Genius Playground

BZZZT!

BZZZT!

BZZZT!

The familiar dizziness, the familiar world spinning around him.

His last sliver of consciousness was of a police dog tearing out his carotid artery, blood gushing like a fountain.

He didn’t know where the subsequent gunshot was aimed.

But in any case... it had nothing to do with him anymore.

In the void where his five senses were gone, Jiang Ran reviewed the coordination of the five-man prison break team. The only way to describe it was "a total shitshow."

It was an absolute disaster.

Unwatchable.

Objectively speaking, compared to the plan initially laid out by Assassin, besides the identical roster, there were absolutely no other similarities.

As expected, a spur-of-the-moment plan from a ragtag crew would have a predictable outcome.

Two seconds later.

All discomfort vanished.

Jiang Ran once again heard the crackling of the current from the transformer distribution box.

Slowly, he opened his eyes—

"Senior!"

Chi Xiaoguo, as always, was shaking her Nezha-style twin buns, her arms propped on the Film Club’s windowsill.

"Senior, was it a success this time?"

Jiang Ran gave her an OK sign, motioning for her to wait in the activity room for a moment.

"I’ll be right there!"

Then, he hung up the phone and ran toward the front of the building.

This "time travel" trip to the year 2045 was, once again, a smooth success.

’Looks like many of my previous speculations were correct.’

The Positron Cannon... had indeed developed a new function due to an accidental malfunction.

The broken Beam Converger could no longer constrain the Electron Beam’s intensity, causing the Positron Cannon to lose its function of sending messages to the past. But at the same time, perhaps because it had serendipitously lost all restraint on the Electron Beam, a new chain reaction was triggered—

’The current Positron Cannon 2.0 (Battle-Damaged Version) has lost the ability to link to the past, but has gained the ability to connect to the future!’

’As for the principle behind this, I can put that aside to research later.’

’The most important thing right now...’

’...is to immediately find Teacher Zhang Yang from the School of Physics—the one who’s still young and not yet in prison in the year 2025.’

And then.

Through him.

Verify the authenticity of the time travel trip to 2045.

BANG!

Jiang Ran pushed open the Film Club’s rickety door, looking at Chi Xiaoguo with impatience.

"You have our school’s app on your phone, right? The one that lets you check the class schedules for all the majors."

"I do, I do have it."

Chi Xiaoguo paused.

"But, I only have the one for East Sea University, not for your school, Senior... I don’t know which one you’re talking about specifically."

’Ah.’

Jiang Ran facepalmed.

’Sigh, I got too excited and misspoke.’

’What’s this "our school" nonsense?’

’He was just a vocational student from the East Sea College of International Trade and Economics. ’Our school’... Who was the ’we’ in that ’our’?’

Speaking of which, the name of this vocational college was so long and awkward that it was no wonder Chi Xiaoguo couldn’t remember it. Even Jiang Ran felt like he was just padding his word count whenever he had to say it.

"Right, the East Sea University one."

Jiang Ran walked over.

"Could you check for me if Teacher Zhang Yang from the School of Physics has class this morning?"

Chi Xiaoguo unlocked her phone, opened the class schedule app, and leaned in.

She wasn’t actually very familiar with how to look up courses from other schools and was about to study the interface... but then she saw Jiang Ran’s fingers already tapping nimbly on the screen!

With a few quick, precise taps, he brought up Teacher Zhang’s schedule directly.

Chi Xiaoguo’s eyes widened.

She was completely stunned.

’Is this app universal for all universities in the Dragon Country?’

"First period is a required course for the School of Physics."

Jiang Ran looked at the schedule and muttered to himself,

"Second period is a lab class... there’s some distance between the School of Physics and the lab building. The break between classes won’t be long enough."

Since he planned to find Teacher Zhang Yang, he needed to leave himself plenty of time.

"Third period... no class. Great. I’ll go find Teacher Zhang at the lab building after his second period class ends."

After his second-period lab class, Teacher Zhang Yang had no more classes. Given his personality of enjoying discussions with students, he definitely wouldn’t mind chatting with Jiang Ran in the lab for a while.

"Ehhhh—"

Chi Xiaoguo drew out the sound, once again stunned.

"Senior, you’re so familiar with our East Sea University! I don’t even know where the School of Physics building and the lab building are!"

"Heh."

Jiang Ran let out a soft laugh.

"Well, let’s just say East Sea University was my dream school. It’s a pity my Gaokao score wasn’t good enough; I was a bit short of the cutoff."

Chi Xiaoguo blinked.

She ran a quick analysis in her head.

’That... seems like a pretty big difference in scores.’

Still, she believed that scores didn’t mean everything.

In this world, no one wins it all because of one test paper, and no one loses their entire life because of one exam.

Take Senior Jiang Ran, for example.

Even though he hadn’t gotten into East Sea University and his Gaokao score wasn’t as high as hers.

But from spending time with him these past few days.

Chi Xiaoguo clearly felt that her senior was far superior to her in terms of intelligence, initiative, decision-making, and logical thinking.

Many people just weren’t good at studying, that’s all.

Or maybe they just had a severe imbalance in their subjects.

She respected and admired Jiang Ran, which was why she was willing to listen to everything he said, do whatever he asked, and cooperate with all her effort.

"Speaking of which, I only have one class today, in first period. Second period is PE."

"S-so, Senior, I can get out of my second-period class early. I can come here then, and we can go find Teacher Zhang Yang together, okay?"

Jiang Ran nodded.

"Of course, that’s no problem. It would be best if you could come with me."

After all, he wasn’t an East Sea University student, and in this Worldline #1, he was a complete stranger to Zhang Yang. Having a student from the university with him would certainly make it easier to explain things and start a conversation.