Abundant Cash Flow

"The copyright revenue from Goose Factory will be credited this month. Bavandi can give me a scholarship, and after publishing in Nature, the School of Chemistry will give me another 50,000 yuan paper bonus.

Adding the money I've saved before, it's more than enough to go to Boston."

After finishing the call with Bavandi, Chen Yuanguang took stock of his current cash and future cash flow, realizing he was quite well-off.

The only thing he felt a bit regretful about was that the deal with Goose Factory was a one-time income. If Goose Factory later made Kuala Lumpur Affairs into a movie, he wouldn't be able to participate in the subsequent revenue sharing.

Bavandi's intention was to count his last six months as an exchange at MIT and help him apply for an undergraduate scholarship, which would be about $4,500 a month.

Generally, MIT undergraduate scholarships range from $3,000 to $4,000. Since Chen Yuanguang's visit was essentially starting work first and not formal doctoral enrollment, it was difficult to allocate a dormitory for him.

Bavandi's idea was to give him an extra $1,000 in scholarship so he could rent a place in Boston.

Boston wasn't New York. With a $4,500 scholarship, even if he had to rent his own place, he could live very comfortably.

After settling things with Bavandi, Chen Yuanguang went to see his counsellor the next day to discuss it. The school, knowing they couldn't keep him, gave him the green light. There would be plenty of opportunities for future cooperation, so there was no need to sour relations now.

The school's stance was that it was fine, as long as he returned to defend his thesis and published it under Jiang University's name.

While Chen Yuanguang was thriving in modern society, with his fame and legendary status soaring, the future timeline showed no progress.

The Da Ma police had convicted the driver responsible, and the 82-year sentence was long enough that he would have little life left after getting out.

However, there were still no leads on the person who hired the killer. There were too many suspects, and the prime suspect, Lin Ran, hadn't shown any flaws. After being summoned by the police a few times, there was no further development regarding Lin Ran.

"What are you thinking? My dad is going back to Yanjing for his report duty soon, and he might stay there for a while after that. Is this just going to pass?"

After Chen Yuanguang enrolled at the University of Malaya, Shi Huilan followed closely, even getting a dormitory right next to his.

The universities built after the Third World War, because they all had single rooms with private bathrooms, didn't have separate male and female dorms.

After moving next door to Chen Yuanguang, Shi Huilan often came to see him. As more memories were unlocked, Chen Yuanguang discovered that he and Shi Huilan were childhood sweethearts, classmates from elementary school all the way through high school.

Coupled with Shi Huilan's mother's dominant position at home and the reality of Lin Ran marrying into the family, Shi Huilan knew her father might have been having an affair and had her childhood sweethearts' parents assassinated.

It was logical that she would choose to cooperate with Chen Yuanguang and want to put Lin Ran behind bars.

Logically, this was possible, but Chen Yuanguang couldn't fully trust the other party because this was from "Chen Yuanguang's" perspective, not his own.

"It's not that I'm letting it go, but I need to rely on myself.

I also told you the driver's verdict. Mohamad Farro was only sentenced to over seventy years. Lin Ran is only fifty now. The sentence for hiring a killer won't be seventy years.

Once I raise my Citizen Level on my own, I can naturally bring Lin Ran to the Truth Trial court.

I can even have Alpha help me find both parties involved in this Dark Star transaction."

No matter how advanced computer technology was, no matter how well-hidden the dark web was, it was vulnerable before Alpha. It didn't manage Dark Star simply because there was no need.

It didn't mean it couldn't.

And the higher the Citizen Level, the wider the range of things Alpha could help with.

Just to have Alpha retrieve data from Dark Star and pinpoint specific individuals, the required Citizen Level was at least level five or higher.

Because Chen Yuanguang had seen similar news, the son of a certain important figure was killed by a killer who took a job on another platform. He asked Alpha for help, and his level was six.

Shi Huilan pouted: "Relying on yourself, that's too difficult. As Alpha's management scope on Earth gets larger and larger, the paths to obtaining Citizen Contribution are getting narrower and narrower. Now, there's almost only research left."

Or you can mine on Venus. Fifty years of mining should be enough to raise your level by one.

To initiate a Truth Trial against my father, you need to be level three. You could mine on Venus until you die and it still wouldn't be enough."

Mining on Venus relies entirely on robots and AI, but real people are still needed to work in the Sky City orbiting Venus.

Because it's far from Earth and human welfare is so good, very few people are willing to go to Venus to mine.

Chen Yuanguang didn't speak after hearing this. Instead, he took a sip of coffee, slowly savoring the taste.

This coffee was ground from beans grown on Mars and was quite valuable. Chen Yuanguang imagined it tasted of the stars, but unfortunately, besides bitterness, he couldn't taste anything else.

"That's right, I plan to gain enough Citizen Contribution through the path of scientific research, which is why I came to the University of Malaya."

Shi Huilan rubbed her forehead: "You're avoiding the problem, not solving it. If the path of scientific research were really that easy, not a single New Professor would have emerged from all the universities in Da Ma in five years."

There's a difference between professors. If you become a professor under the Alpha system, you automatically become a level two citizen. Those who obtained professor positions before the Alpha system only enjoy professor benefits and cannot obtain the corresponding Citizen Level.

Chen Yuanguang said, "Just because others can't do it doesn't mean I can't."

Chen Yuanguang felt his intelligence was increasing, or more accurately, his ability to think about problems was improving. Although when faced with the topics Pangu gave him, his ideas either led to discovering through papers that predecessors had tried and failed, or simulating them on a computer revealed problems.

But Chen Yuanguang still felt that the depth, breadth, and sharpness of his thinking had greatly improved.

He just didn't know if it was because of the time travel, with his soul evolving during the process of traversing, or if the Knowledge Download itself stimulated his brain, or perhaps it was due to the fusion of the souls of Chen Yuanguang from the modern and future timelines.

"Yuanguang, your thinking, in ancient terms, is 'chuunibyou' – everyone else can't do it, but you can.

Sigh, good luck. This path is too difficult. Compared to Alpha, I don't know where humanity's advantage lies."

Scientific research has gone through three stages: humans doing all the research, the era of cooperation with humans as the main force and AI as supplementary, the AI sub-era with AI as the main force and humans as supplementary, and now the new era where AI is active in almost all scientific fields, and human scholars are squeezed into the humanities.

And the achievements in the humanities are mostly not recognized by AI.

Chen Yuanguang thought to himself, If Lin Jia were here, she would definitely say 'I believe in you.' This big-chested cute girl is too good at pouring cold water. "I will definitely do it."

In the modern timeline, Chen Yuanguang boarded a jet bound for North America a week before the Christmas Holiday. Lin Jia also changed her original plan to return home.

There's one more chapter. Ya has been out all day today.