Chapter Summaries

Song He returned to meet his master's students and set out strict confidentiality, work, and graduation requirements. The students were shocked by his youth and the demand for a top-journal paper, while Wang Chong and Zhao Chang discovered that Xie Kefu had been right about their mentor.

• Song He entered the lecture hall, and the students were stunned to learn that their young-looking mentor was the famous Professor Song.
• Xie Kefu demanded payment from Wang Chong and Zhao Chang after Song He’s identity proved his prediction right.
• Song He told the students his team handled confidential work and required them to sign confidentiality agreements.
• Song He warned that research tasks would be exhausting and set a graduation requirement of publishing a first-author paper in a top journal.
• The students grew anxious about the requirement, and Song He told them to keep listening because the rest would make graduate life more appealing.

Song He celebrated the progress of his Short Sleep Pill and discussed helping Zhao regain his sight with Xiang Xiaotong, who suggested starting with an artificial cornea. After arranging a Spring Festival launch for Song He Su and the Short Sleep Pill, Song He began studying corneas and aimed to develop an artificial one before the Lantern Festival.

• Song He learned that his papers had been confirmed and his Short Sleep Pill had passed preliminary acceptance, raising his total points to 2,470.
• Song He met Xiang Xiaotong on a flight, where they discussed his health supplement and her plan to bring Zhao a new tactile module for his mechanical hand.
• Song He learned Zhao was blind despite having electronic eyes and proposed making him a biological artificial eyeball; Xiang Xiaotong advised him to begin with the cornea.
• Song He met Wei Liqun, and they agreed to launch Song He Su and the Short Sleep Pill during the Spring Festival holiday.
• Song He studied corneas on his flight and set a goal of developing an artificial cornea before the Lantern Festival, then received a system upgrade notification.

Song He and Xiang Xiaotong explained how Rejuvenation Technology could maintain a thirty-year-old body for up to 200 years in theory, potentially extending human life to 300 years. They revealed the treatment's prices and left the audience and online viewers discussing the costs.

• Song He and Xiang Xiaotong resumed the press conference after a ten-minute break as online viewership climbed to 1.7 billion.
• Song He and Xiang Xiaotong explained that drug resistance would eventually end the rejuvenation effect, but estimated people could remain thirty for 200 years and live up to 300 years.
• Song He announced that Rejuvenation Surgery would cost 700,000 yuan, including a 150,000-yuan profit for Chenghuang.
• Song He said the new-generation Rejuvenation Drug would sell for 100 yuan per pill despite costing 200 yuan to produce, while Xiang Xiaotong explained the company expected production costs to fall.
• Song He priced annual examinations and basic Vault Cell replenishment at about 50,000 yuan, and the couple presented an estimated total cost of 18 million yuan to extend life by 200 years.
• The audience scanned a QR code to read more about costs and pricing while Song He and Xiang Xiaotong watched reactions online.

At a press conference, Song He and Xiang Xiaotong used a lottery to select students to ask about the Rejuvenation Drug. Song He gave a vague answer about an older couple’s ages eventually overlapping, and the next student asked whether four generations could use the drug.

• Song He explained that students would be chosen by matching the last four digits of their Moon Gold Coins to numbers drawn with Xiang Xiaotong.
• A thirty-year-old student asked when his sixty-year-old parents’ physical ages would match his if they took the new-generation Rejuvenation Drug.
• Song He said that if the student’s parents underwent the surgery and continued taking the drug, their physical ages would eventually overlap with his.
• Song He and Xiang Xiaotong drew another number, selecting a twenty-five-year-old student who asked whether she, her fifty-year-old mother, seventy-five-year-old grandmother, and one-hundred-year-old great-grandmother could all use the drug.

Zhang Ju San and Zhang Ju Si struggled to repair their broken lunar transport vehicle, but it remained immobile. They realized that fetching another vehicle or pushing theirs would take too long, leaving them short on time to reach Space City.

• Zhang Ju San tried starting the rover after Zhang Ju Si said he had repaired it, but it would not move.
• Zhang Ju Si tried pushing the vehicle while Zhang Ju San pressed the accelerator, but it stopped after rolling only a short distance.
• The two Teacher Bais argued over the malfunction and then consulted their map for another transport vehicle.
• Zhang Ju San calculated that fetching another vehicle or pushing theirs would take more than two hours and leave too little time to install the searchlight and complete a self-check.

After Song He corrected a mathematical error at a heated technical meeting, General Wang reassured him that the attendees argued without holding grudges and explained why their confrontational style was efficient. General Wang described the long-term Space Elevator Project and its potential to make large-scale space development affordable, then turned to discuss funding for Song He’s Brain-like Computer.

• Song He left the evening meeting and found General Wang waiting with an umbrella in the rain.
• General Wang told Song He that scientific colleagues argued to solve problems but did not hold grudges, and explained that their intense meetings were efficient despite exhausting everyone.
• Song He asked about the Space Elevator Project, and General Wang said it was a century-long plan facing major technical and political obstacles.
• General Wang explained that rockets were too costly for transporting industrial-scale materials and that a Space Elevator could provide reusable, low-cost access to space.
• General Wang ended their discussion of the Space Elevator by bringing up funding for Song He’s Brain-like Computer.

Song He and Xiang Xiaotong studied Ao Xiaoguang’s difficult NS equation solutions, while Song He recruited the Youth Class to help with the work. After an exam and a call for volunteers, the remaining students gathered to begin studying the mature Earth-Moon Cloud Piercer design.

• Song He and Xiang Xiaotong divided up Ao Xiaoguang’s solution steps, and Song He’s mathematics level rose as he studied them.
• Song He received a notice that the Youth Class had submitted an assignment and decided to have the students grade it while he worked through the solutions.
• After an eight-hour exam, Yuan Tiangang and Yang Yu discussed its difficulty and the dean’s focus on NS equations.
• Song He announced that one-third of the class had passed and invited students to join the NS Equation research class, where he and Xiang Xiaotong would teach the Cloud Piercer design.
• The next morning, students discussed the exam and Cloud Piercer project in the classroom before a figure entered and the class fell silent.

Professor Lu Chengen explained how drug researchers used informed guesses and testing, then showed Song He the laboratory’s thousands of soil samples. Song He learned the lab procedures with astonishing speed, but after a fruitless night of experiments, he returned to the dormitory and prepared to use his system.

• Professor Lu Chengen compared modern drug research with traditional medicine, explaining drug-design rules and how soil conditions could change the compounds in mushrooms.
• Tao Miaochun revealed that Professor Lu Chengen had abandoned traditional Chinese medicine after a disastrous acupuncture attempt, and Professor Lu Chengen showed Song He the laboratory’s thousands of soil and fungal samples.
• Song He insisted on trying antibiotic research, and Professor Lu Chengen taught him the laboratory procedures.
• Song He mastered the procedures so quickly that the graduate students and three professors watched in amazement as he conducted experiments without errors.
• After working late and finding no useful fungi, Song He returned to the dormitory and brought up his system, deciding to use its lottery.

Song He and the others learned how Durian and Apple had become wealthy, intelligent entrepreneurs, and watched Durian teach a class for the zoo’s apes and monkeys. Durian then paid Song He 60,000 yuan for the right to monopolize book sales at the zoo, leaving Zhao Yiyi and Ning Mo protesting the plan.

• Zhao Yiyi explained that Durian had started a weekly private school for apes and monkeys, while Song He learned that Durian and Apple each had savings worth hundreds of thousands of yuan.
• Durian lectured its students, dismissed class with a formal ceremony, and Apple drove them home on its tricycle school bus.
• Song He invited Durian to take an IQ test and promised it a ride on a Quetzalcoatlus if its score exceeded ninety; Durian gave the three humans small gold bars as New Year’s gifts.
• At the bank, Durian asked Song He to prevent other apes and monkeys from buying books so it could open a bookstore and rent books to them.
• Song He agreed to let Durian open a bookstore and accepted 60,000 yuan for the license, prompting Zhao Yiyi and Ning Mo to criticize his decision.

Song He organized the researchers to focus on modeling and replicating the human heart, while arranging for other teams to study heart disease and the Academy of Sciences to build specialized equipment. After falling ill from overexertion, he learned that the fish he had prepared for Ao Xiaoguang had taken the bait, and Xiang Xiaotong took over contacting the equipment team so he could rest.

• Song He explained that the artificial-heart project needed professional equipment and a detailed understanding of the heart, then directed the researchers to build a precise mathematical model and gather their own experimental data.
• Song He chose to pursue the project with the team's existing technology rather than activate the Black Technology Blueprint, and assigned tasks to every group.
• Song He became dizzy and exhausted after the meeting, so Xiang Xiaotong escorted him back to the Dean's Office to rest.
• Song He received a message saying the fish had taken the bait and told Xiang Xiaotong that the whale prepared for Ao Xiaoguang would help process research data.
• Xiang Xiaotong fed Song He strawberries and took his phone to contact the Academy of Sciences about finding an equipment team.

Katerina lectured at the World Mathematics Summit on her proof of the Song He Manifold, while Song He listened from the corridor and judged her progress. The scholars praised Katerina as the theory’s leading expert, but Song He remained unconvinced by her work.

• Katerina began her lecture by explaining that her proof had sixteen unresolved branching points, then reviewed material based on Song He’s corrected work.
• During the discussion and question periods, scholars praised Katerina and revealed how many researchers were trying to solve the Song He Manifold.
• Katerina presented a new approach using Hyperplane Arrangement, and Song He judged it simple and unlikely to lead directly to the correct conclusion.
• As Katerina continued, struggling scholars became overwhelmed, while others declared that she might finish the proof and suggested renaming the Song He Manifold after her.
• Song He used a Combat Power Detector on nearby scholars and concluded that their extravagant praise reflected their poor standards.

Song He spent the night mastering the Tolkien Faction and learned that Xiong Maoxun planned to take the graduation exam to beat him to an important slot. Yu Anbang and You Deyi discussed the students competing for the Project Leader position, and Yu Anbang tested the class on the Three Great Schools.

• Song He repeatedly reread the Tolkien Faction, corrected his explosive-data analysis, and finally matched the textbook's reference answer by dawn.
• Xie Kefu told Song He that Xiong Maoxun considered him a formidable rival and planned to apply for the graduation exam that day.
• Yu Anbang told You Deyi that Song He had learned more than seven hundred pages and was progressing faster than he had.
• You Deyi asked Yu Anbang to cultivate Song He, Xiong Maoxun, and Ye Li for Rocket Propellant research, while Yu Anbang warned that one might become Project Leader instead.
• Yu Anbang collected the students' exam papers and began scanning and grading them.

Song He met Li Gong, the engineer responsible for the Moon Brain No. 1 supercomputer prototype, who doubted he could learn enough to take over Xiang Xiaotong’s design work in time. He continued studying the reports while caring for the sick Xiang Xiaotong, ending the night determined to keep working.

• Li Gong met Song He and learned he understood only about a third of the supercomputer reports, then criticized his lack of experience and left after doubting he could produce a design in time.
• Xiang Xiaotong reassured Song He about his ability, though she admitted the time pressure and unfamiliar material made the task difficult.
• Song He studied the supercomputer reports throughout the day, cared for Xiang Xiaotong, and helped her take her medicine and drink hot water.
• Song He mastered several hundred technical terms and read through thirty percent of the reports by eleven at night.
• Song He woke the drowsy Xiang Xiaotong, helped her wash her feet, and returned to the darkroom to continue studying.

Song He reviewed Xia Wansan’s ambitious tourism development plan for Chenghuang Oasis Company’s leased land and supported trying it alongside farming. Ling Yiyi worried the project could turn the area into a local economic center and meet resistance from the host community.

• Song He read Xia Wansan’s plan to expand tourism with sightseeing vehicles, planes, and hot-air balloons.
• Xia Wansan proposed adding paid produce picking, public buffet restaurants, hotels, and resorts to the farmland areas.
• Xia Wansan planned to build cultural streets and attractions, then promote the destination’s safety, affordability, Sahara scenery, and war history.
• Song He told Ling Yiyi he supported the bold plan because tourism could earn far more than agriculture.
• Ling Yiyi said she and Pu Songchun thought the plan was excessive and feared the locals would object if the leased land overshadowed the host.

Song He discovered a way to eliminate groups of impossible solution paths and spent the final day racing to solve the examination problem. With time nearly up, he found one strange equation and had to submit it as his final answer; meanwhile, Xie Kefu worked overtime for bonuses and asked Katerina how her exam was going.

• Song He grouped similar routes and used representative calculations to eliminate many impossible solution paths, advancing his Mathematics Progress to Grandmaster Level 94.
• Song He raided Xiang Xiaotong's snacks before returning to his calculations, briefly finding a concealed drawer that held a towel-wrapped pink object.
• Song He worked through the final day of the examination, eating Mental Arithmetic Capsules and pushing himself through hours of calculations.
• Song He obtained an equation from one remaining route but ran out of time to check the other seven, leaving him unsure whether his answer was correct.
• Xie Kefu finished a late laboratory shift for the bonuses and messaged Katerina to ask how her problem was going.

Lu Geng arrived at the School of Pharmacy and was astonished by its futuristic campus, robot teaching assistants, and elaborate welcome-day snacks. Teacher Bai escorted him toward registration and promised to show him the cafeteria afterward.

• Lu Geng and the other freshmen arrived at the School of Pharmacy in flying passenger cars and admired its towering buildings.
• More than a hundred robots approached the students, took their luggage, and introduced themselves as Teacher Bai, teaching assistants for the school.
• Teacher Bai explained to Lu Geng that the robots carried a specialized teaching-assistant AI connected to the school's Brain-Mimicking Supercomputer.
• A chef-hatted Teacher Bai offered free welcome-day snacks, and Lu Geng chose cakes and panda ice cream with hot cocoa.
• Teacher Bai told Lu Geng the snacks were sold at cost during the school year and promised to take him to the cafeteria after registration.

Song He discussed the international demand for hibernation with General Wang and explained the challenges of expanding the service beyond the five domestic Hibernation Centers. The chapter left them facing a projected shortage of more than ten million doctors if hibernation became widely available.

• Song He showed General Wang that 27,600 orders worth 132.4 billion had arrived, including orders from political, military, business, entertainment, sports, and scientific leaders around the world.
• Song He warned that foreign elites settling in five domestic cities for hibernation could create political and social risks, and General Wang agreed to report the situation to relevant departments.
• General Wang described plans under discussion for expanding Hibernation Centers to border regions and other countries as demand grew into the millions.
• Song He said he was not worried about land but about the lack of medical personnel needed to perform hibernation surgeries at scale.
• Xiang Xiaotong noted that surgical machines already performed some procedures, but Song He estimated that global adoption would require over ten million doctors, prompting General Wang to point out that the entire country had only five million.

Song He reviewed Group One’s Cocoon Brain experiments and identified the Courier Cell Organelle research as a promising lead, while admitting the new-generation Rejuvenation Drug remained deeply uncertain. Over three months, he deciphered only 70% of the blueprint and was left frustrated by the impenetrable final 30%.

• Qi Feng described how fused Cocoon Brains went insane and caused a Longevity Fungus to turn its Hyphae against one another.
• Qi Feng reported that his team had identified the Courier Cell Organelle, which transmitted DNA between cells, and Song He urged them to investigate its mechanism.
• Song He explained that new experimental results had undermined his original theory for the new-generation Rejuvenation Drug, leaving its mechanism unresolved.
• From September through November, Song He and more than a hundred thousand researchers deciphered 70% of the blueprint, while the final 30% remained impenetrable.
• Song He failed to advance his biology rank and grew increasingly distressed, eventually running manic laps around the track to vent his frustration.

Song He raced through advanced algebra to prepare for the Competition Team exam against Chu Long, while continuing to excel in class and avoid the physical fitness test. He overheard teachers reveal that Vice Principal Ye Lianghan planned to put an unproven conjecture on the exam, leaving Song He furious and determined to learn more.

• Ning Mo and Ding Yangze urged Song He to challenge Chu Long in math, and Song He agreed to try to catch up before the Competition Team exam.
• Song He studied Introduction to Algebra at dawn and used his accumulated Resentment Value to buy five Brain-Boosting Capsules.
• During Liu Lu's biology test, she saw Song He had reached advanced algebra and learned that he planned to pursue mathematics alongside other sciences; Song He also warned Zhao Yiyi about her mistakes.
• Song He helped the PE teacher solve a calculus problem, then accepted a recorded 3 minutes 50 seconds for his one-kilometer test and returned to studying.
• Song He overheard two teachers say Vice Principal Ye Lianghan intended to add an unproven conjecture to the exam, and he stealthily followed them to hear more.

Song He angered two teachers by studying Chinese during their standoff, then clashed with Leng Xiangwen over Zhuang Qiyan and wagered on their next Math Competition Team Quiz. He returned to intensive study but hit an unexpected wall on the Cauchy Convergence Criterion when someone confronted him at the library.

• Song He ignored the standoff between Ban Jianye and Liu Lu by reading his Chinese textbook, and the teachers scolded the class for watching them.
• Song He moved his evening study session to the library, where Leng Xiangwen questioned him about Zhuang Qiyan and claimed they were engaged.
• Leng Xiangwen challenged Song He to compete in the next Competition Team Quiz, wagering that the loser would give up pursuing Zhuang Qiyan or pay for Song He's biology lab materials.
• Song He began working through his math competition book, but he could not understand the Cauchy Convergence Criterion despite repeated review and taking Mental Arithmetic Capsules.
• Someone slapped a problem book onto Song He's table and said, "So you really were here!"