Reality Programming Association

Chapter 136: Chapter 56: Free Lunch and a Single Spark

”Holy crap, they’re really bleeding capital for this, aren’t they?” Shi Zuozhou watched the students nearby receiving their watches, green with envy. ”This thing looks like it costs at least a few hundred or even a grand, right? And they’re just giving it away? You only have to fill out a questionnaire and sign a trial agreement to get one?”

The surrounding students were already boiling with excitement. To this group of strapped-for-cash college students who had just endured the rainstorm lockdown, a novel, high-end, and practical electronic device like this held a fatal attraction.

Yu Xian read the introductory text for the ”Microneedle Patch Array” on the display board: Through countless microscopic probes nearly invisible to the naked eye, it penetrated the skin’s surface to contact tissue fluid, thereby achieving 24-hour continuous, real-time, and precise monitoring of multiple physiological indicators. Because the needles were extremely fine, they bypassed the pain receptors, making it truly painless.

”I’ll fill it out! I’m filling it out right now!” Unable to hold back any longer, Shi Zuozhou moved at lightning speed. He didn’t even glance at the several-page-long *User Privacy Agreement* and *Data Collection Informed Consent Form*, his fingers frantically tapping ”Next” and ”Agree” on the screen.

A staff member verified the questionnaire and smiled as he handed over a square black box.

Before he even tore off the plastic wrap, Shi Zuozhou grabbed Yu Xian and urged him on. ”Old Yu, hurry up, get one too! It’s now or never. You can’t pass up a freebie!”

Yu Xian hesitated. Although this free lunch seemed a bit too good to be true, taking one back to study wouldn’t be a bad idea.

He had just taken out his phone to scan the code when the staff member suddenly put away the QR code stand.

”Sorry, man, today’s quota has all been given out.” The staff member waved apologetically at the swarming crowd behind them. ”This was the last batch of trial units. For future distribution schedules, please follow our Official Account for notifications.”

A chorus of disappointed groans erupted from the crowd. Some lingered unwillingly for a moment, but upon seeing the staff beginning to pack up the display items on the table, they gradually dispersed in low spirits.

Yu Xian looked at the retracted QR code stand and shrugged. ”Guess it wasn’t meant to be.”

”Ah, what a shame,” Shi Zuozhou said, fiddling with his new watch while expressing sympathy for Yu Xian. ”It’s fine. We’ll come earlier next time, and I’ll wait in line for you.”

The scent of cooking oil and hearty meals permeated the cafeteria at noon.

The two found a corner to sit down. Yu Xian grabbed a quick meal; the cafeteria prices had gone up quite a bit recently.

Shi Zuozhou held his chopsticks in one hand while continuously poking the screen of the Enoch wristband with the other. ”Does this thing really not hurt?”

Yu Xian watched as Shi Zuozhou fastened the watch with its microneedle patch onto his wrist. The strap tightened, pressing the metal patch firmly against his skin.

”I don’t feel a thing!” Shi Zuozhou shook his wrist. ”It just tingled a tiny bit, and then I couldn’t feel it at all. Look, the data is already showing up.”

He extended his wrist toward Yu Xian. The curved screen lit up, displaying several fluctuating, colorful data bars. Heart rate, blood oxygen, body temperature, and blood sugar were all fairly standard, but there were also a few uncommon metrics like cortisol levels, dopamine activity, and serotonin levels.

Yu Xian didn’t know what these specific metrics entailed. He figured he would ask Senior Sister Yang Yiyi about it when he had the chance.

Shi Zuozhou was clearly enamored with his new toy. Yu Xian glanced at the logo on the black packaging box.

”Yinuo Biotechnology...” he read aloud before asking casually, ”Have you ever heard of this company before?”

”Nope. It’s probably a major foreign firm just entering the domestic market. We don’t study this field, so isn’t it perfectly normal not to have heard of them?”

Yu Xian nodded, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about all this.

When a major foreign firm entered the domestic market, why wouldn’t they buy traffic via livestream e-commerce, invest in performance ads, shoot promotional videos, or hire influencers and celebrities for brand marketing? Why would they hand out their products for free on a university campus like flyers? Judging by the quality of this device, even if it were priced at a mere two thousand yuan, giving away five hundred units meant a marketing expense of one million yuan—and that was just for the student demographic at JCU.

Could they even recoup that investment?

Unless the ”test data” they were after was worth far more than the hardware cost itself.

Swallowing his last bite of food, Yu Xian interrupted Shi Zuozhou, who was still studying his new toy. ”Eat up first. We still have real business to take care of this afternoon.”

Shi Zuozhou snapped back to reality and hurriedly shoveled the last few bites of rice into his mouth.

The two came to a halt at the cafeteria entrance, met with a fine curtain of rain outside.

”Where to first?” Shi Zuozhou wiped a grease stain from the corner of his mouth, his eyes glinting with the excitement of a secret agent about to embark on a mission.

Yu Xian glanced at the saved map on his phone, his gaze locking onto the nearest red dot. ”The cafeteria recharge counter.”

The cafeteria management window was semi-enclosed. An auntie sat inside, cracking sunflower seeds while binge-watching a drama on her tablet, completely oblivious to everything going on outside. The recharge machine sat just outside the window, having been modified from an old computer. Nowadays, since everyone used the Official Account to top up their cards, this machine was practically a decorative piece.

Yu Xian stood with his back to the window, his body blocking the auntie’s line of sight. Feigning the motion of recharging his meal card, Shi Zuozhou swiftly inserted the USB flash drive into the port next to the machine.

”Hey, did my card get demagnetized?” Shi Zuozhou said, acting overly innocent with a perfectly feigned expression of anxious sincerity.

Yu Xian stared at the connection count on his phone screen, silently counting the seconds. The number ticked up. He shot Shi Zuozhou a glance, and with a flick of his wrist, the flash drive was back in Shi Zuozhou’s palm.

”Ah? Never mind, it’s fine! Must have been a bad connection earlier, it scans now!” He made a show of swiping the card on the reader, then winked at the auntie who hadn’t paid them the slightest bit of attention.

Stepping out of the cafeteria, the two exchanged a look and opened their umbrellas. Shi Zuozhou lowered his voice. ”Done. Next.”

For the rest of the afternoon, the two roamed every corner of the campus like infiltrating ghosts.

At the self-service printer in the Second Main Building, Shi Zuozhou pretended to transfer a file, discreetly plugging the flash drive into the console’s mainframe. At the campus coffee shop, Yu Xian took charge of ordering while Shi Zuozhou used the excuse of picking a song on the front desk computer to successfully implant the drive.

The reservation check-in machine at the 24-hour unstaffed overnight study room, the public computer in the teachers’ office, the perpetually running workstation in the Student Union office... They didn’t even spare the broadcasting room. Under the guise of catching up with an older student he knew, Shi Zuozhou slipped the flash drive into the computer that controlled the school’s entire broadcasting system.

Throughout the afternoon, the duo acted like two diligent gardeners, sowing seeds in every corner of JCU. They had scoured almost half the campus, successfully planting dozens of super nodes.

By the time they finished their final stop, evening had arrived.

The rain was still falling, and the sky had grown dim. The two stood beneath the eaves of the Second Main Building, staring at a phone screen. Spending the whole afternoon sneaking around in a state of high mental tension was more exhausting than running five kilometers.

On the interface of the Rabbit Hole app, the nearby connection nodes had ticked up to 12. Aside from their two phones, the remaining ten were invisible signal towers that would never go offline and possessed ample bandwidth. This meant that across a massive surrounding area, the Rabbit Hole network could operate completely unimpeded.

Shi Zuozhou rubbed his calf and smiled at Yu Xian. ”Old Yu, would you say a single spark can start a prairie fire here?”

”You could say that,” Yu Xian smiled back, not bothering to tease Shi Zuozhou for the melodramatic remark. ”As long as the official version goes live on Wen Xiao’s end, these nodes can serve as our distribution network.”

It was an asymmetrical war. Their opponent possessed vast funds, mysterious technology, and an invisible mastermind pulling the strings, whereas they only had four students, a few computers, and a crudely built underground network they had just established.

It was still feeble, but at the very least, they were no longer completely unarmed lambs waiting to be slaughtered.

Shi Zuozhou glanced at the new watch on his wrist and called Yu Xian to go grab dinner.

The streetlights across the campus flickered on one by one, casting dim, hazy halos through the veil of rain. The two threw together a quick dinner at the cafeteria, wolfed it down, and opened their umbrellas, heading toward the main building of the School of Physics.