The Strongest Brain in the Interstellar

However, just as Jiang Hui was about to lift the lid of her instant noodles…

“Ring-ding-ding, ring-ding-ding, ring-ding-ding…” The phone rang.

Jiang Hui was so furious she nearly threw her fork across the room. With furrowed brows and a glare, she stared at the instant noodles as if they were her worst enemy.

Reality hits hard. Forget about watching the meteor shower—was she, a miserable corporate slave, not even worthy of eating a fresh, hot cup of instant noodles?

With a final, sorrowful glance at the noodles, she grabbed her phone off the table, leaving her fork stuck at the edge of the cup, and stormed off to answer the call.

No need to guess—of course, it was the client responsible for the 43 previous revisions. Their nitpicking was the worst Jiang Hui had ever experienced, reaching an almost absurd level.

There are many clients who call after work to demand overtime, but have you ever heard of one who asks you to revise a single sentence three times, proofread it three times, and then find a new section to revise again? If you don’t comply, they’ll complain that you’re unprofessional and threaten to file a complaint. And if you ignore them, they actually will.

Some might think that dealing with a client like this isn’t worth the trouble and that losing a bit of pay due to a complaint would be better. But that’s not the real issue. The problem is that the client would harass her boss in the same way, driving them crazy… and eventually, the problem would end up back in Jiang Hui’s lap.

Isn’t that a terrifying vicious cycle?! Jiang Hui had only been with this company for a year and had already dealt with this client four times. This was the fourth round, and each time it had tortured her to the point where she seriously considered quitting.

However, every time, her boss managed to coax her back with sweet talk—mostly because the pay was good. To be fair, her boss had to pull some financial strings to convince her, as finding someone patient enough to endure a client like this for cheap wasn’t easy.

After finishing the call, Jiang Hui returned, her face scrunched up—eyes, nose, mouth, everything—while clutching her phone.

Her gaze fell on the cup of instant noodles, now looking hollow and drained, as if she had been emptied out in just a few minutes.

Feeling like a lost soul, she slumped down heavily into the chair, causing the wooden seat to creak loudly. Her eyes wandered from the noodle cup lid to the time tracker in the bottom right corner of her computer screen.

She had already been working overtime for seven hours today. Couldn’t she at least have a hot meal?!

Jiang Hui slammed her left hand on the desk a few times in frustration, not caring that her palm stung from the impact. Finally, she couldn’t help but vent her anger by fiercely jabbing the key in the top left corner of the keyboard. When emotions take over, people do all sorts of foolish things, and she wasn’t thinking straight at all.

Though she used just two fingers this time, the force was no less than when she had slammed the desk with her whole hand earlier. As soon as her fingers struck the key, the cup of instant noodles on the desk jumped and slid forward half an inch, its edge now perfectly pressed against the side of the keyboard.

Meanwhile, in a place Jiang Hui couldn’t see, the pendant hanging outside also jumped slightly, emitting a soft glow and a series of faint noises as if something had been activated.

“Beep beep beep—” A noise rang out for a while, though it was unclear whether it came from the TV or the ticking of the clock.

Her mind went blank. Oh no, disaster! Did she accidentally erase everything?!

In her panic, a chill spread from the back of her head down her neck and spine. Her back felt icy cold, but her face and chest were burning hot. The contrast of hot and cold made Jiang Hui feel like she was losing it.

If everything had really been erased, it would be like going back to square one. What was she doing taking out her frustration on a computer? And why did it seem like she was at war with a cup of instant noodles? Had she finally been driven mad by her client’s 44th revision request?

Jiang Hui knew that what she should really be worried about right now wasn’t her emotions, but whether the contract she had spent the entire day revising piece by piece had been wiped out by her impulsive actions.

But then, she suddenly had a strange epiphany. She felt like she had lost it, even thinking that if the contract was gone, maybe she would finally be free. Should she just quit?

The idea that the file might be gone, and the computer might be broken, filled her with an odd sense of joy, as if she was floating on air. A secret thrill of relief and expectation bubbled up within her.

Wait, what was she even thinking?!

Was she under some kind of spell, or had her brain short-circuited? How could she have thoughts like this?

Ahhhh, she thought, ‘I’ve already revised this contract 43 times, and I’m about to start the 44th revision! Time is money—this is all about money, and I can’t afford to waste it.’

Her expression shifted dramatically, her face turning red, then pale, and then a sickly greenish-white as her eyes glazed over again.

Time ticked by slowly. As she stared at the computer, which had flashed a few times but eventually settled back on the original screen, she let out a long sigh of relief—it seemed the universe wasn’t completely against her, and the 44th revision was safe.

Yet, for some inexplicable reason, she still felt a little disappointed.

Sigh, she thought, ‘I’ll just finish this revision, shut down the computer, and forget about everything else.’

Jiang Hui rested one hand on the keyboard while using the other to pick up the cup of instant noodles, preparing to set it aside. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the bright broth and the noodles that had begun to soften, and her hand instinctively paused.

‘Uh… I should probably have a bite first,’ she thought. ‘Otherwise, I might starve before finishing my work. It’s been half a day, and I haven’t eaten a single bite. Just one bite shouldn’t be too much to ask, right?’

Ultimately succumbing to her craving, Jiang Hui lowered her head slightly, her eyes downcast as she speared a few noodles with her fork.

She didn’t notice the dark night sky outside, where a thin mist glimmered faintly, accompanied by a soft, crisp sound echoing both inside and outside the room.

As the noodles neared her mouth, her gaze shifted to the computer screen, which had just flickered black. Her pupils dilated as she looked up, and she saw the screen filled with a series of incomprehensible red error messages that started cascading down like a waterfall, bright red like the blood pounding in her heart.

Her mind teetered on the brink of collapse, but her hand instinctively continued its motion forward. The still-hot broth splashed onto her, startling her and causing the noodles to fall onto the back of her hand. The shock triggered a series of reactions in her mind and body; her arm reflexively swiped, knocking the entire cup of noodles over and drenching her laptop in the process.

—And that was the end of it.

Jiang Hui couldn’t suppress a short, sharp scream as the broth from the noodles splashed all over her computer, creating a swirling net of light that flickered like lightning. Meanwhile, the black screen of the computer continued to scroll down with an endless stream of red gibberish.

It was in this extremely disastrous moment that meteors fell from the sky, like stars tumbling down from the heavens.

Jiang Hui felt hundreds and thousands of sharp currents closing in on her from behind, wrapping her, the floor, the table, and her computer in one immense force. Finally, they were all swept away by a colossal surge.

Amidst the shower of meteors, she lost consciousness.