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Zhang Aiguo's eyes widened.

"Little Yuan, I may be old, but I'm not senile."

"And you expect me to believe what you don't even know yourselves? Are you trying to fool a child?"

Yuan Jingsong knew Elder Zhang would not believe him, but the truth was, once they realized the importance of the Intelligent Assistant, how could they not investigate its developer? A civilian talent whose work was so far ahead of the world was bound to attract attention.

But they had searched high and low and found only the information left on Aliyun. In reality, every detail filled in there was fake.

"Elder Zhang, if the team capable of developing Artificial Intelligence like the Intelligent Assistant wanted to hide online, how likely do you think it would be for us to find them?"

Only after hearing Little Yuan's words did Zhang Aiguo realize that it did seem to make sense.

Zhang Aiguo, who had been smiling moments ago, immediately turned stern and stuffed Fundamentals of Computer Science into Yuan Jingsong's hands.

"Study hard. I'll be checking on you in a few days."

"Beep beep. Beep."

"Beep beep. Beep."

"Brother, wake up! If you don't get up, you'll miss the high-speed rail!"

Li Zhou had been sleeping soundly when his phone suddenly woke him.

Still groggy, Li Zhou picked up the phone from beside his bed and looked at it. Well then!

Nai Yi was holding a little paper megaphone she had folded and was blasting noise at him.

"Alright, Nai Yi. If you don't stop, I'm going to be deafened to death."

With the piercing noise gone, Li Zhou's eyelids began to flutter uncontrollably, and he closed them again.

"Brother, it's already two in the afternoon. Nai Yi calculated that it takes half an hour to get from here to the high-speed rail station."

Li Zhou took a deep breath of fresh air and forcibly booted up his brain.

Brushing his teeth and washing his face took Li Zhou only ten minutes.

Luckily, he had packed his luggage earlier. As for the quilt on his bed, he had used it for four years. Not only had the cotton stuffing inside turned black, but several holes visible to the naked eye could be seen when held up to the light. If he brought that quilt home, his mother would definitely laugh at him.

Dragging his oversized suitcase to the dormitory entrance, Li Zhou closed the door to Dormitory 609 with reluctance.

May the next class of freshmen continue to take good care of 609.

The dormitory buildings at CHZU Academy were only six stories tall at most, so there were no elevators. Going up and down meant using your own two legs.

Though it felt like he had not packed much, his suitcase was exceptionally heavy. By the time Li Zhou carried it down to the first floor, he was already drenched in sweat and panting.

After resting for a moment, Li Zhou pushed his suitcase over and took the dormitory key to the dorm manager at the entrance.

When Li Zhou saw the dorm manager, he smiled and greeted the auntie sitting at the desk by the door.

"Auntie, I'm here to return my key."

The auntie at the entrance teased him with a smile. "Heading off, young man?"

The auntie took the key from Li Zhou's hand and handed him a registration book.

Li Zhou was very familiar with this registration book. Every time students went home for a break, the school required them to register.

The difference was that this time, the cover read Graduate Departure Registration.

Following the order, Li Zhou quickly found 12#609. Sure enough, the ugly handwriting of the other three guys from 609 was already signed there.

Picking up the black gel pen on the desk, Li Zhou signed a handsome name—Li Zhou.

Looking at his handsome signature, Li Zhou could not help sighing. If only the handwriting did not look like chicken scratches, it would have been perfect.

"Auntie, I'm off."

"You're leaving? Come back to visit the school often."

"I will. I definitely will."

After saying goodbye to the auntie, Li Zhou put on his headphones and began his journey home alone.

When he reached the high-speed rail station, there were only ten minutes left before departure. Li Zhou swiped his ID and went straight into the station to wait for the train.

Sure enough, nothing ever escaped Murphy's Law!

Murphy's Law: There were always strange things in life. The more you feared something, the more likely it was to happen. It meant, "If something has any possibility of going wrong, no matter how small that possibility is, it will happen." It also illustrated the inevitability within chance.

Li Zhou had countless times hoped that the person sitting beside him would be a beautiful young woman, but every time, it was either a middle-aged uncle or a male college student around his own age.

This time did not disappoint Li Zhou either. Sitting beside him was a woman who looked to be around sixty, accompanied by a child, probably her grandson or something.

Li Zhou's hometown, Lu'an City, was not too far from the school. The high-speed rail ride took less than forty minutes.

But if he thought he was almost home, he was terribly mistaken.

Li Zhou's hometown was in Nong Village, deep in the Dabie Mountains. To get home from the city, he first had to take a coach for an hour to the county seat, then transfer to a bus from the county seat to the town. Only after another hour or so could he be considered home.

Li Zhou dragged his luggage through the journey and did not arrive home until six-thirty in the evening. Fortunately, it was still light out when he got there.

Before he had even arrived, Li Zhou shouted from far away.

"Mom, I'm back!"

Not long after, a middle-aged woman emerged from a two-and-a-half-story house.

"You're back? Your dad and I were just wondering why you hadn't arrived yet."

"Woof woof woof!"

As Li Zhou walked up the sloped cement path outside his home, a black local dog burst out of the grass.

"Big Black!" Li Zhou happily patted Big Black on the head. Big Black's tail wagged so quickly it was almost like a fan.

While Big Black was greeting her son, Li Zhou's mother had already taken the suitcase from his hand.

"Son, what did you bring back? Why is it so heavy?"

Hearing that, Li Zhou shrugged.

I have no idea. I just stuffed anything that seemed useful into the suitcase.

"Hurry up and wash your hands for dinner. I knew you were coming back, so the food has been ready for ages."

"Where's Dad?"

"Your dad is still loafing around watching TV."

Having lived a second life, Li Zhou might have been rather useless, but under many of his suggestions, his family had become fairly well-off in the area.

The biggest supermarket in town belonged to his family.

It was not that Li Zhou had not considered having his parents run a bigger business, but his mother had never gone to school and could only write her own name. Even his father, who had attended school, had only graduated from middle school.

And the supermarket was no small matter. It brought the family a considerable income every year. At the very least, Li Zhou had never felt that his family lacked money. As for how much savings they had, Li Zhou truly did not know.

That evening at dinner, after Li Zhou's father drank a little liquor, he began talking more.

"Xiao Zhou, what are your plans? Leaving aside everything else, you have ability. Your mother and I both know what you're capable of, so we've never worried about you finding a job. At worst, there's still the supermarket."

Li Zhou took a bite of braised pork and said, "Dad, I've already thought it through. I'm planning to start a tech company in our hometown. I've even prepared the first project."

"Good, good, good! I knew my son had ambition. Tomorrow, have your mother take you to the bank. Never mind anything else—our family can still come up with one million."

Later, Li Zhou learned from his mother that quite a few relatives had been nagging his father about him not finding a job, which had made his father furious.