A group of people coming out of the hot pot restaurant found it was already midnight, so Ji Wenyu simply skipped returning to the dorm and spent the latter half of the night over at Lao Ma’s place.
He made it back to the dorm just as dawn broke. Since morning classes could all be skipped, he slept straight through until the afternoon, got up to grab a meal, tidied up, and headed straight to take his computer vision quiz.
Relying on momentary memory crammed at the very last minute, Ji Wenyu had the good fortune to answer roughly most of the quiz questions correctly. Capitalizing on that momentum, after finishing dinner at the second cafeteria, he bought a cup of coffee and headed straight for the library.
Since it was neither midterm nor finals season, the library was filled with empty seats. The boy pressed the button for the sixth floor and made a beeline for his usual spot by the western windows. The western side of Zijing University’s library faced a garden, offering the best view on the sixth floor. Whenever his eyes grew sore from staring at the computer screen, looking out at the expanse of greenery outside the window helped him recover quickly. As long as it was not too crowded, Ji Wenyu always headed straight for the corner on the sixth floor whenever he arrived.
He had ordered a new seasonal release from the campus coffee shop, an iced shaken giant peak grape Americano. Swirling the plastic cup, the ice cubes inside emitted an invitingly crisp sound. Ji Wenyu inserted a straw, took a sip, and pulled up the Qinghe app.
The account had been registered previously using his phone number with a single click, and his display name was a randomly generated string of numbers. Tilting his head in thought, Ji Wenyu typed Little Fish into the nickname field and tapped the completely blank avatar. Among the system’s default avatars, there were various animals and landscape emojis. The boy’s fair fingertips swiped casually across the screen a few times, randomly selecting a blue-themed starry sky.
The Qinghe interface was divided into two main areas. One was the real-time contact zone, where users could add each other through methods like shaking or adding friends in person to interact in real time on the app. The other was the forum zone, which was further divided into several sections. There were admission requirement info sections for various universities uploaded proactively by users, experience-sharing and planning guide sections from senior students, an anonymous stranger plaza similar to a social feed, and an anonymous vent tree hole for sharing thoughts.
Ji Wenyu clicked into the stranger plaza first. At the very top of the page sat a ranking leaderboard. The most popular user on the leaderboard went by the username X.
The popularity leaderboard ranked users based on a combination of their personal academic strength and their popularity score within the Qinghe forum. Qinghe was a real-name verified software, so users wishing to participate in the leaderboard rankings had to verify their university within the app and upload their transcripts. The system generated an academic strength score based on the university’s ranking, major recognition, and multiple other dimensions. Participating in various activities or publishing in journals also yielded corresponding points once uploaded. As for the forum popularity score, it was determined simultaneously by post views, likes, bookmarks, and comments. Anyone who could claim the top spot in both rankings could be considered a titan among giants on Qinghe.
Like every user seeing the leaderboard for the first time, Ji Wenyu curiously tapped into the profile of this user named X.
X’s avatar was a full moon, also a system default. The few publicly displayed posts were all forwards of graduate school recommendation study guides, with only a single original post answering questions related to the Artificial Intelligence major.
He was also in the Artificial Intelligence major? What a coincidence.
Ji Wenyu paused for a moment.
A titan among giants, could he possibly be as formidable as Xu Yuanzhe?
The next second, the boy shook his head vigorously, trying to shake that name right out of his head.
He had already made up his mind to stop liking Xu Yuanzhe. From this moment on, that name was officially a closed chapter for him.
He tapped into X’s professional Q and A notes.
Although it was an original study guide, the content X posted himself wasn’t actually that voluminous. Most of the notes were filled with comments from other forum users. For instance, questions regarding AI course difficulty, career prospects, and paper research directions. X didn’t answer every single one, but every reply he did write was earnest and genuinely offered users plenty of useful advice.
The big shot actually seems quite nice. Ji Wenyu thought silently to himself.
The coffee was gone, leaving behind only ice cubes. The boy shook the cup, his gaze remaining fixed on the Qinghe interface.
After browsing around the forum for a bit and bookmarking quite a few useful study guides, he opened his own personal profile.
Time to post a note. What should he post?
Little Fish: Day 1 of vocabulary memorization check-in
When modern young people suddenly resolve to start working hard and striving for success, they invariably do two things. First is working out, and second is once again starting to memorize vocabulary words.
The attached image showed the library desk and that empty coffee cup.
Qinghe’s traffic algorithm probably favored newcomers to some extent. Within just a few minutes of Ji Wenyu’s post going live, it had already garnered four or five likes.
The active user volume is pretty decent. The boy raised an eyebrow in pleasant surprise. Generally speaking, active users accounting for even ten percent of an app’s actual user base was considered high. He had initially thought this was just some obscure app that required spamming dorm hallways just to get people to download it, but considering the specific target demographic of Qinghe, judging by the engagement on this single post, Qinghe’s user base covered at least eighty percent of students at elite universities.
Pretty interesting.
Ji Wenyu exited his profile and tapped back into the leaderboard at the top of the forum.
That meant the top-ranking titan on this list held even more substantial weight.
He tapped back into the profile of the big shot named X.
Prompted by a sense of skepticism, Ji Wenyu began carefully examining X’s Q and A replies to other users beneath his notes.
Senior X, hello. I am a freshman English major wanting to transfer into Artificial Intelligence. Could you recommend some introductory programming books?
This was the most recent question X had answered, with the reply timestamp dating back to yesterday.
The big shot’s reply was standard and upright, recommending basic professional coursework books for their freshman year, along with an additional recommendation for an easy-to-understand, practical-oriented introductory Python book.
Judging by the user’s question, X’s response could be described as extremely professional and earnest in attitude. However,
Ji Wenyu rolled his eyes playfully and began typing into the nested reply box within the comment thread.
Little Fish: I recommend Teacher Heima’s programming introductory series on Bilibili. It’s much more intuitive and vivid than books, and the teacher demonstrates real cases in the videos.
Although the person asking the question had only asked for book recommendations, their underlying goal was to break into the AI field and lay the groundwork for a future major transfer.
Back when they started, they had bought stacks of those professional textbooks, but by finals week, the only person in the entire dorm who had actually finished reading every single one of them was probably Xu Yuanzhe. To get the hang of things quickly and efficiently, one still had to rely on modern knowledge dissemination methods, such as online courses.
After rapidly typing out a lengthy paragraph and hitting send, Ji Wenyu scrolled down further to look at X’s other replies.
From X’s responses, it was evident that this guy was a genuine academic prodigy. But academic prodigies had one inherent disadvantage when answering these kinds of questions: they tended to assume everyone asking was just as passionate about studying, steady, and hardworking as they were. Therefore, while his replies were thoroughly earnest and devoid of perfunctoriness, many weren’t actually the optimal solutions for helping the questioner achieve their goals.
Lazily selecting a few comments to pick apart, Ji Wenyu watched the like count on his replies tick upward rapidly, feeling quite satisfied as he leaned back into the library’s soft leather seat.
Tired of playing around, he exited X’s notes and hit follow on X’s profile.
Picking faults aside, everything was meant to help everyone acquire knowledge faster and better. Overall, he approved of X. The more he read X’s replies, the more Ji Wenyu felt this person had genuine substance.
Little Fish’s profile showed 12 followers and 1 following. X had become the sole person on his following list.
Guided by several bookmarked study guides, Ji Wenyu opened his laptop to check the college official website regarding this year’s graduate school exemption and admission policies, locating the winter camp information within the designated webpage section.
The winter camp was scheduled for mid-January of next year, the week before the Spring Festival holiday. The application window ran from late October to mid-November, leaving a month from now. The website listed a massive stack of application materials, including routine items like application forms, IDs, student cards, and enrollment certificates, alongside some items requiring deliberate preparation such as personal statements, recommendation letters, and research proposals.
As for transcripts, ranking certificates, and English proficiency proofs, trying to work hard on those now was a bit too late. Fortunately, although Ji Wenyu had skipped plenty of classes over the past two years, he always knuckled down before finals, meaning his GPA wasn’t too unsightly and roughly cleared the threshold for his own university’s internal winter camp. The English proficiency proof was the university-administered CET-6 exam, which everyone took more or less alike. As for competitions, he had participated in plenty over the past two years, giving him a rich background in that area that placed him near the top of his college. Thinking about publishing a paper now was a bit too late, making it definitely unfeasible for the winter camp. However, picking an advisor, discussing paper topics, using the opportunity to set up a research proposal, and snagging a recommendation letter along the way was still entirely within the realm of possibility.
Having made up his mind, Ji Wenyu began browsing the college website, recalling the specialized course professors he had encountered over the past two years.
Sucking up to professors was an art form. However, since they were professors from his own university whom he saw practically every day, it wasn’t too difficult. The only catch was that since he wanted to secure a recommendation for his own school, it would be best if he could pin down his future research interest and contact the corresponding advisor directly.
As for what specific direction he wanted to pursue in-depth later on, Ji Wenyu honestly had no clue.
Thinking of checking Qinghe again for some study guides, the boy picked up his phone once more.
The notification page showed a red badge with more than ten alerts, mostly likes from random users on his replies under X’s notes. Ji Wenyu scrolled down casually to the bottom, his fingertips pausing when he caught sight of one particular user’s like notification.
X? X liked his comment? X liked a comment picking apart his own notes?
Not bad at all.
While Ji Wenyu was still feeling stunned, his phone vibrated again the next second.
X followed you. You are now friends.
The big shot actually followed him back!
On his very first day using Qinghe, he was followed by the top-ranked big shot on the popularity leaderboard. What kind of achievement was that?
Ji Wenyu couldn’t help starting to feel a bit cocky.
The big shot following him meant he approved of his critique, right? Figured the guy had some taste.
He opened X’s profile once more.
X didn’t follow many people, totaling just over a dozen, and each one appeared to be a fairly senior user on Qinghe.
The bell for the library’s ten o’clock closing chimed. Ji Wenyu shouldered his backpack, still clutching his phone tightly in his hand.
Since they were already friends with the big shot, wouldn’t it be a waste not to take the opportunity to cozy up? But what should he say,
Little Fish: Hello, God X
Little Fish: Long time admirer
Would asking right off the bat about which graduate research direction to choose make him look too utilitarian? He actually wanted to make friends with this X person.
While pondering how to phrase his message, Ji Wenyu walked out of the library with the crowd and biked back to the dorm.
After locking up his bike downstairs at the dorm building, the opposite party, X, actually replied to his two greeting messages of idle chat.
X: Hello
What did replying to him signify? It signified appreciation. What did appreciation signify? It signified a willingness to help.
Ji Wenyu excelled at climbing up poles when offered. Since the other person had provided an opening expressing willingness to help answer questions and clear up doubts, he couldn’t just let it go to waste, right?
Little Fish: God X, do you have any insights on choosing specialized sub-directions for graduate studies in Artificial Intelligence? Asking for guidance.
After sending the message, the boy tucked his phone back into his pocket and pushed open the door to Room 606 with a satisfied expression.
Sons, Daddy is back.
Perhaps because he had returned a bit late today, the other three occupants of the dorm were unusually seated together in an orderly fashion beneath their beds. Xu Yuanzhe was playing on his phone, while Pan Lejia and Huang Bin were each holding a bowl of instant noodles, splitting a single ham sausage.
The entire dorm was suffused with the aroma of instant noodles and enveloped in a cozy, harmonious atmosphere.
Yo, our hardworking scholar is back. Huang Bin squeezed his half of the sausage into his instant noodles. Want some noodles?
Yes! Ji Wenyu naturally wouldn’t turn it down. Save me a bite once it’s soaked.
Got it. Huang Bin snapped the lid of the instant noodle bowl shut, turned to face him, and crossed his legs. We were just teasing Old Xu right before you walked back in.
Oh? The boy licked his lips unnaturally and tossed his backpack onto his chair as a cover. What happened to him?
Old Xu came back exceptionally early today, and the moment he walked in, he was staring at his phone grinning from ear to ear. Huang Bin laughed, nodding his chin toward Pan Lejia. Right, Old Pan?
You bet. Pan Lejia chimed in, turning his head to look over toward Ji Wenyu and Xu Yuanzhe’s side.
It felt as though he had accidentally bitten into a gall bladder, a bitter, fishy taste instantly spreading through his chest.
Ji Wenyu’s smile stiffened instantly, forcing him to turn around and busy himself looking for things on the bookshelf as a distraction.
When people feel at a loss, they always manage to fake being extremely busy.
Xu Yuanzhe naturally denied it, offering a flat, Don’t listen to their nonsense.
Not bad, Old Xu. Ji Wenyu chimed in with perfunctory banter.
Huang Bin and Pan Lejia were still bantering back and forth beside him, but he had entirely lost the mood.
Here, son, the noodles are ready. Huang Bin called out to him.
Coming. Ji Wenyu walked over and picked up a mouthful with his fork.
The freshly soaked instant noodles were steaming hot, scalding him into sniffing, but he couldn’t taste any flavor at all.
I’m heading out to wash up. Tossing his phone onto the desk, the boy grabbed his toiletries and walked out of the dorm.