Cutting-Edge Technology R&D Center

Chapter 17: The College Entrance Exam

“Stop right there!” Ma Ling was so furious she felt like her lungs were about to burst. This Fang Bing was just as stubborn and uncooperative as Wang Hao. “Class President, you know my grades—it’d be a stroke of luck if I even get into a second-tier university. I don’t want to repeat the year either, so please don’t push me, okay?” Fang Bing wore a look of distress; having a class president like this was just as much of a headache for him as it was for Wang Hao. “Fine. We’re about to graduate, and I don’t want to meddle in your affairs anymore. I just wanted to ask about Wang Hao—what’s going on with him? How could he take more than ten days off right before the college entrance exam? Is it because of Caoshan?” Ma Ling looked at Fang Bing, who was wearing a wry smile, and waved her hand dismissively. She knew her own temperament well, but she simply couldn’t control herself. As she put it, “If you’re in a position of responsibility, you must fulfill your duties.” Since she was the class president, she intended to fulfill her duties to the best of her ability. “It’s not because of Caoshan. Hao Ge has something he needs to take care of,” Fang Bing replied. “What could be more important than the college entrance exam?” Ma Ling felt Fang Bing was just trying to fob her off. “Class President, some people just don’t care about the college entrance exam. For example, I don’t care which school I get into. Likewise, there are others who don’t care either because they can get into whichever school they want—like Hao Ge… Class President, I’ve got something to do. I’ll be heading out now.” Fang Bing gave a light chuckle and turned to leave. Ma Ling was momentarily stunned; she didn’t stop Fang Bing right away and let him leave. “Wang Hao? With grades like that, how could he possibly get into any school he wants?” Ma Ling shook her head and said with a wry smile. After three years as classmates, how could she not know Wang Hao’s grades? He ranked around tenth in the class. But when she thought of the extraordinary things Wang Hao had demonstrated on Caoshan Mountain, a sudden thought crossed her mind—perhaps what Fang Bing said was indeed true. The thought that Wang Hao had been hiding his grades all these three years crossed her mind, and the more she considered it, the more likely it seemed. Meanwhile, Ma Ye, who had caught up to them, had heard every word of the conversation between Fang Bing and Ma Ling. Although he’d also heard that Wang Hao’s ten-day leave of absence didn’t seem to be related to the incident on Caoshan, something still didn’t sit right with him. As soon as he saw Fang Bing walk away, he immediately set off in pursuit. “It’s done.” Wang Hao’s eyes sparkled with excitement. After more than ten days of work, the prototype of the artificial intelligence he’d named “Longnao” had finally resolved a small part of the problem: the “garbage” generated by its learning and evolution. This was no trivial matter, because the “garbage” produced during the AI’s development process was far more complex than mere computer junk. He spent over ten days teaching Longnao to distinguish between useless data and valuable information, then spent several more days writing a program to process the data. Only then did Longnao’s processing speed on his old computer improve slightly. This also gave Longnao a little room for improvement on that old computer. “I need to upgrade the hardware for Longnao. Based on my current estimates, I’ll need at least ten servers to allow Longnao to reach its full potential at this stage… If I want to take it further, it won’t be a matter of servers anymore—I’ll need to optimize Longnao again. But I don’t have many ideas on that yet, so I’ll have to focus on the servers first.” Wang Hao fell into quiet thought. Artificial intelligence doesn’t reach maturity right from the start; at the very least, it would take quite some time to bring this prototype to maturity, not to mention program optimization and the AI’s self-learning capabilities. If the current Longnao were moved to an array of servers, it could unleash its full computational power at this stage... At that point, Longnao’s computational power wouldn’t be much weaker than that of some supercomputing centers—and that’s just an array consisting of a few servers. If Longnao were optimized further, its computational power would be even more staggering. “Bro, dinner’s ready,” Zhang Xin said, knocking on the door. Wang Hao nodded slightly. For the past ten days or so, Longnao had been running in the background in stealth mode; no one else could see it at all. They’d all assumed Wang Hao was simply testing the programs he’d written, unaware that he was actually testing Longnao’s garbage collection capabilities. “Okay, I’ll be right there.” Wang Hao stood up and walked out. Three days flew by. During that time, Wang Hao had only briefly tested Longnao; he spent most of his time reading books to put his parents’ minds at ease. “Xiao Hao, don’t be nervous later,” Mrs. Zhang said to Wang Hao at the entrance of Gancheng No. 2 High School. Wang Hao nodded. This was the college entrance exam—a major national event. To ensure it went smoothly, all schools in Gancheng serving as exam venues had been placed under strict restrictions over the past few days. The restrictions weren’t limited to the schools themselves—they also extended to the surrounding areas and traffic. “Don’t worry about Xiao Hao. We’ll be waiting for you when you come out,” Mr. Zhang said with a gentle nod. Over the past three days, he’d had a few conversations with Wang Hao and was secretly awed by the young man’s staggering breadth of knowledge. That’s why there wasn’t much worry on his face, while Zhang Xin and Zhang Nan looked at Wang Hao with admiration. The more they got to know him, the more they felt that this older brother their father had adopted was unfathomable. “Go for it, brother…” “Go, big brother…” Wang Hao smiled gently at Zhang Xin and Zhang Nan as they cheered him on. “Don’t worry, I’ll be out soon.” With that, he turned and entered the exam room, carrying his admission ticket and some stationery. Once he found the exam room, he sat down quietly. He had arrived just before the exam was set to begin, and shortly after he sat down, three proctors walked in with stern expressions; one of them headed straight for the back door. As the bell rang, the exam papers were passed down the rows. Wang Hao took his copy, glanced at it, and shook his head slightly, while the other students taking the college entrance exam around him furrowed their brows. “This is way too easy,” Wang Hao muttered under his breath. His voice was so low that even students in the rows far ahead and behind him couldn’t hear it, but the proctor walking past caught every word right next to him. Zhao Yi looked at Wang Hao in surprise, shook her head, and walked on, sighing silently to herself, “Students these days really do brag without any basis.” She didn’t make a big deal of it. Instead, after patrolling the exam room, she stood at the lectern and gazed down at the students, while another proctor was reading the exam room rules aloud. Ring, ring—the school bell rang out. “You may begin the exam,” the other teacher said softly. Instantly, the students below buried their heads in their papers and began working diligently. Wang Hao had already given the exam paper a quick glance earlier. Upon hearing the teacher’s words, he immediately began writing with lightning speed, his pen moving as if guided by a higher power, without the slightest hesitation. The morning session was Chinese, which didn’t require any calculations. Wang Hao’s writing speed was extremely fast, unconsciously catching Zhao Yi’s attention. As she watched his relaxed expression and the way he wrote without the slightest pause, she stood up and, just as she had done earlier during her patrol, walked behind Wang Hao and began to watch him intently. Wang Hao, however, seemed oblivious to her presence, concentrating intently on the exam and fully immersed in his work.