Chapter 20: Su Xin Deserves This Perfect Score

1:00 PM.

All contestants took their places, and the final of the Programming Competition officially began.

The host held the microphone, displaying their usual passionate demeanor, and said loudly:

"The content of the final stage is software development. The five contestants must write a piece of software that meets the requirements within a two-hour time limit. Finally, the ranking will be determined based on the scores given to the software by the five judges."

"And the theme of this year's Qianlong Cup National High School Student Programming Competition is Artificial Intelligence."

"Therefore, the software developed by the contestants must be in the direction of Artificial Intelligence, whether it is language and text analysis, data deduction, or anything else."

"Of course, contestants, remember to add the Interference Code on your desktop into your source code."

"Alright, enough small talk."

"The competition... begins!"

As the host's voice fell, the five contestants simultaneously began to clatter away at their keyboards.

Su Xin, in particular, immediately activated Threefold Speed, his hands turning into phantoms as he became completely immersed in the world of code.

In fact, although the final stage was only two hours long, because the competition theme had been announced long ago, everyone knew that the content of the final stage would be software development in the direction of Artificial Intelligence.

Those who were confident enough to enter the final had already started developing, had clear ideas in their minds, and some had even finished development in private.

The current final was merely a matter of reproducing the software they had already designed in advance, bit by bit, from memory.

Therefore, theoretically, the final was the easiest stage to cheat in; one only needed to spend money to hire a team of experts to develop software that met the requirements, memorize the source code, and type it out during the final.

But in reality, relying solely on memorizing the source code would not win the championship in the final.

This was because the rules of the final stage required inserting a specific piece of code into the underlying code of the program being written—the Interference Code the host had just mentioned.

Furthermore, this Interference Code had to be broken up and inserted into ten different positions in sequence.

This implicitly required the contestants to have a thorough understanding of the program's underlying code, knowing where the Interference Code could be inserted without conflicting with the original code or affecting the program's normal operation.

Otherwise, even if a contestant had hired someone to prepare the program in advance and had completely memorized the source code, once the Interference Code was inserted, if it happened to conflict with the surrounding code, it could very likely cause the program to crash and fail to run.

This was naturally not a problem for Su Xin.

The Tiantian Smart Phone Assistant was something he had developed step by step from scratch; from the overall framework to every single detail, he knew it like the back of his hand. Inserting the Interference Code into the appropriate positions would only make the code slightly more bloated, and it would absolutely not affect any functionality.

2:45 PM.

The five contestants finished their programming one after another.

Su Xin also completed his competition.

Although he had activated his Godspeed Threefold Speed, the program was, after all, far more complex than those of the others—even far more complex than most software circulating on the market—so it had taken him this long to reproduce it.

At the judges' table.

Lv Huaiyuan and the other four were focused intently on reviewing the works of the five contestants.

This was completely different from the main competition stage, where there were standard answer keys to compare against; the software developed by each person was unique, requiring them to review it comprehensively to score it as accurately as possible.

Moreover, to ensure fairness, the five judges had to cross-review the contestants' works, so each judge had to review five pieces of software within a short hour.

This was also a tremendous challenge for them.

During the hour spent waiting for the review results, the netizens naturally could not just wait honestly for the outcome.

Some people exited the livestream.

Some people began discussing the final.

"No need to watch; the result is definitely that Su Xin will successfully win the championship."

"That goes without saying; otherwise, did you think the cheating was just to get first place in the main competition?"

"Since he decided to cheat and acted so ostentatiously throughout the whole process, it would be unjustifiable if he didn't win the championship."

Everyone commented with sarcasm.

At the same time, the discussion about Kung Fu Young Hero on the internet was also at its most heated.

The number one trending topic on the blog was the entry 'Kung Fu Young Hero', and many people were discussing the identity of Kung Fu Young Hero.

At this moment, one comment caught the attention of many.

"Huh? I find that Kung Fu Young Hero looks a lot like Su Xin from the Qianlong Cup Programming Competition. Could Kung Fu Young Hero actually be him?"

Some people immediately asked curiously:

"Who is Su Xin?"

"Programming Competition? Haven't paid much attention to it."

More people left comments refuting this:

"Are you kidding? That Su Xin is just a rich kid who plays to the gallery and uses shady tactics in the programming competition; how could he be Kung Fu Young Hero?"

"Kung Fu Young Hero at least acts chivalrously and has such powerful Kung Fu; he must have focused on martial arts since childhood. How could it be Su Xin? That's just nonsense!"

Someone specifically searched for video screenshots of Su Xin online and compared them with Kung Fu Young Hero, finding that they did indeed look somewhat alike.

But thinking of the public opinion online, they felt that these two identities could not possibly be the same person.

After all, there is always a gap between images on the internet and real people in reality, and the video of Kung Fu Young Hero was already a bit distant and blurry; if one were to really look closely, many people might look somewhat similar.

Therefore, after a round of discussion, this comment was quietly drowned out in the vastness of the internet.

By around four o'clock in the afternoon.

The judges finally finished reviewing all the software and had finished scoring every contestant.

After taking a deep breath, Lv Huaiyuan exchanged glances with the other four judges; their eyes were filled with excitement and fervor, as well as a touch of gravity.

"Everyone, this score will put quite a bit of pressure on each of us."

"Su Xin was already suspected by many of cheating. If we ignore public opinion and give him a perfect score now, there will definitely be many media outlets and netizens after the competition criticizing us for being bought off, and even the school authorities and Longwei Group might suspect us."

"But I want to say that this perfect score is what Su Xin deserves, and it is what we should give."

"The smart phone assistant he developed not only surpasses the many programming geniuses who have competed over the years, but also surpasses all software of the same type currently on the market."

"If such a piece of software cannot earn Su Xin a perfect score, that would be our greatest dereliction of duty, and the greatest disrespect to the Qianlong Cup!"

The other four judges nodded solemnly:

"I understand!"

"Su Xin's strength is worthy of the championship!"

"Given the level Su Xin has demonstrated, he will surely achieve no small success in the programming world. If we give him a low score now, once everyone knows Su Xin's strength in the future, they will realize we only gave him a low score because we yielded to public opinion, and that would be what truly ruins our reputations."

The few of them exchanged a few words in low voices and handed the final scores to the host.

After reading them, the host was suddenly shaken, a look of surprise appearing on his face, but he knew his duty was to report the scores determined by the judges to everyone, and he had no qualification to question them at all.

Thus, he roused his spirits, arranged for the various media outlets to continue their live broadcast filming, and notified all the audience members on site to return to their seats.

After a passionate opening speech, the host began to announce the scores:

"Contestant number 6, Le Tingqian, receives 386 points!"

"Contestant number 22, Yuan Yun, receives 295 points."

"Contestant number 29, Wei Xu, receives 322 points."

"Contestant number 42, Xie Wenbin, receives 445 points."

"Contestant number 18, Su Xin, receives..."

"500 points! A perfect score!"

Upon hearing this, the entire venue was suddenly in an uproar.