Countdown Course!

Bang! Yu Anbang lifted a huge cardboard box onto the lectern.

"Ten seconds to come up and collect your textbooks. Move!" Yu Anbang shouted.

The classroom erupted again. The students sprinted to the podium as if running a hundred-meter dash, desperately reaching for the textbooks.

Song He reacted quickly and snatched one. Afraid someone might take it from him, he clutched it to his chest and charged back to his seat without looking back. Only then did he breathe a sigh of relief and examine the treasure he had seized.

The textbook was a thick volume printed and bound from A4 Paper, a full 900 pages long. It was as huge and hefty as the massive gray bricks of Xi'an City Wall. Toss it into a crowd, and it could probably kill several people on the spot.

Bold red words were printed on the cover:

CONFIDENTIAL MATERIAL. STRICTLY PROHIBITED FROM EXTERNAL DISTRIBUTION!

Inside was a unit-based course. Several pages of densely packed, illustrated knowledge points were followed by a page of exercises. Song He gave them a hurried glance. Every question exuded a vicious aura of being designed to make people suffer, like bullets flying straight at his face.

Yu Anbang tapped the space bar, and a bright red countdown appeared on the big screen again. This time, it was five minutes.

"Everyone gets five minutes to study Unit One on your own! Study until you can answer Questions One through Five on the test!"

Song He hurriedly flipped to the first page and skimmed through it. All around the classroom came frantic rustling as pages were turned.

A single unit contained an enormous amount of material, and the time was far too short. An ordinary person could never finish reading it word by word. They could only desperately search for the key points.

Song He decisively swallowed a Memory Capsule, cramming whole pages of content into his eyes while his Brain Cells frantically processed the incoming information!

Very quickly, he found all the answers to the first five questions on the test!

The five minutes on the screen ended abruptly.

Yu Anbang tapped the space bar again, and another five-minute countdown appeared.

"You've finished studying one unit. Ask your questions now if there's anything you don't understand," Yu Anbang said.

Arms shot up all over the classroom. The students were panicking. This class was practically a race against death!

Song He did not raise his hand. He had understood the entire first unit. As he listened closely to the other students' questions, he flipped to Unit Two and began a sprint preview.

"Teacher! What determines the size of the Critical Initiation Charge?"

"Teacher, I noticed that Lead Azide has a high acceleration in its explosive transformation. What deeper factors determine that acceleration?"

"What are the respective flaws of the Gas–Solid Drag Single-Term Model and the two-phase flow model for deflagration-to-detonation transition?"

Every time a student stood to ask a question, Yu Anbang answered swiftly in just a sentence or two.

At the same time, Song He silently answered each question to himself as he flipped through the book below. His answers were almost perfectly synchronized with Yu Anbang's, confirming that he had understood Unit One correctly.

The question session ended in the blink of an eye. Yu Anbang tapped the space bar again, and an eight-minute countdown appeared on the screen!

"Unit Two. Study!" he said concisely.

Before he could even give the order, the entire class had already begun flipping through their textbooks at top speed. The atmosphere for studying was explosively intense!

Meanwhile, Song He had just finished Unit Two. His eyes swept over the after-class exercises, and he nervously charged into Unit Three.

It was not that he deliberately wanted to make things harder for himself. The situation forced his hand.

His foundation was weak, and he ranked last in the class. If he studied step by step like everyone else, he would still be last by the end.

To catch up to the class average, he had to progress twice as fast. To catch up to Ye Li, who ranked second in the class, he had to progress three times as fast. To catch up to Xiong Maoxun, who ranked first, he needed to be at least four times as fast!

He was getting a little oxygen-deprived again. Song He sighed bitterly.

At ten that night.

Yu Anbang tapped the space bar for the last time, but no countdown appeared on the big screen.

"Everyone, relax a little! The first day of class is over. Let me say a couple more things!"

He swept his gaze over the class, barely holding back a smile.

The students had been tortured senseless. One by one, they slumped limply in their seats, pale-faced and half-dead, dusty and dazed like refugees who had just been bombed.

Even Song He, diligent as he was, was nearing his limit. He kept stuffing candy into his mouth one piece after another.

At that moment, he missed his Oxygen Generator beyond measure. Though the elevation here was only a little over two thousand meters, he felt as though he were trapped atop a snow peak six thousand meters above sea level, suffering severe altitude sickness from oxygen deprivation.

From the moment Yu Anbang entered the classroom at eight in the morning until ten at night, they had been given only two hours total for rest and meals. The rest of the day had passed in an uninterrupted series of countdowns!

Every time Yu Anbang tapped the space bar, a countdown appeared on the screen. By the end, the entire class had become terrified of it. The crisp sound of the space bar was like a death knell, and many of them even wanted to pry the space bars off their own computers and throw them away.

"Feel your brains. Does it feel like your brain matter has been scorched?" Yu Anbang asked with a smile.

The entire class nodded frantically, looking at their teacher with pleading eyes.

"It's my first day teaching, so you may not be used to my teaching style. It's fine. After a few more days, you'll adapt!"

"Boot camp is the most painful stage. It trains your muscles and tortures your will. Once you get through boot camp, things become much easier! I'll keep using countdowns until you all become accustomed to them and can maintain efficient studying all day long!"

"Actually, I don't want to make everyone so nervous either, but time waits for no one. Lunar Construction needs high-performance explosives so we can break ground on the lunar soil. The overall timetable for our Lunar City Project will not change. Every major department and every kind of research is advancing at high speed. We cannot hold the entire country back. The explosives must meet the standard as soon as possible, so all we can do is fight!"

"If any student truly cannot handle such a fast-paced course, you can still withdraw before midnight tonight. No one is forcing you. You can choose easier courses and assignments."

"Class dismissed! Go back and get a good night's sleep! Tomorrow's countdowns will be even faster!"

With that, Yu Anbang strode away.

The students rose wearily and shuffled out like a pack of zombies. Class had practically sent their souls flying out of their bodies. They needed sleep to gather them back.

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At ten-thirty, Room 1106 of the Dormitory Building.

Song He scanned his face to enter. The dorm room was small but refined, like a standard room in a five-star hotel, with bright, warm lighting.

Dozens of books related to Explosives sat on the bookshelf, along with math and biology books. Every one of them was brand-new and still wrapped in plastic.

A small goose-yellow envelope was tucked tightly between the two books in the middle. It bore the words: "For Song He's Personal Opening."

After dropping his luggage on the floor, Song He opened the envelope and unfolded the handwritten letter inside.

"Dear Comrade Song He, welcome to Ruoqiang Base!"

"Ruoqiang Base is involved in multiple major top-secret projects. For counterespionage reasons, all network access around the base is prohibited. You may only connect to the base's internal local network, which is sufficient for daily life and teaching needs."

"But don't worry. We have a dedicated task force to help you stay in contact with the outside world, so you will not miss important emergency messages from family, friends, or colleagues. You may write letters to chat with relatives and friends. Domestic letters will be delivered within twenty-four hours, and replies will likewise reach you within twenty-four hours."

"Transportation within the base, including bicycles, buses, and Propeller Planes, is free of charge."

"For daily travel, bicycles are recommended. Just grab any bicycle by the roadside and ride away. When you reach your destination, leave it by the roadside. No lock is needed; all bicycles are shared."

"Propeller Planes must be booked on your phone half an hour in advance. They can fly to several large testing grounds nearby. The aircraft model is the CJ-6 Improved Model, with extremely high safety performance. It has never had a major accident in decades. Even if you remove the propeller in midair and cut off one wing, it can still glide safely to the ground."

"All dining at the base cafeterias is free, covering cuisines from around the world. They are open twenty-four hours a day and offer delivery to your door."

"Clothes washing is free. Put your dirty clothes in the laundry basket outside your door. Laundry robots will collect them in the Early Morning and return clean, dry clothes at six in the morning."

"At the hospital, you can receive free health products and contraceptives. Free physical examinations are available at the beginning of every month. If you encounter difficult hurdles in your research or life, you may make an appointment with a psychologist."

"The gym, indoor stadium, indoor swimming pool, library, and movie theater are open free of charge all day."

"If you have any other needs, please call the building manager. We wish you a pleasant life and successful work!"

A large sheet of paper lay on the desk, covered with QR codes for hundreds of locations. Song He scanned the hospital's code and searched for "Oxygen Generator."

He placed an order at once. It was expected to arrive at his door in twenty minutes.

He pulled the nine-hundred-page textbook from his backpack and slammed it onto the desk. Then he began studying!

Knowing Teacher Yu's style, there would definitely be another test tomorrow. He could not remain last in the class!