Chapter Eighty-Eight: A Sensation Across the Nation!

As Chen Feng concluded his speech, he watched as the data on the Major Extraction System shifted rapidly, his achievement points soaring at an astonishing rate. Still, Chen Feng understood clearly that this was only a modest sum for now. Once his interview videos and speech recordings were broadcast, his achievement points would skyrocket even more dramatically.

With the news spreading, the first to be shocked were his parents. Overnight, Chen Feng seemed like a stranger to them. When a crowd of reporters rushed into their home, his parents wondered if they had come to the wrong address. It wasn’t until the reporters confirmed that Chen Feng had, indeed, become the national college entrance exam champion that the couple was left utterly dumbfounded.

The reporters eagerly pressed for their parenting secrets, but they were left speechless. What secrets could they possibly share? They had never truly instructed Chen Feng on what to do or how to live his life; he had always handled everything on his own. If not for this sudden swarm of reporters, they wouldn’t have even known he’d registered early for the exam.

For a time, they were at a loss, but fortunately, Chen Feng soon returned home. Facing the reporters’ questions, he was well-prepared, answering swiftly and deftly managing the crowd. Yet, dealing with the reporters was nothing compared to his headache over how to explain all this to his parents.

When they questioned him, Chen Feng could only offer a vague explanation: he didn’t know exactly why, but his mind had suddenly cleared, everything became easy to learn, and he lost weight—an excuse both suspicious yet impossible to fault.

If you asked him, he’d say he didn’t know. He couldn’t explain why he suddenly became smart, or why he suddenly could lose weight.

Despite wanting to press further, his parents knew from experience that if Chen Feng refused to speak, nothing in the world could force the truth from him.

Even so, they threw a grand banquet to celebrate their son’s achievement as the national champion.

Chen Feng was famous overnight!

A score of 750 on the college entrance exam—an unprecedented result. He’d sat for the exam early. Just three months prior, Chen Feng had been an overweight, underachieving student. Not only that, but in those three months, he’d trained with the school basketball team and earned the title of city’s best player.

All these accomplishments converged; it was impossible for Chen Feng not to become a sensation.

Online, his interview and speech videos became wildly popular, catapulting him to the top of every major portal’s search rankings within days.

Some mischievous students at Jiangzhou No. 1 High School posted before-and-after photos of Chen Feng—his former self as a chubby boy compared to his current state.

“No way! How could this be the same person? It’s fake, absolutely fake! They look like two completely different people!” One commenter exclaimed.

“Second comment, grabbing the sofa!” another chimed in.

“It might not be fake. Look at their features—it really could be the same person,” a third added.

“I believe it might be the same person, but there’s no way I’ll ever believe he lost all that weight in just three months!” said a fourth.

“I’ll tell you all, I go to school with Chen Feng at Jiangzhou No. 1 High. I can guarantee you it’s true—he really lost all that weight in just three months, and his grades shot up like a rocket!”

…

Chen Feng was everywhere online. In just a few days, images of him flooded the internet: playing basketball as a heavyset youth, competing after slimming down, candid side-profile shots.

And his catchphrase—“If you’ve worked hard, why shouldn’t you succeed!”—became a viral meme.

Yet doubts abounded. Was it really possible for Chen Feng to achieve all this in just three months? To go from bottom of the class to top scholar—such a transformation seemed impossible.

“Didn’t Chen Feng cheat?” some wondered.

“Cheating? If you can cheat your way to a 750, I’d like to see it!”

“Exactly. His speech was incredible: ‘If you’ve worked hard, why shouldn’t you succeed? If you don’t succeed, it just means you haven’t worked hard enough!’”

The internet was abuzz, but most people doubted that Chen Feng had made such progress in only three months. They preferred a different narrative: that he’d always been an outstanding student, pretending to underperform until a last-minute breakthrough.

This explanation gained widespread acceptance online.

No matter how gifted, no one believed such a miraculous transformation could occur in just three months. The debate was fierce, with some even giving Chen Feng mocking nicknames.

Still, these accusations were eventually set aside. By any measure, Chen Feng was a genius.

But the simple title of “genius” didn’t seem to capture his uniqueness, since he was also a weight-loss expert and the city’s best basketball player. Thus, a new title emerged: “the all-round genius.”

Someone even posted a lengthy thread claiming to have known Chen Feng since childhood, describing him as excellent in every way. Others, claiming to be childhood friends, insisted he’d never been so remarkable and must have cheated. Reading these posts, Chen Feng could only laugh and shake his head; their stories sounded so convincing that, had he not known himself, he might have believed them too.

Compared to the storm online, Chen Feng was relatively low-key in real life. Truth be told, he wasn’t the type to seek the spotlight. His nature leaned toward modesty, but the Major Extraction System forced his hand—without fame, there’d be no achievement points, and without those, no benefits.

On the internet, his fame persisted, but after five days, news about him began to fade. The initial frenzy cooled; fans and skeptics remained, but as the college entrance exam season passed, all the excitement inevitably quieted.

Such is the fate of internet celebrities. How many have basked in the limelight, only to fade into obscurity?

For Chen Feng, these five days were a time of joy. His achievement points never stopped climbing—day and night, the numbers rolled upward. On the third day, he broke 7,000; the fourth, 9,000; and on the fifth, he reached a peak of 12,000. For Chen Feng, this explosive growth was unprecedented—before, the increase was only by hundreds at a time; now, it was thousands a day, and each surge filled him with excitement.

Afterward, the rate of increase slowed as the topic cooled and his fame waned.

On the fifth day, a mechanical voice sounded in his mind:

“Congratulations, Host. You have accumulated 10,000 achievement points. The system is upgrading.”

(Early update! Tonight the official release begins—are your monthly votes ready? Tonight is the real test, so I humbly ask for your first subscription. The system has upgraded—are you curious what benefits level two will bring to the protagonist? Subscribe and let your votes fly!)