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

The official accounts of Oxford University, Cambridge University, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton also issued statements in succession:

"The University of Oxford cordially invites Mr. Ji Bai to serve as the Savilean Chair Professor of Geometry, with a dedicated college and research team. A new chapter will be opened for you in the university's century-long history."

"Newton's alma mater looks forward to meeting you! Cambridge University offers Mr. Ji Bai a tenured position and an independent laboratory, and all academic resources are unconditionally open to you."

"Einstein, Gödel, and von Neumann have all emerged from here. Now, we have reserved the most prestigious research position for Mr. Ji Bai, hoping that you will become the next legend."

……

boom--!

The entire internet exploded instantly.

The official offers were all for tenure, independent research institutes, and unlimited budgets.

Each of these conditions alone is enough to make most scholars scramble for them.

And these top universities in the world are all extending olive branches to an eighteen-year-old Chinese boy.

"Look, look! People you don't care for, plenty of others are fighting over them!"

"While domestically they're busy labeling and smearing, foreign countries have already offered the highest standards to attract talent. Isn't that ironic?"

"I'm so heartbroken... He did everything he could to bring honor to the country, and then his own people smeared him. Why?!"

"My heart aches for Ji Bai! Anyone would be disheartened if their enthusiasm was dampened like this!"

"I've figured it out now. Some people just can't stand to see their own people do well. They'd rather drive geniuses abroad than see young people succeed!"

……

Soon, Ji Bai's Weibo comment section was filled with emotional messages:

"Ji Bai, let's not play with them anymore! Anywhere is better than suffering here!"

"If they don't want me here, there are plenty of other places that will! They're all vying to put on a show for you outside, no need to put up with this nonsense!"

"We'll support you wherever you go! Your ability to focus on your research is more important than anything else!"

"Ignore those maggots! You deserve the best treatment in the world!"

……

Meanwhile, in a secluded courtyard deep in the Yu Mountains, cicadas chirped incessantly, and grapevines climbed all over the trellis.

The old woman sat on the porch and answered a phone call. After hanging up, she frowned and swiped her phone, her expression growing increasingly grim as she looked at it.

"Grandma, looking at your phone is bad for your eyes!"

A little girl with pigtails next to her looked up and tugged at the old woman's clothes in a childish voice.

The old woman immediately put away her stern expression and lovingly patted the little girl's head: "Nannan is right, Grandma won't look anymore."

She got up and walked into the yard with her phone in her hand.

Under the grape trellis, an elderly man with gray hair sat in a wicker chair, squinting as he listened to a radio drama, twirling two walnuts in his hands, looking completely relaxed.

"Old man, look at this!" The old woman handed him her phone.

The old man slowly opened his eyes, took the phone, and glanced at it.

His brows furrowed at first, then slowly relaxed, and finally he smiled.

"A very good young man, sharp and capable."

"They're just too sharp; they need to hone their skills, or they'll easily suffer losses."

"What's there to polish?!"

The old woman glared at him: "This is the child who saved our little girl at the Great Hall a few days ago!"

"What?"

The old man suddenly sat up straight, stopping the walnuts in his hand.

The old woman said irritably, "I had someone check that day. This child's name is Ji Bai, and he is this year's top scorer in Liaoning Province's college entrance examination."

"I was originally planning to thank him properly after his conference ended."

"I never imagined that someone would distort the truth and spread rumors like this!"

"Old man, you have to do something about this!"

The old man chuckled and waved his hand, "I'm too old, I retired a long time ago, I can't worry about that anymore."

Despite saying that, he still stood up, walked into the inner room, and picked up the rarely used red telephone on the table.

"Connect me to the editor-in-chief of Renren Daily."

The call was quickly connected, and the old man spoke a few words into the receiver in a deep voice. His tone was not loud, but it carried a lot of weight.

After hanging up the phone, he walked back to the yard and waved to his wife:

"Don't worry, we've repaid the favor."

But no sooner had he finished speaking than the red phone rang urgently again.

The old man turned back to answer the call, listened for a few words, and his expression gradually changed.

"...Okay, I understand."

He slowly put down the receiver, stood there in silence for a few seconds, and then turned and walked back into the yard.

The old woman rushed forward: "What's wrong? What happened?"

The old man chuckled self-deprecatingly, shook his head, and spoke with a hint of helplessness:

"The waters are too deep; we can't control them."

The old woman was stunned.

She knew best who her husband was.

Even he couldn't get involved? Just what kind of person did that boy named Ji Bai offend?

"What nonsense are you thinking? It's not what you think."

The old man smiled and pulled his wife back to reality.

"It's not that the higher-ups aren't ignoring it, but... how should I put it..."

"Forget it, you wouldn't understand even if I told you. Anyway, don't worry about it!"

……

The internet is in complete chaos.

The black waters spread like wildfire, accusing Ji Bai of being "arrogant," "disrespectful to elders," and "morally deficient."

On the other side, Ji Bai's fans were directly labeled as "royalists" by the opposing side, with derogatory remarks implying that they blindly followed and engaged in personality cult.

But the fans weren't annoyed at all; on the contrary, they got more and more into it, and each one of them was extremely smug.

"What's wrong with being a royalist? We're supporting the great emperor who single-handedly brought Chinese mathematics to the top of the world! What a prestigious title!"

"That's hilarious! Derogatory? I'd love to be officially declared the chief disciple of the royalist party!"

"They can't even put a label on us properly, they've given us this title! From now on, we're the royalists, dedicated to ensuring Season God's ascension to the throne!"

"Saying we're just mindlessly hyping things up? Sorry, our Ji Shen has real skills. He slapped five age-old questions in the face. If you were in his shoes, you'd be hyping things up too!"

The royalists and the black water party are locked in a fierce battle across various platforms, while a group of "exiles" are caught in the middle, spamming Ji Bai's comment section with messages like "Go abroad" and "Don't put up with this..."

The three groups argued back and forth, from Weibo to Douyin, and from Douyin to Xiaohongshu, until the servers got hot.

But Ji Bai, the central figure in this media storm, had already finished washing up and was fast asleep, wrapped in a blanket.

Oh God!

The five-day conference was a high-intensity mental workout every day!

It's more tiring than firing a gun for five days straight!

Even if the sky falls, we'll wait until he's had enough sleep before we talk about it.

……

The next day.

Ji Bai slept until the sun was high in the sky.

Sunlight streamed in through the hotel's floor-to-ceiling windows, and he stretched out with a big yawn, feeling relaxed from head to toe.

After five days of tension, I finally relaxed and slept soundly.

[Ding! Daily Selection System activated!]

If you had 100 yuan, how would you spend it?

1. Complete technical route for room temperature superconductivity (fragment 1/10) (80 yuan)

2. When you are pursuing your master's degree, your supervisor will apply for academician status (10 yuan).

3. When you're in graduate school, your junior female student becomes your professor's wife (10 yuan)

4. When you are pursuing your master's degree, your classmates come from four different provinces (10 yuan).

5. You will receive an unexpected phone call today (10 yuan).

6. A set of four poems by Lu Xun: "Self-Mockery," "Self-Portrait," "The Lotus Seedling," and "Answering a Guest's Taunt" (10 yuan)

……

Ji Bai looked at the options 2, 3, and 4 on the screen, his face darkening.

Good grief, so you've experienced all three major nightmares of graduate school?

"Fine, I'll choose 1, 5, and 6!"

Accumulating room-temperature superconducting fragments is a worthwhile investment, and the four-piece set of Lu Xun's poems might come in handy later. As for that unexpected phone call... consider it opening a blind box.

The words had barely left his mouth when the hotel landline by the bed suddenly rang...