Chapter 24: One More Round, Just One More

Page (1/3)

Di Da and Wu Yue worked together to carry the old television up to Sanmao’s home.

Wu Yue handled the television, while Di Da carried the power cord.

He could hardly trip up his brother, could he? That would be terribly inconsiderate.

It was the weekend. Yu Xiaoli had said she was going out to gossip with some old friends, which spared Di Da the trouble of explaining anything. In his little room, the wardrobe that had been converted into a bookcase had been cleared out, leaving just enough space for the small television to fit inside perfectly.

Wu Yue had finished his large bottle of iced black tea, so Di Da took a bottle of cola from the refrigerator for him.

“You look exhausted. How come I’m not sweating?”

“You didn’t do any of the work…”

Wu Yue pulled a handful of crumpled bills from his pocket and handed them to Di Da. It was the money the old man had paid him.

The entire plan had gone off perfectly. Di Da had bought the Chinese-made television at an old shopping center. It was certainly outdated, but it had still cost him 1,300 yuan.

After trading it in for the old man’s television, the whole exchange had effectively cost him a thousand yuan.

In truth, he would have been willing to spend two thousand. The reason he had gone through all these twists and turns was that he distrusted the shopkeeper’s character. Going there openly to buy a television would have been far too suspicious, and raising the price on the spot was practically second nature to that sort of person.

After all, even a pager could be praised as priceless as the Empress Dowager’s treasures.

Now everyone was happy. From receiving the money to acquiring the “equipment,” everything had been settled in a single day.

Di Da counted out three hundred yuan, then handed it straight back to Wu Yue.

Wu Yue froze, then cried out in delight, “You’re giving it to me? Didn’t the police station already give me a hundred?”

Di Da nodded. “One thing at a time. You worked half the afternoon, went all the way home to get your tricycle, rode several kilometers to bring it here, and there’s also the old phone from before. I’ve included everything—but I have one condition.”

Wu Yue understood immediately and made a zipping motion across his lips. “My lips are sealed!”

Di Da patted him on the shoulder and told him to hurry along, offering no further explanation.

If reporting illegal gambling for a reward could still be explained, then going to all this trouble to exchange an old television certainly could not.

Better to keep his mouth shut and be done with it.

After Wu Yue left in high spirits, Di Da returned to his room, opened the wardrobe door, and found the television directly in front of him.

If he sat at his desk, it was positioned at just the right angle. All he had to do was turn his head to see it.

“White Equipment, ‘Old Man’s Television’: No one can watch television for twenty hours a day—unless they run a shop with no customers.”

“Ownership Status: Acquired. Activated.”

“Effect: Addiction caused by viewed content increased by 300%.”

“Note: The addictions of adulthood exist to comfort the child one used to be.”

As the information updated, entirely new text appeared before Di Da’s eyes.

“Detected that the host possesses more than three pieces of equipment. The Equipment List has been unlocked. Acquired equipment can now be viewed, and equipment effects may be toggled on or off.”

“Please collect more equipment or combine equipment into higher-level items to unlock additional system functions.”

Di Da stared blankly as his vision was drawn into a blue interface. In the upper-right corner was a button labeled “List.”

When he opened it, there were only three items inside:

“Clown’s Love Letter,” “Sturdy Twenty-Eight-Inch Bicycle,” and “Old Man’s Television.”

Each one was marked “Activated.”

So that was how it worked. He could now manually switch item effects on and off?

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

Though there did not seem to be any need for that yet…

Apparently, as he acquired more equipment, the system would undergo other changes as well.

Di Da nodded in satisfaction.

But that was not important right now. First, he wanted to test just how powerful the “Old Man’s Television” really was.

In one of the compartments beneath the wardrobe sat the secondhand DVD player he had picked up for two hundred yuan at the old shopping center.

After connecting every cable, including the headphones he used for listening, Di Da dug out several long-neglected discs.

They had come free with tutoring books. In those days, there were no online classes, but many books came with companion discs. Di Da had accumulated quite a few, yet had never watched a single one.

After sorting through them, he decided to begin with mathematics, just to wake up his brain.

If he chose a subject he was better at, such as Chinese, it would be harder to see any effect.

Mathematics was much more stimulating. It had always given him a headache the moment he heard it. Today, he wanted to see what this so-called “addiction” would feel like.

The system’s description was somewhat vague. The concept of “addiction increased by 300%” had no standard definition. Was it an additive accumulation, or a multiplicative probability?

If it was the latter, the effect would actually be rather ordinary. The probability of becoming addicted simply by watching a mathematics disc was already infinitesimally close to zero. Tripling it would still amount to practically nothing.

What sane person would become addicted to this sort of thing?

With curiosity and a spirit of investigation, Di Da inserted Senior High Mathematics I into the DVD player. It covered the first year of high school, but he needed to review the material from the beginning.

He put on his headphones, and a voice came through.

“Hello, students… Today, we’ll be discussing the first lesson in senior high mathematics: Sets and Elementary Logic…”

The “Old Man’s Television” was extremely antiquated. It could barely accept the DVD signal, and the picture quality was terrible. The colors were distorted, the sound was as grating as an old bee buzzing in his ear, and snow sometimes flickered across the screen.

Di Da watched attentively and discovered that the first-year material was still easy enough to follow…

Well, easy enough to understand when listening. Solving the problems himself was an entirely different matter.

He was not merely testing the equipment’s effect. He was studying seriously as well, even taking out paper and a pen to make notes.

And so, before he knew it, sixty minutes had passed.

Di Da rubbed his eyes and tilted his head in thought for a moment…

There did not seem to be any special effect.

Still, he had genuinely learned something.

He might as well watch another lesson.

“Hello, students… Today, we’ll be discussing the second lesson in senior high mathematics: Functions and Logarithms…”

The difficulty had increased rather quickly. Di Da did not want to lose the feeling of being able to absorb the material, so he could only listen even more carefully.

These topics were no longer taught at school, but they were still indispensable foundations.

Before he knew it, another sixty minutes had passed…

Di Da frowned slightly.

He felt as though he understood it, but not completely.

He had lost focus for a moment in the middle, and afterward he could no longer keep up. Could mathematics really follow the “eraser law”—the more you forgot, the more easily everything vanished?

What a pity.

“Hmm… I’d better watch it again. I can’t even understand functions, and I’m trying to study this blasted mathematics.”

“Hello, students… Today, we’ll be discussing the second lesson in senior high mathematics: Functions and Exponents…”

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

Before he knew it, another sixty minutes had passed…

Di Da nodded in satisfaction.

Not bad. I really am a genius. Forget about solving exam problems—for now, at least I understand the basic principles!

He should strike while the iron was hot and see where his limits lay.

“Hello, students… Today, we’ll be discussing the third lesson in senior high mathematics: Logarithms and Logarithmic Functions…”

…

Yu Xiaoli had spent the entire day gossiping with an old friend, leaving her tongue numb. Still, it was one of the few social activities she enjoyed.

Their topics had mainly included:

The connections needed to get a child placed in a factory, the three hurdles that had to be cleared before a child could enter one, the seven major precautions to take when sending a child to work in a factory, and the ten preparations required to make sure a factory-bound child could find a spouse in the future.

When she returned home and saw the sneakers by the door, she knew Di Da was there. She called out,

“Da? Have you eaten dinner?”

There was no reply.

He should not have gone to sleep at this hour, so Yu Xiaoli pushed open the door to Di Da’s room.

She had barely opened it halfway when she saw Di Da in profile, facing the wardrobe. His forehead was covered in sweat, his eyes were fixed intently on the wardrobe, and he was wearing headphones.

Even his breathing was somewhat rapid.

She had not seen clearly—and did not dare to look more closely—so Yu Xiaoli quietly closed the door again.

After standing there in silence for a while, she muttered to herself, “Auntie Liu was right… Da is a grown young man now. Sometimes, a mother has to be both deaf and blind.”

Then she went off to attend to her own affairs.

And so Di Da studied from three in the afternoon until midnight, lesson after lesson.

Apart from going to the bathroom and taking a shower, he did nothing else.

He did not even reply when Lu Wei messaged him to report that she had eaten properly.

Gradually, he realized that he seemed to be coming under the equipment’s influence.

Of course, this was not the irrational, mindless sort of addiction. Rather, it was mixed with the thought, “I’m in such a good state right now. Forget the system for the moment—I should keep studying while I can.”

It was the kind of addiction the brain could rationalize.

This television was rather interesting. The 300% increase in addiction was not a matter of probability, as he had initially guessed, but something more like… an accumulation.

At one in the morning, Di Da suddenly sat up in his sleep.

“So that’s what it means when the tangent’s angle isn’t straight and the cotangent’s angle isn’t level… The cosine is zero, which makes the denominator zero…”

By instinct, Di Da reached out to turn on the television and start another lesson, but just as his hand extended, he pulled it back.

Then he sat in silence for a long while.

“Wait a minute! I got this cheat so I wouldn’t have to work hard…”

“This cheat is making me even more exhausted.”

“Did I activate it for nothing?”