My IQ has been increasing year by year.

Chapter 112 Can't Sleep

Nearly early morning.

Dormitory 215 was very quiet.

Chen Zhuo sat at his desk, his pen drawing a smooth curve on the paper.

He stopped writing, picked up the water glass next to him, and took a sip of water.

The commotion on the other side of the wall was getting louder and louder.

"Da Yong".

Chen Zhuo put down his water glass and glanced at Wang Dayong, who was still fiddling with the hardware on the ground.

"Does Chu Ge usually slam his keyboard like this?"

Wang Dayong was wiping his old motherboard with a rag, without even looking up.

"Normally, Chu Ge's typing is just like a typewriter, but tonight it's like he's demolishing a house. He's probably stuck on his code and got a little impatient," Chen Zhuo said, shaking his head helplessly.

He looked down at the formulas on his paper, but his mind was already calculating the laser printer he hadn't yet bought.

216 Dormitory.

The headlights weren't on.

Only the monitor on Chu Ge's desktop was lit up.

The light from the screen shone on Chu Ge's face, flickering between bright and dim.

Several open computer books were piled haphazardly on the table, and an empty Red Bull can was pressed under the cover of "C Primer Plus." Chu Ge, with a lollipop in his mouth, stared intently at the dense lines of code on the screen.

Black background, white text.

He pressed the F9 key on the keyboard.

A small window popped up instantly at the bottom of the screen, followed by a long row of glaring red error messages.

time out.

It still timed out.

Chu Ge irritably spat the lollipop stick, which had been chewed into a hideous shape, into the can next to him.

The job he took was to do underlying search optimization for a newly established commercial image library website.

The reward offered on the forum is 1,500 yuan.

The requirement is simple: double the existing concurrent retrieval speed.

Chu Ge initially thought this money would be easy to earn.

The code written by those startup programmers was too redundant; he could simply simplify the logic tree and get it done.

But after he started making changes, he discovered that the underlying architecture of this data system was a complete mess.

A single hair can affect the whole body.

To resolve data collisions, he added a nested loop.

As a result, once the data starts running, it gets stuck in a deadlock in the third layer of logic.

Countless variables are locked together in that narrow passage, and none of them can get out.

Chu Ge's hands flew across the keyboard.

He deleted the entire section he had just written and rewrote it using a different stacking method.

After typing it out, compile it and then run it.

The fan started to speed up.

The screen froze for three seconds.

Then, the familiar red text popped up again.

Chu Ge swore.

He reached up and scratched his already messy hair, leaning back in his chair with a dull thud.

On the bed opposite.

Lu Jia lay in the thin blanket.

Two wads of foam earplugs were stuffed into my ears.

But he could still hear sounds.

The sound of the mechanical keyboard clicking was like a dull saw, pulling back and forth on his already taut nerves.

Lu Jia closed her eyes.

My stomach was churning, and my temples were throbbing with pain.

The image of him writing that symbol wrong in his calculus class during the day flashed through his mind like a revolving lantern.

My memory is fading.

The response is slowing down.

This feeling of being out of control instinctively filled him with panic.

He needs sleep.

Just take a nap, let your brain reboot, and everything will return to normal.

But the noise from below just wouldn't stop.

The sound of the keyboard started rapidly again.

Then came Chu Ge's irritable mutterings and the screeching sound of chair legs scraping against the floor.

Lu Jia's breathing began to become heavy.

He rolled over and faced the wall.

He tried to cover his head with the blanket and cover his ears.

Useless.

The buzzing sound from the computer case seemed to be coming from inside the walls.

five minutes.

ten minutes.

The keyboard clatter grew louder and louder, and Chu Ge's typing clearly carried a sense of venting his anger and losing control of his emotions.

Lu Jia suddenly opened her eyes.

In the darkness, his eyes were frighteningly red.

He ripped the foam earplugs out of his ears and threw them next to his pillow.

Lift the blanket.

He sat up.

The cold air blew in through his thin cotton pajamas, but he didn't notice.

Lu Jia moved to the edge of the bed without looking for slippers.

Barefoot, I climbed down the ladder of the iron bunk bed step by step.

Chu Ge was scratching his head in front of the screen.

He just tried the fourth algorithm, and it's still stuck in an infinite loop.

He picked up the candy box on the table, shook it, and found it was empty.

Chugo irritably crushed the candy box and threw it on the ground.

I'm going to delete and rewrite that error-prone code.

Suddenly, a figure appeared behind me.

Chu Ge saw Lu Jia standing behind him in the reflection of the monitor.

He was startled and turned his head.

Seeing Lu Jia standing barefoot on the ground, his face pale and with dark circles under his eyes.

Chu Ge opened his mouth.

The initial irritation was suppressed by a hint of guilt.

He knew he had indeed made a big fuss tonight, so he stopped typing and sounded a little embarrassed.

"Did I disturb you?"

Chu Ge pointed to the screen.

"There's a bug here, it'll be fixed soon, just bear with it a little longer..."

Lu Jia didn't even look at him.

His gaze was fixed on the hundreds of lines of code scrolling across the screen.

He couldn't understand the grammar made up of English words, and he didn't know what a pointer was or what memory allocation was.

But he could understand the logical symbols and variable substitutions mixed in.

He stared at it for a minute.

The eyes follow the cursor on the screen as it moves rapidly.

Suddenly, Lu Jia moved.

He reached out and pulled the crumpled draft notebook from Chu Ge's desk.

He grabbed a ballpoint pen from the side.

Chu Ge paused for a moment, his hand hovering in mid-air, but he didn't stop him.

Lu Jia pressed the draft paper against the corner of the table, her wrist trembling slightly as she quickly moved the pen across the paper.

There was no pause or hesitation.

Lines of complex mathematical symbols appeared on the paper.

Not a single line is code.

It's all purely algebraic formulas.

A dozen seconds later.

Lu Jia put down her pen.

He tore the paper off and gently placed it next to Chu Ge's keyboard.

"You set the boundary conditions incorrectly."

Lu Jia's voice was very soft, with a heavy nasal tone, as if she was about to cry.

His shoulders trembled slightly.

"If you make the variable converge at both ends, the data in the middle will keep colliding, which is a dead end."

Chu Ge was stunned and wanted to refute.

"I don't understand what you've written here."

Lu Jia lowered her head, pointing to the paper she had just written on, her tone full of deep weariness and pleading.

"But if you change it to this topological matrix, the data will no longer be blocked."

Lu Jia took a step back, her eyes red-rimmed.

"Can you please change it and stop typing it? I want to sleep."

Chu Ge looked at Lu Jia's swaying figure.

The words that were in his throat were swallowed back down.

He lowered his head.

His gaze fell on the draft paper.

He's a geek, a fluent coder, but his math skills are only so-so.

He looked at the ingenious topological transformation steps on the paper.

I didn't understand it at first glance.

He mentally went through the formula.

Chu Ge's pupils contracted slightly.

An extremely ingenious mathematical substitution.

It directly skips the pitfalls of computers struggling with infinite loops, transforming the infinite loop into an equation with a definite solution at its source.

Chu Ge swallowed hard.

He didn't say anything, but silently took the paper and placed it next to the mouse pad.

Put your hands back on the keyboard.

Following the mathematical logic on the draft paper, I began to modify the code.

Break down the nesting and substitute the parameters of the topological matrix.

Two minutes later.

Modifications complete.

Chu Ge took a deep breath.

My finger pressed F9.

A small window popped up without any error message.

The cursor blinked once in the black command prompt window.

Immediately afterwards, lines of data scrolled down smoothly like a waterfall.

There was no lag.

No timeout.

The data packets, which would normally take half a day to process and even crash, were all retrieved within five seconds, and the final feedback result was given. Successful execution.

Chugo remained frozen in his chair.

He looked at the "0" that represented success.

The anxiety and frustration that I couldn't shake off were replaced by a deep sense of powerlessness.

He spent the whole night trying four different methods to break the deadlock.

The person stood behind and watched for a minute, then wrote down a formula with a pitiful expression and broke the code.

Chu Ge turned his head.

Lu Jia had already turned around and climbed onto the bed using the ladder.

Just then.

hum!

The computer case beneath Chu Ge's feet suddenly emitted a piercing scream.

The sound was extremely loud and piercing.

Immediately afterwards, the indicator lights on the chassis panel began flashing wildly.

A burnt smell wafted out of the ventilation holes.

Chu Ge's expression changed.

He suddenly looked down.

Although the program ran successfully, the topology matrix provided by Lu Jia mobilized a massive amount of concurrent data in an instant.

That used Pentium 3 CPU was fully loaded in just a few seconds.

The aging cooling fan simply couldn't handle the sudden surge in temperature.

The motherboard issued an alarm.

If left unchecked, either the chips will burn out or the power supply will catch fire.

Without hesitation, Chu Ge bent down and unplugged the power cord from the power strip.

The screen went black instantly.

The fan's screeching sound stopped abruptly, turning into a slow, humming sound.

The room was plunged into darkness, with only a sliver of moonlight filtering in through the window.

Quiet.

A sudden silence.

Chu Ge squatted on the ground, his hand still gripping the power cord.

He could feel the scalding heat emanating from the chassis.

He stood up.

Lu Jia had just climbed back into bed and was about to lie down.

Still a bit dazed by what had just happened, I sat on the bed and looked down.

Chu Ge stood beside the ladder.

I stood in the dark for a while.

Chu Ge looked at the thin figure on the bed and lowered his head slightly.

"I'm sorry about earlier."

Chu Ge's voice was low and awkward, but it was genuinely sincere.

"That piece of paper you just wrote was really impressive."

Lu Jia clutched the blanket, remaining silent.

"This job requires too much computation; my computer case can't handle it."

Chu Ge bent down, unplugged the mouse and keyboard, and then unplugged the monitor's data cable.

He reached out and picked up the heavy, still-hot metal chassis.

"I need to go across the street to borrow a fan from Wang Dayong to cool it down. I'll get it done at his place tonight."

Chu Ge carried the computer case towards the door.

He paused for a moment when his hand touched the doorknob.

He glanced back at Lu Jia.

"Go to sleep, I won't bother you again tonight."

The door was pulled open.

A sliver of light shone through the corridor.

Chu Ge carried the computer case and tiptoed out, slowly closing the door behind him with his shoulder.

A soft click sounded.

The door was closed tightly.

Dormitory 216 fell into complete silence.

Only the old-fashioned alarm clock by Lu Jia's bedside table made a soft ticking sound.

Lu Jia slowly lay down.

I pulled the blanket up and covered myself with it.

There was no more keyboard noise, no more humming from the computer, and even the bed stopped vibrating.

He finally got the peace and quiet he had longed for all night.

Logically, he should be able to get a good night's sleep now.

but.

Lu Jia opened her eyes and stared at the dark ceiling.

He was very clear-headed.

Being so awake is almost frightening.

Just now, in order to break Chu Ge's vicious cycle, his brain was restarted in a short period of time.

Now, that raging machine in my mind just won't stop.

In the few minutes he scanned the screen, he saw not only localized deadlocks.

He also saw vulnerabilities in the overall macro-architecture of Chugo's code.

Although the partial test was successful, that underlying retrieval method would inevitably lead to a collision between left-handed and right-handed extrema when faced with larger amounts of data. Lu Jia's breathing began to become uneven.

It's like someone with extreme mysophobia seeing a painting that's hanging crookedly.

Although the painting did not fall down.

But he knew it was there, and it was crooked, and if he didn't straighten it, he would keep thinking about it.

Lu Jia turned over in bed.

Close your eyes tightly.

But my mind is full of variables that don't have a closed loop.

He even started mentally completing the remaining half of the equation.

can not stop.

Twenty minutes have passed.

Lu Jia suddenly threw off the blanket.

In the utter silence, he discovered with despair.

He still couldn't sleep.

Across the street.

There was a knock on the door of dormitory 215.

Wang Dayong had just put down the motherboard and opened the door.

Chu Ge stood outside the door, holding the steaming computer case, sweating profusely.

"Dayong, can you do me a favor?"

Chu Ge walked in, panting.

"My computer is about to burn out, can I borrow your fan to blow it dry?"

Chen Zhuo sat in the chair and turned around.

He looked at the computer case on the ground, its side panel open and emitting a pungent, burnt smell, then at Chu Ge, who was covered in sweat and panting heavily. "Making the CPU smoke in the middle of the night."

Chen Zhuo twirled the black pen in his hand, his tone slightly teasing.

"What are you doing using this secondhand Pentium 3? Simulating a nuclear explosion?"

Wang Dayong squatted on the ground, listened with amusement, and joined in the conversation.

"Yeah, the thermal paste is practically melted from the heat, what were you doing?"

Chu Ge slumped into the empty chair next to Wang Dayong, rubbed his face in frustration, and sighed heavily.

"Don't even mention it. I took a freelance job on a hacker forum, optimizing the underlying data concurrent retrieval for a stock photo website. The reward is 1,500 yuan." Chu Ge pointed to the still-heating computer case, looking utterly frustrated.

"The amount of data was too large. I was stuck in a nested infinite loop and couldn't get out. But the noise I made while typing on the keyboard drove my roommate Lu Jia crazy." Chu Ge recalled the scene just now with a hint of disbelief in his voice.

"That kid crawled down barefoot, his eyes red, and gave me a really awesome topological substitution matrix. As soon as I typed in the formula, the deadlock was instantly solved." Chu Ge said, scratching his hair in frustration.

"But that's the problem. The local deadlock was resolved, but the concurrent data surged instantly. The entire data stream was flooding in, and my broken fan couldn't handle the temperature at all, so it crashed." Chu Ge looked up at Chen Zhuo, his face full of helplessness.

"And that's not all. After his matrix is plugged in, my current straightforward macro framework simply can't handle such massive amounts of data. Even if Dayong helps me lower the temperature, I'll still run myself to death." Chen Zhuo listened quietly to the whole story.

He didn't ask any further questions, nor did he comment on the bounty.

He simply reached out and took the crumpled draft from Chu Ge's hand.

I glanced at the messy flowcharts that Chu Ge had drawn above.

Then, Chen Zhuo casually drew an extremely simple inverted tree diagram on the back of the draft paper.

The lines are very clean.

"Cut from bottom to top, reverse topology."

Chen Zhuo handed over the notebook, his tone calm.

"You don't need to access all the underlying data. Just set boundary thresholds and run it using this tree-like architecture. Your machine can handle that," Chu Ge said, looking at the diagram.

His expression changed instantly.

He stared at the lines on the paper, quickly simulating the flow of the data in his mind.

This approach of peeling away from the root directly avoids the most computationally intensive flat retrieval method.

Chu Ge looked up at Chen Zhuo with surprise in his eyes.

Just as Chu Ge was in a daze.

The door to room 215 wasn't closed properly.

It was pushed away from the outside by a hand.

Lu Jia stood at the door in her wrinkled pajamas and slippers.

He clutched several sheets of draft paper filled with derivations in his hand, and the bloodshot eyes were even more pronounced than before.

The three people in the room looked at him at the same time.

Lu Jia gritted her teeth, walked past Wang Dayong, and stood in front of Chu Ge.

He slammed the draft paper in his hand onto the table.