Yan Anqing walked unhurriedly toward the source of the noise.
After seeing the culprit, he promptly withdrew his earlier assessment.
Even among Yaoguang Section's field staff, there were quite a few oddballs.
The guy frantically beating up a computer wore a white lab coat, with black-rimmed glasses hanging on his nose. Judging by the thickness of the lenses, his nearsightedness was clearly severe.
His features were well-defined, yet despite his young age, his hair was completely gray-white, giving him an outwardly calm and steady appearance.
But what he was doing was rather damaging to that image.
Yan Anqing patted a young girl's shoulder beside him and casually asked, "Is it okay for him to damage public property like that?"
The girl had been annoyed at having her show interrupted.
She puffed out her cheeks and planted her hands on her hips, looking ready to throw a tantrum.
But when her gaze fell on Yan Anqing's face, her eyes immediately lit up.
She subtly tucked both hands behind her back, and her tone became gentler. "Of course nobody else could do that. They'd definitely get publicly criticized, but Shang Yin is different."
"He's a first-class researcher at the Academy of Sciences, with two PHDs in astronomy and three master's degrees. He's published many cutting-edge papers, and he's both talented and hardworking. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say his writings fill shelves."
"Back then, many people thought highly of him. They believed he would definitely become a special-grade researcher, perhaps even an academician, and had a chance at a Nobel Prize. Sigh..."
The girl's sigh made Yan Anqing raise an eyebrow.
The name Shang Yin was not common.
He was probably the "immature brat" Xie Zhe often DISSed in Yan Anqing's ear.
Yan Anqing had originally thought Xie Zhe was merely looking down on a colleague and deliberately painting him in a bad light, but now it seemed Xie Zhe's evaluation had been fairly objective.
No normal person would beat up a computer.
"What happened afterward?"
Yan Anqing gave the girl a faint smile, his tone mild.
The young girl froze for a moment, then blushed and said softly, "Heaven envies genius, I suppose! About half a year ago, Shang Yin suddenly went crazy."
"He said he observed a sphere near Mars that could absorb all energy. Yet it wasn't a black hole. Its volume and mass would increase gradually, and based on its orbital path and rate of growth, it would completely devour the sun in around ten years. When that happened, humanity would face the end of the world."
At that point, the girl gave a disdainful smile. "The paper he published back then really fooled quite a few people. It even alarmed many national-treasure scientists from the older generation. Unfortunately, it was later disproven. No one could ever find the End of the Solar System's Sphere Shang Yin described."
"Still, Shang Yin has contributed a great deal to the Academy of Sciences. As long as nobody brings up the sun or that black sphere, he's more or less normal. After enough time passed, everyone simply let him be."
A brilliant scientist had predicted that the sun would perish in ten years.
This had happened half a year ago.
If Yan Anqing had not joined Yaoguang Section, he would never have known.
"Thank you for clearing that up."
Yan Anqing politely nodded at the girl, then turned his head and focused his gaze on Shang Yin.
He looked young, around twenty-eight or twenty-nine, yet his hair was completely gray-white.
Before gaining his golden finger, Yan Anqing had firmly believed that this world was material and that everything could be explained through science.
But now, he no longer possessed that arrogant narrow-mindedness.
If modifying a photo through a PS game could cause matter and energy in reality to undergo the same changes, how could that be explained?
As for Shang Yin's prophecy, Yan Anqing believed...
Better to believe it existed than to believe it did not.
Even his golden finger required a photo before it could erase the source of a disaster.
The current situation was that China's top scientists had exhausted every method and still could not observe that "End of the Solar System's Sphere," dismissing it as the ravings of a madman.
Even Shang Yin himself could no longer observe its existence.
"Ten years from now?"
Yan Anqing's expression became somewhat strange.
If Shang Yin's prophecy had been one year or three years away, Yan Anqing might have felt at least a little urgency.
But ten years...
Though it was no more than the blink of an eye in Earth's long history, it was still quite far away for humanity.
Leave the future to his future self.
The problem was serious, but panicking would not help.
No one noticed that as Yan Anqing stared at Shang Yin, his pupils expanded and contracted like a camera focusing.
After saving a photo of Shang Yin in the database of his soul-bound image-editing game, Yan Anqing returned to his dormitory.
"So you're my roommate?"
Yan Anqing looked expressionlessly at the girl in loose black-and-red scholar's robes.
Although he had long known he lived in a double room, he had never imagined this possibility.
A man and a woman sharing a dorm...
Judging by how delighted she looked, she seemed not to have considered reputation or the distinction between men and women at all.
"Hello, Senior. My name is Jiang Xinyue."
As she spoke, the girl generously extended her hand.
Her skin had a healthy wheat-colored glow, as though she sunbathed regularly. She had a delicate little nose and a pair of large, bright eyes that were indeed pleasant to look at.
Unfortunately, her flat chest made one wonder whether all the nutrition from her developmental years had gone to her brain.
That was probably the sum of the girl's physical features.
Yan Anqing narrowed his eyes. "Senior? Aren't you from the Three-Qing Group?"
A colleague had mentioned the background of his mysterious roommate before.
A so-called "Three-Qing Group member" referred to someone who had attended Tsinghua University for their bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees.
He himself was not the sort of genius who could casually get into Tsinghua or Peking University.
Jiang Xinyue chuckled, unconcerned by the distance Yan Anqing was creating. "The first time I took the college entrance exam, I had acute appendicitis. I didn't take the math exam, so I simply went to Yunyang Medical College for a year."
"After finishing all the textbooks from the five-year program, I dropped out, took the college entrance exam a second time, and went to Tsinghua."
"Strictly speaking, I really am a twelfth-term student at Yunyang Medical College."
Listening to her, Yan Anqing's mouth twitched slightly.
A zero on the math exam, putting her college entrance exam score in the same tier as his...
However, having grown up alongside a freak like Xie Zhe, Yan Anqing had long gotten used to being crushed.
At the age of eight, he had already acknowledged his own mediocrity and incompetence, as well as the existence of geniuses who could make others feel ashamed of themselves.
By Jiang Xinyue's account, she really was his junior.
Seeing the faint madness flickering in her eyes, Yan Anqing raised an eyebrow. "Do you know Xie Zhe?"
Jiang Xinyue instinctively replied, "That unambitious 'waste genius'?"
All right.
Upon hearing the nickname "waste genius," Yan Anqing was certain.
This junior before him was Crazy Jiang, whom Xie Zhe often brought up alongside Shang Yin to mock.
Before this, Yan Anqing had always thought Crazy Jiang was a man...
Your work circle determined the scope of your connections. That saying was absolutely true.
On his first day at Yaoguang Section, he had met two people he had only heard of but never seen before.
"I have something to do. We'll talk later."
With that, Yan Anqing turned and left the dormitory.
Although Yan Anqing had long believed he was not a good person, he still had something of a mental obsession with cleanliness when it came to relationships.
Putting himself in someone else's shoes was not some profound concept.
He could not help wondering what Li Wan would feel if she had not died and saw him living with another girl now.
Perhaps time would eventually wash away this inner obstacle, but that was for the future.
Yan Anqing voluntarily took on a field assignment from Yaoguang Section.
Coincidentally, his first assignment was related to the Golden-Eyed One.
(Special reminder: This book has only one female lead. The female lead is Li Wan; Jiang Xinyue is a supporting female character with a relatively large role.)