems you know him?" Professor Chen, who still had some of his attention on their section, noticed Chu Bamboo’s reaction. A flicker of delight appeared in his heart as he pointed. "Yes, you! Mr. Chu, would you like to introduce this senior to us?"
"Oh!" Chu Bamboo stood up and said bluntly, "Sorry, don’t know him! Never met him! That’s all."
Then, he promptly sat back down.
Chu Bamboo was telling the truth. The only reason he’d had a reaction was that the name sounded a bit familiar...
If he wasn’t mistaken, it was probably during his time in the Dream World, when he was using various methods to dig through Nuwa No. 17’s database while researching the birth of AI, that this name had flashed by in some corner—
’There definitely wasn’t any proper, detailed introduction!’
’The ones who got their own detailed profile page were, at the very least, the prodigies of their era. What level of talent does it take to get a whole page dedicated to you in the history books? Chu Bamboo had those names etched into his heart; he couldn’t forget them even if he tried!’
’But, even if he didn’t get a whole page, to have a name appear in the future—even one that just flashes by in a corner—is to be recorded in history. That’s incredibly significant!’
This person was definitely no ordinary man.
