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

(Watermelon is so touched! I've received all the positive reviews! Thank you all for your generous help! Without further ado, here's the fourth update today!)

Ji Bai smiled slightly.

My own strength comes from hard work!

System, add points!

Suddenly, Ji Bai was taken aback.

and many more!

Something seems off!

He quickly opened the system panel.

Sure enough, something was wrong with the "Shock Value" column.

Compared to last night, the numbers have improved significantly!

Ji Bai: "..."

What's going on?

Since the verification conference ended and the live broadcast stopped, the shock value has basically entered a period of slow growth plateau.

But now, the number is much higher than it was before I went to bed last night!

It's almost as much as the day he stepped off the Red Flag state car in his school uniform.

The moment that shocked people the most in the past few days was when he stepped out of the state limousine in his school uniform.

Why did it suddenly explode today for no reason?

There's definitely something fishy going on.

Ji Bai opened Weibo, wanting to see what was happening outside.

As soon as he entered the trending topics list, his pupils suddenly contracted.

The top trending topic: #TopScorerGoesToBusiness#

Second trending topic: #JiBaiHairgear#

Third on the trending topics: #RoyalistsBreakDown#

Sixth on the trending topics list: #A Top Beauty Responds#

Ji Bai: "???"

Who the hell went into the sea?

He clicked on the topic with a lot of questions in his mind, and was immediately greeted with nine video screenshots that were so blurry that even mosaics couldn't fix them.

The man in the picture is wearing a pure black hood, only his chin is visible, and he has a tall and slender figure with broad shoulders and a narrow waist.

Judging by the outline alone, he really does look seven or eight parts like him.

The female characters standing next to him all had their faces covered by masks, but Ji Bai recognized them at a glance.

Nana, Cookie Sister, Kana Hashimoto, Top Beauty... they're all old acquaintances!

Holy crap!

Ji Bai was full of energy.

The comment section below the screenshot has completely exploded, with each top comment more outrageous than the last.

"What?! Really? The top scorer in the college entrance exam who proved the five major conjectures has gone into business?! What kind of magical realism is this?!"

"If it were AI face-swapping, it would definitely look fake, but wearing a hood... that's chilling!"

"Didn't a screenshot circulate before? It looked like Ji Bai replied to a private message from a girl. At the time, everyone said it was photoshopped and nobody cared."

"Just a few days ago they were saying they'd offer their blood to the Yellow Emperor, and today they're offering it to their teacher's lap???"

"The end of mathematics is metaphysics, and the end of metaphysics is drama."

"I knew his following list was full of bloggers who skirted the edges of the issue; turns out he was doing competitor research!"

"MIT: We'll give you tenure, and you give us this?"

Princeton withdrew its offer overnight.

"That's what Dingmei meant when she shouted 'I can act in any genre' at the entrance of the Great Hall of the People that day???"

"So you two had already collaborated before, huh!"

"A strong youth makes a strong nation; a young person venturing into business... I'll become a member."

"Hey upstairs, which membership do you have?"

"The complete set."

……

The royalists, however, were breached.

"Don't talk nonsense! Our Ji Shen went to explain math problems to them! What's wrong with wearing a hood while explaining problems? Is immersive teaching not allowed?"

"You understand immersive experiences! So the teacher-student theme definitely lived up to its hype, didn't it!"

"Royalists, step forward! Is this all your emperor is? You talk about sacrificing your life for the Yellow Emperor, but secretly you're making those kinds of videos, huh?"

"Don't jump to conclusions! Just because it's a hooded figure from behind, does anyone think they can identify him as Ji Bai?"

"It's obvious someone's deliberately trying to smear him! They failed to get away with it last time, so they've changed their tactics, haven't they?"

"Does anyone know the answer? I'm a forensic pathologist, I need to verify if it's really me!"

"That's hilarious. What kind of net worth does Ji Bai have? Does he need to do this? Tenured professors at MIT earn seven figures a year. Does he need this little bit of money to make films?"

"Exactly, do you really think geniuses are as full of dirty thoughts as you guys?"

"That's not necessarily true. What if they actually like that kind of thing?"

"What do you know? This is called experiencing life. True geniuses take even a leap in their approach to business to a whole new level."

"How a Mathematical Genius Can Optimize Multi-User Interactive Scenarios Using Game Theory"

"I declare this the best academic paper of the year."

……

Ji Bai was really stressed!

He acknowledged the meme-making ability of this generation of netizens.

But he wanted to curse even more.

As if possessed, he pulled out the spare phone at the very bottom of the drawer and opened the mysterious app hidden deep within the folder, its icon disguised as a calculator.

Sure enough, the homepage recommendations were all filled with new anime featuring young women, each with an increasingly sensational title:

"The top student who solved five world conjectures couldn't untangle his sister's entanglement," "The top student's late-night private tutoring: This question is beyond the syllabus," "The perfect score student fell into his sister's trap," "When the youth are strong, the sister is even stronger"...

Ji Bai: "..."

Where are the people who can come up with good titles?

Come out and be praised.

He clicked on the first one without any expression.

In the scene, a man wearing a hood sits on the edge of the bed with his head down, while the female lead leans close to him, her voice sweet and cloying.

"Ji Bai, look up! Your sister isn't going to eat you."

"What do you like to call me, older sister?"

He clicked on the second one without any expression.

This time it's a classroom scene.

The female lead is wearing a white shirt, a pencil skirt, black-rimmed glasses, and holding a pointer, standing in front of the blackboard.

"Ji Bai, come up and do this problem."

"Don't leave after school if you can't answer!"

Ji Bai exited the video.

Take a deep breath.

Then click on the third one.

This time it's a home setting.

The female protagonist, wearing an apron, squatted on the ground, looking up at the hooded man.

"Ji Bai, bring Mom the slippers."

"No, it's not done with your hands."

……

Don't say that!

It's actually pretty immersive!

Those calls of "Ji Bai" were so sincere and heartfelt, and coupled with the blurry figure of the hooded male lead, Ji Bai almost thought for a moment that he had actually filmed something like this.

I almost woke Ji Bai up!

Ji Bai looked up at the ceiling and remained silent for a long time.

Then he let out a roar that sounded like both a mournful cry and a wild laugh.

"That's too much!"

"Fine, I'll take the picture, but can you at least strike a cool pose?"

"This tarnishes the glorious image of my Mathematical Emperor!"

……

Ji Bai grew angrier and angrier as he spoke, spitting as he spoke.

He kept cursing and swearing, but his hands never stopped moving.

I didn't even bother to drag the progress bar.

But halfway through his rant, Ji Bai suddenly stopped.

He reopened the system panel, stared at the soaring shock value, and fell into deep thought.

isn't it?

Lao Tzu solved five century-old problems in the Great Hall of the People, leaving mathematicians around the world speechless. The shock value of this event was not as great as a few fabricated videos about people going to the sea.

This is absolutely outrageous! It's outrageous beyond belief!

But as he pondered it, it suddenly dawned on him.

"Is this the correct way to trigger the shock value?"

Translate this: what the hell does "shock" mean?

Goldbach's Conjecture, the BSD Millennium Problem, and the idea that a strong youth makes a strong nation—these are all too distant concepts for ordinary people.

Most people simply don't understand how difficult these conjectures are, nor can they comprehend what level of achievement it is to "prove the five theorems." At most, they might shout "Awesome!" and then forget about it.

Where did this profound shock come from?

But if you were to say that the genius college entrance exam scorer who solved five world-class problems and got into Peking University went into making adult films...

Any normal person would be stunned for three seconds upon hearing this, their mind would go blank, and their worldview would be shattered.

This extreme contrast, which breaks all preconceived notions, is the real, etched shock that gets etched into your mind!

This is fucking shocking!

"No wonder it was rising so slowly before..."

Ji Bai stroked his chin, his eyes growing brighter and brighter, as if he had discovered the door to a new world.

To be honest, the conference lasted five days and the live stream was watched by tens of millions of people, but the shock value was less than a million, which wasn't even enough for a system upgrade.

Although the system, as the middleman, took 99% of the profits, Ji Bai was still far from satisfied.

Now, it has actually provided Ji Bai with another idea.

"I see……"

Ji Bai stroked his chin, his eyes growing brighter and brighter.

After all that, it turns out we've been using the wrong approach all along!

Forget academic deification and bringing glory to the country; they're less effective at generating buzz than a trending gossip topic.

The core of shock value is never "how amazing", but "how revolutionary"!

The more it breaks everyone's preconceived notions and exceeds everyone's understanding, the faster the shock level rises!

As Ji Bai was pondering this, his phone rang again.

It was my deskmate and best friend, Li Kui, calling.

"Hey, Black Whirlwind, what do you want with your dad?"

"Bai Zi, you're famous!"

"No, I didn't! Don't talk nonsense!"