Chapter 20: A Fucking Genius of Logic
System: What the hell is this?!
Rong Ziyin glanced at the explanation.
Greetings from the people of Zu an: Skill-based. Mastered Taunting. When confronted with sluggish flora and fauna reluctant to thrive, the Host can promptly deliver “loving encouragement” to swiftly invigorate them, breaking free from their sluggish (salted fish) routines.
When encountering top-tier opponents, the skill activates spontaneously. Through mockery, it lowers their intelligence, then effortlessly defeats them. [Note: Requires specific conditions and timing; mastery through practice is essential.]
System: Host, why does this skill description feel so confusing? What does “taunting reduces intelligence” even mean?
Rong Ziyin pondered for a moment. “I think it’s probably like that skill Zhuge Liang used in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.”
“What do you mean?”
“Didn’t he verbally destroy Wang Sidu face-to-face?”
System: Holy crap! That brutal?
Rong Ziyin: Hmm… Should I try cursing out that rich kid then?
System: Rong, snap out of it! You could insult that little fat lamb to death without even using a skill.
After debating for a while, Rong Ziyin finally grasped the skill’s meaning. Next, he checked the exchange system, only to find it nearly empty—just two items inside.
One was a salted duck egg recipe, the other was salted fish. Both priced at 200,000.
System: That’s insane! Did the Heavenly Dao lose its mind?
But Rong Ziyin was fixated on something else: Didn’t you say items from the N-tier gacha pool could be exchanged here?
System: Ah! Right, holy crap, let me check why they’re missing.
Half a minute later, the system returned with an answer that made it question its own existence.
“Only items you’ve previously drawn can be exchanged. That’s why only the salted duck egg and salted fish recipes are available now. After all, those are the only two items you’ve ever drawn.”
Damn it! This life is fucking unbearable.
Rong Ziyin tried to console him, “Don’t worry, we’ll get rich selling salted duck eggs.”
The system instantly retreated further into its shell.
But Rong Ziyin wasn’t just talking big—he genuinely had a plan.
Actually, when he encountered that con artist in the village earlier, Rong Ziyin had already started thinking about it.
Having been in the village for a while, he noticed that duck farming wasn’t particularly large-scale here. Yet, surprisingly, quite a few people raised ducks. With so many duck eggs and meat ducks, the surrounding counties and towns couldn’t absorb the surplus. Ultimately, it all ended up being consumed internally by the villagers themselves. When you did the math, some families didn’t even earn enough from this to cover the costs of raising the ducks.
This had planted a seed in Rong Ziyin’s mind: Could he collect eggs from villagers, cure them into preserved salted duck eggs for easier storage, then transport and sell them?
But until now, he lacked two crucial things: a proven recipe and testing. He didn’t know if salted eggs made with the village’s recipe would match the flavor provided by the Tian Dao System.
Now, the perfect opportunity had arrived.
Upon returning to the village, Rong Ziyin planned to buy a basket of duck eggs and try pickling them himself. If successful, he could consider scaling up the operation.
With his mind made up, Rong Ziyin paid a final visit to his office that afternoon to bid farewell to his advisor before hurrying back to the village.
His trip had been swift—both his arrival and departure.
Meanwhile, that afternoon, the Veterinary Medicine Department posted the list of students whose papers had passed the school’s preliminary review and would be submitted to core journals on the campus network.
Coincidentally, only two students from the department made the cut—and they were from the same class and dorm.
One was Rong Ziyin, of course. The other? That rich kid!
Their class group chat exploded.
“Holy shit! This is like a legendary clash of titans!”
“Hahahaha, both accepted papers are from our class—talk about an honor!”
“Screenshot saved! Now I can brag forever—my college classmate published in a core journal during undergrad!”
The class group was buzzing with excitement over the news. Even minor grudges were temporarily forgotten as everyone tagged Rong Ziyin and the rich kid to congratulate them.
The rich kid was at home right then.
After storming out of the cafeteria at noon, he’d rushed back to his upscale apartment near campus.
Sitting on the sofa, his anger only grew the more he thought about it. Combined with the increasingly sparse hair on his head, he felt like his insides were about to explode. He was so furious he wanted to find someone to bag Rong Ziyin and get rid of him.
Then his family called him.
“What the hell are you doing? I’m busy here!” The caller was the rich kid’s older brother, who scoffed coldly at his impatience.
“You think I want to call you? The old man said this time he’s letting you off, so you better watch your step. If you want to pursue academia, the family will support you. But if you make any more fools of yourselves, get the hell out of here and go abroad. The family can’t afford the embarrassment!”
With that, the rich kid’s older brother hung up, enraging him enough to hurl the phone again.
“Such petty people!”
To the rich kid, it seemed that only after he achieved something did those snobbish family members finally take him seriously. After all, for businesspeople, academia represented not only sacred knowledge but also the endless stream of profits behind it.
His family had built their fortune on food processing, with significant ties to farming too. They clearly saw him as a stepping stone!
Hmph. Human relationships couldn’t get any colder than this. His so-called “good older brother” was acting like this precisely because he wasn’t valued enough by the family!
Sooner or later, he’d make every one of them regret looking down on him!
The rich kid felt even more stung. Just then, a message in the class WeChat group caught his eye.
He tapped to see it was the announcement about his and Rong Ziyin’s paper passing. Classmates were expressing admiration.
Reading their praise, the rich kid felt an odd, satisfying rush of being fawned over.
Under normal circumstances, he might have shrugged it off. But today, he had suffered far too many humiliations!
Coincidentally, someone close to the professor chimed in, “Rong Ziyin’s thesis seems pretty impressive. I passed by the office today and overheard several professors marveling about it.”
Staring at the words “Rong Ziyin,” the rich kid’s irritation flared anew.
He felt like messing with them, so he sent a picture, then immediately recalled it.
WeChat groups show when messages are recalled. Human curiosity knows no bounds, so someone quickly asked the rich kid, “Hey, boss, what did you send?”
The rich kid put on an act: “Oh! Sorry, the class group kept flashing, so I sent it to the wrong place.”
The more he said this, the more everyone wanted to pry. Especially since the image he’d recalled looked like a page from a thesis.
After being pestered for ages, the rich kid finally spilled the beans: “I was screenshotting my recommended advisor—just sent it to the wrong place.”
“Huh? Not one of our school’s professors?”
“Nope, I found someone else. You know I applied to the Agricultural Academy’s research institute? Coincidentally, a professor I know thought I was a good fit, and now I’m assisting in his lab.”
The rich kid sounded humble, but his words were dripping with pride. Especially since this new advisor turned out to be a genuine heavyweight in academic circles.
Of course, everyone knew the real deal: the big shot had taken him on as a grad student because of a tech partnership with his family.
Even so, it was still impressive. The group showered him with congratulations.
Feeling generous, the rich kid dropped a hefty red envelope.
“Let’s all get rich together—for good luck!” He basked in the adulation.
As classmates claimed the red envelopes one by one, a fresh wave of adulation began.
“Holy shit! The young master is handing out cash!”
“Thanks, boss.”
Rong Ziyin happened to catch this scene while heading home.
The rich kid was genuinely generous, distributing red envelopes based on the class roster—clearly including one for Rong Ziyin.
The System gnashed its teeth in fury: That bastard deliberately flaunted it in front of you!
Rong Ziyin: Isn’t this great? Money falling from the sky.
Rong Ziyin happily claimed one. 0.1 yuan.
Rong Ziyin: …
Class Group Chat: …
Rong Ziyin instantly received a staggering 6,000 complexity points.
That rich kid sent out five thousand yuan in red envelopes in one go. Even if you’re the unluckiest person alive, you should still get around a hundred. But Rong Ziyin got a measly ten cents?!
Just how unlucky could one person be?
The entire class was stunned by Rong Ziyin’s sheer misfortune.
“Damn, he totally deserved it.” The rich kid sat on the edge of his bed, unable to hold back a loud laugh after seeing the results. He opened the chat window to type a mocking message at Rong Ziyin.
But just then, a phone call interrupted his actions.
The caller ID showed it was the loan shark.
“What’s up?” the rich kid asked casually.
But the loan shark was on the verge of tears. “Young Master, please rein in your classmate. He’s getting more and more outrageous! This time he only paid back one dime!”
One dime? That number sounded so familiar…
Something felt off. The rich kid logged into the loan shark’s Alipay to check the transaction history.
Scrolling down, he saw a suffocating sequence: three yuan, three yuan, three yuan, three yuan…
And at the very top, it clearly stated a transfer of one fen from Rong Ziyin.
He glanced at the timestamp. Damn it—wasn’t that when Rong Ziyin had received the red envelope?
So he used his own money to pay off a debt owed to him? Rong Ziyin really was a fucking genius with logic.
The rich kid’s hair stood on end with rage, and he couldn’t resist blasting Rong Ziyin in the group chat.
But when he opened the group again, he found Rong Ziyin explaining the differences between their respective papers to the class.
“I glanced at the Young Master’s research topic in the office. Though completely different from mine, it’s genuinely impressive.”
Completely different? No, they were supposed to be on the same topic! The rich kid’s heart skipped a beat.
Clearly, others in the group were curious too and asked Rong Ziyin. They remembered both the rich kid and Rong Ziyin’s topics involving avian infectious diseases.
Rong Ziyin carefully explained to them: “The differences are significant. Virus research and feed-based disease prevention are two distinct fields.”
“Speaking of which, I’m actually quite grateful to him. It’s fortunate we avoided overlapping topics; otherwise, it would have been quite troublesome. After all, my knowledge is still quite limited.”
Everyone: …
Rich Kid: !!!
He was absolutely furious. He had spent a fortune specifically to sabotage Rong Ziyin’s thesis, hoping to crush any chance of him returning to school based on his research.
But he never imagined that even though they both studied avian infectious diseases, their research directions were entirely different. So all his efforts had been for nothing?
The rich kid felt dizzy, gasping for air as a wave of frustration washed over him.
Meanwhile, Rong Ziyin had smoothly pocketed 100,000 gold coins. He couldn’t help but marvel—the rich kid truly was his most perfect lamb.
Having just spent 600,000, he’d instantly recouped 100,000. The system itched to tempt Rong Ziyin into splurging.
“Rest assured, Host. After the upgrade, ten consecutive spins guarantee at least one R-grade item.”
Rong Ziyin nodded, equally curious about the system’s final post-upgrade changes. He made a decisive call: “Spin!”
The wheel spun rapidly. Whether Rong Ziyin’s luck had turned today remained to be seen.
From the moment it started spinning, the wheel flickered with a blue glow. When it finally stopped, ten identical items appeared neatly before Rong Ziyin—all R-grade. Yet their shape felt eerily familiar.
Smooth white skin, rounded contours.