Chapter 1: The Failure Strikes Back
The air inside the exam hall was thick enough to choke on. The chirping of cicadas was muffled by the windows, leaving only the faint, rhythmic scratching of pens against paper. Shen Xingluo sat by the window, her fingertips resting lightly on the desk. Her gaze swept over the other students—some trembling with nerves—her own eyes as cold and still as a deep pool.
Su Man, sitting in the row ahead, suddenly turned around, a sneer curling her lips.
"Shen Xingluo, I heard the whole internet is laughing at you. They say your math models can’t even solve middle school problems."
Su Man didn’t raise her voice, but she spoke with a deliberate clarity that drew curious glances from the surrounding candidates.
Shen Xingluo didn’t even blink, meeting her gaze with a chilling indifference.
"That’s a dimension you’re incapable of understanding. Don't try to measure me with the limits of your own intellect."
"Don't act so high and mighty. Principal Chen has already spoken—there are special adjustments to the grading rules this year."
Su Man lowered her voice, a glint of malice flashing in her eyes.
"To the system, your flashy methods look like nothing but illegal code. Just wait until you get flagged for deductions."
Shen Xingluo finally set her pen down. Her fingers tapped twice against the underside of the desk—a nervous habit she had when deep in thought.
"Rules are static. Truth is fluid."
"As long as I refuse to admit it’s a violation, you’ll have to play out this little drama with me until the end."
Su Man’s expression shifted, and just as she opened her mouth to needle her again, the proctor’s stern gaze snapped toward them.
"Quiet! Focus on your own work!"
Su Man sat up straight, looking disgruntled, though the contempt in her eyes remained.
Shen Xingluo ignored her, locking her focus back onto the final, high-difficulty problem on the paper.
It was an incredibly complex system of non-linear differential equations with hidden variables and layers of nested logical traps.
In the past, this single problem would have stumped ninety percent of the top students in the hall.
Shen Xingluo stared at the problem, and time seemed to slow to a crawl.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
The moment the third second passed, the world in her vision underwent a qualitative shift.
Countless points of light converged and reorganized deep within her pupils. The chaotic formulas were instantly dismantled into a clear, logical chain.
[Infinite Deduction Vision] activating...
Optimal solution path generated. Hidden variable traps located. Confidence level: 99.9%.
A faint, subtle curve touched the corner of Shen Xingluo’s mouth.
She saw the redundant conditions the test-setter had intentionally planted, and the parameters that looked necessary but were actually just smoke screens meant to derail the solver.
What excited her even more was that hidden within the core logic of the problem was a set of anomalous data that only a top-tier researcher would notice.
It was a trace left behind from when Principal Chen had covered up his academic fraud years ago—and now, it had been cleverly woven into the foundation of this very exam question.
It was the perfect entry point.
The moment she solved this, she would prove to the world that she had the clearance to touch the truths they were trying to hide.
The sound of her pen hitting the paper resumed. It was no longer the hesitant, stuttering rhythm of before; it was a smooth, flowing rustle.
The sound was faint, but in the silent exam hall, it was strangely melodic, like a piece of precision music.
The surrounding whispers died down. The other students, drawn in by the fluid rhythm of her writing, couldn't help but glance over.
The looks of disdain and mockery that had been directed at her were slowly replaced by an indescribable sense of shock.
They couldn't understand the leaps in her reasoning, but they could feel the almost violent beauty of the logic.
Every line of the formula hit the mark with surgical precision. Not a single stroke was wasted.
Gu Yan wasn't in the exam hall, but Shen Xingluo knew that countless eyes were watching from behind the scenes.
He was her only shield, and her most solid backup.
As long as she kept writing, he wouldn't let anyone interrupt her rhythm.
The proctor walked slowly between the rows, his leather shoes clicking softly against the floor.
His gaze fell on Shen Xingluo’s answer sheet, and his brow furrowed slightly.
Shen Xingluo sensed the scrutiny but didn't stop writing. She simply looked up, calm and collected.
Her eyes were cold as ice, meeting the proctor’s gaze without a hint of evasion or subservience.
It was the absolute confidence of someone who had crushed the competition, a silent clash of wills played out in a single look.
The proctor felt uncomfortable under her stare and instinctively took a half-step back, his eyes returning to the paper.
He tried to find a flaw in the complex symbols, but all he saw was a logical loop so rigorous it was flawless.
Seeing this, Su Man panicked. She couldn't help but speak up again, her voice barely a whisper.
"She must be cheating. Look at that speed—no normal person could write that fast."
Su Man shot the proctor a look, her eyes heavy with implication.
"Teacher, her scoring rate is way too abnormal. You really should check her."
The proctor’s face stiffened. He felt the pressure from the powerful interests backing Su Man.
But he was even more intimidated by Shen Xingluo’s mountain-like composure.
If she were just cheating, why would she be so calm?
Unless she was certain that even if she were inspected, she could provide a perfectly reasonable explanation.
Shen Xingluo lowered her head again, her fingertip tapping a key variable definition area on the paper.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly through the surrounding area.
"The second set of equations in this problem contains a hidden variable trap."
"You all assumed that parameter was a constant, but based on the preceding conditions, it’s actually a damping coefficient that decays over time."
"If you solve it according to the surface requirements of the question, you’ll get a divergent solution instead of the unique real-number solution."
As her voice fell, the room went dead silent.
The students who had been hunched over their papers looked up, their faces filled with shock and disbelief.
They had all been trying to force the standard formulas to fit, stuck at a bottleneck they couldn't break through.
Hearing Shen Xingluo point it out so casually, they had an epiphany—the shock of the realization hitting them like a physical blow.
Someone tremblingly pulled out a draft sheet to verify her claim, the sound of their pen scratching against the paper suddenly becoming frantic and messy.
"My god, she’s right. The derivatives we calculated were all wrong."
"How did she see that? We’ve been struggling with this for twenty minutes and didn't notice a thing."
The shock rippled through the hall. Those who had once mocked Shen Xingluo as a failure now looked at her with nothing but awe.
Meanwhile, in a monitoring room outside the school, Principal Chen was staring fixedly at the big screen.
On the screen, Shen Xingluo was pointing out the flaws to the surrounding students—the scene was crystal clear.
Principal Chen’s brow was locked tight, his fingers tapping against the desk in a frantic, uneven rhythm.
"She didn't just solve the final problem—she pointed out the logical blind spot the committee intentionally buried?"
Principal Chen’s voice was hoarse, unable to hide his inner terror.
"The data in that problem... those were the auxiliary parameters I used to cover up the lab fraud all those years ago."
"If she makes these details public, the secret I’ve spent twenty years protecting will be completely exposed."
His assistant whispered from the side.
"Principal, should we have the disciplinary committee intervene early? We can control the situation by claiming she’s suspected of cheating."
Principal Chen sneered, a flash of cruelty in his eyes.
"Control? Look at her. She doesn't act like someone who’s cheating."
"The more 'illegal' she seems, the more it proves she’s mastered variables we can’t control."
"Get the proctor to take her paper immediately. Don't let her walk out of there with any physical evidence of that logic."
The order was relayed to the proctor in the exam hall.
The proctor took a deep breath, his expression growing complex.
He approached Shen Xingluo again, his gaze lingering on her answer sheet.
Su Man added fuel to the fire, her voice trembling with excitement.
"Teacher, look at her hand. She’s been using her left hand to assist her thinking—that’s a classic sign of memory-aid gesturing."
"And her answer speed is way above the average threshold for machine-assisted cheating. You have to investigate!"
The proctor was silent for a moment, a flicker of struggle in his eyes.
He had indeed noticed some unnatural pauses in Shen Xingluo’s writing.
Those were her characteristic reactions while performing deep logical deductions; to an ordinary person, they did look strange.
Coupled with the pressure from Su Man’s background and the potential fallout from Principal Chen, his scales began to tip.
He decided to trust his intuition rather than the truth.
Shen Xingluo stopped writing. She gently twisted the cap onto her pen and clicked it into place.
The movement was elegant and composed, as if she were finishing a sacred ritual.
She looked up, her gaze calmly meeting the proctor’s outstretched hand.
She knew this moment would come. All her preparation, all her Intellect Points—they would all be converted into the leverage she needed for her counterattack at this very moment.
The proctor picked up the answer sheet filled with her derivations, his eyes scanning the seamless logical chains.
His fingers trembled slightly, a chill running through him.
This wasn't just solving a problem; it was a perfect academic treatise.
But he couldn't explain this speed and depth, which defied all common sense.
Finally, he gritted his teeth and made his decision.
"Shen Xingluo, hand over your paper."
His voice was cold and hard, devoid of any emotion.
Shen Xingluo didn't speak. She simply smiled and handed over the answer card.
She looked out the window, where the sunlight was breaking through the clouds, spilling onto the desk.
A slight curve touched her lips. She knew she had enough Intellect Points to redeem that exclusive Computing Chip.
The real counterattack had only just begun.