Chapter 21: A Scientific God or a Madman

"An Jian was an orphan. Her body is currently at the funeral parlor, waiting to be buried."

"An orphan? She told me she had many siblings!"

"Yes, many. There are 132 of them. Most of them have congenital diseases and defects.

She was abandoned on the road when she was a child and was sent to an orphanage.

The name An Jian was also chosen by herself.

Later, when it was time for her to go to school, the orphanage director found a school for her.

She moved out of the orphanage when she was 11. At first, she worked as a dishwasher in a restaurant, where she got food and accommodation.

After the restaurant closed down, she found a job at a breakfast shop. They provided food but no accommodation."

"Where did she live then?"

"Under the bridge on Kangyang Road. Later, after you asked her to work at the internet café, she lived there.

The salary you paid her was all sent to the orphanage."

Inside the funeral parlor, Liu Qian pushed Song Han in a wheelchair and silently looked at the quiet auditorium.

"So, no one came to see her off?"

Liu Qian explained,

"The homeroom teacher from your school and the orphanage director came here a few days ago."

"Help me open the coffin."

Liu Qian glanced at the colleague beside her, who shook his head as a sign of disapproval. She comforted Song Han,

"The explosion caused severe damage to the body. It's not suitable for viewing."

Song Han turned his head and calmly looked at Liu Qian without saying a word.

Helpless, Liu Qian waved her hand. A colleague walked over and opened the coffin, revealing the figure completely covered by a white cloth inside.

Song Han leaned over the coffin and pulled aside the white cloth.

"Where's the body?"

"The explosion damaged the body severely. According to local customs, we used a paper - made dummy put together to replace the body. The remaining parts of the body are inside the dummy."

Song Han stared at the classmate in the coffin, neatly dressed and with a painted face that only vaguely resembled her, and stood there in a daze for a long time.

"You said, if I hadn't given her this job, what would her future have been like?"

Liu Qian didn't say a word. Song Han continued talking to himself,

"Maybe she would have graduated from junior high and high school and then been admitted to a university.

Or maybe she would have dropped out of junior high and gone out to work.

She might have gotten sick or stayed healthy, lived in peace, experienced joy and sadness, but she wouldn't have ended up as a pile of minced meat here."

A colleague of Liu Qian's beside them couldn't help but speak up,

"Actually, not all of her was minced. We found a whole left leg."

Song Han squeezed the frozen - stiff left leg inside the paper dummy and gave a faint smile.

"Some people are born without shoes, some are born without legs, and some are left with only one leg.

Isn't it ridiculous?"

"What about her personal belongings?"

No one responded. In the quiet auditorium, everyone lowered their heads, lost in their own thoughts.

Helpless, Liu Qian explained,

"There are no personal belongings. We found her social media account. She started the habit of writing diaries on a blog forum after she began working at the internet café."

"September 3, 2002. Today is my 14th birthday, but I feel like I'm about to die. There's a lot of blood down there, and my stomach hurts so much. Fortunately, Song Han didn't notice. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't let me work at the internet café anymore."

"October 4, 2002. Damn it, it's here again. Today I gave all the salary Song Han paid me to Granny. So this is what menstruation is like!"

"October 6, 2002. Why do we have menstruation? Sanitary pads are so expensive! Granny sewed a lot of cloth pads for me with the clothes that my younger brothers and sisters don't wear anymore. What a strange name. Is this a homemade diaper?

I can't believe I'm in middle school and still have to wear a diaper. Fortunately, it's worn inside, so no one can tell."

"October 11, 2002..."

Holding the laptop that Liu Qian handed to him, Song Han was pushed out of the auditorium as if fleeing.

...

In the meeting room, the mournful sound of the suona echoed in his ears.

Song Han stared blankly at the funeral being projected on the screen.

In his previous - previous life, he lived for over a hundred years but never had a funeral.

In his previous life, he was shot dead and then was reborn into this current life. He never had the chance to attend his own funeral.

Unexpectedly, before reaching adulthood in this life, he got the chance to watch his own funeral. His life experiences had just become a bit richer.

The mournful sound of the suona gradually faded as the coffin was lowered into the grave. 

When the screen finally froze on that small mound of earth, the documentary came to an end.

"Is this how you protect my family?"

"If what you said is true, that you're from the future.

Then a death certificate recognized by the state and the body buried in the coffin can convince people from the future that you're dead.

The security personnel around your family will remain there as long as you're alive, and there won't be any electronic records. The unsealing date of the paper files has also been set for 150 years later."

"What's buried in there?"

"Your legs."

Song Han turned to look at Liu Qian beside him.

"Do you think I still have a future now?"

"Time doesn't stop for anyone."

Song Han turned back. It was an old man who had spoken.

Liu Qian introduced him,

"This is Professor Wang from the School of Theoretical Physics and Cosmology at Capital University."

"Has the navigation software I submitted passed the acceptance test?"

"Kid, can you tell us where you got that navigation software you submitted?"

The one asking the question was a middle - aged man beside Professor Wang.

Song Han turned to look at Liu Qian again. She continued to introduce,

"This is Academician Li from the School of Engineering at the National Defense University. His main research area is navigation engineering. It was Academician Wang who organized the acceptance test for the software you submitted."

"In this world, all scientific research results, although they may seem to appear out of nowhere at times, can be traced back upon careful study. They're like standing on the shoulders of predecessors and going further."

Even the nuclear energy technology that the whole world is currently researching had some basic theoretical concepts put forward as early as 1905.

However, the algorithms and structures involved in the visual navigation software you provided clearly exceed the limitations of the current era.

The mathematical tools involved, such as the path - planning algorithm and the Hamiltonian cycle problem, can even solve the Hodge conjecture and some NP - complete problems! In recent years, I've never heard of any significant research progress in the fields of topology and geometry, let alone an industrial software application that perfectly combines these with machine vision technology."

After narrowly escaping death, Song Han had become much more silent.

"Since some of the materials you submitted are still highly controversial, they haven't been made public within the organization until their authenticity is verified."

Song Han frowned.

"So is this also part of the verification?"

Liu Qian nodded.

"Yes!"

Academician Li continued to press,

"Kid, can you tell me where you got these materials?"

Song Han rubbed his forehead. He had filled in the function design himself, and the software code was generated by an AI.

He wasn't sure if it was because he had used too much information recently or his emotions had fluctuated too violently. The information constantly churning in his mind made him endure a splitting headache all the time.

"Someone stuffed it into my head, so I know."

Hearing this, Academician Li was stunned for a long time.

"What do you mean?"

Just as Academician Li was about to continue asking, Professor Wang beside him interrupted him. Apparently, he had read the movie script submitted by Song Han. He smiled and leaned forward, taking out a test paper.

"Kid, I have a few questions here. Can you help me answer them?"

"ζ(s) = 1 + 1/2^s + 1/3^s + 1/4^s +...

Is it true that the real part of all non - trivial zeros of the ζ function is equal to 1/2?"

"Let the integer set be A = {a1, a2,... an}, and the target value be t.

Does there exist a non - empty subset..."

"Consider a gauge field Aπ, where..."

Looking at the messy symbols on the paper in his hand, Song Han felt his head ache even more.

Academician Li glanced at the test paper in Song Han's hand and immediately widened his eyes.

"A person driven to desperation can do anything, except solve the Millennium Prize Problems!"

"Shouldn't it be advanced mathematics?"

"Some time ago, I made a bet with a delivery guy surnamed He from a Sichuan restaurant near our neighborhood. He managed to solve it, and I lost so much face. So later, I switched to the Millennium Prize Problems."

Li Jie silently gave a thumbs - up.

"You're really something!"

"What's your task?"

Li Jie glanced at Song Han, who was still staring intently at the test paper, and frowned.

"Verify a software and analyze its underlying logic."

"Is it difficult?"

"Very difficult. It's extremely ingenious! It's like a modern engine being brought back to the Stone Age. Primitive people used wooden and stone frames to build a car with this engine, and the most incredible part is that this car can even speed along at a hundred kilometers per hour. It's just beyond comprehension."

Li Jie counter - asked,

"What about you?"

Professor Wang sneered as he mentioned his task.

"Verify whether he's a scientific god or a madman."

Beside them, Song Han ignored the two people whispering in front of him. He rubbed his forehead with one hand and held a pen with the other, writing furiously on the A4 paper and desperately rummaging through the churning information in his mind with gritted teeth. 

However, the constantly emerging images in his mind of that blood - soaked left leg and the thin figure made his right hand holding the pen tremble slightly from time to time.

Everyone around him fell silent as they watched Song Han's actions.

"Question 1: Answer: It holds true.

Question 2: Answer: It exists.

Question 3:..."

"Kid, are you joking with me?"

Song Han clenched his still - trembling right hand. It was post - traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although Song Han knew what the problem was, he had no idea how to deal with it.

He turned to look at the other person.

"Do you think I have the time for that?"

Professor Wang, holding the test paper with Song Han's answers, almost sprayed saliva all over the place.

"What about the process? The solutions? You just say it holds true and it exists! Do you think you're God? Huh? Huh?"

Suddenly realizing his mistake, Song Han snatched the answer sheet from the professor's hand, crossed out the word "Answer" and carefully changed it to "Solution:"