A genius student? Ha, they're nothing but ants at your feet!

boom!

Theodore, who always considered himself an elegant gentleman.

At this moment, he was acting like a crazed gorilla, his face contorted, his eyes bloodshot, and he was furiously pounding the table with his fists.

"Damn it! Still no online today?"

That monster Su Hao brutally trampled everyone else's faces to reach the top of the leaderboard.

A full week has passed as of today!

It felt like an eternity!

After reaching the summit.

That person, that ID, seems to have vanished completely from the physical world, disappearing without a trace!

Not a single word was left behind!

During this week.

Theodore was tormented by this invisible and intangible sense of oppression, and could not sleep all night!

His dark circles were so deep they were almost purple, and he had lost a lot of weight.

That name, hanging high at the top of the leaderboard and radiating dazzling golden light, has become a tangible form of mental pollution, a nightmare he has to have every night!

But the real reason that broke him down and drove him to madness was not the ranking.

But...

No matter how much espresso he guzzled down his throat, or how much he squeezed his brain's engine until it spewed black smoke, he sadly discovered that he could never cross the insurmountable chasm of points between himself and Su Hao!

[1st Place: Su Hao / S+ / MIT / CN / 999.9]

[2nd Place: Theodore Langford / Stanford / US / 999.3]

Although he risked his life for those seven days, he finally managed to break through the 999-point mark that had troubled him for so long.

But it didn't work!

It makes no sense!

That monster, whose score was fixed at 999.9, had already casually stepped into the realm of gods, a realm that Theodore might never be able to reach in his lifetime, seven days ago!

A 0.6-point gap.

For those at the very top of the pyramid, he had no idea how to make up for that extra 0.6 points!

Theodore stared intently at the grayed-out avatar on the screen.

A deeply hurtful logical deduction suddenly flashed through my mind.

"Is this why you disappeared?"

Theodore's voice was low and hoarse, as if he had shards of glass in his throat.

"After reaching the top, I felt that everyone below was a bunch of noobs, and it was so boring..."

So, you're just abandoning the number altogether?!

His heart suddenly clenched.

Because of this aloof attitude of "the higher you climb, the colder it gets, and how lonely it is to be invincible".

This was exactly the show that Theodore had planned to put on for the whole world after he had surpassed Su Hao!

"So, that guy never took me seriously from the start?"

He let out a bitter, cold laugh.

Looking back on how I've been these past seven days.

For a mere fraction of a point difference, I would neglect my sleep and meals, become disheveled, and fight tooth and nail in front of the screen like a mad dog guarding its food.

In the eyes of the man who had already left, his struggling appearance was like that of a clown flopping comically in the mud!

How sad!

How ridiculous!

"Good! Very good!"

Theodore suddenly sat up straight, his eyes flashing with a terrifying light.

"Since you're putting on such an arrogant attitude!"

Even if I have to smash this computer to pieces today, using the most despicable brute-force method, I'll still drag you down from your pedestal!

Swish!

He grabbed the schedule on the table and roughly scribbled all the plans for today's top seminars, professor meetings, and other events to a pulp!

Theodore's face showed a resolute determination, as if he had nothing to lose.

He gripped the mouse tightly, the veins on the back of his hand bulging.

If that arrogant bastard isn't given a good beating, the explosive anger in his chest will never be quelled!

However, fate loves to play a fatal joke when people are at their most passionate.

Ding--

Just as he was about to frantically click the "Start Solving the Problem" button...

The system notification sounded abruptly.

[1st Place: Theodore Langford / S+ / Stanford / US / 999.3]

[2nd Place: Su Hao / S / MIT / CN / 998.9]

The name that he hated so much had inexplicably disappeared.

"what?"

Theodore's expression froze instantly.

He stared blankly with his mouth wide open, uttering a meaningless syllable.

What happened?

Is there a bug in the system?

He tapped the data log with slightly trembling fingers.

He was even desperately trying to reassure himself.

Su Hao was, after all, a human being with a mortal body. He must have overworked his brain by doing practice problems all night, and finally made a fatal, low-level mistake while fatigued, which led to the system deducting points from his account.

If that's the case, he can at least feel a sliver of comfort as an opponent.

however!

The moment he stared intently at the log entry and saw the cold, hard text above it.

His expression froze completely, completely devoid of any joy at regaining the top spot; instead, it was filled with indescribable humiliation!

[System Announcement: Automatic penalty mechanism triggered!]

[User 'Su Hao' has had no activity records in the last 7 days.]

[Penalty: -1.0 points deducted]

Theodore finally achieved his goal and won first place.

Stepping on the ladder given by the system.

But this was definitely not the outcome he wanted!

This is even more disgusting than being pointed at and verbally abused!

He was forcibly promoted to number one by the system because the other person "did not log in for seven days and was left idle"!

The string of "reason" in Theodore's brain snapped completely in that instant!

"What the hell are you kidding me for?!"

He overturned the chair next to him and roared hysterically at the screen!

"You damn broken system! I'm going to crush him with my own absolute strength!"

Who gave you permission to unilaterally deprive me of my chance for revenge?! Put his score back to normal!!

His inflated, abnormal academic pride, typical of a top-tier university genius, absolutely could not tolerate, much less swallow, this humiliating "victory without a fight" that felt like charity!

This is worse than killing him.

He paced anxiously around the room like a wild beast trapped in a cage.

He was in a state of extreme confusion.

He frantically tugged at his hair, trying to find a way to forcibly equalize the conditions between the two of them!

Forced suspension of the match by unplugging the internet cable?

Or did you deliberately submit a stupid wrong answer to get the points deducted?

His brain was working at high speed, trying to reconstruct a so-called "absolutely fair" competitive environment.

But just as his finger was about to type the wrong answer, he suddenly stopped.

"etc."

Cold sweat trickled down his forehead.

"What if... what if that bastard Su Hao has no idea that I deliberately let him down and deducted points just to wait for him?"

With his arrogant personality, when he comes back and sees the list, he'll just see me as a stupid idiot who can't even answer the basic questions correctly!

blah blah-

Theodore, like a madman, hurriedly opened Su Hao's LOGIA profile and bombarded him with private messages.

He thought to himself: as long as the system sends a pop-up notification, even if that guy is sleeping, he will definitely be woken up by the beeping sound and see it!

Ten items.

Twenty articles.

One hundred messages were sent out like snowflakes.

ten minutes.

half an hour.

Several hours have passed.

The sky outside the window has changed color.

The status light on Su Hao's backstage remained a deathly gray, like a cold tombstone.

Theodore felt a surge of intense anxiety.

He began to feel fear, worried that the other party would completely sever the anchor point in this virtual world and disappear from his world forever.

Let him live his whole life carrying the shame of being number one!

This feeling of being out of control brought him to the brink of collapse.

He opened Google like a paranoid stalker.

Open Twitter, open Facebook.

He conducted an almost secret agent-level, carpet-bombing search across the entire internet's social networks for the pinyin "Su Hao" and its possible corresponding English abbreviations!

No!

Apart from two dry academic papers, he couldn't find even the slightest trace of this guy named Su Hao's life on the internet!

He hacked into MIT's internal campus community forum.

He searched through the extremely secretive encrypted communication forum of the mathematics department.

He even registered a fake account and openly posted a message on the MIT Mathematics Department's electronic bulletin board looking for someone.

With red eyes, Theodore used every extreme method a hacker could muster.

But the result was still hopeless; he was unable to obtain any means of contact with Su Hao in the real world!