2: Pinduoduo launches! The first step to getting freebies.

The night was deep, like a thick piece of velvet soaked in ink, tightly enveloping the University Town. Lights in the dormitory buildings had long been extinguished, with only a few scattered windows emitting the faint blue glow of computer screens or the blurry halos of flickering mobile phone screens, like lonely lamps swaying in a vast wilderness.

Excellence lay in bed, eyes wide open, with no sleepiness at all. The ceiling was just a blurry outline in the darkness, but he felt as if he could see through the floorboards straight to the vast but indifferent starry sky. This wasn't his first time suffering from insomnia, but it was definitely for the most bizarre and heart-pounding reason yet.

“System...” he groaned weakly in his mind.

【Civilization Inheritance and Rise Auxiliary System at your service, Host Excellence.】 A cold, emotionless electronic voice sounded directly in the depths of his consciousness. Following that, a translucent light screen that only he could see floated in the darkness before his eyes, emitting a faint blue light. Several items were clearly listed on the screen:

【Initial Resource Collection Mission】

High Borosilicate Glass Beaker (500ml) - [Status: Not Acquired]

Natural Diamond (Granular, ≥0.5 carat) - [Status: Not Acquired]

Palladium Powder (Pd, ≥99.9%, 5g) - [Status: Not Acquired]

Ultrapure Water (≥18.2 MΩ·cm, 1L) - [Status: Not Acquired]

【Mission Time Limit】: 72 hours

【Warning】: Failure to complete the initial resource collection on time will result in the exhaustion of system energy and entry into permanent hibernation. Host Excellence's neural link will be forcibly disconnected, which may cause unpredictable mental damage.

“Unpredictable mental damage...” Excellence chewed over those words, feeling a chill down the back of his head. On the first day this thing bound to him, it had used a method he couldn't understand to give him a brief experience of what it felt like for his “brain to be put in a microwave on high for three minutes.” He didn't doubt a single word this damn system said.

But this task list made his scalp tingle. He, Excellence, a plain and ordinary physics student barely scraping by with a tight daily budget—where was he supposed to get these things that sounded high-end and even a bit dangerous?

As soon as he closed his eyes, instead of the peace of sleep, his mind was filled with terrifying visions of social death and total ruin. All his social media accounts were stripped bare by anonymous hackers, and even the edgy posts he made on QQ Space during his chuunibyou phase were compiled into a collection; the incident in third grade where he wet his pants because he was too afraid to interrupt the teacher was turned into vivid animated emojis, circulating in various group chats with the caption “Can't hold it in!”; even his little secrets in his browser history that shouldn't be told to outsiders were made public... Finally, the image froze on the system hibernating, and his own miserable end—mouth and eyes crooked, drooling as he was sent to a mental hospital.

“Dammit...” Excellence suddenly sat up from the bed, scratching his hair which was already a mess like a bird's nest. A surge of nameless anger rose in his chest, only to be crushed down hard by a massive sense of powerlessness.

Outside the window, the sky was just beginning to turn the color of a fish's belly. The faint light barely outlined the cluttered desks and chairs in the dorm. His roommates were still sound asleep, their snoring and teeth-grinding rising and falling in a familiar dormitory symphony. They were ordinary, but safe.

Excellence took a deep breath of the cold morning air and fumbled for his phone by the pillow. The light from the screen stung his eyes a bit, also illuminating the two heavy dark circles under his eyes that were almost dark enough to be exhibited in a zoo.

“Pinduoduo it is... nine-ninety it is...” he muttered to himself, like performing some humiliating ritual. His fingers trembled as he clicked on the red icon on his phone's home screen that seemed to be grinning and mocking him—Pinduoduo (Pinduoduo)—with a tragic air of a hero cutting off his own arm.

He typed “High Borosilicate Glass Beaker 500ml” into the search box. The page jumped, and a dazzling array of products appeared, with prices ranging from a few yuan to dozens. He widened his eyes, repeatedly comparing pictures and parameters, and finally chose the one with the highest sales and a title that read “Laboratory Grade High Temperature Resistant Thickened” but was only priced at 9.9 yuan with free shipping.

“The picture looks decent enough... I hope it's not like a glass wafer that breaks at a touch,” he grumbled, clicking buy, filling in the address, and confirming the payment. The moment 9.9 yuan was deducted from his Alipay balance, his heart twitched along with it.

Almost the instant the payment success notification popped up, a small green checkmark slowly lit up behind the first item, [High Borosilicate Glass Beaker], on the light screen floating before his eyes.

【Resource Acquisition Efficiency Assessment: Medium-Low. Material purity is questionable; it is expected to increase subsequent purification energy consumption. Host, please speed up.】 The system's prompt was as cold as ever, even carrying a trace of... disdain?

“Nag, nag, nag! All you know is how to nag!” Excellence lowered his voice, grumbling irritably at the air as if the system were standing right in front of him. “If you're so capable, why don't you conjure up some funding for me? Nine-ninety isn't money? Do you know how much my monthly living allowance is?”

【The operation of this system strictly follows the two core principles of 'Minimum Energy Consumption' and 'Maximum Civilization Benefit,' and does not provide direct material or financial support. Everything must rely on the Host's own wisdom and efforts. Host, please be self-reliant and overcome difficulties.】 The system answered righteously, its logic rigorous and impeccable.

Excellence: “...” He was choked up for a long while, finally managing to squeeze out a few words through his teeth, “Well, thank you very much!”

The process that followed was a dual interrogation of his wallet and his soul.

The search results for small Natural Diamond particles on Taobao made him gasp. Ultimately, he scoured the entire platform and found a relatively reliable-looking small jewelry material shop. Under the pretext of “industrial abrasive,” he gritted his teeth and spent nearly half a month's living allowance to buy a 0.6-carat one.

“Industrial abrasive... I'm a genius.” The moment the payment succeeded, he felt a part of his soul fly away with the money. The second item on the light screen lit up with a green checkmark, and the assessment was still 【Medium-Low】.

The Palladium Powder on Alibaba made his heart pound even more. The price for 5g of Palladium Powder made his eyelids twitch. He had to dip into his little rainy-day fund that he had saved for a long time, originally intended for upgrading his gaming graphics card. When communicating with customer service, the other party repeatedly asked about the purpose. He had to brace himself and lie that it was for a “university chemistry interest group experiment.” The other party was skeptical but eventually took the order. Excellence seriously suspected his information had been flagged. When the payment was completed, he felt both his integrity and his wallet had completely deflated.

【Resource Acquisition Efficiency Assessment: Low. Transaction behavior has attracted unnecessary attention. Host, please be more cautious in subsequent actions.】 The system's assessment was like a cold whip.

But what gave him the biggest headache was the Ultrapure Water. This wasn't something that could be simply solved with money. The management of the chemistry department's laboratory was notoriously strict; every entry and exit had to be registered, and instrument usage was recorded. Trying to quietly get 1 liter of Ultrapure Water was no less difficult than hand-crafting a nuclear reactor in a dormitory.

Just when he was at his wit's end, almost giving up on thinking and preparing to just lie down and wait for death, a brand-new prompt box suddenly popped up on the system's light screen:

【Detected Host's difficulty in obtaining Ultrapure Water. Activating minimum assistance: Providing real-time status of the ultra-pure water machine on the east side of the third floor of the Chemistry Experiment Building and an analysis of administrator Uncle Zhang's daily behavior patterns.】

【Prompt: Every day from 5:45 PM to 6:00 PM, Uncle Zhang goes to the restroom on the west side of the same floor to smoke for about 15 minutes. This is the optimal window for operation.】

This prompt was like The Whisper of a devil, full of temptation yet permeating with massive risk.

“This... this is inciting me to commit a crime!” Excellence felt a battle raging in his heart. To go, or not to go? That was the question. If he went, he might get caught, and the consequences would be unimaginable; if he didn't go, the system would hibernate, and he would become an idiot... Ultimately, the fear of becoming an idiot triumphed over the fear of being caught.

And so, at a certain dusk, the setting sun plated the campus buildings with a lazy golden edge. Excellence, carrying an empty 5-liter jug he had secretly removed from a discarded water dispenser and washed countless times, his heart pounding wildly, slinked near the Chemistry Experiment Building like a thief. He pretended to be passing by, but his eyes constantly darted toward the building's entrance and the direction of the distant restroom.

Time passed minute by minute, and the sweat in his palms increased.

5:47 PM.

Sure enough, a gray-haired old man in a blue administrator's uniform, holding a cigarette, wobbled out of the duty room, humming a tuneless little ditty as he walked slowly toward the west end of the corridor.

Now!

Excellence took a deep breath, feeling his adrenaline surge sharply. He looked left and right, confirming no one was paying attention, then suddenly lowered his head and sprinted into the Lab Building's corridor at a hundred-meter dash speed he had never even achieved during sports tests!

The hallway was quiet, with only the faint, distant hum of lab equipment running. Relying on the real-time lab layout (which even marked camera blind spots) displayed on the system's light screen like a cheat code, he accurately turned left and right, avoiding all possible routes where he might encounter someone, and successfully reached the door of the preparation lab on the east side of the third floor where the ultra-pure water machine was located. The door wasn't locked!

He slipped inside and gently closed the door behind him. In the center of the room, that stainless steel, professional-looking ultra-pure water machine was working quietly, its indicator light emitting a faint green glow.

"Water, water, water..." Excellence hurriedly turned on the tap, and a stream of water so clear it was almost invisible poured silently into the bucket he had brought, making a very faint trickling sound. In this excessively quiet environment, the sound was infinitely amplified, pounding against his eardrums. Every second felt as long as a century. He stared fixedly at the water level in the bucket, frantically praying for it to fill up quickly.

Just as the bucket was about to be filled and victory was in sight—

From the corridor outside came clear footsteps! And that familiar sound of humming Peking Opera! It was a segment from "The Case of the Execution of Chen Shimei"!

Uncle Zhang was back! Nearly five minutes earlier than the system had predicted!

Excellence was instantly terrified, his scalp tingling! He slammed the tap shut, but because he was extremely nervous, his movements were too wide, and some water splashed out. He scrambled to pick up the heavy bucket, but his foot accidentally stepped on the splashed water on the floor—

*Slip!*

With a stumble, he lost his center of gravity. It looked like he was about to fall flat on his back while holding the bucket, caught red-handed with the loot!

It's over! Everything's over! Social death, disciplinary action, system hibernation, becoming an idiot... countless thoughts exploded in his mind.

At the critical moment, he felt his back collar being jerked hard from behind. A clever bit of force was applied, firmly stabilizing his teetering figure and preventing the loud crash of falling to the ground.

His nerves still frayed, Excellence's mind went blank, and his heart was nearly leaping out of his throat. Stiffly, he turned his head bit by bit.

A face of exquisite beauty, yet currently filled with seriousness and scrutiny, came into his view.

The belle of the Physics Department, a super scholar who had occupied the top two spots in the grade for years (depending on whether she or the other "god of study" was in better form during exams)—Su Mu.

She was wearing a simple white shirt and light blue jeans that outlined her well-proportioned figure. In her arms, she held several thick, brick-like original English professional books. Her eyes were sharp and bright, like cold stars on a winter morning, staring at him unblinkingly as if she could see through all his thoughts and panic.

Excellence's brain completely stalled; his CPU was fried. Cold sweat poured down from every single pore like a waterfall, instantly soaking his back. He was still holding that bucket of "stolen" Ultrapure Water! Caught red-handed, right on the spot!

"Excellence...?" Su Mu tilted her head slightly, her cool and clearly puzzled female voice breaking the silence. "What are you doing here so sneakily?" Her gaze swept over the bucket in his arms and then landed on his face, which was flushed red from extreme tension. The suspicion in her eyes deepened. "Ultrapure Water from the lab cannot be taken out privately; that's a clear rule. And... this bucket of yours?" She looked at the old bucket, clearly meant for a water dispenser, her brow furrowing slightly.

"I... I..." Excellence felt his tongue tied and his throat dry. Quick-witted? No, he was quick-wittedly stupid! A ridiculous excuse blurted out: "I... I heard the water here... uh... is especially pure! It... it makes instant noodles taste better! Yes, instant noodles! I wanted to see if using Ultrapure Water to make Master Kong would be exceptionally fragrant!"

As soon as the words left his mouth, Excellence wanted to slap himself twice. What kind of ghostly reason was that?!

Su Mu's beautiful eyebrows furrowed even tighter. She looked at him as if he were an idiot, then at the expensive Ultrapure Water used for precise experiments, and then at the "I'm mentally challenged and proud of it" expression on his face. The emotion in her eyes gradually shifted from suspicion to a mixture of speechlessness and a hint of amusement. She had clearly heard of Excellence—an eccentric classmate whose name was incredibly resounding but whose presence was extremely low, whose grades hovered in the lower-middle range for years, and who seemed to be constantly testing the edge of failing.

[Warning: Host faces significant exposure risk. Logical deception failed. Suggested immediate adoption of Backup Strategy B: Play dumb and act like an ignorant fool to gain sympathy and muddle through.] The system's prompt sounded coldly again, giving the plan that best fit Excellence's current persona.

Excellence immediately understood; this was his only way out! He instantly mobilized all his acting skills, straining to widen his eyes and putting on a face of extreme innocence, confusion, and stupidity. In an exaggerated tone, he said, "Ah? I can't take it? I really didn't know, Class Monitor! (Though she wasn't the Class Monitor, calling her that seemed respectful.) I was just curious and wanted to try something fresh... I was wrong! I deeply realize my mistake! I'll put it back right now! Immediately! Right away!" As he spoke, he made a move to carry the heavy bucket back, his movements clumsy and comical.

Watching his exaggerated performance, the corner of Su Mu's mouth seemed to twitch imperceptibly. She clearly didn't fully believe him, but she didn't seem to want to look deeper into why an "idiot" would run off to steal Ultrapure Water—such an absurd thing. She sighed, a sigh filled with the sentiment of "Forget it, why bother with someone whose IQ isn't online."

"Forget it," she waved her hand, her tone softening a bit. "Don't do this next time; the lab has rules. Leave quickly; it would be really bad if a teacher or administrator saw you."

"Thank you, Class Monitor! You're so beautiful and kind! Your grades are good, and you're so tolerant! You're truly my second parent!" Excellence felt as if he had been granted a grand pardon. He bowed and scraped, babbling a bunch of compliments, not even caring about the bucket of Ultrapure Water that was about to exhaust him. His feet felt like they were greased, and with a whoosh, he slipped out of the lab door and ran down the corridor, his retreating figure looking as pathetic as a startled rabbit.

Su Mu watched him disappear at the stairwell before withdrawing her gaze. She looked at the bucket of Ultrapure Water Excellence had abandoned on the spot, shook her head, and whispered to herself, "Using Ultrapure Water... for instant noodles? What a strange guy..." After thinking for a moment, she walked over, laboriously lifted the bucket, and placed it back in a proper position next to the ultra-pure water machine.

Excellence sprinted all the way back to the dormitory, crashed through the door with a bang, and then closed it behind him. Leaning against the door panel, he gasped for air, his heart still drumming wildly, almost jumping out of his chest.

"System! System, did you see that! I almost died! Social death! Physical death (scared to death)!" he shouted frantically in his mind.

[Crisis temporarily averted. Host's acting evaluation: Clumsy but effective.] The system first gave an evaluation that made one unsure whether to be happy or sad, and then continued to report coldly, [However, the mission to acquire Ultrapure Water failed. The target resource was not taken out of the laboratory. Please re-plan the acquisition method. Remaining time: 41 hours 12 minutes.]

Excellence: "..."

He slumped down the door panel and sat on the floor, feeling as if all his strength had been drained.

To think that the heart-pounding, dignity-shattering performance just now, and that bucket of water that almost killed him—it was all for nothing! He had also nearly lost his already meager social credit!

"My Ultrapure Water..." Excellence let out a wail, burying his face deep in his knees.

Behind him, where he couldn't see, on the system light screen that only he could perceive, the entry for [Ultrapure Water] still stubbornly displayed the gray status of [Not Acquired], like a cold mockery.

The night was still long, and the task remained arduous. Excellence's unlucky days had clearly only just begun.