In terms of cutting corners, Cheng Feng was always one step ahead of everyone else. By the time the new students gradually logged off, hoping to find her and discuss life philosophy, she had already bounced her way out of the teaching building.
The instructor had spent a long time mentally rehearsing how to tactfully suggest she revise her declaration, but upon seeing her, he suddenly changed his mind.
Those defeated soldiers from the First Military dared to point fingers – so what if the top star of UFU aimed a little higher?
Clutching the printed training results, the instructor crossed the road and entered the living area. Lifting his gaze from his optical computer, he spotted Xiang Yunjiang, UFU’s best unpaid worker, up ahead.
Xiang Yunjian was casually dressed in a black short-sleeve shirt, strolling slowly in slippers. What stood out, however, was the small white owl he held in his left hand.
The instructor approached from behind and heard Xiang ask with keen interest, “Do you have any imprinting tendencies?”
The owl, with its neck firmly held, tried to flap its wings but failed. Its wide eyes swiveled along with its head, giving it a comically alert expression. It replied, “Robots don’t have that function.”
The instructor couldn’t shake the feeling that this conversation felt oddly familiar
“You’re a bird now,” Xiang Yunjian said. “You can have it.”
The little owl’s speech had a slight, uneven stutter, which lent every sarcastic remark an automatic, devastating effect. “Are you referring to dreaming, sir?”
Of course, a regular intelligent robot shouldn’t even possess such a function.
Xiang Yunjian lifted it up a little, casting a downward glance, and sneered, “I think you should be very familiar with the robot decommissioning process.”
The little owl replied, “I’m sorry, sir. My source code was written over a hundred years ago, and the current database contains no text regarding core decommissioning. Shall I recommend the ‘Three Extravagant Spots You Must Visit,’ ‘How to Peel an Apple Without Breaking the Skin,’ ‘Correct Mandarin Pronunciation,’ or related content?”
The instructor let out a surprised, “Huh?” He wasn’t sure whether to comment on Xiang Yunjian’s twisted sense of humor, which was far beyond that of a normal person – even teasing an intelligent robot – or to praise the transmigrated machine’s database for being so obscure and novel.
Xiang Yunjian let out a cold laugh.
He thought it was probably a good thing that this combat robot had been destroyed early; otherwise, Cheng Feng might have grown up to be a rather twisted individual.
He was now hesitating whether he should return this little thing to Cheng Feng at all.
Stopping in front of the female dormitory building, Xiang Yunjian eventually set the owl down on the ground. Just as he was about to give it a nudge with his toe, the little white bird made a dash, scurrying frantically toward freedom.
The instructor was speechless.
“Hey, releasing an intelligent robot into a female dormitory is against the rules,” he said, placing a hand on Xiang Yunjian’s left shoulder. “If you do this, I’ll have to arrest you.”
Xiang Yunjian turned his head, thumb pointing back inside, and said, “I couldn’t possibly raise a robot this filially devoted and sky-shakingly touching. This is obviously Cheng Feng’s.”
Cheng Feng was lying on her bed, watching last year’s mecha competition highlights from San Yao. Amidst the background noise of artillery fire, a rhythmic knocking sound emerged.
She went to open the door but didn’t see anyone. As she peered outside, something bumped into her right foot.
Looking down, she saw the little troublemaker owl casually walking past her, entering the room, selecting a corner, and then, with a slight lowering of its body, entering standby mode.
Cheng Feng drew in a breath. She followed it, squatting down to scrutinize it closely. Seeing it with its eyes closed and silent, she reached out and poked its head.
“Hey?”
When something she had only ever fantasized about suddenly became vivid and real before her, Cheng Feng’s current linguistic abilities were insufficient to describe the feeling.
Perhaps it was ecstasy, or perhaps it was a mix of other emotions striking her together -anyway, she had rarely experienced anything similar in her eighteen years of life.
If she had to describe it, it was probably like fireworks blooming over a tranquil lake, the sky and the water surface both splashed with brilliant, falling lights.
This world, at least for this one moment, possessed a flawless kind of beauty.
Cheng Feng lay down on the floor, tapped its head again, and called out louder, “Hey!”
The little owl’s eyes snapped wide open, and it replied, “Yes, I’m here. Audio reception unit intact. Please speak.”
Cheng Feng fell silent again, swinging her legs as she fiddled with its wings. She wondered what material the feathers were made of; they felt smooth and soft to the touch, making one want to stroke them.
…
On the way back, Xiang Yunjian composed two text messages.
Xiang Yunjian: I sent the instruction manual to your email, the warranty info is in there too. Take a look when you have time.
Xiang Yunjian: The core was damaged, so some data was lost. Also, some of the operating programs that didn’t meet the Alliance standards were deleted.
Xiang Yunjian: But its intelligence level is higher, and it has a strong learning ability. You can teach it whatever you need it to do.
Cheng Feng didn’t reply immediately. About half an hour later, she sent him a photo.
In the photo, Cheng Feng was crouched in a corner, while the little owl stood on the nightstand. One person and one bird were cheek-to-cheek, both staring in the direction of the camera with awkward but polite smiles, clearly reluctantly posing for the photo.
Xiang Yunjian was amused and sent her a thumbs-up emoji in response.
…
The next morning, the assembly point was still the playground.
Not knowing what drills they had undergone yesterday afternoon, the group looked utterly listless.
Not only were they lacking the vigor of youth, but their stances were also all over the place – legs couldn’t straighten, backs couldn’t stiffen, their gazes vacant, like a troop of monkeys that had lost all hope in life and chosen to regress.
The instructor stood on the viewing stand, grinning and waving at the people below, urging them, “Form up, hurry it up a little.”
Everyone lined up in four rows according to yesterday’s positions. After the count-off, Shen Dan raised her right hand and called out, “Report! What do we win today to get the afternoon off?”
“That procedure is canceled,” the instructor said, leaning against the railing regretfully. “Someone ratted us out, and I almost got punished too. So today, everyone will train properly.”
He pointed at Shen Dan and Cheng Feng, one left and one right. “Reflect on yourselves.”
The light in Shen Dan’s eyes immediately vanished. Clutching the wrist wrapped in bandages, she prepared to withdraw from training at any moment due to “injury.”
Cheng Feng turned her head, thinking, What does that have to do with me? Her whole persona was that of a law-abiding, rule-following model citizen.
The squad leader asked, “Instructor, what’s on the agenda today?”
The instructor thought for a moment, then grinned, showing his teeth. “Something more peaceful than yesterday.”
His youthful face was so utterly untrustworthy; it might as well have had the word “FRAUD” written all over it.
The students even began to suspect that speaking plainly and seriously was against the law for instructors at UFU. Otherwise, how could they foster such a bunch of shameless characters?
Taking it as sarcasm, a few students had already started the routine in advance and opened their throats to wail. “Aah!”
The instructor slapped the railing and scolded, “Save your energy! Don’t start screaming on credit.”
One student said bitterly, “Instructor, we really can’t run anymore! When I woke up this morning I thought I was about to leave this world. Give us a little breathing room!”
The instructor looked half-skeptical. “Didn’t you go to the infirmary?”
The crowd exaggeratedly shouted:
“There were too many people – we couldn’t even get in line!”
“I passed out from exhaustion right after dinner!”
“Alright, alright.” The instructor raised a hand to signal them to stop. “Today’s training has been booked by your major-course teacher. Data analysis. It really is peaceful.”
Only then did everyone breathe a sigh of relief.
The instructor took out his whistle, blew it once, and pointed vaguely towards the teaching building. “Left turn! Head to the computer lab. Keep it neat.”
The equipment for data analysis was comparatively rudimentary.
Cheng Feng logged into the backend and downloaded the materials, only to find that the content was yesterday’s simulated solo-combat training from the Infantry Department.
The instructor walked around the room with his hands clasped behind his back, his gaze briefly sweeping across the screens of the various terminals. In a calm voice he said, “Each person will randomly draw a video and fill out the report according to the requirements listed in the prompt. If you don’t know how to do it, you can watch the tutorial video. There’s plenty of time today – take it slow.”
Some of the students felt uneasy, worried that the knowledge they had from high school wouldn’t be enough for proper analysis.
UFU hadn’t even formally started cultural or academic classes yet, but they had already conducted two or three professional assessments. In just a few short days, a huge gap had opened up among the students – the pace was absurdly fast.
But once they opened the report template, they realized that the requirements for this test weren’t fully technical. Compared with specialized analysis, it leaned more toward sensitivity to data. The heavy atmosphere eased slightly.
If the task was to analyze based on intuition – well, that they could do.
Cheng Feng browsed through the database but didn’t find any videos related to manually operated mechs. Presumably they had been excluded in advance since most people weren’t familiar with them.
The video she drew at random showed a match between two close-combat mechs, Thunderstorm. Following the tutorial, she took screenshots and filled in the relevant data.
The entire computer lab was filled with the crisp clatter of keyboards. The instructor sat at the lectern, yawning repeatedly from drowsiness. When the window suddenly rattled from a knock outside, the unusual noise made everyone look over at once.
The instructor met the gaze of a small owl perched on the windowsill and jolted in fright, instantly wide awake.
The owl’s eyes glowed with eerie colors – red, orange, yellow, green, blue – shifting to whichever was the most eye-catching. Only when the instructor got up and walked over did they return to normal.
Cheng Feng hurriedly stood and said, “That’s mine!”
The instructor looked back and forth between the smart mechanical bird and Cheng Feng. Remembering the “character setting” he’d been warned about for this student, he reacted quickly, switching roles at once. Nodding, he said, “Oh… this is your friend, huh? Alright, I’ll just take this student’s family member around for a quick look. You all keep working.”
Its original form was a combat robot, and the database it carried contained a vast amount of battle data analysis. It was said to include a lot of private data provided by interstellar pirates; now even the black market couldn’t get hold of the original model anymore.
The instructor had never had the chance to see one before. Curious, he grabbed the little owl by the back of the neck and began strolling around the classroom again.
The little owl remained silent, but its system automatically captured the data displayed on the screens.
After making a round, the instructor leaned close to its ear and asked with a smiling tone, “So, student’s guardian – what do you think of our students’ level?”
A row of dim blue data flickered across its round eyes. After processing, it replied coldly, “It can be described as an explosion site.”
The students thought it meant something like their destructive power was impressive or that they had astonishing potential. Just as they were about to smile modestly, the little mechanical bird calmly added:
“A complete mess.”
Everyone: “…”
The instructor burst out laughing. Patting the little owl on the back, he comforted it, “Don’t be mad. They’re all still just kids.”
He grabbed a charger and held it up to the owl’s beak. “Here – want some food?”
Cheng Feng: “…”
After messing around for a bit, the light-brain beside them vibrated, indicating that a student had already submitted their assignment.
The instructor casually opened it and saw that it was Shen Dan.
This person’s data report was very much like her outward personality – extremely rough and unpolished.
The process was reduced to the bare minimum, cutting every possible corner, and then it abruptly threw out a conclusion at the end.
The little owl scanned it once and commented, “The data is generally correct. Defeats 98% of the class.”
Shen Dan stood up, preparing to slip quietly out from the back row, but the instructor stopped her. “Don’t leave. Come back.”
Dragging her feet, she walked up to the lectern, leaned back against the wall, and stared blankly ahead with an expressionless face.
Soon, the other students also began submitting their data reports one after another.
The instructor opened the backend, turned the interface toward the person behind him, and crooked a finger, signaling for her to help fill out the evaluations for the military training course.
Shen Dan’s expression twisted slightly – judging from it, quite a few curse words probably flashed through her mind – but in the end she still dragged over a chair and sat down beside him, dutifully acting as a temporary substitute.
Anyone who had gone through the college entrance examination had a pretty good sense of where the scoring points lay, and the backend already provided reference answers.
Comparing them with the template, Shen Dan tapped on the keys absentmindedly, selecting phrases like “still needs improvement” and “requires further effort” in the automatic evaluation section.
Five minutes later, Cheng Feng’s report popped up.
Her report format was quite different from the others – especially striking when compared with Shen Dan’s.
Every step was written out clearly, almost like running a program. Not only was it complete, but it also included all sorts of detailed notes, accounting for possible contingencies.
Besides analyzing the existing data, she even used a mix of images and text to predict and critique the subsequent actions.
It was typical machine-like thinking: the volume of data was enormous, and every conclusion could be traced back to a specific basis.
Clearly, for such a short match, she had no need to rely on something as vague as intuition.
“What’s wrong?” Seeing that she wasn’t moving, the instructor leaned over to take a look and immediately understood. “Oh – it’s Cheng Feng.”
He tapped the screen to project it, wanting the other students to see how complete the report was. Meanwhile, Shen Dan had already deleted the preset comment at the end of the form and was busily typing out a review of more than two hundred words.
Things like: “Meticulous logic and delicate attention to detail, yet an unconstrained line of thought; bold and far-sighted predictions,” and “An evaluation rich in creativity, supported by convincing foundational analysis.”
Even if Cheng Feng tried praising herself, she probably couldn’t produce that many non-repetitive compliments.
When the instructor saw that Shen Dan was about to elevate an ordinary mech training match into a once-in-a-century grand battle, he couldn’t take it anymore and cut in, “Alright, that’s enough. For a little mock fight like this, you’re writing a whole thesis? Your own report doesn’t even have as many words as this evaluation.”
Shen Dan typed the final punctuation mark, pressed the Enter key firmly, then lifted her head and smiled at Cheng Feng.
At first the others didn’t quite understand and just thought Shen Dan’s actions were baffling. But when she made a tactical hand signal commonly used in operations – signaling an agreement to team up next time – they suddenly realized.
Damn.
This was the proper way to cling to someone powerful. Wasn’t it far more sophisticated than calling someone “dad”?
But… was it really appropriate for you to do that?
