On Lin Xudong’s computer, a video was playing. It was a recorded conversation between the investigating police officer and the person of interest, Huang Hongguo.

Huang Hongguo was a middle-aged man in his forties.

He wore glasses, looked civilized, and his responses to the officer’s questions were organized.

The situation was as follows.

Huang Hongguo had divorced two years ago, and his girlfriend, whom he had been living with for several months, suddenly disappeared a week ago.

This was simply a missing person’s case.

However, his girlfriend had vanished from her home. The CCTV in the district and several streets did not capture her. Her family suspected that Huang Hongguo had murdered her.

Originally a case for the local police, it caused such a stir that it was sent to the criminal investigation department.

The team from the Criminal Investigation Division conducted the investigation, searched many locations, used various technological methods, but found no clues. The missing woman seemed to have evaporated from the earth.

Huang Hongguo was the prime suspect, but they had no evidence against him.

As Lin Xudong was playing the video, he was explaining the case to Zhao Yi.

The missing woman’s family’s suspicion was also reasonable.

The couple had a dispute concerning money. The missing woman was also divorced but had received over a million in her divorce settlement; she was alone, childless. Her family suspected from the beginning that Huang Hongguo was with her for her money.

Listening to Lin Xudong’s introduction, Zhao Yi had a good grasp of the situation.

Huang Hongguo was scum, a degenerate, anyone could tell from his demeanor. He had a bachelor’s degree, and he was once a middle school teacher, looking civilized and giving off the feel of an elite. There was a picture of the missing woman in the video, one could hardly describe her looks —you could basically think of her as unsightly as possible.

The pair were totally mismatched.

If it wasn’t for money, what else could it be?

After watching the entire video, Zhao Yi used the "Causality Law" and came to a conclusion: Huang Hongguo was lying.

But he was still frustrated.

Zhao Yi’s frustration had nothing to do with the case itself, but rather because Lin Xudong was treating him like a portable lie detector. He didn’t want to become a tool. It didn’t matter if he was helping out once, but what if they needed help again in the future?

That was too frustrating!

The "Causality Law" also consumed energy. For such a lie-detection question, the respondent appeared very calm and it was not done in-person but through a video; this left very few clues, which meant energy consumption was high, and quite significant at that.

Zhao Yi paid special attention to one detail --9 points of energy!

This consumption was enough for him to activate the ’dedication mode’ and study intensely for over two hours.

The look Zhao Yi gave Lin Xudong was accusing, it almost screamed, ’Are you purposefully trying to distract me from my studies because your daughter can’t beat me academically?’. However, he just nodded and said, "In my opinion, he’s lying!"

"He remained calm, but I could tell from the subtle clues..."

As for what the subtle clues were... that wasn’t important.

Lin Xudong nodded as he listened, "I think so too." He merely wanted to hear Zhao Yi’s opinion.

A few days before, Zhao Yi uncovered a murder disguised as a car accident.

Although there might have been other factors, like luck, police investigations also involve a measure of luck. Especially in cases where clues were scarce, a single insight might provide the breakthrough, otherwise, it would become an unsolvable case.

Lin Xudong, as the captain of the Criminal Investigation Division, was not only responsible for investigating cases but also for allocating manpower. The police department’s manpower and resources fell far short of covering all cases.

He was unsure of how many personnel to assign to this case.

Different leads in a case require different amounts of manpower.

Lin Xudong still couldn’t reach a decision. He opened a file and said to Zhao Yi, "Take a look at these."

The file contained all the case records.

After Zhao Yi took a close look and got a rough understanding, he found that the "Connection Law" could be applied. He obtained crucial information: the missing woman was murdered in a conspiracy by two people.

Huang Hongguo was one of the murderers.

The death scene of the missing woman was in the house.

"The ’Connection Law’ really comes in handy. I wonder where else it could be used."

Zhao Yi pondered.

He offered Lin Xudong a suggestion, "Do you think it’s possible that there is another person involved, who collaborated with Huang Hongguo and helped dispose of the body?"

Lin Xudong’s eyes lit up upon hearing this.

Previously, he had only been considering how Huang Hongguo could dispose of the body, and where clues about the body could be found. He never considered the possibility of an accomplice.

That could indeed be a possibility!

"Thank you!"

"Zhao Yi, you should consider majoring in criminal investigation when you go to college. You definitely have a talent for being a detective!"

"I know." Zhao Yi muttered in response.

As Lin Xudong packed up his computer, he said before leaving, "By the way, the missing woman’s family is offering a reward. They said they would give money to anyone who provides clues. Besides, the police department also rewards those who contribute to the investigation. If your speculation turns out to be true, I’ll mention your name."

Zhao Yi asked, "How much money?"

"A few thousand maybe? I’m not sure." Lin Xudong quickly left after saying that.

Zhao Yi’s mood lifted considerably.

A few thousand?

It wasn’t too bad.

When they arrived at the conference room, the parent meeting had already started. A teacher was on the podium, talking about the exam results of the elite class.

Lin Xiaoqing asked softly, "What did my dad want?"

"Uncle Lin consulted me on a problem," Zhao Yi explained briefly, "and then he insisted on giving me a consultation fee of a few thousand yuan."

"Really?"

Sun Liang on one side was listening, his grin widening; he thought, "You sure know how to blow your own trumpet."

Zhao Yi looked at the parents’ side and gave a wave to Sun Zhiguo, "Uncle, I have something to tell you about Sun Liang. He likes ..."

"Whooa!"

Sun Liang hastily covered Zhao Yi’s mouth.

Zhao Yi turned his head and wiped his mouth with a look of disgust, "Let me tell you, monkey, now that I have your secret, you’d better watch your mouth when you speak to me!"

"Yes, yes, you’re the boss!"

Sun Liang was frustrated.

Lin Xiaoqing covered her mouth, amused. When she looked at Zhao Yi again, she was pouting, and the words ’dissatisfied’ were practically written all over her face.

She was very upset.

This was Lin Xudong’s first time to the school, and he had come for a parent-teacher meeting. Xiaoqing was initially excited, even somewhat thrilled.

The result?

Lin Xudong came to find Zhao Yi, find Zhao Yi, find Zhao Yi... She felt like hitting someone!

...

The purpose of the parent-teacher meeting was to keep parents informed about their child’s academic performance and encourage their collaboration with the school in overseeing their child’s studies.

In reality, it’s not that helpful for high school students.

High school students have grown up. Some can be managed at home, while some can’t be. Furthermore, their long school hours, even during holidays, leave their parents with little to monitor.

These meetings seemed to have turned into a platform for parents to flaunt their child’s academic achievements.

No doubt.

Zhao Yi topped the grade and was ranked in the top ten in the city. Liu Jing had a triumphant day at the parent-teacher meeting.

Liu Jing could barely suppress her grin as she kept talking to Zhao Zhenxi.

Zhao Zhenxi listened all day.

In the afternoon, they went to look at properties together. Out of the five or six they viewed, none met their expectations. Some didn’t satisfy them in terms of location, most were not satisfactory in terms of price.

When Zhao Yi came home from school, they discussed it together.

Zhao Yi listened for a long time, then said, "Do what’s best! Stop worrying about the money! I only have one requirement: that the place be nicely decorated and ready to move into!"

Buying a house now is a good investment anyway!

Overthinking it doesn’t do any good. Houses, like regular commodities, have their own reasons for being expensive or cheap.

Zhao Yi didn’t have time to worry about the house. He went back to his room and started writing his thesis.

The research part of the thesis was done.

He had completed the entire proof, used all the formulas and theorems, even sourced references. What was left was summarizing, organizing, and formatting.

Zhao Yi worked for a while then took a break and saw in his group chat there was news connected to his Rubik’s Cube calculator.

He went online and did a search.

A ’Rubik’s Cube Research Team’ in Palo Alto, California used Google’s supercomputer to run analyses on all possibilities of the three-dimensional Rubik’s Cube with the Rubik’s Cube calculator and proved that God’s Number is ’20’.

If they had presented this before the Rubik’s Cube Calculator came out, it would have been huge news and could be published in several papers.

Unfortunately...

They used the Rubik’s Cube calculator and came out with the results too late.

After Professor Liu Hemin’s team came out, God’s Number was already fixed at ’20’. They were basically revisiting old ground, which pushed them to the fringe of the news.

But of course.

The team’s research had its merits.

There are approximately 4.3×10^19 possible configurations for a three-dimensional Rubik’s cube.

This number is enough to make your head spin. Even if each configuration only involved adding a few numbers, the comprehensive calculation volume would still be astronomical.

They used "group theory" mathematical techniques and took advantage of the different symmetries of the Rubik’s Cube faces to make a series of divisions synoptic to initial status. This eventually broke down the initial state to several billion combinations.

Numbers made it much simpler.

After the report was published, Morey Davidson, a mathematician at Kent State University, praised the Rubik’s Cube calculator in a media interview: "It’s more useful than we thought, and through continuous calculations, we are now very sure that the results of the Rubik’s Cube calculator are accurate."

Davidson’s statement in effect settled the issue.

Previously, many in academia had doubted the Rubik’s Cube calculator, because without the exact algorithm being published, the results might be inaccurate among endless possibilities.

Now, the voice of doubt was gone.

Davidson also talked about the algorithm of the Rubik’s Cube calculator: "I heard from Chinese colleagues that Zhao Yi, the creator of the Rubik’s Cube calculator, is writing a paper on the core algorithm and will publish it openly. He’s a great algorithm genius and we’re all looking forward to it."

"I believe his algorithm can solve many problems and can be applied in many fields."

Davidson seemed ’anxious’.

Others in the research team expressed the same view in their interviews. They were all looking forward to Zhao Yi’s paper.

After reading the report, Zhao Yi felt annoyed.

The words he hated to hear most now were related to ’paper’. It was okay for people at home to urge him to ’do homework’. But abroad, are people still rushing him?

This gave him the impression that when he went to school, read books, relaxed, or did something else, he’s shirking his responsibility.

Damn-it!

I just don’t want to ’do homework’!

He opened up the algorithm package that Zhang Zhen sent over and took a break by solving a few equations. Compared to paper writing, he was much more interested in the blank robot for testing.