The night before the college entrance exam results were released, I redeemed my Peking University ad

After hanging up with Dean Lin, Ji Bai tossed his phone onto the bed and suddenly remembered that he had just selected "gain one million Weibo followers" in the system.

With a million followers, there should be some buzz, right?

He picked up his phone again, opened Weibo, and prepared to be bombarded with private messages and a frenzy of comments.

However, nothing happened.

Ji Bai glanced at the number of fans; it was still the same few dozen familiar faces.

"That shouldn't be the case, wasn't it supposed to be a million followers?"

Just then, the number of followers suddenly jumped.

500!

Then it jumped again, 1000, 2000, 5000...

The numbers began to flip upwards at a visible rate.

The comment section was flooded with messages; refreshing the page once added dozens more, then hundreds more, turning the once quiet homepage into a bustling marketplace.

"Found it!!! This is Ji Bai's Weibo account!!!"

"I'm Ji Bai's high school classmate, I can vouch for him! It's him!"

"Everyone, come and follow the top scorer to share in the good fortune! Follow the top scorer, and you won't fail your final exams!"

"I missed yesterday's live stream, but I'm making up for it today! Ji Bai is awesome!!!"

"Keep going!!! No matter what those trolls say online, we'll always support you!!!"

"God Ji! I'm taking the college entrance exam next year. I'm printing out your picture and hanging it on my desk. Just pray you bless me so I can get into a second-tier university!"

"A genius who can open the gates of heaven with a single sword strike—we must pay attention!"

……

Ji Bai watched the numbers soaring on the screen and the messages popping up, a slight smile playing on his lips.

However, when some netizens clicked on Ji Bai's following list, the tone suddenly changed.

"What the heck??? Velociraptor Theresa? Cat Ice Cream? A Top Beauty? Nana?"

"Help! Even the top student looks at these things? My taste is exactly the same as a genius's?" "Hilarious! So even top students like me browse pictures of pretty girls. I suddenly feel a lot closer to them."

"That's reasonable. It would be abnormal for an 18-year-old not to look at beautiful women."

"Putting everything else aside, the top scorer has really good taste."

"Everyone, be serious! Ji Bai just proved Goldbach's Conjecture, how can you keep focusing on his following list!"

"Let me analyze this carefully: From a statistical point of view, among the 137 accounts that Ji Bai follows, 118 of them share the same visual style preference, which shows that he is a consistent person when it comes to aesthetics."

"This also explains why he was able to consistently prove Gordon's conjecture in mathematics—it's all about focus!"

"What the hell is that unwavering focus! Are you a paid shill hired by Ji Bai? Hahahaha!"

"So that's how he proved Bro's guess. Turns out he saved all his time. While others were dating, he was reading suggestive content; while others were playing games, he was reading suggestive content; while others were sleeping, he was still reading suggestive content..."

"Hahahahahahahahaha!!!"

"Top Scholar's Choice"

……

Ji Bai stared at the comments section, completely dumbfounded.

Oh no! I forgot about that!

I just casually followed this account when I was bored, who would have thought I would become so popular one day!

Society is dead!

A massive social media frenzy!

He frantically opened the settings, found the privacy option, and set the following list to be visible only to himself. The whole process was done in one go, and his hand speed was fast enough to participate in an e-sports competition.

But it was too late; the screenshots had already been leaked.

Screenshots, captions, and memes are circulating wildly in the comments section.

Someone even compiled a long image of the account names in his following list, titled "List of Bloggers Recommended by Top Scorers in the 2026 College Entrance Examination (Unofficial)".

Ji Bai was devastated to discover that the topic was even trending on social media.

Even more outrageous is that some of the borderline bloggers he followed also noticed this sudden surge in traffic and sent him private messages.

The content of the private messages was quite bizarre!

One girl even messaged him privately asking if he'd be interested in appearing in an episode!

Ji Bai slammed his phone onto the bed, looked up at the crack in the ceiling, and took a deep breath.

"Will you wear a hood?" he replied in a private message.

Just then, a large number of new @ mentions flooded in, so many that they overwhelmed his message notifications.

Ji Bai picked up his phone again, casually tapped on a few mentions, and found that the tone had changed again this time.

It was no longer a joke about his following list, but a heavier tone, filled with expectation and heartache.

"@Ji Bai, keep it up!!! Give a great presentation at the ICM conference in July! Let those arrogant foreigners see that we Chinese are not to be trifled with!"

"@Ji Bai, although it's frustrating, the ICM is indeed the world's highest mathematical stage. Just being able to stand there and give a presentation is a victory in itself!"

"@Ji Bai, go! Han Xin could endure the humiliation of crawling between someone's legs; the injustice you suffer today, the whole world will repay you tomorrow!"

"@JiBai, we all support you! Going to ICM isn't admitting defeat, it's going to conquer! Use your proof to shut everyone up!"

……

The statement from the International Mathematical Union ignited outrage across the internet, but upon reflection, the reasons were not unreasonable.

After all, the ICM conference is held every four years and can be considered the world's cup for mathematicians. It's not going to give way to a high school student.

And at least they gave us a way out.

I don't have time to come to China to attend your verification conference, but I can let you give a presentation at ICM.

Although it was frustrating and humiliating, the fact that a recent high school graduate could stand on the stage of the International Congress of Mathematicians and give a keynote speech is itself a great affirmation.

Amidst this complex mix of emotions, a popular commentator with two million followers published a long article that quickly went viral and became a trending topic in less than half an hour.

"Please remember this day! This day is humiliating! We have proven the most brilliant gem in the history of mathematics, but we have to travel across the ocean to be tested on someone else's stage."

"But this day is also glorious! An eighteen-year-old boy walked out of the worst high school in the city, wearing a faded school uniform, and wrote on the blackboard with chalk the answer that the world's smartest brain had been chasing for 274 years without finding."

"They dare not come. They are afraid—afraid that a Chinese high school student could overthrow their century-old throne!"

"That's why we absolutely must go!"

"This isn't bowing down, it's drawing our swords!"

"Ji Bai, go!"

"The moment you stand on the ICM podium and pick up the chalk, the whole world will see that the Chinese boy you looked down on has already reached a height that you can't reach."

The article resonated with the entire internet.

The number of reposts exceeded 100,000 within ten minutes, and the number of likes exceeded one million.

Even some celebrities and entrepreneurs who don't usually pay much attention to academic news shared it, with most of their captions consisting of only two words—"Keep it up."

Ji Bai also forwarded it.

He opened the Weibo post, pressed the forward button, typed two words in the input box, and then clicked send.

"I'm not going!"

The entire internet fell silent for a moment.

Then, it exploded!