Break out of the courtyard

"Adults accompanying students to the exam?" Upon hearing the news brought back by Director Wang, Elder Yang frowned and asked, "Can't we just pre-select the person we're sending?"

"No!" Director Wang shook his head, not relaying Zhang Heping's words, "I don't want to waste time on idiots," mainly because those words were somewhat arrogant and would have a bad influence if spoken out.

Old Yang frowned and stared at Director Wang for a while, then looked at the others in the study and said, "It seems that Consultant Zhang's resentment towards us has not subsided. What do you all think is the best way for us to repair our relationship with Consultant Zhang?"

Elder Hua, Elder Li, and the others remained silent. They naturally knew how to fix things; it was simply a matter of finding a way to make amends for whoever had offended them. However, there were some things they couldn't say out loud.

……

Zhangjia, on the north bank of Houhai Lake in the capital.

Seeing her father rubbing his hands as he walked into the courtyard, Chang Wen hurriedly leaned over and whispered, "Dad, our department head talked to me this afternoon and wants to be my sponsor for joining the Party."

"This is a good thing!" Chang Sheng said as he walked towards the stove. "Once you join the organization, promotions and rankings will be much smoother."

Chang Wen calmly said, "I didn't agree!"

"Huh?" Chang Sheng, who had just walked to the stove to wash his hands, preparing to help his mother-in-law, was taken aback for a moment, then turned to look at his eldest daughter, "What are you thinking?"

Chang Wen went to the stove, lifted the lid of the steaming pot, and while scooping water to dissolve the seasonings in the bowl, she explained, "I applied for six years at school, and I didn't even get a single 'activist' award!"

"After graduation, I kept thinking, where exactly did the problem lie?"

Chang Sheng really wanted to tell his daughter frankly that the main reason was probably the identity of her third uncle's family.

"Is it because of my third uncle?" Chang Wen asked herself. "But even after I joined the Bank of China, my application still failed!"

"So, I've come to the conclusion that someone is targeting me! To be precise, they're targeting my family!"

"Who's targeting you?" Ma Xiuzhen didn't pay attention at first, but after hearing half of what she said, she assumed that Chang Wen was being ostracized at her new workplace. "If you're not happy with your new job, you might as well quit. I'll have your uncle find you something to do!"

"Grandma, it's not what you think, it's a bit complicated!" Chang Wen said, then started putting dumplings into the pot, temporarily putting the topic aside.

After dinner, Chang Sheng called his daughter to the third-floor rest area and asked Chang Wen why she refused to enter D.

"This is what I think!" Chang Wen placed a thermos on the coffee table in front of her father and explained softly:
"My mother failed to resign this time but instead got into D school; I applied to join D school for many years but failed, but recently I was invited by my superior. There must be some secret things happening that I don't know about!"

"I want to wait until my mom comes back from D school and discuss it with her, or ask my third uncle."

"Even if I really want to join the Party, the person who introduces me should be a higher-ups, Dad, what do you think?"

Chang Sheng thought for a moment, then frowned and asked, "How did you refuse your department head? Repeat what you said."

……

"She said she didn't want to join the Party?" The deputy bank manager, who hadn't yet left work, frowned as he stared at the department head Chang Wen was referring to.

The female director, who was in her forties, casually explained, "Chang Wen said she applied multiple times at the school and twice at the Bank of China, but she was unsuccessful. I suppose it's because she's not convinced enough, so she doesn't want to apply anymore!"

"Heh..." The male deputy bank manager, who was in his fifties, shook his head. "I understand. You should go home and have dinner!"

The female director stood up and asked again, "Brother-in-law, should I continue to persuade Chang Wen about this matter?"

"No need for now!" the male deputy bank manager instructed his sister-in-law. "Just pretend this never happened and continue to guide Comrade Chang Wen through her work."

"After the New Year, the higher-ups might assign Comrade Chang Wen to another department for rotation."

"Job rotation?" the sister-in-law, the director, asked in confusion. "Does the higher-ups want to give Chang Wen a special training opportunity?"

“Her third uncle practically gave away the Lifespan 120 potion to the country for free. How could the higher-ups not show some appreciation?” After saying this, the male deputy bank manager looked at the documents on the table. “Although we don’t need to ask the Zhang family for help with the old man’s medication anymore, there’s always the possibility that we’ll need their help with other things, understand?”

Chang Wen's department head responded and then left the room, seemingly lost in thought.

But as soon as she left, her brother-in-law, the deputy bank manager, took out his phone and called the person who had instructed him to recruit Chang Wen into the bank, and truthfully relayed the reasons why Chang Wen had refused.

……

Chang Wen's matter did not reach Zhang Heping; Chang Sheng temporarily stopped it.

Zhang Heping has been busy testing the equipment and wiring in the lecture hall lately, ignoring Hua Lao's repeated invitations to attend meetings in Shenzhen, let alone the opening ceremony of the Shenzhen Foreign Exchange Trading Center.

Tang Lie waited outside the lecture hall until all the helmets on the tiered seats were neatly raised to the ceiling and the participants in the test began to speak before he called out, "Uncle!"

Zhang Heping initially ignored him, first letting the group of testers leave and then letting the next batch of group employees who had signed up for the test take their seats before beckoning Tang Lie in.

"Uncle, the system has been installed on all 55,000 mobile phones, and the battery levels have been checked. They are being transported to the gymnasium for storage now." As Tang Lie spoke, his eyes kept scanning the entire lecture hall.

At first glance, this lecture hall looks similar to the one next door; only the black helmets hanging from the ceiling above each seat reveal its extraordinary nature—the world's first virtual dream classroom!
Zhang Heping responded lightly, but seeing that Tang Lie hadn't left, he couldn't help but urge him on, saying, "If you want to take the test, go and line up outside. It's about to start here!"

Upon hearing this, Tang Lie happily went outside.

This guy, who's almost 52, may call his uncle "uncle" so enthusiastically, but he's actually the grandfather of several grandchildren.

On the other hand, Zhang Heping has no married children.

Zhang Heping tested the multi-person virtual dream system in the lecture hall for a while, and then went to the gymnasium to test the mobile phones.

After randomly picking a phone from the more than 5 phones sponsored by Tang Lie and finding a nearby seat in the audience, he took out his own phone and called Tang Wei, the head of the smart technology company.

A few seconds later, the sponsorship machine in Zhang Heping's hand, which had not yet inserted a card, beeped with a "ding," indicating that a text message had been received.

After opening the text message, Zhang Heping clicked the blue link below the message without hesitation.

The next second, the sponsored phone in Zhang Heping's hand went black!

Tang Lie, who had been silently following along, saw that Zhang Heping's attempts to tap the screen, press buttons, and even remove the battery to restart the phone were all in vain; the screen remained black.
"Uncle, this phone might be infected with a virus. Let me restore it to factory settings for you!" Tang Lie said, reaching out his hand to Zhang Heping. He completely forgot who invented smartphones and actually tried to show off his skills in front of an expert.

Tang Lie only belatedly sat back down after Zhang Heping used the power button and volume button combination to boot up the phone and enter the background process.

Less than five seconds after Zhang Heping restored his phone to factory settings, he received another text message containing a virus link. Clicking the link, the sponsored phone remained black.

Zhang Heping got up and, taking advantage of the brief moment while the sponsored machine was being reset to factory settings for the second time, called Tang Wei and asked him to turn off the fake base station at the stadium.

Tang Lie was confused. He only saw Zhang Heping return the sponsored phone, which had been reset to factory settings and was no longer receiving text messages.

Everything was ready, and the time quickly came to the early morning of January 10th.

Although the Peace Group's announcement only stated that the exam would start at 10 a.m. today and did not specify an end time, many savvy people still arrived at the stadium early to queue up.

To their surprise, staff from the Peace Group arrived at 6 a.m. to open the door and began checking identities, allowing candidates to enter with their sponsorship machines.

The clever teacher in charge quickly pulled the students he had brought along and told them that once they got their phones and turned them on to make sure they weren't broken, they shouldn't waste the battery, because there were still almost four hours until 10 a.m.!
However, those who received the new smartphones were mostly teenagers, and since their seating arrangements were disrupted, very few of them sat together.

So, not long after these teenagers entered the venue, seeing others studying smartphones, they found an excuse for themselves to familiarize themselves with the testing machines in advance.

As time went by, more and more teenagers entered the venue, while fewer and fewer people were playing on their phones.

The reason for this is that smartphones consume a lot of power; after playing for an hour or two, the battery is less than half full.

Outside the stadium, various groups of people accompanying the examinees were blocked by several red ribbons on both sides of the four entrance channels, and could only watch as the excited or nervous teenagers lined up to undergo inspection and then entered the channels with their smartphones.

Secretary Chen, Director Wang, and 10 teachers leading the group were sitting in the conference room on the top floor of the library south of the gymnasium, looking at the crowd in the gymnasium.

"I'm still a little worried that those kids will be unable to resist playing on their phones, which will cause them to run out of battery during the exam!" said a teacher in his forties.

A female assistant teacher nearby said, "We already reminded them before they went in. If they don't even have this much self-control, it's no wonder they were eliminated."

Another teacher in charge of the group agreed, saying, "Even if they are very smart, without self-discipline, their future achievements will be limited!"

"Secretary Chen, I heard that there was a discussion about sending a professor to accompany the examinee. Is it because Dean Zhang didn't agree?" The teacher in charge's words immediately drew everyone's attention to Secretary Chen.

Secretary Chen calmly said, "We originally selected a group of professors to prepare for the exam, but your Dean Zhang revealed today's exam rules yesterday. The top 500 will be ranked based on their scores and the time taken to answer the questions, and it will still be an open-book exam."

“Those professors who were selected tried to answer the online questions in the first round of assessments using their mobile phones yesterday, and it took them more than an hour to answer them.”

"One hour?" one of the teachers in charge of the group exclaimed in surprise. "Even the slowest student in our class can finish in half an hour. How could they be so slow?"

"I'm not familiar with Pinyin typing! My handwriting typing speed is also very slow!" Secretary Chen gave an explanation with a hint of helplessness.

Upon hearing this, everyone present couldn't help but show expressions of sudden realization.

Not to mention that the professors typed slowly on their phones, none of the people present could type fast. Even the youngest female assistant teacher shook her head with a wry smile, "Although Pinyin has been promoted for many years, when I was in school, there were no teachers who knew Pinyin to teach us!"

"That's not right!" one of the teachers in charge of the group questioned. "Those foreigners don't know pinyin either. How can their typing speed be faster than ours?"

"There are two sets of exam papers today, one in Chinese characters and one in English," Secretary Chen continued, explaining, "Those professors type very slowly in English too!"

"It's 10 o'clock!" Director Wang frowned as he looked at the stadium in front of him and casually reminded him.

The others glanced at their watches and phones as they looked at the long queues still forming to enter the stadium.

"The exam starts at 10 o'clock, why are they still letting candidates into the exam hall?"

Has Dean Zhang gone in?

"Hey! Wait a minute! Look at the World Internet Forum, the questions for the second round of assessments have been released!"

"No way! There are still candidates who haven't entered the exam hall yet. Isn't this letting the teachers supervising them outside help them cheat?"

"Since the exam questions were posted on the World Internet Forum, it means that the students in the gymnasium have mobile phones that can connect to the internet. Can we help our students by providing them with relevant materials?"

"Yes, yes, yes! Let's quickly post this and get our students into the class chat group... No! Someone create a big group and add all our students in!"

Secretary Chen and Director Wang glanced at the excited teacher leading the team, then looked at each other and shook their heads, looking towards the gymnasium, wondering about Zhang Heping's intentions.

Could it be that cheating is really a way to pass the assessment in the second round?

……

Peace Wisdom Technology Co., Ltd., Internet Supercomputing Center.

Zhang Heping, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, was constructing a dream world in front of a five-kilogram regenerative brain server.

Behind them, Zhang Bei, Zhang Feng, Zhang Long, Zhang Hu, and Zhang Nuo were holding black-screened phones and resetting them to factory settings.

"Boss, a French candidate named Pierre has successfully solved the problem and is answering the first question!" Tang Wei reminded him from the side, but did not receive a response from Zhang Heping.

However, Zhang Bei, Zhang Feng, and the others who were waiting for their phones to be reset to factory settings stared at their phones with some resentment, never expecting to be outdone by a foreigner.

Just now, if Tang hadn't used his phone to point at the power button and volume buttons, none of the five of them would have thought to restore factory settings.

"My phone has successfully restarted!" Zhang Hu exclaimed excitedly, then suddenly realized, "Where do I go to answer the questions?"

The next second, his phone received that Trojan text message again.

Just as Tang Wei took out his phone, intending to give some kind of notification, his phone was snatched away by an invisible force and flew to the ground next to Zhang Heping.

Tang Wei made a helpless shrug to Zhang Hu and the others, indicating that he could no longer give them any more hints.

At this moment, Zhang Bei reminded them, "Use your phone to trace the source of this text message!"

"Since the text message says the link is the test question, let's follow this clue."

Zhang Long tried connecting his phone to Wi-Fi. "Connection failed. We can only get a network signal from this text message. Brother, cracking this text message is up to you!"

...(End of chapter)