I started with a ship full of max-level veterans, and I'm just a complete noob.

A few days later, in the afternoon.

The activity room on the second floor of the cruise ship was temporarily converted into a lecture area.

A long bench was placed around the perimeter of the dilapidated iron wall, with dozens of folding chairs crammed together in the middle. The electric fan overhead creaked, but it couldn't dispel the stuffy heat filling the room.

Qian Xuesen stood beside the blackboard at the front, holding half a piece of chalk in his hand, and was quickly writing complex calculus equations on the blackboard.

"In hypersonic flight, aerodynamic heating is an unavoidable problem. Traditional aluminum alloys will experience thermal creep when the Mach number exceeds a certain critical point..."

The twenty-odd returned scholars sitting below listened with rapt attention.

Jiang Ming sat in the back corner, feeling like he was about to crack.

Listening to something heavenly!

This is practically a high-level alien language!

But he kept his eyes glued to the blackboard, his pen scribbling furiously across the parchment paper. No matter how much he didn't understand, he'd just copy it down like a human photocopy machine. A bad pen is worse than a good memory; he'd go back and slowly work through the basic lecture notes Qian Lao had given him.

Chen Zhiyuan sat next to him, also writing furiously, occasionally pausing to think for a couple of seconds.

Just as Jiang Ming was sweating profusely from copying.

A very soft yet penetrating cold laugh suddenly came from the side.

"You can't even solve Bernoulli's equation, yet you're sitting here listening to hypersonic boundary layer theory. Don't you find that laughable?"

Jiang Ming's pen suddenly stopped, the nib leaving a glaring ink mark on the kraft paper.

He turned his head.

The speaker was a young man sitting diagonally behind him. He had his hair neatly slicked back, wore a well-tailored dark-patterned suit, and had a pair of gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose.

This man's name is Xu Chongwen.

Jiang Ming had heard about it on the ship these past few days. This Dr. Xu was a top student from a prestigious American university, majoring in fluid mechanics, and was quite well-known among returned scholars.

Xu Chongwen leaned forward slightly, a sneer playing on his lips.

"A pile of waste paper." Xu Chongwen glanced at the notebook in Jiang Ming's hand. "You think you can become Einstein by copying down the gibberish on the blackboard? Don't try to be cultured here if you failed at some lousy university."

Several scholars around turned around and, upon seeing that it was Jiang Ming, their expressions immediately became somewhat subtle.

Although no one says it, in this circle full of elites, Jiang Ming, who openly admits that he returned to China because he couldn't make it in the world, is indeed an anomaly.

Jiang Ming felt a surge of evil fire rush straight to the top of his head.

Even a clay figure retains a touch of earthiness!

I didn't steal or rob anything. I was just sitting quietly in the corner taking notes. What did I do to you? (╬◣д◢)

He clenched his fist tightly, about to stand up and yell back.

"How dare you talk like that!"

Chen Zhiyuan, who was standing nearby, couldn't hold back any longer and turned to glare at Xu Chongwen. "It's a good thing that Brother Jiang is willing to learn! Mr. Qian said everyone is welcome to come and listen in. Does this activity room belong to your family?"

Xu Chongwen slowly pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses.

"Brother Chen, I'm just offering honest advice, even if it's hard to hear," Xu Chongwen said casually. "Science is rigorous. If you try to build a skyscraper on a dilapidated building that doesn't even have a foundation, it will only collapse and kill people. We're back in China to build, not to be parasites."

This statement was very malicious, directly elevating Jiang Ming to the level of a "parasite."

Several scholars who were auditing the class also started whispering among themselves.

"Dr. Xu's words may be rough, but the reasoning is sound; those with very poor foundational knowledge simply cannot understand this."

"Yes, it takes up resources."

Every word and phrase was like a soft knife stabbing into Jiang Ming's heart.

Chen Zhiyuan was so angry that his face turned red, and he suddenly stood up to argue with Xu Chongwen.

"Old Chen."

A hand pressed firmly on Chen Zhiyuan's shoulder.

Chen Zhiyuan was taken aback and looked down.

Jiang Ming sat in the chair, his head slightly lowered. The veins on the back of the hand that was pressing on his shoulder were bulging, clearly indicating that he had used all his strength.

"Brother Jiang, what about him...?"

"Sit down." Jiang Ming's voice was terribly hoarse.

Jiang Ming raised his head and gave Xu Chongwen a deep look.

There were no angry rebuttals, no hysterical shouting matches.

Jiang Ming calmly withdrew his gaze, flipped back to the torn page of the parchment, replaced it with a blank one, and continued to look up at the blackboard.

Chen Zhiyuan gritted his teeth and could only sit back down angrily.

Seeing that Jiang Ming was like a coward, not daring to utter a single word, Xu Chongwen felt bored and scoffed, ignoring him completely.

But Jiang Ming knew that his heart was far from calm at this moment.

Wrong!

So incredibly frustrating! (T ^ T)

He wanted to stand up and curse Xu Chongwen more than anyone else.

But what right does he have to criticize?

He's a PhD in fluid mechanics from an Ivy League university, while I'm a complete slacker who even failed materials mechanics. If it really came down to academics, Xu Chongwen could just throw out a few technical terms and crush him, leaving him utterly humiliated.

More importantly, this was a lecture by Qian Xuesen.

Making trouble in the territory of a max-level player is truly brainless.

"You just wait." Jiang Ming gritted his teeth.

He secretly vowed that, given time, with the Tongtianlu in hand and Qian Lao's lecture notes as a foundation, he would one day exact the full humiliation he had suffered today upon Xu Chongwen's arrogant face!

This suppressed emotion, ironically, transformed into a kind of frenzied motivation. Jiang Ming's eyes were bloodshot as he stared at the blackboard, his brain racing, desperately trying to memorize every symbol.

Two hours later.

The lecture has finally come to an end.

"That concludes today's theory. Everyone, go back and digest it properly." Qian Xuesen put down the chalk and patted the chalk dust off his hands.

The activity room erupted in enthusiastic applause.

The group rose in twos and threes, whispering among themselves as they left, discussing the formula they had just learned. Xu Chongwen stood up, deliberately walked past Jiang Ming, straightened the hem of his suit jacket, and left without looking back.

Chen Zhiyuan sighed and patted Jiang Ming on the back: "Brother Jiang, don't take it to heart. That guy is just arrogant because he's highly educated."

"I'm fine, Lao Chen, you go back first, I'll finish copying these formulas." Jiang Ming lowered his head, his voice very calm.

Chen Zhiyuan nodded and walked out of the activity room.

Soon, only Jiang Ming remained in the previously crowded cabin.

He stopped writing, looked at the formulas on the notebook that looked like scribbles, and his eyes reddened slightly.

Even with cheat codes, can this huge knowledge gap really be bridged?

Snapped.

A warm hand gently patted Jiang Ming's shoulder.

Jiang Ming was startled and suddenly raised his head.

Qian Xuesen stepped down from the podium at some point and stood beside him.

"Sir." Jiang Ming quickly stood up, his voice muffled because he had been looking down the whole time.

Qian Xuesen glanced at the densely filled notebook on Jiang Ming's desk, then at Jiang Ming's slightly reddened eyes.

He actually saw everything that happened in the back row on the stage just now.

"Ignore him." Qian Xuesen's voice remained gentle and steady, yet it carried a strange, comforting power.

Qian Xuesen gently patted Jiang Ming's shoulder and said in a low voice, "Xu Chongwen was like this when he was in America; the weaker a person is, the fiercer they are. Your silence now is more powerful than his mockery."