The System Mistook Me for a Cat

It took just one night for the Chinese team to make themselves known to all the participants. Whenever they were mentioned, people would say,

“Those guys playing cards in the lobby.”

Chu Tingwu: “==”

She hadn’t intended to be so conspicuous. At first, they had just found a couch, turned on a projector, and casually started playing cards. But as students from other countries passed by, they became curious and asked if they could join.

Before Chu Tingwu and her friends knew it, they had set up a challenge match with a rotating roster.

Huh?n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

The game they were playing, commonly known as “Chou Wu Gui” or “Chou Gui Pai,” is similar to “Old Maid” in other countries. For example, in Russia, it’s called “Russian Fool,” so Alyosha and her friend caught on quickly—

It’s just a game where players take turns drawing cards from each other. Matching pairs are discarded, and the player left holding the joker card loses.

But they added a twist to make it more intellectually stimulating: the “no-flip mode.”

At the start, each player is dealt an equal number of cards, and no one knows who has the joker.

Each card represents a problem. You flip the card to start solving the problem, and only after solving it correctly can you see the problem’s ID number. If the numbers match, the cards are discarded.

If you fail to solve the problem correctly in the first round, you can’t see the ID number and have to wait for the next round of drawing.

The initial time limit for solving each problem is three minutes, so many players often don’t even get to flip all their cards in time.

—This tests both problem-solving speed and a bit of luck.

So, Chu Tingwu adjusted the rules to make it a 2v2 game, allowing more people to participate and feel involved.

But before they knew it, the crowd around them grew. When Alyosha and her teammate lost a round, other students who had been watching and finally understood the rules immediately wanted to join—after all, isn’t it a given that the losers rotate out?

Chu Tingwu: “?”

So, after playing for a while, they started rotating players too, pulling in Feng Ziping and Chu Xiao to join the mix, randomly pairing up for 2v2 matches.

When Coach Yang arrived, they had just stepped off the “stage” for a bit and were about to start again, this time facing Luna and Duke from the American team.

Coach Yang initially wanted to stop them, but since the “match” was already halfway through and surrounded by students from other countries, he didn’t insist. After about fifteen minutes, Chu Xiao and Chu Tingwu emerged victorious.

Alyosha had been waiting impatiently and gleefully nudged the American players, signaling that it was time to switch—

From Chu Tingwu’s perspective, Alyosha didn’t seem to love solving problems as much as she loved playing cards, no matter the game.

Coach Yang: “Ahem.”

Chu Tingwu and Chu Xiao exchanged a glance and told the crowd, “You guys take over.”

The American players across from them looked puzzled as the four of them huddled together, seemingly discussing something.

Coach Yang also gathered his team: “You guys… never mind.”

He felt like a parent watching their child play an educational game on a knockoff console—part of him wanted to stop them, but the game was, after all, helping them learn English vocabulary.

Let them play, just don’t make too much of a scene. Couldn’t they have done this in their rooms?

The commotion in the lobby naturally caught the attention of the organizers.

Before Coach Yang arrived, the organizers’ representative had already been standing in a corner of the lobby. Three hundred teenagers in their rebellious phase are scarier than three hundred monkeys on a mountain—there had even been fights before, so they arrived early to keep an eye on things.

When they realized it was just a card game, the organizers breathed a sigh of relief, and the teachers present simply stood in the corner, watching with amusement.

Watching…

Until the head of the exam committee’s expression slowly changed, and he began to sweat.

The kids had been playing cards in the lobby for two hours, and during that time, they had stumbled upon at least six problems that were nearly identical to the actual exam questions. The wording was slightly different, but the core concepts were the same—which makes sense, since there’s only so much material to test. But when one problem appeared with the exact same data, he couldn’t help but approach the Chinese students to ask—

“Oh,” Feng Ziping, who was somewhat in the know, explained, “These are problems we picked up during training camp… I mean, we practiced them! They’re randomly generated by an AI. The program isn’t connected to the internet, so it recycles old problems with new data. The one you’re talking about? I did it last week…”

So, it was just a coincidence.

The representative asked if they could borrow the device to study it. Feng Ziping slowly adopted a “I don’t understand what you’re saying, my English is bad” expression. To him, he was just playing dumb, but to outsiders, it looked like he was getting angry.

Representative: “…Never mind?”

Coach Yang also approached with the others but didn’t intervene, wanting to see how the students would handle the situation—

Feng Ziping reached into his pocket, and the representative instinctively took half a step back, only to remember that Chinese students don’t carry guns. Sure enough, the student just pulled out a coin.

Heads or tails would work, but if it landed on its edge, that wouldn’t count.

The representative chuckled nervously.

Feng Ziping then pointed to Chu Tingwu and said, “She brought the device, so she should flip the coin.”

The representative chuckled again.

…But in the end, the representative didn’t get the last laugh.

The image of the coin spinning on the ground lingered in his mind as he hurried away.

Chu Tingwu had some suspicions, but Zhou Qiang and the others didn’t care much—they just wanted to keep playing cards. Besides “Old Maid,” there was also a “Landlord” mode.

However, the exam committee would be busy that night.

-

The opening ceremony of the international competition was grand, but most of the participants had seen it all before and remained calm. After the ceremony, Coach Yang disappeared, and they didn’t see him again until the day the competition began.

The competition had started.

Chu Tingwu remained calm as well.

But when she saw the exam questions, the foggy, lightheaded feeling in her mind finally cleared. She suddenly realized:

After this competition, she might never participate in another biology competition again. Her journey in competitive academics would come to an end, and the knowledge she had gained during this time would stay with her for a while before gradually fading with time.

It had already been over a year!

She was luckier than most competitive students—she hadn’t spent every waking moment grinding through problems. Most of the time, she maintained the pace of a regular high school student, so she never felt overly exhausted.

She was luckier because she had gone further, because she had access to better educational resources—when she found studying boring, she could even turn it into a game. She made learning and exams fun… and then got more people to play that game.

So, now that she was standing on this stage, she owed it to herself and to the teachers and friends who had supported her along the way to give it her all.

-

Coach Yang was both nervous and excited.

The written exam took half a day, and the practical exam would take a full day. The day before the exam, all electronic devices were removed from the dormitories. The students could still review and discuss after the exam, but they probably weren’t in the mood to play cards anymore.

They had seen the exam questions in advance, which made him even more worried about their performance—

At the very least, they needed to perform at their usual level!

“Sigh…” He turned to his colleague and smiled wryly. “Well, it’s started now. There’s nothing I can do to help. It’s all up to them.”

Just as he had watched them enter the exam hall at the start, he was the first to stand outside the door when it was over, waiting for them to come out one by one.

The sky above Luolang City was a clear, cloudless blue, with a gentle breeze and a mild sun.

By the time Chu Tingwu walked out of the exam hall, the sun was already hanging low over the mountains.

The staff guided the students out, and Coach Yang looked at them before asking, “You got the questions we predicted… right?”

He couldn’t help but ask—he was genuinely surprised they had hit so many!

At this stage of the competition, it could be said that there were hardly any problems the students hadn’t encountered before. Therefore, the organizers were determined to innovate, testing the most cutting-edge knowledge points to widen the score gap... But who could have guessed that the very topics they chose were ones the group had already practiced on a certain software!

...Though the software wasn’t called "Learning Master," but rather "Learning Struggles."

Chu Tingwu was also feeling a bit tired and simply gave an "ok" gesture. Chu Xiao and Zhou Qiang nodded in agreement, while Feng Ziping seemed lost in thought.

Coach Yang hesitated, wanting to say something but holding back.

Feng Ziping: "It’s nothing, I was just thinking about the divination I did before entering."

Coach Yang opened his mouth to speak, then stopped again.

Why didn’t they confiscate your copper coins when they collected prohibited items the day before the exam!

Coach Yang: "Was the divination unfavorable?" An unfavorable reading might mean poor performance!

Feng Ziping: "Not exactly... but, does a coin standing upright really signify smooth sailing in everything?"

The exam went really smoothly, but that’s not what he had learned!

Coach Yang looked at Chu Tingwu.

Chu Tingwu: "...Is it that hard to make it stand upright?"

Who says a man-made good omen isn’t a good omen? If it works, isn’t that enough?

Coach Yang: "=="

Next, everyone just needed to patiently wait for the closing ceremony and the awards.

—They just needed to wait patiently... right?

To everyone’s delight, the competition ended, and phones and other electronic devices were finally returned. That night, just like on the first day, the place was filled with people taking photos and videos. After all, it was a world-class competition, and for most, like Chu Xiao, it was probably a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

As soon as Chu Tingwu got her phone back, she started catching up on the recordings of the domestic competition—

The city representative selection for the domestic competition had finally entered its final stage, with only two days left to determine the final representatives. The organizers had already contacted the potential representatives in advance, asking if they could make time to attend the offline competition venue.

The venue wasn’t in Jing City or Sea City, but rather at a seaside sports center located between the two cities.

During the competition, due to the buzzer system and the risk of incorrect answers, the priority for answering was still based on rankings. Within the time limit, the top 100 contestants could gain the right to answer, with the higher-ranked players’ answers being prioritized. Only if no one in the top 100 answered within the time limit would the opportunity open up to the next 400 contestants.

Chu Tingwu politely asked Coach Yang, "Can we head back first and then fly back on the day of the closing ceremony?"

Coach Yang: "?"

Chu Tingwu looked serious: "We must fight for Shangjing City."

All of them were on the high-ranking list for Shangjing City. Even if their rankings had dropped a bit recently, they were still within the top 100.

Coach Yang: "..."

Actors juggle roles, and you’re juggling exams, huh?

But the timing was definitely too tight. Coach Yang went to inquire about the exact schedule of the closing ceremony and came up with a rather tight plan: "After the closing ceremony, head straight to the airport. By the time we land in Shangjing City, the city representative competition will just be starting—"

At this point, he couldn’t help but glance at Chu Tingwu:

As the boss, why didn’t you arrange the schedule with more leeway?

That way, he could have gone back to compete too!

He was also in the top 100!