Chapter 18: Departure

"Beep... beep..."

Di Ye was startled awake by the alarm of his electronic watch. He opened his eyes and, through the faint light filtering in from outside the window, saw the ceiling fan hanging above. He was slightly stunned for a moment before he realized—he hadn't returned to school last night and had slept at home.

Last night's family dinner was a success. Di Yongchang was straightforward, Zhang Xiuzhi was kind, and although Di Yan was sulking with Lu Hanming, she didn't give him a cold shoulder in front of their parents. They chatted and laughed all evening, and the atmosphere was both warm and lively.

"Xiao Ye, it's already 6:30. You should get up and go to school, so you don't be late for your exam."

"Dad, I'm already up."

Di Ye rolled over and sat up, reached out his right hand to press the switch on the wall in the dark, and turned on the incandescent light. Then, shuffling in his slippers, he walked to the window, pulled open the desk drawer, and took out an electric shaver. Just then, he suddenly felt something was wrong.

"Why am I so familiar with this room?"

Di Ye instantly thought of a possibility. He hurriedly turned around, picked up the electronic watch resting on the nightstand, tapped the watch casing, and asked softly, "Di Ye, are you still there?"

Ever since Di Ye stopped pretending to be a person from 2023, the four buttons on the electronic watch had become mere decorations. Di Ye could summon him in any way, but after this summons, Di Ye did not appear; instead, a light screen with two lines of text popped up.

"Do not worry that you have no bosom friends on the road ahead; there is no one under heaven who does not know you. I am leaving, take care."

"PS: I am also giving you a gift, I hope you like it."

Although he had been mentally prepared, Di Ye still found it hard to accept. His heart was filled with mixed emotions as he stared blankly at the light screen. It wasn't until Di Yongchang called him for the second time from outside that he put the electronic watch on his wrist and walked out of the bedroom.

Zhang Xiuzhi had already finished making breakfast. She stood at the kitchen door and said, "Xiao Ye, I made your favorite egg pancake. Eat two more in a while, otherwise you'll easily get hungry during the exam."

"Okay."

Di Ye walked into the bathroom, distracted. After squeezing out toothpaste, he remembered he hadn't checked what gift Di Ye had left for him. So, he summoned the light screen again, brushed his teeth with his right hand, and tapped the bolded and thickened word "Gift" with his left hand.

After the click, a cute cartoon panda jumped out on the light screen. It had a small red flower on its head and said in a soft, cute loli voice, "Master, what would you like me to do?"

Di Ye spat out the toothpaste foam in his mouth with a 'pfft'. He hurriedly turned on the faucet, caught water in a cup to rinse his mouth, and muttered, "I didn't expect you, an old antique, to learn how to play with artificial intelligence so quickly."

The panda's intelligence was relatively low, and it responded somewhat sluggishly, "I did not understand. Master, please describe it more specifically."

Di Ye shook his head and smiled. While squeezing more toothpaste, he asked, "Do you have a name?"

"My name is Xiao Honghua. If Master doesn't like it, you can help me pick a new name."

"No need, Xiao Honghua is quite good, let's just call you that. What can you do?"

"I can help Master retrieve memory information, and based on that memory information, I can simulate software and hardware systems from different eras to perform some simple porting and programming work."

Hearing this, Di Ye's heart stirred. He stopped brushing his teeth and tested, "Can you simulate a 1995 X86 hardware system and write a compression software for the DOS environment using the LZMA algorithm?"

"Which programming language should I use?"

"Use C Language."

"Okay."

After the panda finished speaking, a desktop computer running a DOS system appeared on the light screen. The CRT screen of the desktop displayed the TurboC compiler produced by Borland. Lines of code flashed rapidly within the compiler, and almost in the blink of an eye, the software was written.

Seeing this, Di Ye almost spat out his toothpaste again. He put down his toothbrush and was just about to test a few other items when he heard Di Yongchang calling from outside, "Xiao Ye, stop dawdling in the bathroom, come out and eat breakfast quickly."

"Coming!"

Di Ye hurriedly finished washing up, went out to eat breakfast, and then left home under his parents' expectant gazes. He took the bus back to Yuncheng University, preparing to take the Graduate Student entrance exam.

Di Ye had once said that only when he disappeared could Di Ye inherit the memories and abilities, and the facts were indeed so.

Di Ye was born in 1996 and did not understand the social environment of 1995, having made many blunders before. Today, however, it was completely different; he was very proficient in finding the conductor to buy a ticket when boarding, and he felt no sense of unfamiliarity with the streetscape while riding.

When it came time for the exam, Di Ye found that he didn't need to cheat; he could solve many of the questions himself, and his problem-solving approach was different from the reference answers on the light screen.

"Since that's the case, why should I deliberately get questions wrong?"

With this realization, Di Ye let go and cheated even more recklessly. He had originally planned to score around 420 points, but now he intended to score at least 480, leaving the remaining 20 points to the mood of the grader.

Shi Yucheng also took the graduate entrance exam. After the morning exam ended, he specifically waited for Di Ye at the entrance of the main teaching building and said with an unwilling expression, "My dad wants to invite you to dinner."

"Why do you want to invite me to dinner?"

"Because you helped me clear the suspicion of being an accomplice to Feng Shijie."

Di Ye gave a mocking laugh and said, "Forget about the dinner. If your dad really wants to thank me, just give me money. Ten or twenty thousand isn't too little, forty or fifty thousand isn't too much."

"How come your mind is only filled with money."

Although Shi Yucheng had a bad personality, he wasn't entirely without merit. He was very serious about his studies and was particularly keen on electronic products. He showed off, "My dad plans to give you an HP Omnibook 600 Notebook Computer."

Di Ye didn't know much about the notebook computer market in the 90s, only knowing that Thinkpad was the most famous. He asked, "Why not an IBM one?"

"You sold the internship spot to me, and my dad was afraid you would feel uncomfortable seeing the IBM brand. Besides, IBM didn't launch any new products in 1994. The HP Omnibook 600 is the best-performing one right now, and it costs over 20,000 yuan to buy."

Di Ye really needed a computer of his own now. Hearing this, he changed his tune and said with a smile, "Your dad is really generous, no wonder he can be a General Manager. When does he plan to invite me to dinner?"

"We both have exams today and tomorrow, how about the night after tomorrow?"

"Fine."

After agreeing on the specific time and place for the dinner with Shi Yucheng, Di Ye went outside the school to eat a bowl of soybean paste noodles, then returned to his rented Room 303 for a nap. When he walked into the Tongzi Building, many residents greeted him, appearing particularly enthusiastic.

Wang Daye, who lived in 306, used to think Di Ye was pampered and would blow his beard and stare at him, but now he had changed his attitude. Standing at the door with a rice bowl, he asked with a smile, "Di Ye, how did you do on the exam this morning?"

"I feel pretty good."

"If you feel good, then there's definitely no problem. I made braised pork at noon, do you want to come and have some?"

"I've already eaten. Is there something you need, Daye?"

Wang Daye carried his rice bowl over and said mysteriously, "Two reporters came looking for you this morning, but I sent them away."

Feng Shijie had committed multiple crimes with extremely cruel methods. For the sake of caution, the police had temporarily blocked the news from the public. But with the arrival of the winter break, various rumors would surely spread from the students to all parts of the country; it was no surprise that reporters had caught wind of it.

Di Ye asked while opening the door with his key, "Which newspaper were the reporters from?"

"One was the local 'Yuncheng Evening News', and the other was from Su Province; I forgot what it was specifically called."

"What did you tell them?"

"I didn't say anything, just praised you for being meticulous, sharp-eyed, and having great good fortune."

Di Ye could understand the first two compliments, but he was a bit confused by the third and asked, "Why do I have great good fortune?"

Wang Daye followed him into the room and said as a matter of course, "That man surnamed Feng killed several girls. Now that you've helped them get revenge, you've accumulated a lot of hidden virtue, so you must have great good fortune."

Di Ye didn't originally buy into this kind of rhetoric, but after glancing down at his electronic watch and thinking of Xia Fangfei's fate and Di Ye's obsession, he felt that what Wang Daye said might not be without reason. He secretly decided to do more good deeds in the future and save more innocent people.

After the afternoon exam ended, when Di Ye returned to the Tongzi Building, he discovered several people holding a Camera and a small notebook in the first-floor corridor; they were likely reporters, so he turned around and left the school, taking a bus home to stay, because he was not yet prepared to be a celebrity, and he did not want to become famous as "Detective Di Ye."

After eating dinner, Di Ye found a few more programs to test the programming ability of Xiao Honghua again, but the results left him somewhat disappointed, because when Xiao Honghua ported these programs, not only was the speed far inferior to the morning, but many low-level errors also appeared, requiring him to correct them bit by bit.

"It seems that that Compression Software was programmed in advance by Di Ye before he left."

Di Ye had Xiao Honghua simulate a 486 computer within the Light Screen and tried out the Compression Software, discovering that in every aspect it met or even exceeded his expectations; he could not help but lament once again that Di Ye was born at the wrong time, so he decided to name this Compression Software DY-ZIP to commemorate it—the D does not refer to the surname Di, but to Double, a product of the cooperation between two Yes.