Reborn in 2008

"Are you the student who contacted me? Do you have evidence to report Wang Hongfa?"

Wu Chen asked as he stirred his coffee.

The Wang Hongfa he spoke of was the dean of the School of Computer Science at Xiaoheshan University of Technology.

"Yes, Teacher Wu."

The female student sitting across from him wore a baseball cap and sunglasses that concealed most of her face.

After several seconds of silence, she took a deep breath and pushed a USB drive across the table to Wu Chen.

"It has what he did to me at, at the hotel..."

"I understand."

Wu Chen gently cut her off, sparing her from having to finish those humiliating words.

The student lowered her head again.

Wu Chen drained his coffee in one gulp and said to her earnestly, "I'll make sure he gets the punishment he deserves. Don't worry."

"Mm."

The student murmured her assent, then said, "Thank you, Teacher Wu," before getting up and leaving.

Wu Chen sat by the window and watched her slender figure hurry out of the café and stop by the road to wait for the light to turn green.

She wasn't the first female victim he knew of, but she was the first to give up her guaranteed postgraduate admission and bravely step forward to identify the culprit.

Wu Chen carefully put away the USB drive and prepared to leave as well.

He had been a lecturer at Xiaoheshan University of Technology, where his main research field was artificial intelligence.

Unable to stand Wang Hongfa's corruption, he had reported him repeatedly, only to fail each time for lack of evidence.

So even after being forced to resign, he hadn't given up. He had sworn to bring down the parasite who had stolen his academic work and was utterly devoid of a teacher's morals.

But just as Wu Chen stepped through the café door, a piercing engine roar suddenly erupted from the roadside.

He instinctively looked toward the sound.

A white Land Rover that had been parked by the road suddenly started up and charged toward the crowd at the curb!

"Wang Hongfa!"

The instant Wu Chen saw the license plate, he knew who was in the car.

He's going to kill her to keep her quiet!

He actually dares to smash the net and let the fish die!

There was no time to think. Wu Chen rushed forward in a few long strides and shoved the student, who hadn't yet reacted, out of the way.

But he himself was sent flying like a broken rag doll.

Then the world plunged into darkness.

Looking at the once-familiar office, Wu Chen remained dazed for a long time.

I've actually been reborn?

After calming down, he reached into his pocket out of habit and, sure enough, pulled out the Nokia 6300 he had used for years.

He turned on the screen.

July 17, 2008.

This day...

He remembered it clearly. It was the day he joined Xiaoheshan University of Technology as a teaching assistant in the School of Computer Science.

And it was the day the schemes against him began!

If nothing unexpected happened, Wang Hongfa would be coming to see him any moment now.

The next moment, the office door opened.

Sure enough, it was Wang Hongfa!

His triangular eyes swept over the office before he finally beckoned to Wu Chen.

"Xiao Wu, come to my office. My senior schoolmate Lavrov, who's doing his doctorate at Carnegie Mellon University, is visiting today. I'll introduce you."

"All right. Do I need to prepare anything?"

Wu Chen unclenched his fist and rose promptly, showing no sign that anything was amiss.

"No need. He's an expert in artificial intelligence, and isn't that your research field too? Take the opportunity to exchange ideas."

Wang Hongfa said.

Wu Chen nodded.

Back then, he had thought Wang Hongfa wanted to nurture him.

But he later learned that Wang Hongfa had targeted his research field and worked with his senior schoolmate abroad to forcibly snatch away his research results.

That failure not only cast serious doubt on his research abilities, but also led others to believe he had tried to plagiarize Wang Hongfa's project.

But this time...

Wu Chen thought for a moment, then a sincere smile appeared on his face, as bright as the sunlight outside the window.

"Thank you for nurturing me, Dean Wang!"

The two made their way to Wang Hongfa's office.

A tall, obese foreign man was already sitting inside, his bald head reflecting a glaring oily sheen beneath the incandescent light.

Wang Hongfa pointed to Wu Chen and introduced him.

"Lavrov, this is Wu Chen, the one I told you about. His idea about 'attention' is very interesting. See if there's any guidance you can give him."

"Oh, Wang, what a handsome young man! Let me hear what he has to say."

Lavrov gave several exaggerated laughs, then studied Wu Chen with interest.

"Hello, Professor Lavrov. I often hear Dean Wang mention you."

Wu Chen greeted him in English, trying not to frown at the smell of his perfume.

Because Lavrov was Russian, Wu Chen hadn't suspected him when they first met in his previous life and had told him all about his research.

Only later did he learn that Lavrov, like Wang Hongfa, had been brainwashed by America's so-called liberalism and was a refined egoist through and through.

But this time, Wu Chen had decided to dig a proper pit for them.

Want to steal my work?

Then if I dig a pit, will you jump in?

And in the field of artificial intelligence, there happened to be a bottomless pit: SNN, or spiking neural networks.

The theory seemed promising, but even in 2025 it would be difficult to put into practice. To use an academic comparison, it was a bottomless pit much like the fields of biology, chemistry, environmental science and materials science.

For ordinary researchers, specializing in SNN was no different from wasting their youth.

So it was perfect for Wang Hongfa and Lavrov.

Wu Chen launched into an eloquent explanation.

"Professor Lavrov, as for the application of artificial intelligence, the direction I currently plan to study is the recognition of rapidly moving images, namely SNN. It uses asynchronous sparse computation and mimics the working mechanisms of the biological brain, making it better than traditional deep learning methods..."

In his previous life, what Wu Chen had actually discussed was the "attention mechanism."

This was also the prototype of the Transformer, which later ushered in a true artificial intelligence architecture, and the theoretical foundation of the famous ChatGPT.

So Wu Chen really could have become the father of modern artificial intelligence back then.

Unfortunately, that traitor Wang Hongfa had ruined everything for him.

And this time, of course, he couldn't possibly reveal something so important.

But the two men across from him were experts too, and clearly weren't so easily fooled.

A flicker of disappointment passed through Lavrov's eyes.

"SNN? I don't think that technology has any value."

He turned to Wang Hongfa and said, "Wang, I told you long ago, nowhere outside America can produce talent with an international outlook!"

Rather than feeling ashamed, Wang Hongfa wholeheartedly agreed.

He said displeasedly, "Wu Chen, we know better than you whether SNN has a future. Just tell us about that attention mechanism you mentioned in your interview."

But Wu Chen shook his head firmly.

"I've examined the arguments again over the past few days, and I still think SNN has more potential."

Wang Hongfa frowned. "What's your evidence? Have you started writing a paper?"

"I haven't written the paper yet, but..."

Just as he was about to make up a suitable reason, a sudden ding rang out in his mind.

[Intelligent Manufacturing System]

[Host: Wu Chen]

[Humanity has been in decline for too long. Now, the key to civilization is placed in your hands.]

[By raising the levels of technology branches, you can improve your own abilities. The maximum level is 10.]

[You can obtain skill points through research.]

[By providing theories mastered by the host, you can add samples to the Sample Shop and purchase them with skill points.]

[Current host basic information:]

[Intelligence: Level 0 (50%)]

[Physical strength: Level 0 (10%)]

[Skill levels:]

[Artificial intelligence: Level 0 (20%)]

[Materials science: Level 0 (0%)]

[Chemistry: Level 0 (0%)]

[Physics: Level 0 (0%)]

[Engineering: Level 0 (0%)]

[Energy science: Level 0 (0%)]

[Currently available production blueprints: None]

[Sample Shop: Empty]

[Current skill points: 0]

[Ways to obtain skill points: Publish papers, complete regular teaching tasks, solve practical engineering problems, monetize technology, verify theories]

[Skill points can be used to directly increase skill levels.]

System?

Wu Chen was astonished.

But since he had already accepted being reborn, he quickly accepted the system as well.

Even so, he was a reborn person from 2025 and a university lecturer in artificial intelligence, yet his level was still zero?

Could it be that humanity's artificial intelligence wouldn't even have gotten past the basics more than a decade later?

And that intelligence level zero, with 50% progress...

Wu Chen had skipped grades repeatedly in elementary and middle school, allowing him to earn a master's degree and become a university teaching assistant at twenty-four. He already qualified as a genius.

Yet before the mysterious power behind this system, he hadn't even reached the passing mark of sixty.

What would it be like to reach level ten?