Chapter 35

An old residential area in City A.

"Zhizhi, please come in."

Yu Siyuan stepped forward, considerately opened the door, and invited Li Zhi in.

As soon as I entered, two people warmly greeted me.

An elderly man and a middle-aged woman who looked about five parts like Yu Siyuan.

"This must be Zhizhi. Hello, I am Siyuan's grandmother, and this is Siyuan's mother."

The old man had gray hair, a kind face, and a very loving smile.

"Hello, Grandma. Hello, Auntie."

Li Zhi smiled gently and sat down on the sofa with Cheng Nuo. Yu Siyuan's mother immediately brought over hot tea.

She held the teacup, glanced around, frowned slightly, but quickly concealed it.

The old man keenly noticed a glint in his eyes.

Once everyone was seated, Yu Siyuan's mother, Yin Wenyan, couldn't wait to ask a question.

"Zhizhi, I heard your family is in the manufacturing business?"

"mom!"

Yu Siyuan glared angrily at Yin Wenyan, feeling ashamed of her bluntness.

But Li Zhi didn't seem to mind.

"Yes, it's the metal industry. I don't know the specifics, let my brother explain."

She nudged Cheng Nuo, who finally got his turn. He sat up straight, straightened his suit, and began his introduction in a calm and unhurried manner, just as he had rehearsed.

"Our family is in the metal processing industry, and we are a supplier for XX car company. We have four factories in L city, with about two thousand employees. We don't plan to go public because we have sufficient cash flow..."

The three members of the Yu family stared intently at Cheng Nuo, their eyes gleaming.

Li Zhi, pretending to straighten her clothes, inadvertently glanced down at the inside of her cardigan, where a small microphone was flashing green.

-

Finally, it was Yu Miaomiao's turn to take the stage.

At this point, the number of viewers in the live stream had increased from 250,000 at the start to 1.5 million.

Of these 1.5 million people, more than half are here to see Yu Miaomiao make a fool of herself.

As Yu Miaomiao's face zoomed in and occupied half of the main screen, layers upon layers of abusive comments almost covered the entire image.

Yu Miaomiao adjusted the microphone and turned it on, "Good morning, judges and audience."

Her voice was unexpectedly beautiful, like a flowing spring.

Many netizens who were sending comments on their phones were stunned for a moment, then became angry and started hurling even harsher insults.

Yu Miaomiao naturally couldn't see these comments.

She calmly presented the source code and explained the details.

After briefly reviewing Zhang Mingxuan's and Yu Miaomiao's code, even someone with no prior knowledge of the subject could easily spot how similar the two sets of code were.

[My God, how dare Yu Miaomiao show off her code behind Zhang Mingxuan? It's basically a one-to-one copy!]

[An industry insider commented that Yu Miaomiao's code is slightly better than Zhang Mingxuan's, with optimizations in many areas.]

[It's obvious, they stole the code and then had someone polish it.]

[Hard to judge; does she think she can evade plagiarism checks this way?]

Before the game was presented, the head judge signaled a pause, seemingly about to say something.

Judge Li patted the microphone and said with a smile, "Yu Miaomiao's code is very concise and ranks among the top among the contestants."

"It must have taken a lot of time to work on it."

"I wrote it offhand, it didn't take much time."

"Hehe, you're really joking."

Yu Miaomiao looked at the screen. "I never joke around."

Li Pingwei's face stiffened. "Young people shouldn't be too arrogant."

The number of comments surged again.

Holy crap, how arrogant! Doesn't she have any shame?

Those with any shame would have dropped out long ago; only the shameless can go this far.

[The judges seemed quite unhappy with her too.]

[It must be because of connections in CAE, otherwise how could he have gone so far?]

Judge Du looked at the comments on the screen with displeasure.

She understood that this person was making comments midway through the show in order to prolong the time and increase its popularity.

However, no matter what, one should not say such ambiguous things.

She couldn't help but look at Yu Miaomiao on the screen, the one who had been insulted by millions of people.

The girl looked at the camera, and even through the screen, her cold and aloof demeanor was even more pronounced.

It didn't seem like they were seriously listening to the judges' guidance; rather, it was a perfunctory display of respect.

Perhaps it was this nonchalant attitude that attracted increasingly frenzied comments.

She grabbed the microphone and, ignoring the other judge's attempts to stop her, spoke:

"Teacher Li, let's let contestant Yu Miaomiao demonstrate the game first."

Interrupted from his eloquent commentary, Judge Li narrowed his eyes in displeasure. "Since Teacher Du says so, then fine."

"Yu Miaomiao, please show everyone your game."

But Yu Miaomiao didn't open the game. "No need."

Judge Li gave a forced smile and asked in a seemingly considerate manner, "What's wrong? Are you scared?"

Yu Miaomiao shook her head. "The previous person already demonstrated it, and I think he explained it very well. Demonstrating the same game again would be a waste of time."

From the judges to the host, everyone was astonished – no one expected her to so bluntly expose the plagiarism.

Judge Li was secretly delighted. Regardless of Yu Miaomiao's purpose, he was happy as long as it generated buzz.

"Contestant Yu Miaomiao, you—"

"However, there is one thing I need to correct."

Yu Miaomiao interrupted the other person, her voice traveling through the internet to the ears of millions:

"The game I designed has absolutely nothing to do with depression."

[Does she mean Zhang Mingxuan plagiarized her?]

That's an amazing mindset. I'm just waiting to see how this ends.

I'm starting to admire her.

Is it really true that Zhang Mingxuan plagiarized Yu Miaomiao?

[It's ridiculous. If it's true, why haven't they produced a single piece of evidence all these days?]

"Judges, I'd like to say a few words!"

Zhang Mingxuan suddenly turned on his microphone, his tone serious.

"A thousand people will have a thousand different interpretations of Hamlet. If this is your opinion as a player, then I will respect it."

"But this game is something I've been working on for two years, and the concept and gameplay are highly related."

"If you claim to be the designer, please provide evidence instead of making vague statements!"

"Is this really your work?"

Yu Miaomiao suddenly looked up, and even through the screen, he felt the cold gaze piercing him.

He gripped his thigh tightly with his left hand, forcing himself to look at the camera.

"certainly."

His face showed anger at being humiliated.

Yu Miaomiao exited screen sharing. "Then do you dare to open the source code and show it to everyone?"

"What's there to be afraid of?"

Zhang Mingxuan enabled screen sharing and reopened the code.

"Locate the dialogue group."

The dialogue set contains two hundred lines, the first 73 of which are various strange symbols that look like randomly generated gibberish.

The garbled dialogue of NPCs in the early stages of the game is extracted from here.

"Select the first character of all garbled dialogue."

Zhang Mingxuan quickly located the dialogue section, and as he pressed the ALT key, he suddenly sensed something was wrong—

Why does he listen to Yu Miaomiao so much?

He canceled his choice.

"What, are you scared?"

Yu Miaomiao's voice came through the earpiece, tinged with a hint of mockery.

"Stop wasting time with these tactics," Zhang Mingxuan said dismissively. "Please say something useful."

"If you looked at the code carefully, you wouldn't say it's useless."

"Really? But I don't want to play these tricks with you anymore."

Zhang Mingxuan feigned anger and closed the code interface.

"Host, I request—"

But before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted by an urgent voice:

"Yu Miaomiao, what's next?"

The female judge suddenly spoke; a laptop was placed in front of her.

Clearly, she had already completed the first few steps as Yu Miaomiao had instructed.

"Next, call the M algorithm to decrypt this string of characters."

"algorithm……"

The female judge quickly created a new test case using garbled text.

The central control unit also cleverly shared the female judge's computer interface with all the viewers.

The female judge is writing code to call the algorithm.

This is a very simple piece of code that can be completed in just over ten seconds.

Zhang Mingxuan held his breath, his eyes fixed on the character he typed, each character seeming to move a thousand times slower in his eyes.

Just half an hour ago, he was full of confidence, but now, looking at Yu Miaomiao's slightly mocking expression and the female judge's fingers tapping on the keyboard, he felt a shadow looming over his head, making him tremble all over and his blood almost stop flowing.

For a fleeting moment, he wished time would stand still, that this moment could be frozen in time forever.

No matter how much you hope, a dozen seconds still pass in the blink of an eye.

The female judge pressed the Enter key, the screen flashed, and a string of characters appeared.

"Clang!"

Judge Li knocked over his thermos, spilling tea all over the table, which dripped down.

But he had no time to care.

He jumped up, his eyes wide, staring incredulously at the string of characters on the screen that had been deciphered from gibberish.

-

"I think the most important thing for boys is to be hardworking and ambitious; everything else is secondary."

"Yes, yes, our Siyuan is smart and hardworking, and now he works with his father."

Yin Wenyan patted her son's shoulder and complained, "If your dad hadn't told me, I wouldn't have known you'd suffered so much."

"That's amazing, my dad will definitely love Siyuan."

Li Zhi smiled shyly and casually brushed her long hair down to her chest.

...

The conversation eventually turned to marriage.

Cheng Nuo said with concern, "As for the wedding, my father's health isn't very good. I hope Zhizhi can see her grandson as soon as possible this year."

"Although the process is fast, the wedding will still be a grand affair, and the dowry will be substantial."

Yin Wenyan's eyes suddenly lit up, "I wonder what the dowry will include, so we can prepare..."

"Our family's dowry for Zhizhi included two villas in City A, 10% of the company's shares, and some jewelry and gold."

The three people present immediately began to breathe heavily.

Yu Siyuan, in particular, was calculating rapidly in his mind.

The average price of a villa in City A is 6 million yuan, which adds up to 12 million yuan, not to mention the gold and jewelry that hold their value.

There's also the company's 10% dividend. In our chat just now, Cheng Nuo mentioned that the company's annual profit is 30 million, so 10% would be 3 million.

In other words, this alone can bring in 3 million every year!

His gaze toward Li Zhi grew increasingly fervent.

Cheng Nuo changed the subject, "But the bride price from the groom's side can't be too meager, lest... some people don't know how to appreciate it."

"Don't worry, Xiao Cheng!"

Yu Suhua said righteously, "If we really get married, I will definitely treat Zhizhi like my own granddaughter."

She glared at Yu Siyuan, "Siyuan, that brat, dares to wrong Zhizhi! I'll be the first to beat him to death!"

Yu Siyuan looked at Li Zhi and made a vow, "Zhizhi, don't worry, I'm definitely not that kind of person!"

Cheng Nuo, however, disagreed, saying, "Hmph, just talking about it won't do any good."

Li Zhi nudged Cheng Nuo and said reproachfully, "Brother, why are you so serious?"

She told the other three, "My father feels sorry for me and doesn't want me to go through an arranged marriage."

"I just want to find an ordinary family and a simple, honest boy to settle down with."

"As for the bride price, it's just a matter of attitude; it doesn't necessarily have to be high."

Yin Wenyan chimed in, "Yes, yes, a bride price is definitely going to be given. I wonder what your requirements are."

Li Zhi smiled and said, "Three million should be about right."

She watched with satisfaction as their faces darkened.

Yu Siyuan tentatively asked, "Isn't this... a bit too much?"

Although their family is in relatively good financial condition, it is still too difficult for them to come up with three million in working capital all at once.

Cheng Nuo sneered, "I don't need you to be rich, but I also don't want to help the poor."

“We’ve spoiled Zhizhi since she was little, and we even think three million is too much. This just shows that you can’t give Zhizhi happiness.”

Cheng Nuo stood up. "Zhizhi, let's go. Don't waste time here."

"Wait, wait!"

Yin Wenyan quickly stopped the two and hurriedly explained, "It's not that we're unwilling to give it, it's just... it's just—"

She gave Yu Siyuan a meaningful look.

Yu Siyuan chimed in, "It's just that our family has been having some cash flow problems lately, and we can't come up with that much money right now."

"Oh?" Cheng Nuo seemed to be persuaded and stopped walking.

He glanced at the dilapidated and cramped house and became suspicious again: "What kind of business can someone living in a house like this do?"

"Are you kidding us?"

"Zhizhi, what's the point of talking to this kind of person? Let's go."

"Brother~" Li Zhi pleaded, "Since we're already here, let's listen to what they have to say."

Cheng Nuo was persuaded by her sister and family to sit back on the sofa.

Li Zhi straightened her cardigan, casually brushed it across the microphone, and gave Yu Siyuan an expectant look.

Please don't let me down.