I have a life simulator.

"Thorn-"

Sakayanagi Arisu's screen went black again.

[Correct answer.]

【693451×872159】

The third question is about multiplying six-digit numbers.

The answer had become a twelve-digit number, a long string of numbers that nearly made Matsushita Chiaki's scalp tingle.

Kitagawa Ryo's answer was still correct.

The fourth question is about multiplying seven-digit numbers.

Matsushita Chiaki no longer cared about numbers; she only felt dizzy. Her father, sipping his tea, quipped:

"These are two phone numbers combined."

But even when faced with these two strings of 'phone numbers', Kitagawa Ryo's speed in answering the questions did not slow down at all.

Sakayanagi Shigemori, who had been watching his daughter closely, couldn't help but sigh, and the camera quickly captured this moment.

If Arisu could barely keep up in the three-digit addition and subtraction questions that only tested accuracy, he is now losing badly in the second round of the buzzer round.

Sakayanagi Shigemori believed his daughter was equally capable of answering the questions, but the rules of the first-come, first-served format meant it was a game where the first-place winner always won.

This was the first time in his life that Sakayanagi Shigemori had seen Arisu lose so utterly to someone her own age.

He knew very well that although it was an unspoken show, the two people on stage were genuinely and without any pretense in their duel.

Moreover, mental arithmetic is indeed a skill that Arisu excels at.

The fifth question is about dividing an eighteen-digit number by an eleven-digit number.

As the final question in the mental arithmetic competition, the difficulty level increased several levels compared to the fourth question. It's possible that the production team didn't expect anyone to answer it correctly when they designed it.

The numbers filled the entire screen.

Sakayanagi Arisu didn't even pick up her pen like she did for the previous four questions; she just looked at the numbers and then turned to look at Kitagawa Ryo.

The other person was still writing down their answer with their head down.

Then came the familiar buzzing sound, and the screen in front of Sakayanagi Arisu went black again.

"Correct answer!"

"Well then, congratulations to Ryo for defeating Sakayanagi Arisu in the second round of the mental arithmetic competition, and for winning the overall mental arithmetic competition with a score of 2 to 1. Including the victory in the previous neurasthenia competition... I declare that in this battle of geniuses, Ryo has won tonight with a score of 2 to 0!"

Dry ice created a white mist, and prepared ribbon cannons erupted in the stadium amidst deafening cheers and applause.

Numerous tabloids and marketing accounts began producing firsthand news reports overnight.

After the program ended, Atsuomi Ayanokoji began to closely monitor online opinions and trends.

When he walked out of the venue, he noticed that it had started to snow heavily, and many people coming and going were excitedly discussing the evening's program.

But from a hype perspective, it was an absolutely successful start.

A burning ambition raged in his chest as Ayanokoji Atsuomi turned his gaze to the other side, tonight's greatest contributor to the white room.

Kitagawa Ryo was looking at the snow, gazing at the snow with a strange expression.

The girl was slowly repeating the actions of deep breathing and exhaling. She reached out to feel the cool touch of the elf in her palm, then tried to suppress and calm the soreness that had spread to her entire eye socket. She lowered her head and covered her face with her honey-colored long hair, then carefully raised her eyes from there, her eyes slightly red.

"Cold?"

Kitagawa Ryo squeezed her hand; it was already a little cold.

"not cold."

"This is the first time I've ever seen real snow."

"It's not shaped like a flower at all; it's clearly made up of individual grains."

"But the snow is indeed white, a clean white."

"It is indeed cold."

I probably won't be able to update for the next couple of days.

The symptoms worsened; my eyes hurt terribly, I had a persistent low-grade fever, and I couldn't sleep at all at night. It felt like my sleep was being cut into small pieces, and I would wake up after a short while. My joints also hurt a lot.

I'm very sorry, but I really won't be able to update for the next couple of days.

I hope I recover soon, and I also hope that all my readers will stay healthy.

Chapter 106: Update, the grand resurrection serial!

"Arisu, are you still awake?"

It was already 10 p.m. Sakayanagi Shigemori, who had just finished washing up, put on his slippers and turned off the living room light. On his way back to his room, he noticed a faint light coming from under the door of his daughter's room, as if she hadn't turned off the light and gone to bed yet.

After asking at the exit, he patiently waited in front of the door for a while. After receiving a response from his daughter, Sakayanagi Narimori turned the doorknob and went in. Compared to the cold air outside due to the falling snow, Sakayanagi Arisu's room was warm and cozy thanks to the heating. Sakayanagi Arisu herself was sitting cross-legged on the large bed, wrapped in a small, soft blanket, her beautiful eyebrows furrowed as she fiddled with a set of Go pieces in front of her.

"Are you already preparing for what's to come?"

He turned around and poured a glass of warm water from the living room. He walked to Arisu's bedside and handed it to his daughter, glancing at the chess set as he spoke softly.

"Maybe it's just that I can't sleep."

"...No preparation is needed."

"If Arisu had won 2-0 today, I might have been more convinced."

Upon hearing this, Sakayanagi Arisu just kept blowing air into the cup, then blinked as she watched the water start to bubble.

“Dad wasn’t always as fond of telling the truth as he is now.”

Sakayanagi Narimori laughed again. He sat down beside his daughter's bed and picked up a chess piece from the board:

"People always simply hope that the people around them will only tell them the truth, but at the same time they always feel that it is not good to tell too much truth. Then they unconsciously say some half-truths themselves. In the back and forth, truth and falsehood are mixed, and then there is an incomplete information game."

"Coincidentally, the chessboard is one of the most basic and intuitive ways to represent this kind of game."

Sakayanagi Arisu, oblivious to Kuroko's presence, took a step forward, then suddenly looked up and asked:

"What about feelings? Are they the same?"

Unexpectedly, Sakayanagi Arisu suddenly jumped to this topic. Sakayanagi Narimori was stunned for a moment, but quickly recovered and gave his answer seriously:

"Personally, I think the same is true."

"Haven't we been talking about things like 'uninteresting appearance' and 'interesting soul' these past two years?"

At this point, Sakayanagi Narumori paused, hesitating for a moment whether these things were too early for the child, but finally expressed his opinion:

"In my opinion, an interesting soul is someone whose information density and knowledge level far exceed yours in both height and breadth, surrounding you in a certain way. Under such circumstances, as long as he shows a little patience to listen to your complaints and casually says some points that you have never heard before but find very reasonable, many girls will be easily captivated and think that they have met an interesting soul."

"This is the result of a game of unequal information."

"If I were to give an example, such as teacher-student relationships or relationships between working adults and students, many of these relationships are actually triggered by this kind of unequal information gap. Information density, knowledge level, social status, family background... lead to a clear, even hierarchical, structure in what should be an equal relationship."

"Does Arisu think this kind of relationship is healthy?"

After hesitating for a moment, Sakayanagi Arisu nodded first, but then shook her head.

"If Arisu can't figure it out now, there's plenty of time later."

Sakayanagi Shigemori did not press the matter further, and casually steered the conversation away from the topic.

"To be honest, I didn't expect the show to be so popular tonight. Many of my friends in the industry are very interested, and quite a few have said they want their children to try it out too."

“Those people are not even as good as me, what makes them think they can compare to Liang?”

Sakayanagi Arisu pulled the blanket around herself and casually replied.

"It doesn't necessarily have to be a failure. According to them, it's fine to challenge the other kids in the White House, since not everyone can be a genius."

Sakayanagi Shigemori shrugged:

"Didn't another child from the White House also come to the recording site today? They were even caught on camera a few times. It's the girl named Xue that Liang mentioned before."

"She's a very polite young lady. After the show's recording, she even came backstage with Liang to greet our guests and staff. I just don't know what she's like. Although Liang praised her, I haven't actually seen her in person..."

Sakayanagi Arisu pulled the blanket tighter around herself, wrapping herself up completely before lying down on the bed.

"I'm going to go to bed."

"Then goodnight?"

Sakayanagi Shigemori smiled and carefully put away the chessboard and pieces on the bed.

"Good night."

Sakayanagi Arisu hooked the blanket over herself with her foot, but to put it on, it was barely hanging down to her upper body. However, considering the warm temperature in the room and the blanket she was already wrapped in, there didn't seem to be any risk of catching a cold.

Without asking any further questions, Sakayanagi Shigemori quietly closed the door and left.

Heavy snow always seems to have a greater sense of silence and vastness than heavy rain. Perhaps because of the sound of the air conditioner, Sakayanagi Arisu did not hear the rustling or crackling sound of snow described in the book. She only saw an increasingly thick white expanse through the window in the quiet night.

After the air conditioner was turned off, the room became even quieter, but the air also felt cooler.

Sakayanagi Arisu curled up in the blankets, first hugging her arms, then half of the blanket, and finally rolled up the blanket around herself and fell asleep.

The fine cotton fabric creates a reassuring warmth.

-------------------------------------

Atsuomi Ayanokoji is very busy tonight.

Perhaps no one expected that he would be able to take advantage of this opportunity to make the name of the White Room a hit. However, with the rise in popularity of Kitagawa Ryo and the defeat of Sakayanagi Arisu, whether they were genuinely interested or just watching the show, many big shots they knew or had only heard of expressed a willingness to send their children to the White Room for training. They kept sending inquiries, keeping Ayanokoji Atsuomi busy for a while.

What he found even more amusing was that the Naoe faction, which had originally vowed to sever all ties with him in order to shirk responsibility, actually seemed to have a change of heart. However, given that the situation was not yet clear, their attitude was only somewhat ambiguous.

However, Ayanokouji Atsuomi was also very clear-headed. In the previous forty years of his life, he had seen too many scenes of watching his rise and fall. The current glamorous and enthusiastic scene was ultimately just a result of his and Dong Yu's joint hype. As the person in charge of the White Room, he certainly knew what this mysterious White Room, which was currently trending on the Internet, really was.

It can be said that from the very moment it was born, it was impossible for it to be accepted by the public.

Ultimately, Ayanokoji Atsuomi was just playing a scam based on information asymmetry.

All he had to do was to cash out as much as possible and find a new owner for this handheld bomb before it completely exploded.

Perhaps the White Room will succeed decades later, but even if it succeeds then, it will have nothing to do with Ayanokouji Atsuomi. Besides, he doesn't care about the development of the so-called national education cause. Naoe Jinnosuke is getting old, so Ayanokouji Atsuomi naturally has to prepare in advance.

If Ayanokoji Atsuomi can leverage the fame gained from this incident to elevate his status within the Naoe faction and then inherit the political legacy left by Naoe Jinnosuke, he will be qualified to touch the pinnacle of power in the country.

With this burgeoning ambition, Ayanokouji Atsuomi, his chest slightly feverish, put down his pen and walked out of the office, intending to go for a walk and get some fresh air.

Even though it was deep in the mountains, the white room's furnishings were still shrouded in the swirling snow, and the parking area in front of it was covered with a thick layer of snow. The four guards at the door bowed in unison upon seeing Ayanokoji Atsuomi.

"Member Ayanokoji".

"Ah."

Nodding, Ayanokouji Atsuomi opened his mouth and took a deep breath of the cool air outside. The temperature in the mountains was lower than in the city, but the chill had a stimulating effect on his spirit.

After circling the facility a few times, three of the four guards immediately followed, carefully carrying out their security duties.

When Ayanokoji Atsuomi walked to the back of the facility, something that hadn't been there before suddenly appeared in his field of vision.

After taking a couple of steps closer, I realized that what was standing there was a small snowman about one meter tall.

"It was piled up by Liang and Xue, these two test subjects, thirty minutes ago."

The guards following behind immediately spoke up to explain.

In fact, only two people are allowed to come out at this time. Ayanokoji Atsuomi nodded and took two more steps closer.

The snowman's design is simple, consisting of a head and a body. It's made up of two snowballs, one large and one small, stacked together. The smaller head has two holes cut out to hold two black button-shaped pieces for eyes. A small twig is stuck in the nose, and a smiling face is drawn in the mouth. Long leaf branches are stuck on the left and right sides of the body. Overall, it looks quite simple and rough.

After a moment's thought, Ayanokouji Atsuomi suddenly gave the order:

“Bring Qinglong here.”

Although it was unclear why Atsuomi Ayanokouji would summon Kiyotaka Ayanokouji at this time, the guards obediently followed orders. One of them immediately jogged back to the white room and quickly brought Kiyotaka Ayanokouji out of the room, even though he had already gone to rest.

Perhaps out of fear of making Ayanokouji Atsuomi wait too long, the guards didn't even give Ayanokouji Kiyotaka any time to change his clothes. Ayanokouji Kiyotaka, who was brought to the snowy landscape, was still wearing only a simple pure white nightgown, but there was not a trace of complaint in his eyes or on his face. Moreover, even though it was his first time experiencing snow, he showed no excitement or surprise, and just silently looked at Ayanokouji Atsuomi standing in front of him.

“Build a better and more detailed snowman. If you haven’t seen one before, this one next to you is a basic sample.”

Ayanokouji Atsuomi pointed to the snowman that had already been built next to him and gave an order to Ayanokouji Kiyotaka.

"Ah."