Chapter 52: Chapter 52: Returning Next Week
In the end, Chu Bamboo could only say, "Anyway, according to the note I gave you, the stock you bought should triple this month! Just sell it at the end of the month, and don’t look in the meantime."
"Then next month, the second stock I gave you will also increase two-and-a-half times! And after that..."
As he spoke, Chu Bamboo’s brow twitched. ’This is bad,’ he thought. ’Although the stock market is a fast way to make money, it only multiplies my investment by a few times a month! Even with stable compound interest, one hundred thousand, plus the one hundred fifty thousand from the lottery winnings, would take several months to stack up to ten million...’
Chu Bamboo pulled out his phone and quickly asked the AI, "Excuse me, are there any faster ways to get rich quick in a short amount of time? Please feel free to share anything!"
Then, after looking at the AI’s answer, Chu Bamboo was silent for a moment before putting his phone away.
"? What are you looking at?" Lin Xia asked, a little confused.
"I asked about ways to get rich quick! The AI told me to look up the criminal code... and then that was it!" Chu Bamboo ruffled his hair.
’The AI gave an example, like buying crypto... With foreknowledge of the future, it would be a surefire way to get rich!’
’But I can already see the future, so why would I mess with something that carries legal risk? Am I insane?’
’I’d better not find a prison record added to my future life log the next time I enter the dreamscape!’
"...Is this pace of getting rich still not fast enough for you?" Lin Xia’s face contorted. After agonizing for a good while, he once again pulled out the little red book he had shown before, flipped through a few pages, and said, "Ahem, this is the get-rich-quick manual I put together when I first started college! I was planning on trying them one by one... Here, you can have it!"
"But then again, I think even if you succeed with these, the speed of getting rich won’t actually match stock trading..." Lin Xia said, still conflicted, as he placed the little red book in front of Chu Bamboo.
Chu Bamboo: "...Let me see!"
Item one: Start a livestream! Make cringey videos! Do the flower-hand dance! Once you’re famous, sell products!
"..." Chu Bamboo tried his best to keep a straight face.
Item two: Become an actor? ✗, Consider filming short dramas? ✗, Write a novel? ✗, Sing and dance? ✗.
He had listed four suggestions and crossed out all of them! Clearly, Lin Xia was very self-aware of his own limitations.
Chu Bamboo fell into deep thought. It wasn’t that he was actually considering becoming an actor or making short dramas. Instead, seeing "write a novel" made him think that the Nuwa database must contain a lot of future scientific research data. He then thought about his previous plan to start a company...
’Hmm, it seems I don’t have to limit myself to just AI? Instead of writing novels, I could memorize scientific data! Then I could write it all down, find people to reproduce it, start a company, file for patents... I could do anything!’
’There’s potential... But, in this environment of traveling through dreams, I can only rely on brute-force memorization and then reproduce it in the Real World... After becoming a Transcendent, my memory is very strong, so I don’t have to worry too much about misremembering for now! But... this method isn’t very efficient!’
’In conclusion: It’s worth a try!’
"Damn it." Chu Bamboo suddenly remembered the huge pile of various novels, movies, and TV series he had seen in the future Nuwa No. 17’s database.
He tore at his hair, anguished. ’Why couldn’t they give me a portable USB drive!’
’Give me a USB drive, and I could achieve the impossible, taking my home civilization straight to the top!’
’What Extraterrestrial Civilization? They’d be nothing but ants!’
’Earth’s civilization would steamroll all enemies!’
’I’d let them know what it means to use a cheat code... oh no, I should say, I’d let the Extraterrestrial Civilizations know what it means to open up the Civilization menu and start spending points!’
Suddenly, his phone rang.
Chu Bamboo raised an eyebrow. He glanced at the screen and saw it was a V-Chat call from Coach Yuan.
Chu Bamboo didn’t answer.
He continued eating with Lin Xia.
A moment later, his phone vibrated again. This time, the call was from...
"Dad?" Chu Bamboo’s expression was complicated. ’I knew this day would come.’
After a moment’s thought, Chu Bamboo answered the call and said bluntly, "Coach Yuan must have called you, right? I’ve got things handled on that front! You don’t need to interfere. Anyway, I’ll definitely bring home a sports championship trophy for you in the future!"
"...No! That’s not the problem. And don’t you be in a hurry to hang up!" A father knows his son best. The moment Father Chu heard that machine-gun-like pace, he knew what Chu Bamboo was planning. "My question is, how did you get mixed up with a scammer?"
Chu Bamboo: "?"
"Some national sports coach, some track and field champion... The more I think about it, the more unreliable it sounds! You haven’t run into a scam, have you? Let me tell you right now, the one thousand a month I give you for living expenses is my absolute limit! If you get scammed, you’ll have to get a job and earn the money back yourself. Learn your lesson!" Father Chu said earnestly. "As for being a sports champion, forget about it!"
’Track and field champion? Who is he trying to kid! Does he really think I haven’t seen all those anti-fraud PSAs online?’
’When Chu Bamboo was going through his chuunibyou phase as a kid, insisting his dreams were real and being stubborn, he didn’t show any potential as a track and field champion when I had to discipline him with a stick! As the saying goes, ’the child is father to the man.’ He couldn’t even outrun me back then, and now he’s telling me he’s grown up to be a track and field champion?’
’Heh, and if I believe that, what’s next? He’s going to tell me the next Olympics are being held in Northern Myanmar?’
"Anyway, don’t leave the province for a while. These scammers nowadays, they’ll say anything... He even said the principal was right there with him! Like hell I believe him! The nerve. Wait, your attitude just now... You didn’t actually believe him, did you?"
Chu Bamboo: "..."
’Great, just great! This was actually unexpected. He had thought his parents would interfere with his plans, but he never would have imagined this...’
"I didn’t, I didn’t! I was just worried about you!" Chu Bamboo didn’t elaborate. In the current situation, saying more would only complicate things. Including the matter of the dreams...
’Actually, Chu Bamboo was getting a headache now. He shouldn’t have been so flamboyant and chuunibyou as a kid.’
’Still, the risk seems to be within an acceptable range for now! For the time being, I’ll keep the news that "dreams equal the future" confined to just Lin Xia’s knowledge, and then constantly monitor the future—’
’If a truly inexplicable risk appears...’
Chu Bamboo’s gaze sharpened for an instant. ’Then I’ll just have to see if I can pull a memory-wiping method from the future. And then use it on the non-Transcendent Lin Xia!’
’Let Lin Xia suffer a bit; I’ll bear the infamy!’
After a few more words, Chu Bamboo hung up. Then, he and Lin Xia parted ways, and he headed straight back to school.
At four in the afternoon, Lin Xia sent a V-Chat message. He said he had successfully collected the prize money and proudly added that he hadn’t let the Red Cross people waiting at the door fleece him for a donation. He also sent a screenshot of the stock hitting its limit up, along with a smirking Dragon King emoji.
Chu Bamboo: "..."
Chu Bamboo switched out of V-Chat and hesitated for a moment before deciding to look up info on Zhao Shao in the Real World as well.
’A native of Zhejiang Province! In his twenties! Whoa, he’s even had his picture taken with a bunch of celebrities! Tons of reports from all sorts of independent media, and even a few from official media outlets! He’s participated in a ton of events, his schedule is packed every day... Is this guy really a college senior? Wait a minute, this sense of déjà vu...’
Chu Bamboo scratched his head. ’Haven’t I seen this kind of template profile somewhere before?’
’Oh... it’s a bit like a certain someone who’s "returning to the country next week"!’
’Wait.’
