Chapter 1: Graduate School? Not Even a Dog Would Attend!

Hangzhou City, Qiantang University.

“Next, the subject teacher will ask you some questions.”

Zhou Yun looked somewhat bewildered at the teachers seated across from him.

A conference hall, a large table, the familiar giant screen, and faces not quite so familiar...

A slight throbbing pain in his head made him instinctively narrow his eyes. If he remembered correctly, shouldn’t he be at a KTV celebrating the successful completion of his graduate studies right now?

So why was he... in a graduate school interview!?

He glanced at the time displayed in the bottom right corner of the big screen—2024/4/5—the very year he had entered university.

It seemed he had been reborn, Zhou Yun mused silently.

Strangely, he felt unexpectedly calm.

It wasn’t so bad, at least he hadn’t been sent back to the college entrance exam.

But graduate school?

Not even a dog would want to go!

Exhausting and poorly paid, especially for those in second-tier universities. Whether he started working now or three years later, who could say which would be more lucrative?

A monthly stipend of six hundred, and even with the paltry five hundred from the state, it barely added up to a little over a thousand.

Yet the work expected included, but was not limited to: making PPTs for teachers, writing scripts, being a teaching assistant, grading assignments, working on projects...

The phrases teachers repeated most often were:

“Have you read the paper?”

“How are the experiments progressing?”

“What have you done this week?”

“Help me revise this PPT.”

“There’s an assignment, help me grade it.”

No wonder they said: the only happy moments in graduate school are when you receive your admission and graduation certificates.

In the past, Zhou Yun would have scoffed at this; now, he pondered it word by word.

There are benefits to pursuing graduate studies, to be sure.

For instance, undergraduates often find overtime at work unbearable, but it’s different for those who’ve been through graduate school.

They’re used to leaving the lab at ten or eleven at night; working overtime is far easier than graduate school, and the pay is better.

Getting into graduate school isn’t easy, but whether or not to attend is entirely up to oneself.

At this thought, a genuine smile spread across his face, and his mood grew lighter.

The teachers across from him noticed the change in his expression and nodded to themselves. Although his self-introduction was average, the confidence he showed when answering subject questions suggested his abilities were solid.

“First question: What is a kernel?”

That was quick! The answer sprang instantly to mind, and Zhou Yun responded without thinking.

“The kernel is the core component of an operating system. It manages hardware resources such as CPU, memory, and I/O devices, and provides foundational services for applications.”

The teacher nodded slightly, evidently finding nothing amiss in Zhou Yun’s answer.

“Alright, next question: Briefly explain the difference between HTTP and HTTPS.”

“HTTP is a stateless protocol used for transmitting hypertext documents, while HTTPS is based on HTTP but adds data encryption and authentication via SSL/TLS protocols, ensuring transmission security.”

The teacher nodded again—correct.

Zhou Yun wondered if something was wrong with him. Those two questions—he’d answered them almost reflexively.

It was like someone greeting you and you replying “hello” without thinking.

He drew in a sharp breath and tried asking himself a few more questions in his mind. Almost instantly, he had the answers.

He was certain that before his rebirth, he would have forgotten most of these foundational questions, or at best, could have given a vague answer—not one so precise.

Could this be his golden finger from being reborn?

He didn’t have time to investigate further right now; that would have to wait until after the interview. But one thing was certain: he seemed to have grown smarter!

The teacher in the middle glanced down to jot a few notes, then looked up with a smile. “According to your file, your original major was e-commerce. Why did you decide to switch to computer science?”

At the mention of this, Zhou Yun felt a little exasperated, since he no longer even wanted to pursue this graduate degree. He decided to simply speak the truth.

“There are two reasons for switching majors. First, when I took the college entrance exam, in order to major in computer science, I had to select the physics track. Unfortunately, I didn’t, so I was forced into e-commerce. Second, changing majors required a GPA in the top twenty percent of the class. I had no awareness of the need to switch majors when I first entered university, and by the time I realized e-commerce wasn’t for me, it was too late. So I had no choice but to let it go.”

To be honest, Zhou Yun thought it was quite unprofessional to expect students to choose a major so quickly when entering university!

And to require a top twenty percent GPA just to change majors—almost a joke.

The interviewer smiled and moved on to the next questions.

For students switching fields, the questions were always the same: Why choose our university? What are your plans for graduate study? How does your original major relate to your new one?

Having gone through this process once before, and with three years’ experience plus his changed perspective, Zhou Yun answered smoothly and confidently.

After a few more questions, the interview drew to a close. The teacher jotted a final note: “Alright, do you have any questions?”

Zhou Yun shook his head. “No.”

Leaving the conference room, he slung his bag over his shoulder and walked down the narrow corridor. Passing the labs, he saw students hunched over computers reading research papers—a sight that stirred a pang of nostalgia.

For many nights and days, he too had toiled here.

Not wanting to dwell on it, Zhou Yun skipped lunch and returned to the hotel. The most important thing now was to figure out what had changed within him.

After two hours of experimentation, he summarized his new abilities as follows:

1. Perfect recall.

Everything he had ever read—past or present—he could reproduce verbatim. He could even transcribe every research paper he’d ever read from memory. This explained why he could answer those interview questions so instinctively. His memory extended beyond the written word to include spoken languages as well. Without exaggeration, if he wanted, he could become a prodigy fluent in eight languages within a week.

2. Exceptional comprehension.

Take research papers, for example. What once required multiple readings to barely understand, now took only a single glance for complete mastery—even those mathematical formulas that used to give him headaches were now as easy to grasp as breathing. So far, he hadn’t encountered anything he couldn’t comprehend, unless it involved mathematical symbols he’d never seen before.

3. Infinite creativity.

While reading papers earlier, even those he’d never seen before, Zhou Yun found himself able to innovate and extend countless new ideas from them. This ability was best summed up in four words: a super brain.