Chapter 187: Eight into Four
They asked the organizers if the other countries were so trash that China had actually been allowed to compete.
They questioned the skill level of the competing teams.
The members of the Chinese team couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they could see the looks on their faces.
Seeing the blond-haired, blue-eyed spectators shouting and sneering contemptuously, the team members’ expressions soured as anger flared within them.
If Xie Changning hadn’t held them back, they would have gone to confront the audience.
"Calm down!"
Xie Changning’s words calmed everyone down.
Xie Changning glanced at the people beside her and said, "I know you’re angry, but the competition is what’s most important right now. We’ll shut them up with our skills—that’s more powerful than a thousand words."
Letting anger cloud their judgment at a time like this would do them no good.
Xie Changning knew there must be people planted by the United States in the crowd; otherwise, emotions wouldn’t have been stirred up so intensely.
But she wasn’t falling for it.
And she wouldn’t let her team members fall for it either.
"If you lose your heads now, get into an argument, and start a fight, we’ll be the ones who suffer! The competition is what matters. I want everyone to focus their attention on the competition!"
Xie Changning’s words brought them back to their senses, and they struggled to suppress their anger.
They now understood that if they caused trouble, they would be the only ones to lose out.
But they couldn’t just let it go.
"Are we just going to listen to them insult us like this?"
"Who said that?"
Xie Changning didn’t go after the audience. Instead, she looked toward the organizers, gave one of the officials a slight smile, and said, "Are your competitions always this lively? It’s not quiet at all..."
The moment Xie Changning opened her mouth, the official knew she was about to start laying into someone.
The official from the organizing committee hurriedly tried to explain, "No, not at all. They’re just... a bit uncultured..."
"Uncultured, or just raised with no manners?"
That one sentence ignited the fury of the entire audience.
Xie Changning wasn’t afraid in the slightest. The angrier they got and the more they disrupted the order, the better.
The louder the crowd in the stands became, the brighter Xie Changning’s smile grew. If they were unhappy, she was happy.
Then, the audience successfully managed to affect the competitors from other countries.
"A moment ago, they said they questioned your skill level," Xie Changning added, translating for the other countries in eight different languages while the audience was causing a disturbance.
The other countries’ contestants: "..."
They understood English; they didn’t need her to explain it.
However, some had understood the original comments, and some hadn’t. Now, the members from the other countries were furious too.
In the end, the judges had no choice but to step in and give an explanation.
Regarding Xie Changning’s "classless insults," the judges’ conclusion was that if the audience hadn’t insulted the Chinese technicians first, China’s team leader would not have spoken out.
Of course, they had tried to negotiate with Xie Changning and get her to apologize.
Xie Changning’s response was, "I’m not exactly high-class. If they ask me to apologize, the only thing I’ll be doing is cursing their ancestors for eighteen generations."
The judges didn’t want the competition to be affected, so they could only get the audience under control.
And it was indeed the audience who had offended the Chinese team first. They were in the wrong, so they could only sit in their seats, seething, and wait to see how gracefully China would be kicked out of the competition.
In their eyes, there was no way China would win.
Now that Xie Changning had let off some steam, the team members focused their full attention on the competition. They quietly listened to the foreign gibberish they couldn’t understand, and after the babbling was over, Xie Changning repeated the rules to them.
Everyone then began their preparations.
The theme of this semifinal round was to improve upon their entries from the preliminary round, taking their initial works to a new technological height.
When the competition started, all the contestants on the floor, apart from the audience, got into the zone and began modifying their preliminary round entries.
In reality, everyone had submitted a "version 1.0" for the competition, so upgrading them was a familiar task.
Pagers were currently going through a period of transformation internationally, so many countries had chosen them for this competition.
At first, they thought only the technicians from the United States had more advanced research on pagers.
But once they were actually in the arena, they realized that the Chinese team’s pager was, in fact, the most advanced. Of course, the pager technology from the other competing teams was also quite good.
They hadn’t been left in the dust by the contestants from the United States at all.
Everyone felt a strong sense of urgency.
Compared to the frantic pace of the others, Xie Changning’s team seemed much more relaxed.
Many in the audience thought China was just slacking off, having given up the struggle.
In reality, it was because they had practiced so many times that the steps were ingrained in their muscle memory, which made them appear relaxed.
Time ticked by. Everyone else was about halfway through their "version 2.0."
Only Xie Changning’s team’s pager, version 2.0, was already entering the final stages.
During this time, the judges walked around the competition floor, making a point to visit each team to check their progress and the technology they were implementing.
They spent the longest amount of time in front of the Chinese team.
This was because the technology the Chinese team was using was something they had never seen before—it was incredibly novel and advanced.
If their position didn’t forbid it, the judges would have loved to discuss some technical questions with Xie Changning.
The competition was long. The audience went from being "highly emotional" at the beginning to gradually calming down, and finally, out of sheer boredom, they started to fall asleep.
This continued until the competition ended.
The moment the bell signaling the end of the competition rang, the audience opened their bleary eyes just in time to see the finished products from each team being collected.
The teams breathed a sigh of relief when the pagers appeared on the judges’ table.
The pagers came in pairs to facilitate demonstrating contact between them.
The moment China’s pagers appeared on the judges’ table, the judges’ hands instinctively reached for them. In the end, the devices ended up in the hands of the two closest judges.
They picked up the pagers and, following Xie Changning’s instructions, began to use them.
The fact that the pagers could display numbers and receive text messages stunned the judges. They couldn’t help but ask Xie Changning on the competition floor, "I noticed that during the competition, your technicians seemed quite relaxed. Is that because this isn’t the final version?"
’It looks like they were holding back.’
’They didn’t even go all out.’
Xie Changning neither confirmed nor denied it. "Perhaps our team’s technicians were just in good form. This is the result of a long period of our research and development."
Hearing Xie Changning say this, a look of profound understanding appeared in the judges’ eyes.
’It seems they still have a version 3.0.’
After testing it, the judges moved on to test the other pagers. The final result was—
China successfully advanced from the final eight to the final four.
The audience protested this result. They were not satisfied.
They felt China’s technology wasn’t good enough and that they must have stolen their technology!
To this, the judges gave their answer: "China’s technology is a new direction they developed themselves; it is not the technology of any other country. Furthermore, a patent for China’s technology is already in the application process, and we believe it will be successful soon."