Song Yi was not satisfied with Jing Sicun’s answer.
He clicked his tongue and casually grabbed a skewer of chicken wings, stuffing them into his mouth.
The chicken wings were grilled to perfection—tender and juicy.
Song Yi bit through a layer of crispy chicken skin coated with cumin and chili, as if making some kind of decision.
Suddenly, he raised three fingers, “I have three goals to accomplish by joining this show.”
Dai Jize asked, “Changed them? Didn’t you say before there were only two goals?”
Song Yi shook his head solemnly.
“Gotta add one more.”
Dai Fanze was eating grilled fish tofu.
“Oh, what’s the new one?”
He Zhi, eager to learn from others, asked, “Song-ge, what goals did you set for yourself?”
Song Yi’s first two goals were as follows: Win the team competition together with Jing Sicun and the others.
Defeat Jing Sicun in the individual competition and become champion himself.
When Dai Fanze first heard these two goals, he commented, “At least you can achieve one, not bad.”
Jing Sicun had also commented, “It’s good to have ambition.”
It was He Zhi’s first time hearing Song Yi talk about his goals, and when he heard the second one, he was already so shocked he turned to check Jing Sicun’s expression.
He wondered if Song Yi’s ambition could be considered offensive…
Is this really okay between friends?
By the time Song Yi revealed his third goal, the astonishment in He Zhi’s eyes had turned to confusion, and then to a kind of clarity that fit his status as a college freshman.
Song Yi’s newly added third goal today was:
Become good friends with Ke Ni.
Dai Fanze repeated blankly, “Become… good friends… with… Ke Ni?”
He Zhi was also perplexed.
“But we don’t even know her, Song-ge, how are you going to become good friends with her?”
Song Yi was the most extroverted of extroverts, his face full of confidence as if to say “no problem.”
He explained that Ke Ni was probably also here for this preliminary contest.
“There’ll be plenty of chances to meet.”
He Zhi responded with an “Oh,” not sure what he was thinking, and reached out to tap twice on Song Yi’s already dim phone screen.
The video started playing again, and Ke Ni’s cheerful pre-competition interview could be heard from the phone…
He Zhi always carried printed copies of various brain teasers with him.
Jing Sicun was sitting right across from that stack of A4 papers.
He was reading them upside down and had already solved the two deduction problems about guessing numbers with cards on the first page.
Listening in, he realized Song Yi and the others were still talking about Ke Ni.
Jing Sicun thought they were pretty idle.
“Ah Zhi.”
“What is it, Jing-ge?”
“Let me see your problems.”
He Zhi blushed. “I just printed them out at random.”
Jing Sicun took them and flipped through casually.
There really wasn’t any need to take a serious look—
Six cards, you can flip two at a time.
What’s the minimum number of operations needed to get all cards face up?
From a deck of cards, what’s the probability that at least one of three consecutive draws is a King?
What kind of questions are these?
Quick response questions?
Jing Sicun glanced at He Zhi, who snatched the paper back, his face red.
Song Yi was still talking about Ke Ni.
“I wonder which university Ke Ni got into later, and whether she’s still living in the country.”
Jing Sicun had nothing to say.
Dai Jize said, “If you’re that curious, just search for her social media account.”
Usually, contestants who have been on TV shows will open social media accounts.
Some do it for business opportunities or advertising, to make a profit.
Others use it to share their lives.
Take Song Yi, for example—he has barely any followers, but he still manages to post ten updates a day—
Helping a neighbor look for a lost cat;
Sharing the braised pork and winter melon meatball soup at the school cafeteria;
Asking netizens which kind of watermelon is the sweetest;
On his own initiative, helping the statistics professor collect recommendations for reliable hair growth serum…
Song Yi basically lives online and had already searched everywhere.
Ke Ni didn’t have any public social media accounts and never participated in any similar shows again.
Dai Fanze, menu in hand, checked off more barbecue and main dishes at the rate of one check every five seconds, under the unimpressed gaze of the restaurant staff.
Finally done, Dai Fanze casually remarked, “Isn’t that just like Jing Sicun?”
“Exactly.”
Song Yi tossed away the chicken wing bones, turned to Jing Sicun, and said, “Today I overheard other contestants talking about you too.”
To others, Jing Sicun was a mystery.
In those years, contestants who gained popularity in brain competitions were constantly in the news.
Some used their fame to start businesses.
Some frequently collaborated with famous TV shows at home and abroad.
Some stayed on campus to specialize in academic research.
Others changed careers and became popular science or other types of self-media bloggers…
From an outsider’s perspective, you could see these “immortals” forging ahead toward a bright and brilliant future.
Only Jing Sicun went the other way.
At the height of his fame, he suddenly vanished from the public eye.
This outcome surprised everyone who followed him.
When that highly popular TV show launched its second season, the audience was shocked to find that the assistant guest sitting next to the authoritative professors was actually the third-place finalist who lost to Jing Sicun in last season’s finals.
Jing Sicun was nowhere to be found.
There were rumors that Jing Sicun had accepted an invitation from a prestigious foreign university and gone abroad for further study.
Others said Jing Sicun had a difficult personality—though he won, he offended the sponsors or the showrunners…
In the first couple of years, there were still some speculations and rumors about Jing Sicun online.
But as time passed and more and more brain competition shows flooded the market, with new talents springing up like bamboo shoots after the rain, the old faces were gradually forgotten by the audience.
Yet, contestants in the same field still remembered Jing Sicun well—just like this time.
As Song Yi talked, he started laughing at himself.
Song Yi nudged Jing Sicun with his elbow.
“Originally, everyone was curious about your experiences and current skills these past years. But then someone mentioned your ‘disheveled appearance,’ and the whole discussion went off track.”
Not even barbecue could shut Song Yi up.
He raised a skewer of grilled chicken feet like a microphone: “I’ll interview you on their behalf—Jing Sicun, as someone who’s been widely followed, what are your thoughts?”
Jing Sicun just felt sleepy.
He only hoped the production team wouldn’t come up with any more pointless gimmicks and would arrange the second round of preliminaries reasonably.
That way he could finish quickly and get back to the hotel for some sleep.
He Zhi, possibly from eating too fast earlier, found he’d lost his appetite when the staff brought out a fresh pile of barbecue.
He lay on the stack of simple A4 questions, still watching Ke Ni’s video on Song Yi’s phone.
Jing Sicun glanced at the phone screen.
The girl in the video was squatting behind the competition console, covering her face and sobbing.
How could anyone cry that hard?
What Jing Sicun didn’t expect was that, when he went to participate in the second round of preliminaries that afternoon, he would run into the same tear-streaked person from the video as soon as he entered the venue.
There were nearly a hundred contestants in the second round, split into two groups in different locations.
Dai Fanze and Song Yi were assigned downstairs, while Jing Sicun and He Zhi were together.
He Zhi was so nervous he went to the restroom several times.
Most of the time, Jing Sicun just leaned back in his chair, waiting for the competition to begin.
It was by chance that Jing Sicun spotted Ke Ni.
Ke Ting had a bespectacled boy at his side—gentle-looking, talkative, the type who couldn’t stand being silent, much like Song Yi.
But this boy’s voice was softer than Song Yi’s, his tone not as loud and abrupt.
Ke Ni was expressionlessly eating a cream bun, tearing off a big chunk and stuffing it into the boy’s mouth to shut him up.
The boy, with the bun in his mouth and wide eyes, protested, “Ke Ni, this is cream, you know! Enemy of all dieters!”
Ke Ni laughed easily, her eyes shining.
Jing Sicun looked away and closed his eyes to rest.
As expected, the production team wasted a lot of time on pointless things—making contestants change into matching jackets, fixing their expressions.
They even had to re-record the contestants’ entrance twice.
Finally, after all the fuss, they were ready for the actual competition.
It was already three in the afternoon.
Maybe because he’d caught a chill, Jing Sicun really was sleepy, and he had a bit of a headache.
While the rules and questions were being announced, he stifled a yawn and zoned out.
He tilted his head, taking a clear look at the person beside him.
Jing Sicun raised his eyebrows in surprise.
The jackets prepared by the production team were ugly, mainly white with flashy patterns that looked like neurons.
With nearly fifty people in the competition area, Jing Sicun didn’t even know where He Zhi was, but right next to him was the very Ke Ni Song Yi and the others had spent the whole afternoon talking about.
Ke Ni stood at the console, expressionless.
The host was saying some grandiose things to the cameraman.
Jing Sicun was impatient and didn’t want to listen.
Boring.
He propped his head up, looking at the people around him—some didn’t take this small-scale competition seriously, some were excited, some were nervous.
Of course, there were also those who needed to listen carefully to every word of the rules to understand the questions.
In the end, Jing Sicun’s attention returned to Ke Ni.
Ke Ni’s jacket was a bit big, her hands mostly hidden by the sleeves, fingers interlaced.
She seemed nervous, but not in the same way as He Zhi.
In Ke Ni’s eyes, Jing Sicun saw something like a chaotic desert—a feeling that gave him the impression:
She’s unhappy.
If she’s unhappy, why come to compete?
Jing Sicun couldn’t quite understand the girl beside him, whom Song Yi kept calling cute.
Just like in the video—she did make a mistake, but was she really crying because she lost?
And crying that heartbreakingly?
The second round of preliminaries consisted of three timed events, with the final selection based on total results from all three.
The first event was complex calculations—once the question appeared on the screen, you could start answering.
You filled in your answer on the console in front of you, pressed submit, and the timer would stop.
Jing Sicun finished the calculations and submitted his answer in seventy-two seconds.
While waiting for the others to finish, he turned and watched Ke Ni for over ten seconds.
The second event was a memory challenge—a maze with obstacles would appear on the screen, and contestants had to memorize the obstacles in a short time, then navigate the maze on a console without any obstacle indicators.
Each mistake added twenty seconds.
Jing Sicun completed the maze in twelve seconds, then turned and watched Ke Ni for seven or eight seconds.
The third event was a number sliding puzzle.
Jing Sicun finished in fourteen seconds and, once again, turned to look at Ke Ni.
After two seconds, Ke Ni pressed the finish button and suddenly turned her head as well.
The atmosphere in the competition area was tense, filled with the ticking of stopwatches and the constant sound of buttons being pressed.
Ke Ni had the persistent feeling someone was staring at her.
The moment she finished the number sliding puzzle, she turned to find the source of that strange feeling.
In that instant, Ke Ni and Jing Sicun locked eyes.
Jing Sicun, propping up his head, looked at Ke Ni with calm indifference.
Ke Ni didn’t look away either, quietly meeting Jing Sicun’s gaze.
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