Study System: I'm a 38-Year-Old Student

Chapter 377 252: Exposed! (Bonus Chapter)

Shen Qiushan never even thought about "establishing his own school" or anything like that.

He just simply wanted to rack up some Scholar Index points!

Back when he played Go against the exchange students from Seoul University, Shen Qiushan figured out a rule: every win earned him 10,000 Scholar Index points.

With today's two preliminary rounds, Shen Qiushan won four games in total, bagging 40,000 Scholar Index points.

Based on his prior experience that high exam rankings also rake in Scholar Index points, Shen Qiushan guessed that if he could win a national-level Chinese Chess championship like this, he'd probably score another wave of Scholar Index points.

Of course, that was just his speculation, since Shen Qiushan had never taken part in anything like this before.

"Uncle Luo, I just enjoy playing chess—honestly, I never thought about starting my own school of thought or anything."

Shen Qiushan replied with a cheerful laugh.

"Stop calling me Uncle Luo—just call me Old Luo!"

Luo Zhengyi waved his hand: "Anyway, kid, your chess skills are seriously wicked. When you're done competing, let's find time to spar a bit, huh?"

"No problem!"

Shen Qiushan agreed without hesitation: "Though I'm only in Beijing for about another week."

"You came to Beijing just for this competition?"

Luo Zhengyi looked at Shen Qiushan in surprise.

"Mainly here to receive an award."

"Figured I'd squeeze in a competition while I'm at it."

Luo Zhengyi nodded: "Yeah, I heard Manman mention it just now—you're the winner of the grand prize in the National College Student Electronic Technology Competition!"

"Winning the grand prize isn't easy!"

"It was a team award—I'm just one of the members. The reports online tend to exaggerate a bit."

Shen Qiushan answered modestly.

As they chatted, the three of them arrived at the gym's parking lot.

Manman stopped beside a black Maybach and sweetly opened the back door for her grandpa.

Shen Qiushan hopped into the backseat with Luo Zhengyi.

Just judging by the conversation, manners, and overall vibe of this grandfather-granddaughter duo, it's not hard to tell their family has serious clout. So it wasn't the least bit surprising to Shen Qiushan that Manman drove a fancy car like a Maybach.

There was a beautifully decorated private kitchen restaurant near the gym.

Manman was clearly a regular here—the owner greeted all three of them warmly and led them into a private room.

Shen Qiushan was here entirely for the free meal, so he didn't hold back when ordering—asked for all the house specials.

No worries there, Old Luo and Manman definitely aren't short on cash.

By the end of the meal, Shen Qiushan had gotten pretty familiar with this grandparent-grandchild duo, and more or less figured out their backgrounds.

Luo Zhengyi was a retired senior official with a high rank back in the day—Shen Qiushan didn't feel comfortable asking about the exact position.

Manman was the CEO of a tech company.

The company's called "Starfire Technology," barely two years old, focusing mainly on applying AI across various industries.

They're basically riding the tech wave right now. Despite being new, the company's market value is already over a billion.

Manman became president of a billion-dollar company at such a young age—if you say it's all skill and no background, you're kidding yourself!

If she weren't Luo Zhengyi's granddaughter and was just a kid from an average family, at her age she'd most likely be just another "grunt" at Starfire Technology or some other big corp.

Even if she's super capable, her position still wouldn't be all that high.

But Manman's actually running a major company, so you can bet Luo Zhengyi's pre-retirement rank was through the roof.

"Teacher Shen, some of the ideas you wrote about in 'Three-Body Civilization' really caught my interest, like the Curvature Spaceship."

"Do you really think something like that could be built in the future?"

Now that they were getting comfortable, Manman asked curiously.

"It absolutely will."

"Building it is just a matter of time!"

Shen Qiushan gave a totally confident reply. Ever since he started university, he's always in the library whenever he's got time—partly for the Scholar Index points, but also to pick up some real knowledge.

As his mind gets packed with more and more knowledge, he's increasingly convinced that the spaceships and weapons in 'Three-Body Civilization' will definitely become reality one day.

Some of the concepts in there are based on one or more validated scientific principles—and that's what makes it so awesome. Unlike some sci-fi, which is just made-up nonsense with zero basis in reality.

Those kinds of books should really be called "fantasy" instead.

After the meal, Shen Qiushan and the grandfather-granddaughter pair swapped WeChat contacts.

Then Manman drove Shen Qiushan back to the competition venue; Luo Zhengyi wanted to stick around and keep watching, but Manman used his health checkup as an excuse to drag him back to the hospital.

In the third preliminary round, Shen Qiushan kept up his solid performance and beat his opponent easily.

After three rounds of prelims, the list of 64 finalists was announced.

Finals day.

Each round was now a best-of-five—first to three wins takes it.

Shen Qiushan swept through his matches and cruised into the top eight.

It wasn't until this stage that the organizers noticed: among the competitors, Shen Qiushan was actually a famous author hiding in plain sight.

His name had come up several times on the player lists, but with so many participants (and so many people in the country with the same name), nobody connected Shen Qiushan with that 38-year-old gaokao top scorer and famous writer.

The only reason the organizers figured it out was because during the round-of-16 live stream, some viewers recognized Shen Qiushan.

To avoid attracting too much attention, Shen Qiushan actually tried to blend in—wore tea-colored glasses and hadn't shaved for days, going for that weathered old-guy look.

Even so, eagle-eyed viewers still picked him out.

This discovery had the organizers jumping for joy—Shen Qiushan's been super popular lately, after all. His personal Kuaishin account already has over ten million followers.

By internet celeb standards, he's a total mega influencer!

He's traffic, plain and simple.

Competitions like the Qingyang Cup usually have next to no buzz. Actually, it's not just these amateur chess tournaments—professional ones aren't much better either.

Shen Qiushan joining turned out to be the perfect traffic magnet, so the hosts changed the livestream title from "Qingyang Cup National Chinese Chess Tournament" to "Come Watch Teacher Shen Qiushan Play Chinese Chess!"

Simple and direct!

And the results were way beyond expectations.

There'd originally been just over a hundred viewers in the livestream, with a peak of a bit more than two hundred.

After putting Shen Qiushan's name in the title, viewers skyrocketed from a hundred-plus straight to over a thousand, and the number kept climbing...

"Old Shen can play Chinese Chess too?"

"Teacher Shen is really multi-talented!"

"He even made it into the top eight—Old Shen's incredible!"

"What's up with Teacher Shen's look? Gotta give it to him for trying so hard not to be recognized!"

"Hahaha, bet Old Shen never imagined he'd get exposed even with all that disguise!"

"..."