Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Shen Lang was a senior high school student in his third year. He was studying in a top senior high school. He was a terrible student, with the lowest grades in school, but his family was well-to-do. His parents were in real estate and earned lots of money. They had hundreds of houses. As his parents were always busy with their business, they had little time to spend with him. Out of guilt, they would give him tens of thousands of dollars as his allowance each month. If he ran out of money, he simply had to give them a call.
But his parents definitely loved him and wanted him to be serious about his studies. It was why they tried all sort of ways to get a Little Star second generation learning machine for him.
“Why the f**k do I need to study?!” When he saw the learning machine, he nearly threw it out of the window! I’m living out the most carefree school life by flirting with girls, picking girls up, fighting with the boys, and playing basketball, yet you want me to study?
Shen Lang had terrible grades, but he was tall and handsome. His name had the character for “unrestrained,” which matched his expression and dissolute behaviors. Moreover, his family was rich, so there were countless girls who liked him. He would usually change his girlfriend every week. The class monitor gave up trying to control his behaviors, and the principal was easily bribed. He was a black sheep who was hated yet envied by many hard-working students. In private, they would rage against him, saying, “stupid guy, let’s see if you can still be so arrogant after a few more years.”
There was once when he accidentally overheard them. He immediately retaliated, “Bunch of poor peasants! No matter how hard you study, you’ll never earn more than what my Dad earns simply by constructing one building. Nerds; so what if you study until you collapse, you’ll still be working for me in the future! I’m always on the path to success in society. Cash and girls are aplenty for me; what do you have?”
The few students on the receiving end of Shen Lang’s words clenched their fists with rage burning in their eyes. They wanted to beat him up, but looking at the gang of followers surrounding him, they could only lower their heads and leave. Shen Lang, who had gained a full victory, held his head high and felt happy. But was he really happy? As the number one public enemy of all the teachers and students in school, could he only prove his vulgarity and ignorance by throwing money around? Did he not long to be recognized and validated by everyone in certain areas of his life?
Of course, he had this longing too. He was not always a terrible student. He had a smart brain. In primary school, he was always the top student in his class. He was surrounded by people singing his praises, and became the child that every parent wanted. His stellar grades continued into junior high. However, he was secretly in love with a girl for a long time, and was gathering the courage to pursue her. Unfortunately, before he could do that, he witnessed the girl getting easily picked up by a boy from the next class. He was fat as a pig and had a face full of acne. Within two months, things between the couple had escalated to the point where the girl had to go to the hospital for an abortion. Through this incident, his heart and mind became traumatized. Just because he had money, even a pig could easily get a pretty girl?
My family is rich too, why can’t I do that?
From that moment on, Shen Lang changed. His grades took a dive and he became an unrestrained and dissolute wastrel. Three years had passed and he had been in relationships with countless pretty girls and even slept with the most beautiful girl in school countless times… Yet, the sweet and innocent smile of that girl would appear in his mind from time to time.
“Ha, you’ve ruined me.” Shaking his head, he laughed in spite of himself. As his gaze rested on the Little Star learning machine in his hands, he felt even more annoyed! “F**k, I’m taking the humanities, why are you giving me a Little Star learning machine that’s meant for students in the sciences? Dad, Mom, please stop buying solutions that don’t even match the problem just because you’re anxious!”
“Big brother, if you’re not using the Little Star learning machine, can I borrow it? Or you could sell it to me at the full price; I’ll buy it.” Out of all the followers he had in his gang, this was asked by one of the younger boys, with a flattering smile plastered on his face.
Shen Lang looked at him and said, “Oh… the Little Star second gen is selling for $50,000 on the black market now. You’re trying to get a cheap deal out of me? You think I don’t know what’s going on in the market?” He could be quite lackadaisical usually, but that did not mean that he was stupid! He would still pay close attention to the really popular news.
Forcing a smile, the younger brother said, “I really can’t afford $50,000. My family is really poor, at most I can pay $30,000! I promised my parents that I will study diligently and make sure I get to a mid-rank university. I have to start living a good and narrow life.”
All of a sudden, a commotion broke out around them.
“F**k, did hell freeze over? You’re saying you want to study?”
“What kind of joke is this? You typically only get around 200 points in the exams and you want to get into a mid-rank university; are you dreaming?”
“If a scum like you can get into a mid-rank university, I’ll cut off my head!”
“Stop trying to fight your way up, you’re not suited for studying!”
Surrounded by ridicule and taunts, his face grew red and he lowered his head in embarrassment.
But Shen Lang did not laugh at him. After a few days, he gave the excuse that his learning machine was spoiled and requested a new one from his parents. Then, he gave the learning machine to the younger boy in private. Patting his shoulder, he said, “Study well, you can owe me the money for now. Pay me back when you’re successful.”
The younger “brother” clutched the learning machine to his chest and cried, “Big Brother, I will repay you ten times in the future!”
From that moment on, he lost one of his followers.
Recently, the “Answers For All” app had been released online. As a humanities student, he finally found a use for this learning machine now that he could ask his own questions. He laughed when he saw the “10 questions by the brats” that was trending online. That was too interesting. “I’ll try this function too.” He opened “Answers For All.” In the question interface, he pressed on the microphone button in the center, leaned into the learning machine and asked, “Little Star, why should I study?”
“Little Star has found 188 answers.” The page jumped to another page showing a list of videos. There were a total of 188 relevant “Bite-sized videos” that could answer this question. He scanned the page from top to bottom and realized that the list was ordered according to likes by students. The videos with the most number of likes were at the top and the ones with the least number of likes were at the bottom.
In addition, there was a “flower token” function. Each flower could be purchased for 50 cents. If a student thought that a video answer was particularly good, and a “like” was insufficient, he could give a flower token (each student was limited to one flower per video). Besides the current ranking based on the number of “likes,” a separate ranking based on the flower tokens would be coming up. However, since it was the promotion period, students could ask questions free of charge for the first three months. Anyway, account top-up function was not available yet. When the free trial period was over, the top-up function would be up and running. Students could then go and top-up (if they did not top-up, they would get computerized answers from the AI; the user experience would be much worse).
“Teacher Li Yongle?” Shen Lang noticed that the number one liked video was uploaded by someone called “Teacher Li Yongle.” Compared to other videos, his video was uploaded later, but he received a shocking amount of views and likes. A total of 1.81 million views and 1.79 likes. Almost everyone who watched the video “liked” it. “Let’s listen to his answer.”
Shen Lang clicked on the play button.
A long and drawn-out voice could be heard, “Dear students, hello, I’m Teacher Li Yongle…”
After about 10 minutes, the video finished playing. Without knowing why, Shen Lang felt tears in his eyes as his vision became blurry. Rubbing his eyes, he said, “Damn it, I was almost brainwashed into wanting to study.” While rambling to himself, he did not forget to “like” the video. He had to admit that Teacher Li Yongle’s words had made him feel ashamed as a terrible student. But it was impossible that he would start studying so easily! If there was nobody who could answer the three ultimate questions that he had, he would never study!
Without care for the roommates that were sleeping soundly in his dorm room, he pressed the microphone button on the screen and asked loudly, “Little Star, Who am I? Where did I come? Where will I go?”
He asked the “three questions of philosophy” that humanities students were always talking about.
“Crazy!” He received a scolding from the roommate sleeping in the lower bunk.
“Little Star has found 7 replies.”
F**k! Shen Lang was shocked. There were actually people who answered these questions? And not just one, but seven? He scanned the video rankings again and to his surprise, found that the number one ranked video was viewed 270,000 times with 27,000 likes!
He clicked on it. Another 10 minutes passed. Buried under his covers, Shen Lang’s tears were flowing freely. A wailing that was reminiscent of ghosts and wolves rang out in the middle of the night, “From today onwards, I, Shen Lang, will put all of my heart into my studies!”