CSGM - Chapter 98
Chapter 98: Up the Difficulty
Since Chairman Zhang's daughter looked so displeased about her opponents being too weak...
A bold idea popped into Zhou Luyan's head.
She wanted a challenge, right? She... she mustered her courage and spoke to the daughter of the rich and powerful.
"What's this you're playing? Can I give it a try?"
The heiress, with the word "WIN" displayed on her screen, looked up at Zhou Luyan.
"Oh, this? It's the mini-program for the show I Am the Brain King. It has a lot of competitive events. You know how to play?"
Her tone carried a hint of disbelieving contempt.
Most people had a clear idea of the general intelligence and knowledge level of celebrities in the entertainment industry.
The heiress remembered scrolling through a short video on her way back to the country, in which a celebrity on a variety show was vehemently arguing over a common-sense question like "Is Hubei in the south or the north?"
The person arguing had even furiously spouted a now-famous line-
"Hubei isn't in the north? If Hubei is in the south, then Hunan must be in the north, right?"
So stupid, so ignorant, yet so self-righteous. It was hilarious!
Therefore, she believed from the bottom of her heart that celebrities and she were simply not from the same world.
But since Zhou Luyan had said, "I can give it a try," she didn't mock her. She even added her on WeChat and invited her to a match.
"Alright, let's see what you've got," the heiress said.
"I'm just going to the restroom," Zhou Luyan said, walking away with her phone.
In a flash, she was next to Chu Xi's seat.
Since they were both in Section F, it was no trouble at all for Zhou Luyan to find Chu Xi.
"Chu Xi," Zhou Luyan called softly to her secret weapon.
Chu Xi turned her head and saw a familiar face.
"What's up?"
Zhou Luyan shoved the phone into her hand, pressed her palms together, and pleaded earnestly:
"If you have a moment, could you help me play for a bit?"
"What's this?"
Chu Xi mumbled, looking down at the phone.
The large, changing countdown numbers on the screen, "10, 9, 8..." instantly captured her attention.
A countdown! It subconsciously sent a surge of adrenaline through a person!
This was especially true for someone like Chu Xi, who had a strong competitive streak.
Looking at the screen and the opponent's avatar opposite her, she immediately understood what kind of competition this was.
Otherwise, Zhou Luyan wouldn't have come to her for help for no reason.
Sure enough, Zhou Luyan said:
"It's a game competition from I Am the Brain King..."
"Shh."
Chu Xi pressed a finger to her lips, her attention now focused, signaling for her to be quiet.
The ten-second countdown ended in the blink of an eye, but looking at the game board divided into 4x4 colored blocks of different hues, Chu Xi still didn't know the rules.
In the top right corner was a small question mark inside a circle. She immediately tapped it to check.
It turned out the game was called "Rotating Puzzle."
Rules: A square game board is filled with randomly distributed blocks of four colors: red, yellow, blue, and green. A button is placed in the center of every four blocks. Clicking the button rotates the four adjacent blocks 90 degrees clockwise. The player must click the buttons on the board to arrange the blocks according to the target pattern.
Chu Xi quickly scanned the rules and understood.
It was a somewhat interesting puzzle game, a bit more sophisticated than Bash's Game, where the answer was obvious at a glance.
On the 4x4 square board, there were a total of 16 blocks and 9 buttons. Each button affected four adjacent blocks, giving it a feeling that a single move could affect the entire board. It required skills in overall control and calculation.
By the time Chu Xi finished reading the rules and returned to the game, five seconds had already passed. On the small screen, she could see that her opponent was already moving blocks.
On the heiress's end, she glanced up. The game had been going for a while, but she saw that the celebrity hadn't made a single move.
She must be completely clueless about this kind of game, right?
Perfectly normal.
The games on I Am the Brain King all had a certain barrier to entry; they weren't something just anyone could play.
Her assessment of Zhou Luyan was gradually leaning towards "overestimating her own abilities."
Celebrities should just stick to acting and singing. These kinds of knowledge-based competitions weren't for them.
They wouldn't understand how to play even if they tried.
Just as she was thinking this, a few seconds later, the heiress suddenly saw the opponent's blocks begin to rotate on the small screen.
But at that moment, she still had no premonition of the unpredictable turn of events!
Her opponent's operations were about to race ahead at a speed she couldn't possibly match...
Fifteen seconds into the match, just as the heiress saw that she was about to complete the target pattern!
Her screen suddenly froze, and the rotation buttons became unresponsive!
In the next instant, the gray word DEFEAT leaped onto her screen!
Correspondingly, the system notified her that her opponent had achieved victory.
The heiress: "??!"
She stared at the screen, a little dazed. What just happened?
Was it incredible luck? An accident? A fluke?
She refused to accept that a one-in-a-thousand probability error of luck had caused her to lose. She quickly tapped the "Play Again" option.
The opponent on the other side quickly accepted.
In fact, while Chu Xi was solving her own puzzle, she had also glanced at her opponent's situation. The person's skills weren't terrible.
But compared to her, they were still far behind.
Another round.
WIN.
Another round.
WIN.
Another round.
WIN.
...
In one minute, Chu Xi played five rounds with this opponent, and each round ended with the same result.
Naturally, it was the same for the heiress.
DEFEAT, DEFEAT, DEFEAT... Every single time, the same gray notification of failure!
NO!!!!
How could this be?
For each puzzle, Chu Xi only needed about ten seconds to finish the battle. How could she be so fast?
The heiress remembered clearly that in the Brain King audition episode for the Rotating Puzzle event, the first-place score was 9.57 seconds!
Just now, Chu Xi's fastest time had even surpassed that record!
Looking at the history, one game had ended in 9.22 seconds.
The heiress unconsciously swallowed, her eyes glued to her phone.
Impossible. She lost to a celebrity?
Was there really such a formidable celebrity?
After Zhou Luyan said she was going to the restroom, she hadn't seen her come back for a long time.
Instead, she saw the other person typing to her in the game:
【Up the difficulty.】
And with that, her "Play Again" invitation was rejected.
The 4x4 was boring, still too easy. After dominating her opponent for a few rounds, Chu Xi had fallen into a state of tedious boredom.
So, the heiress switched the Rotating Puzzle to a 6x6 grid of blocks.
How about this?
Thirty-six blocks were much more professional than sixteen. This was a real challenge, one that could completely eliminate the possibility of winning through sheer luck!
At this point, she was completely focused on the game, treating her opponent with utmost seriousness, no longer wearing the expression of someone who could casually beat a rookie.
But the result didn't change.
Chu Xi still racked up a continuous stream of WINS.
Standing beside her, Zhou Luyan watched her hands move faster than her own brain could process. She was astonished, thinking it was utterly absurd.
She and Chu Xi were clearly from two different worlds.
Because she couldn't even begin to imagine what was going through Chu Xi's mind right now.
All she could see was Chu Xi tapping the rotation buttons this way and that, and before she could even blink, the target pattern was complete!
This... her eyes hadn't even caught up, but Chu Xi's brain had already finished thinking.
Going from 4x4 to 6x6, the heiress suddenly realized the gap between her and her opponent was even wider.
How could someone be... this strong?
Her previously brimming confidence was now suddenly beginning to crumble.
While playing, Chu Xi asked Zhou Luyan:
"Is this a random match? Or your friend?"
If it was a random match, she was going to suggest Zhou Luyan leave this room immediately and find a new opponent.
Playing with this person was no fun; she needed someone more skilled.
But Zhou Luyan said, "Uh... a friend."
Chu Xi: "Alright then."
She typed in the game:
【Is there anything harder? This is boring.】
She could no longer find any enjoyment in her opponent; she hoped the game level itself could provide a challenge.
The heiress quickly replied:
【Yes, switching now.】
She had finally found an opponent who could challenge her! She was genuinely afraid Chu Xi would stop playing!
She thought for a moment and switched the game in the room to one of the most difficult challenges available online for the show, "Cube Minesweeper."
This was a brain-burning event hailed as something that would trigger a mental brainstorm!
Because she was still practicing for the qualifying events, she herself had not yet attempted this extremely difficult one.
Compared to it, "Rotating Puzzle" was practically a drop in the ocean.
"Cube Minesweeper" first required observation and calculation skills to complete ten rounds of 3D minesweeper. Second, it required immense spatial imagination to mentally construct a three-view diagram of a cube to find the target block among dozens of irregular shapes. And finally, one had to use the selected irregular blocks to build a perfect 4x4x4 cube to complete the challenge.
The entire process demanded an extremely high level of spatial imagination and understanding of perspective principles.
On the online leaderboard for this game, all the names were certified accounts of masters who had participated in Brain King and achieved outstanding results.
The heiress herself wasn't confident she could successfully complete this challenge.
After all, spatial sense was not her strong suit.
But after Chu Xi read the game rules and watched the brief introductory video, she became interested.
Why bother with Rotating Puzzle? They should have brought this game out from the start!
This was interesting!
This was exciting!
The two started the game at the same time, but after completing the first step of minesweeper, the heiress stopped moving.
She truly couldn't continue.
She admitted that everyone has their specialty, and her talent did not lie in spatial ability. The "Cube Minesweeper" challenge was indeed not her forte.
But when she saw the solving process on the small screen-
Her hand, clutching the phone screen, began to tremble slightly!
Her opponent's entire process was almost without obstruction, as smooth as flowing water.
From accurately identifying the irregular blocks to step-by-step assembling the perfect cube, the heiress's mouth fell open in amazement!
She personally witnessed her opponent complete the entire game without a single mistake, without even having to re-select a target block!
And then, her completion time was ranked second in the entire country!
Second only to the champion who had challenged this event that year!!
The heiress's mind reeled, almost unable to believe it was real.
A genius you might find once in several million, and she had actually met one?
While her mind was in turmoil, Chu Xi had already exited the game.
Chu Xi pinched the bridge of her nose and blinked a few times to relax her eyes.
That was a thoroughly enjoyable game; the new event was indeed good.
She said to Zhou Luyan, "Thanks, I'm going to rest for a bit."
But the main issue was the lack of a challenge. She saw that her opponent had been stuck since the second step, providing her with no competitive pressure at all.
It was like a single-player game where you instantly kill minions.
Thus, her interest came quickly and faded just as fast.
Zhou Luyan stared at her blankly for a few seconds... Huh? Thanking her?
She should be the one thanking her!
That cube project... she hadn't even understood the rules, and Chu Xi had already successfully completed the challenge.
Amazing. The intelligence of different people truly existed on different planes.
"Thank you, Chu Xi."
After speaking to Chu Xi, she took her phone and returned to her seat.
The way Chairman Zhang's daughter looked at her as she returned could only be described as eagerly anticipatory.
The moment Zhou Luyan came back into view, the heiress's eyes lit up. She stood up and grabbed Zhou Luyan's wrist.
"Let's be friends!"
Zhou Luyan smiled in relief. "Okay."
She finally had a hope of making a connection in the entertainment industry...
Zhou Luyan had already sent her name when she added her as a friend. Now, Chairman Zhang's daughter enthusiastically introduced herself:
"My name is Zhang Yuxue. Yu as in islet, Xue as in snow. My family is in the entertainment business. It's a pleasure to meet you. You're the first friend I've made since coming back to the country!"
Zhou Luyan was slightly surprised. She had actually come from abroad.
"Did you just graduate?" She saw that Zhang Yuxue was still very young, looking just like a little sister.
"Ah, yes. I'm twenty-two this year. I just finished my master's at Cambridge." The fact that she was the youngest person in the history of the top foreign university to hold a master's degree was something Zhang Yuxue was very proud of.
"You're so impressive," Zhou Luyan praised sincerely.
However, Zhang Yuxue felt that her return tonight had completely refreshed her perception of the entertainment industry.
"No, no, no, no, I can't compare to you. What university did you graduate from? Why did you decide to enter the entertainment industry? Have you ever participated in I Am the Brain King?"
After firing off a series of questions, Zhang Yuxue didn't wait for Zhou Luyan to answer before getting to the most important matter.
"What's your usual appearance fee? Is this enough to buy two hours of your time?"
Zhou Luyan's phone vibrated. She looked down and saw that a WeChat transfer of 100,000 yuan had been sent to her from Zhang Yuxue's account.
"!!!"
"WeChat has a daily transfer limit, so annoying. If it's not enough, I'll wire it from my bank. Can you train me for two hours a day on the Brain King game events? I'm going to challenge for the title of Strongest Brain King next year."
Zhou Luyan fell silent. She had only wanted to make a casual acquaintance with Chairman Zhang's daughter, hoping to build a good friendship in the future.
But if what Zhang Yuxue wanted was this... brain training? She was willing but lacked the ability.
She instantly returned the transfer, looked up, and said with regret and apology:
"I'm sorry, I can't do that. Because the person playing with you just now wasn't me, but a friend of mine."
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