Du Cheng was already late, and when he finally arrived at the classroom, he was almost directly behind the professor.
This class was Linear Algebra, and the professor was an elderly gentleman in his sixties named Tian He. He was a very serious person with a traditional teaching style and interacted very little with the students. Coupled with the fact that Linear Algebra is a subject that demands great intellectual effort, the students from the entire Computer Science department were not very enthusiastic about it.
In his classes, at least half of the more than two hundred students present were listless, and only Tian He spoke animatedly from the lectern, creating a stark contrast between the front and the back of the room.
Upon entering the classroom, Du Cheng headed straight for the back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gu Sixin sitting in the front row. Gu Sixin was chatting with a female classmate, and the smile on her face was sweet and pure.
Although the subject was boring, Du Cheng didn't waste any opportunity to learn. That's why he usually sat in the front rows, but today was an exception, as he had more important things to do.
After taking Xin'er out of standby mode, Du Cheng saw her appear on the virtual screen with a pout.
However, when he saw the clothes Xin'er was wearing, Du Cheng almost froze on the spot. The clothes Xin'er was wearing were exactly the same as Gu Sixin's; even their hairstyles were identical.
Even so, Du Cheng still couldn't connect Xin'er with Gu Sixin because their personalities were complete opposites: one was sweet and gentle, while the other was a mischievous little devil.
"My dear Du Cheng, surprised? How do I look in these clothes?" Seeing Du Cheng's expression, Xin'er, who had been pouting, immediately responded with great satisfaction.
Du Cheng was speechless and chose to remain silent.
Seeing that Du Cheng wasn't talking, Xin'er clearly didn't want to let him off so easily. She said, "Who is she, Du Cheng? Your heart was beating at a thousand miles per hour just now. Do you like her?"
She paused, tilting her head in a thoughtful pose, and added, "Although I don't know whether to consider her innocent or someone with ulterior motives. With that move of hers, you've become an enemy to everyone who has even a remote interest in her."
"'A thousand miles per hour'? Do you think my heartbeat can reach the speed of a car?" Du Cheng began to sweat, thinking to himself. Then, feeling surprised by Xin'er's analysis, he couldn't help but defend her: "She's not like that, you're overthinking it. She just wanted me to go to her birthday."
But before he could continue, Xin'er interrupted him. "My dear Du Cheng, how about I teach you what she's wearing underneath?" With one hand, she lightly unbuttoned her shirt, and with the other, she gently lifted her skirt.
"Stop!" Du Cheng felt his heart quicken again and his nose felt hot. He couldn't help but shout.
Although he didn't know if what Xin'er was showing him was the same as what Gu Sixin was wearing underneath, Xin'er's almost perfect figure alone was enough to make Du Cheng's blood boil.
But...
Du Cheng's shout was not a product of his imagination; he had actually said it out loud. In the relatively quiet classroom, it sounded somewhat shrill.
Looking around, the gazes of the more than two hundred students in the classroom were fixed on Du Cheng. Among them were a bewildered Gu Sixin, Du Yunlong, who had come in even later than Du Cheng, and a completely petrified Tian He.
What bothered Du Cheng was that, among those gazes, some were even filled with admiration.
Tian He was a very stubborn elderly . Although he knew his teaching method was flawed, he persisted because he couldn't admit his method was wrong, nor could he interact with the students.
You could say Tian He was both stubborn and proud, and almost everyone at Futian Academy knew his personality.
Du Cheng was well aware of Tian He's personality, but he also knew his current situation was not good. He had actually shouted "Stop!" out loud while Tian He was giving his lecture. Although it wasn't intentional, for Tian He, this undoubtedly represented a challenge to his authority as a professor.
"Du Cheng, what did you just say? Repeat it..."
Tian He's face turned pale. In his decades of teaching, this was the first time a student had stopped him in person, and it was one of the students he appreciated the most. This was undoubtedly as humiliating as being slapped in the face.
"I'm sorry, Professor, I didn't mean to..." Du Cheng felt like laughing and crying inside. He had really messed up this time, and on the virtual screen, Xin'er was covering her mouth and laughing nonstop.
Du Cheng's apology clearly had no effect on the stubborn and proud Tian He, who pointed directly at the door and shouted, "Out! If you don't want to listen to my class, then stand outside!"
Tian He was furious, so Du Cheng naturally didn't dare to say anything more. He stood up, lowered his head, and walked out of the classroom.
The short distance of less than twenty meters felt like an eternity to Du Cheng. Luckily, Tian He looked away and didn't look at him again; otherwise, Du Cheng might have felt even worse walking away.
▂▂▂
"This is all your fault!" Du Cheng asked Xin'er, standing outside the classroom door, greatly annoyed.
"What's wrong? It's your fault and you're blaming me? I've never seen such a petty man, ha!" Although Xin'er said this, the smile in her eyes was unmistakable, clearly showing her enormous satisfaction.
After Xin'er's words, Du Cheng realized that ever since he obtained that intelligent biological computer from the future, he seemed to have lost his usual composure. Of course, all of this was related to that mischievous little devil.
Who would have imagined that this intelligent computer would automatically generate such an extraordinary personality, and that its humanization would be taken to the extreme, being completely identical to a real person, which made Du Cheng unable to stop himself from treating Xin'er like a real person?
"Alright, don't be angry, okay? You're a big man, how can you be so petty? I'm sorry." Seeing Du Cheng lost in thought, Xin'er seemed to realize she had gone a bit too far and, for once, spoke softly to comfort him.
"Forget it, I'm not angry. In fact, it felt pretty good to challenge the professor. Let's talk about something else." Du Cheng didn't care for Xin'er's good intentions. In his opinion, Xin'er was definitely up to something. So Du Cheng changed the subject directly and said, "Xin'er, switch the system to Windows and connect to the network."
"Done, in a second."
Xin'er replied very obediently, and then the virtual screen changed, becoming one of the two operating system platforms Du Cheng was familiar with, the other being Linux.
It was inconvenient to use the virtual keyboard in the hallway, so Du Cheng controlled the computer directly with his mind. Although it wasn't as comfortable as the virtual keyboard, it didn't significantly affect his normal internet browsing.
After entering a web address in the address bar, a password-entry box immediately appeared before Du Cheng's eyes. Evidently, this was a website that required a password to access.
As he prepared to enter his credentials, Du Cheng thought about the site's name: 'Cypher Nexus'. To him, the name said it all. 'Cypher' represented the group's obsession with encryption and unbreakable code. 'Nexus' was exactly what it meant: the virtual meeting point where the true geniuses of the web connected and, just as the name implied, they were, literally, the most famous underground network of elite programmers and hackers he knew.
Du Cheng skillfully entered the password, and immediately a webpage with a style composed entirely of black and red appeared before his eyes.
— Cypher Nexus
Unlike an external website open to the public, this was the internal forum. It was divided into regions, and Du Cheng had just entered the internal forum for the China region.
This was a webpage that could only be accessed after passing several phases of evaluation. Du Cheng had spent nearly half a year of his sophomore year of college completing the evaluation for Cypher Nexus.
After accessing the internal forum, Du Cheng went directly to the low-level reward missions section. There, some low-level members of Cypher Nexus earned some money, while high-level members had a more advanced platform.
Although Du Cheng had been in Cypher Nexus for over a year, he was currently only a two-star geek because he didn't have his own computer. He could only use the computers in the school's computer labs, and aside from studying, Du Cheng had no free time. However, he occasionally managed to earn some money there.
After entering the low-level reward missions area, a large number of low-level reward missions immediately appeared before Du Cheng's eyes.
These low-level reward missions were varied and consisted of rewards transferred from the external site to the internal one. Some required removing viruses from computers, others were infected with Trojans, and others sought experts to help write specialized programs or crack uncommon software. In short, they were diverse and different.
However, they shared one common point: the rewards in this low-level mission zone were not high, ranging from a minimum of ten yuan to a maximum of no more than three hundred.
Of course, this was the usual price for low-level reward missions. For intermediate, high, or top-level reward missions, the rewards increased at an astonishing rate.
It was small sums of money, but for Du Cheng, they were very important. Whenever he had free time, Du Cheng would accept low-level bounty missions to earn some money.
Du Cheng carefully examined each reward mission, completely ignoring common tasks like virus and Trojan removal, as they were cumbersome and low-paying. What Du Cheng was looking for were missions that required cracking programs.
There were still many such tasks, and Du Cheng quickly found an exciting mission. It was a reward mission posted by an anonymous auto parts company. This company wanted to crack a management software because the official software was very expensive, so they turned to Cypher Nexus.
The reward for this cracking mission was only two hundred yuan, but upon completion, it also yielded twenty contribution points. Compared to the two hundred yuan reward, these twenty contribution points were equally important to Du Cbeng.
These contribution points are one of the requirements for promotion in Cypher Nexus. Du Cheng currently has 125 contribution points. He only needs to reach three hundred points to apply for the promotion exam. If he passes, Du Cheng can become a three-star geek and access the intermediate reward mission zone, where the rewards will increase significantly.