Chapter 67: The Treachery of Human Hearts

After convincing herself, Jiang Wan opened the notebook. She hadn’t looked closely before, but now, at first glance, she was taken aback—the handwriting was beautiful. It was clear that such skill could only come from at least a decade of practice. Yet that child appeared to be just a teenager. She imagined the youngster must have been born with a silver spoon in their mouth, receiving private lessons in piano, dance, and the like from an early age…

She couldn’t help but feel envious as she read through the contents. It was a complex collection of technical jargon from programming, yet the writing was so neat, the explanations so clear and accessible, and the steps so well-illustrated that it all seemed effortless to comprehend.

Before she knew it, Jiang Wan had finished reading the entire notebook, still wanting more. When she finally came to her senses, she nervously shut down her computer, restarted it, inserted the USB drive, and began following the instructions from the notebook to modify the program.

Two hours passed.

As the faint light of dawn crept in and the sun finally rose, she completed the last step of modifying the system program. Her eyes were ringed with fatigue, but with no real hope, she restarted the machine again. With a soft chime, it entered the main desktop. She froze, still not daring to hope.

She had reached the main desktop before, only to be plagued by software incompatibilities soon after.

But this time…

Once she was on the main desktop, she tried downloading her first software—the email client. Success!

The second software—a game—also worked.

The old compatibility issues didn’t reappear. Jiang Wan’s eyes, dulled by despair, gradually brightened with excitement. She tried again and again, rebooting several more times. Once, a problem did occur, but the number of issues—compatibility lapses, virus invasions, and lockups before the desktop—had noticeably decreased. Had she really succeeded?

Elated, Jiang Wan rushed to the phone and dialed her teacher’s number. The call was quickly answered. “Hello?”

The word “Teacher!” was on the tip of her tongue, but for some reason, she suddenly recalled what the young comrade had said, and her words caught in her throat. Could it be? No, surely not… but what if?

“Jiang Wan?” her teacher asked, recognizing her voice. “You sound happy. Is there some new development?”

In the past, Jiang Wan would have felt proud to hear her teacher say this, but now, perhaps because of that seed of doubt, she detected a hint of excitement and impatience in his tone that made her shiver.

“No, Teacher,” she replied, “I was just thinking maybe I’m not cut out for this field, so I wanted to try something else for a while… My family’s never supported me, and I figured since I’ve made some software, maybe I could try publishing it and registering a patent. What do you think?”

There was a brief pause on the other end. Then her teacher replied, laughter in his voice, “Jiang Wan, to be honest, I’ve already submitted and applied for patents on the things you gave me before. I meant to register them under your name, but there must have been some mix-up, and it ended up under mine. I even received a few awards for them. But those programs had their flaws and weren’t very noteworthy, though they did help me a bit. Now that I have better resources, I can help you all as well. You don’t mind, do you?”

How treacherous the human heart could be—too treacherous, in fact!

Jiang Wan felt as if she had plunged into an icy abyss. Her first reaction wasn’t blame or anger, but shock, which soon turned into relief and gratitude. She was grateful for the warning from that young comrade; had it not been for that, she would have just revealed her new system.