Chapter 1: A Well-Read Slacker

My name is Gu Beichen, and I live in Liutan Town, in western Sichuan.

Grandma told me our family originally came from Gucheng in Jiangnan. We moved into the mountains to escape the war. My parents had also died fighting in that Human–Machine War.

The mountain town wasn’t big, but plenty of educated elites had fled here from all over the country. They liked to gather and talk—discussing everything under the sun, debating the state of the world. I’d been hanging around those gatherings since I was a kid. Eventually I realized none of them could keep up with me in conversation. People in town started saying I was well-read and talented.

That was mostly thanks to all the books at home.

We had a lot of them.

During the war, people fought over food, clothes, medicine, supplies—all that. Who fought over books?

Grandma did. She brought an absurd number of books with her. Enough to fill two entire rooms. I still have no idea how she managed it.

But even though I’d read piles of random books, my grades were absolute garbage. Second from the bottom in the entire grade.

Grandma had never cared about my schoolwork. Even when I failed exams, she acted like it didn’t matter. That went on straight through high school.

Dead last was Ye Ziping, my deskmate.

Since we were both academic disasters, the teachers stuck us in the back row by the door so we wouldn’t bother anyone else.

Which was convenient. We could chat whenever we wanted. Sometimes we even slipped out.

Ye Ziping was obsessed with cultivation games. He’d already hit True Immortal rank. Said once he made it to Da Luo Golden Immortal, he could join the municipal Kuzhan Center, represent the city in tournaments, and if he won, land an official slot.

That’s when it hit me—I had it worst of all.

All that reading did nothing for exams.

I’d wanted to fix it, but grades weren’t something you could raise just by deciding to work hard. If you didn’t get the earlier material, the later stuff made no sense either.

You never realize how little you know until you need it.

Why hadn’t Grandma ever made me study?

Then something happened at school that changed everything.

Less than a week before the pre-gaokao qualifying exam, two people at school suddenly died.

One was Meng Ran, second in our grade. The other was Vice Principal Bi Songjian.

Meng Ran’s death made no sense. He’d been fine in class when his head suddenly exploded. Blood sprayed everywhere. His deskmate was covered in it. The whole class screamed and stampeded for the door.

I wasn’t in his class. Our grade had two classes. He was in Class One. We were in Class Two.

We only realized something had happened when we heard people running and shouting outside. Ye Ziping and I were among the first out the door. We sat closest.

When we got to Class One, the scene was awful.

If someone had described it to me, I wouldn’t have believed them. But I saw it with my own eyes, and I couldn’t eat for three days.

Meng Ran was slumped over his desk. His body looked fine, but the back of his head had blown open. Blood splattered the desks on either side. The explosion had clearly come from inside.

Police showed up after that, and school administrators. Everyone stood around talking. No one knew what had happened.

About two hours later, Vice Principal Bi died too. They said it might’ve been suicide. He’d fallen from his apartment balcony.

I knew where he lived. Buildings in town weren’t tall. His family was on the fourth floor. How does a fall from that height kill you?

Ye Ziping and I went to see. Vice Principal Bi was lying facedown. There was a hole between his head and neck too, and his skull looked nearly hollowed out.

Taken separately, the two deaths didn’t seem connected. One was a vice principal, the other a student. But once you saw their heads, you couldn’t help thinking there was something linking them.

Ye Ziping said maybe the fall did that to his head. I said, “Bullshit. His head exploded before he fell. Fourth floor’s not high enough to do that.”

After that, people came down from the city. Investigators, probably.

Four men dressed in black, head to toe. Expressionless faces. Sunglasses, even indoors.

At first I thought they were trying to look cool. Later I figured the glasses were detection gear.

Their clothes were strange too. I couldn’t tell what they were made of. From a distance they looked like sharp suits, but when you touched them they were slick, almost frictionless, like your hand couldn’t quite make contact.

The principal called all the students from our two graduating classes to line up outside a small building in the northwest corner of campus. Ye Ziping and I had checked that place out before. It looked old from the outside, vines crawling all over it, no windows, just two sealed doors. No one knew what it was for.

We’d found an air vent around back once. Pretty big, not too high. When we looked inside with a flashlight, we couldn’t see anything.

Students lined up, went in one by one, came out the other door.

When my turn came, I felt off the moment I stepped inside. The room was pitch-black. No lights. I could barely make out equipment by the faint glow of indicator lights. And it was cold.

I couldn’t see the men’s faces clearly. They looked stiff, fake, expressionless. But their movements were quick. Without a word, they pressed me into a chair and ran a handheld device over my head, scanning back and forth.

Another one leaned in close, face almost touching mine, staring hard into my eyes.

I thought it was ridiculous. The room’s dark, you’re wearing sunglasses—what can you possibly see?

Then I realized. The glasses were the detection tool.

When they swept across my eyes, they gave off some kind of light—dim, violet-blue, like a medical scanner.

The moment that glow touched me, my brain started to itch. A prickling sensation, like needles.

My brain felt strange. I couldn’t describe it. I wanted to scratch, but I couldn’t reach it. Like trying to scratch an itch through a boot. Unbearable.

The cerebral cortex doesn’t have nerves, technically. But I swear I felt this tingling itch, and it made me anxious and irritated, with no idea what to do.

The students before me had come out pretty quickly. But with me, the four men kept circling, studying me. One squeezed my head hard with both hands. It hurt.

Just as I was about to yell, they finally let go and waved me out.

Once I stepped through the side door, my vision blurred and my head felt hazy. I thought it was from having my skull squeezed.

In a daze, I told Ye Ziping I wasn’t feeling well and went home to sleep.

I don’t remember how I got there, or what happened after.

I have no idea how long I slept.

When I woke up, Grandma was sitting by my bed, crying. One hand stroked my head. Her eyes were red.

I asked what happened.

She said when I came home, I’d been drenched in sweat. I hadn’t even changed before collapsing into bed.

She also said I’d slept for three days.

Three days?

I had no clue.

I’d just slept deeply. Peacefully. And I felt fine when I woke up.

To reassure her, I said, “Grandma, I’m okay. I feel good. Nothing feels wrong.”

She didn’t answer. Just let out a long sigh and walked away.

As she left, I somehow sensed something weighing on her.

From the moment I woke up, my brain had felt different.

I couldn’t say how exactly.

It felt washed clean. Like a computer that had been reset. There was a clarity to it, a sharpness, almost empty. My thoughts were unusually clear.

The instant Grandma turned away from me, I could’ve sworn I heard her say:

“So this day has come after all.”

Was she whispering, or was that her inner voice?

I couldn’t tell. I just knew I could somehow sense what was on her mind from the sight of her back.

I almost asked her directly, but she’d already gone into the inner room.

The next morning I ran to school.

I’d checked the calendar. The qualifying prelims were tomorrow.

Every year the education department used the qualifying prelims to sort students into different exam tracks. High scorers would take the elite university assessments. Average students would take the regular college exams. Lower scorers could enter the vocational school selection.

I figured I was still salvageable.

I knew plenty. It just didn’t have much to do with what they taught in class.

But what if?

The moment I walked into the classroom, Ye Ziping grabbed me and tried to drag me out. “Why did you come too? You’re not passing. I thought you weren’t showing up.”

What did he mean, “too”? Like I wasn’t a student. Besides, even if I didn’t pass, at least I’d get a score. You needed scores to apply for work anywhere these days.

Ye Ziping said he wasn’t taking it. He was going home to pressure his dad into buying him better gear so he could make a serious push.

I was different. I didn’t play cultivation games.

So I went straight to the homeroom teacher to register.

Our homeroom teacher was a woman named Mei Qili. Behind her back, we called her “Ms. Didn’t-Stand-Up,” a pun on the sound of her name.

The next morning, the prelims officially started.

Ms. Mei stood at the podium announcing exam rules. I kept glancing around, a little nervous.

This was the first major exam of my life. A dividing line.

While we waited for papers to be handed out, I noticed Zhu Zhaojie.

She sat diagonally in front of me. I could see her slender back and fair neck clearly.

Zhu Zhaojie was the prettiest girl in school and a top student. Seriously top. She ranked first in almost every exam our grade took.

Miles ahead of everyone else.

Earlier at the gate, I’d heard people say Meng Ran, who’d always been second, had gotten some kind of advanced tech to catch up with her. A Wisdom Capsule. He’d put it in his head.

Supposedly it was like having a computer in your brain. Human–machine integration. All knowledge loaded in, no teacher needed.

Then it exploded.

Vice Principal Bi had apparently taken money from Meng Ran’s family and helped arrange it. Got one for himself too.

Both ended up dead.

The school had warned us about artificial intelligence—AI—a long time ago. It was like drugs: don’t touch it. Whoever touched it broke the law, and the authorities were cracking down hard.

I let my mind wander. By the time papers were handed out and five minutes had passed, I hadn’t written a word.

I really didn’t know how.