The Apple of Knowledge.
The notification read: Dear users, you have not waited in vain! We have returned!
Xie Yu froze.
Returned? Hadn't the app gone offline?
Xie Yu had forgotten to delete the app and had left it in a corner of his screen, never imagining that it would one day come back online. He stared at the notification, then remembered the idiotic thing he had done over summer—fight over first place, day and night, with a crazy person.
Xie Yu hesitated, then opened the app.
Currently updating. Please do not close the app~
The developers had probably found a new sponsor. They had even updated their question bank and added new problem sets from the premier high schools. Even some of Erzhong's questions appeared.
Xie Yu glanced through them and found that the question-answering format had changed slightly. Users were now categorized into bronze, silver and gold, and a successfully answered question might drop bonus rewards, such as hidden questions not shown to the public.
These minute changes gamified the app, and those not in the know might have mistaken it for a real online game.
The Question King user chat was still the same, and the same active users from before all sent firework emojis to celebrate.
[Ilovestudying]: I knew it! The love for studying will never die out!
[ForABetterTomorrow]: Without Question King I had to do practice papers on my own. So many lonely nights with no one to keep me company.
[TopTenInClass]: @EnglishRep, I mastered Level 8 vocab. Let's PK.
"......"
"Boss Xie." Before Xie Yu could look more closely, Zhou Dalei called him. "I was updating my games and I saw that app from summer vacation. Damn, it's back?"
Dalei's phone apps consisted almost completely of games. He ran an update every day. Probably because there were too many of them and he didn't keep track, Question King was still there, too. He had been shocked to receive the update notification.
Xie Yu said vaguely, "Ah."
Zhou Dalei was wearing slippers and sitting on a plastic chair by the barbecue stall. The barbecue rack was behind him, thick smoke and the smell of cooking meat carried on the wind. He took a cigarette from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and lit it. "I got into the lobby. Now even zero-pointers can get in."
Xie Yu said, "Huh."
Zhou Dalei continued, "There are levels, too... You know, right? Bronze and whatever."
Xie Yu had only briefly glanced at it and could faintly recall that his user level was King-something. He asked, "What level are you?"
Zhou Dalei said, "Me? Stubborn Scrap Metal."
"......"
"Awesome, right? I've played games for so long and I only know about bronze and such. I never imagined there would be scrap metal, too. I learned something today."
Xie Yu laughed, then asked, "You're at the stall?"
"Yeah." His mother was bent over, dragging a box of ingredients. Zhou Dalei was in the way, so she stood up and kicked him nearly off the chair.
Lately, the weather had been steadily getting cooler. Zhou Dalei's mother expended a lot of energy preparing food, and when she got busy she also got angry more easily. She usually thought the world of her son, but now she was irritated by him. "Scram."
