CH 68

The seats were allocated in this way, Jiang Chen, He Qianyu, and He Qianmin took the driver’s car, He Qianjian, Li Xiao, and Yang Yun took He Yanfeng’s car, and the two cars drove together to the restaurant.

He Qianyu was very excited. Even though He Qianmin drove her to sit in the co-passenger seat, she still turned her head to talk to Jiang Chen persistently. Jiang Chen was not impatient at all, and he could chat with her for a long time even on childish topics.

Along the way, He Qianmin tried to interrupt several times, but all failed. He was so annoyed that when they finally got out of the car that sullen face was obvious to all who could see.

The restaurant He Yanfeng made a reservation at was the Huaiyang Restaurant that Jiang Chen and his friends had been to last time. When ordering, Jiang Chen ordered a few of He Qianmin’s favorite dishes according to his memory, causing Yang Yun to say in surprise, “I didn’t expect Xiao Chen’s taste to be so similar to Qian Min’s.”

Jiang Chen smiled: “Qian Min and I have eaten here before.”

“So that’s the case.” Yang Yun said with a smile: “Then you ordering these dishes must be for him. Why don’t you order two more dishes that you like.”

“My brother’s taste is about the same as mine.” Most of the dark clouds on He Qianmin’s face disappeared in an instant. He crossed his arms and said, “We even have the same taste in hot pot dishes.”

He Yanfeng raised his eyebrows: “Such a coincidence?”

“Yes, Xiao Chen and our family really have an affinity.” Yang Yun said with a smile: “Come over to our house more to play in the future.”

Jiang Chen smiled: “Okay, thank you, Aunt Yang.”

The waiter opened the door to their private box and came in. One dish after another was brought to the table. Taking advantage of this gap, Li Xiao leaned pass He Qianyu to discuss the topic of today’s competition with Jiang Chen.

Yang Yun put a piece of fish with chopsticks into He Qianjian’s mouth. He had been silent since getting in the car. She softly whispered: “Da Bao, what’s the matter? Are you feeling uncomfortable?”

He Qianjian tightened his grip on his chopsticks, and raised his pale face: “Mom, I…..”

“That’s right.” He Yanfeng also looked at He Qianjian, and said casually: “Qian Jian, how did you do on the exam this time? Xiao Jiang and Xiao Xiao are comparing the answers, and you can check with them too.”

When He Yanfeng called He Qianjian’s name, Li Xiao and Jiang Chen stopped talking. Hearing what He Yanfeng said, Li Xiao and Jiang Chen looked at each other and fell silent.

For a while, the room fell into silence.

Seeing that He Qianjian kept silent and his expression was very bad, He Yanfeng put down his chopsticks: “What’s going on?”

He Qianjian lowered his head, sweat beading on his forehead. Although He Yanfeng was not a strict father, for some reason, He Qianjian was a little afraid of him since he was a child, so before he had been thinking of confessing this matter to Yang Yun first, and then let Yang Yun tell He Yanfeng. But who knew, he was brought here as soon as the exam was over, and Jiang Chen was even among the diners.

In the past, just seeing Jiang Chen and the He family in the same place made He Qianjian feel anxious, but now coupled with the system and the fact that he just gave up the exam, this anxiety turned into panic.

While he was immersed in endless anxiety and fear, the voices of Jiang Chen and Li Xiao talking about the test questions were like a spell, vaguely and intermittently passing into his ears, and every word they spoke seemed to be mocking his incompetence, ridiculing his mediocrity, and shoving him back into the memories where everyone could step on him in the past.

Seeing that He Qianjian’s complexion became more and more ugly, and cold sweat oozed from his forehead, Yang Yun reached out to touch his forehead worriedly: “Qian Jian, are you feeling unwell?”

He Qianjian raised his lowered head slightly, and his eyes fell on Jiang Chen who was facing him with no expression. In his ears was Yang Yun’s concerned question. He calmed himself and raised his head.

“I gave up on the exam.”

“What?” Yang Yun paused in wiping his sweat for him, then turned to look at He Yanfeng.

He Yanfeng frowned and said, “Tell me the reason.”

“I’m not feeling well.” He Qianjian forced a smile, half guilty and half self-reproaching: “I felt a little uncomfortable when I woke up this morning, and I thought I would feel better if I persisted until the examination room, but I didn’t expect it to be even more uncomfortable when I got there. As soon as the test paper was issued, I couldn’t hold it anymore, so I wrote my name and fell asleep for the whole first test, and I didn’t participate in the second test.”

“What’s wrong?” Yang Yun chided worriedly: “Since you already felt sick in the morning, why didn’t you tell Mom, no wonder your complexion looks so bad, and you didn’t say anything when you got in the car just now. If you had said earlier, we would have gone to the hospital first.”

He Qianjian glanced at Jiang Chen, and smiled with even more difficulty: “I didn’t expect that there would be other people…..and I think Jiang Chen and Li Xiao should have done well in the exam. I can just bear it and come here to celebrate for them.”

Yang Yun opened her mouth, wanting to scold him but also reluctant to: “Your health is your own, no matter how important something is, it is not as important as your health. And there will always be a chance to celebrate, Mom will take you to the hospital now.”

“No need.” He Qianjian wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, “You all should continue to eat slowly, I’ll ask Uncle Wang to take me home first, I should be better after some sleep.”

Yang Yun was worried: “Let’s go to the hospital.”

“No need, Mom.” He Qianjian stood up and said, “Sorry, I’m not feeling well, so I’m leaving first.”

He Yanfeng grabbed Yang Yun who insisted on taking He Qianjian to the hospital: “Let him go back to rest first, and if he is still not feeling well when we get home, have Xiang Hong come over and have a look.”

Hearing the familiar name, Jiang Chen narrowed his eyes slightly, thoughtful.

After dinner, Jiang Chen and Li Xiao bid farewell and went home.

Back in his room, Jiang Chen turned on the computer and put on the earphones.

Changjiang reported today’s interception and attack. After Jiang Chen processed the multiple pieces of code captured by Changjiang, he opened the Wingnet, and the message from C jumped out.

[C: God D, who was it that you wanted me to track today? If you hadn’t locked the range for me directly, I really couldn’t have caught it, and even so, I got the slip from him many times. The number of times I really caught up with his IP was only twice.]

The night before, Jiang Chen contacted C and asked him to help track the IP.

When discussing tactics, Jiang Chen delineated a very small location for C, that is, the location of the teaching building of Yan No. 1 High School, and asked C to try to track this IP and pass every traced IP change to Changjiang. Provide a second insurance measure for Changjiang’s interception. Doing so would not only allow Changjiang to intercept the system more accurately, but also confuse the system so that it could not determine who was working against it.

Sure enough, under Jiang Chen’s arrangements, the only two escapes by the system were intercepted by C, completely cutting off contact with He Qianjian.

[D: It’s already pretty good to be able to catch up twice.]

[C: This is the first time I have encountered someone whose IP is so hidden. God D, could you tell me who the other party is? I checked the address from yesterday, and it turns out to be Yan City No. 1 High School. That person wouldn’t happen to still be a student, right.]

[D: Sorry, it is not convenient to disclose at the moment.]

[C: Then you just tell me one thing, are you a student.]

[D: Yes.]

The screen went quiet for a while.

[C: The students nowadays are really amazing:)]

Jiang Chen smiled, thanked C again, and closed Wingnet. He then began to study this piece of code newly captured by Changjiang.

There was not much difference between this code and the previous code. The only difference might be that this time the coding was more than that section captured previously, so the energy contained in them was also greater, but Jiang Chen was still unclear about the source of this ability, so to figure out the puzzle, he could only start with the coding.

Jiang Chen analyzed this piece of code while calculating. His bedroom ground was covered with rolled up scrap paper. He crossed out the equation he had just written under his pen, and threw the paper aside again.

No matter how he calculated, he couldn’t parse this code, and the coding he got so far was still not enough.

Jiang Chen rubbed the center of his brows, took out a piece of paper and prepared to continue. Suddenly there was a knock on the door.

Yang Si said outside the door: “Chen Chen, you just finished the competition today, why don’t you rest earlier?”

Jiang Chen opened the door: “Mom, why are you up?”

“Drinking some water.” Yang Si said, “Why aren’t you sleeping yet?”

“I’m…..working.”

“Is it a very difficult job?” Yang Si looked at the messy balls of paper on the ground, and said with concern: “No matter how difficult or tiring, you can’t exhaust your body. It’s almost two o’clock now. You should go to bed early then you can continue after getting up tomorrow morning.”

Jiang Chen nodded: “I know, I’m going to sleep right away, Mom, you go to bed early too.”

Oh, that’s right.” Yang Si suddenly remembered something, and said, “I forgot to tell you something during dinner just now. This morning, a phone call came. It seemed to be a professor from Yan University, surnamed Zhang. He said he wanted to chat with you. Mom doesn’t know whether what he said was true or not, so I just said you were not at home and would call him back tomorrow.”

Jiang Chen raised his eyebrows: “Yan University?”

“Yes, Mom made sure, that’s what the caller said.”

“I see.” Jiang Chen smiled and said, “You go to bed early, and I’m going to sleep too.”

“Good night.”

“Good night, Mom.”

The math competition was the day before the National Day, so in the next week, Jiang Chen had enough time to study these codes, and Jiang Chen didn’t waste half a second of his time. For the whole week, he kept running back and forth from home, the library, and the laboratory. Hard work always pays off, and although countless formulas have been overthrown, Jiang Chen still obtained an unexpected harvest in the end.

The combination of these reduced codes looked like a kind of text he had seen before. However, Jiang Chen only saw this kind of text in the largest library in the empire when he was in college in his last life. It was a type of ancient text, and information on this kind of text was very little. It did not indicate which country or planet or civilization it was from.

The only thing Jiang Chen could be sure of was that if this kind of text could be handed down for so many years, and it could still be preserved by the paleography of the federation’s library after going through the great migration and reclamation. Then this proved that it was inseparable from Earth, or at least it proved that it appeared on Earth.

It was just that the question of which country’s written language it was and which era’s written language it was was yet to be studied.

Just when Jiang Chen made a breakthrough in the research of the system, the National Day holiday also ended quietly. After leaving the school for a month, Jiang Chen finally returned to the school again. However, before he entered the classroom, he was rushed to the principal’s office by the Director of the Political Education Department.

“Principal.” Director Liu said, “I brought Jiang Chen over.”

The principal smiled kindly: “Student Jiang Chen, have a seat first.”

After Jiang Chen said hello and sat on the seat indicated by the principal, he nodded politely to the other old man in the room who had been smiling and looking at him the whole time, and asked the principal, “Principal, who is this old gentleman?”

“This is Professor Zhang from Yan University.” The principal smiled kindly, “He heard that you want to major in computer science at Yan University, so he wanted to come over and have a chat with you.”