The First Order

Honestly, Ren Xiaosu did not expect to bump into Jiang Xu here. No one had told him Jiang Xu was a visiting professor at the university, after all.

However, there was still another surprise today. When he went back after class, he could tell Qin Sheng to congratulate his cousin for getting appointed as the Humanities and Political Science class representative. This should be considered a good thing no matter what.

Thinking of this, Ren Xiaosu felt a little guilty. However, he did not think it was a bad thing in general.

He sat down. Actually, he was already aware that Jiang Xu knew he was not a student in this class. It was just that he did not expose him.

Jiang Xu walked up to the podium and looked at all the students. “At the end of the previous lecture, I wanted you all to go back and think about the current political situation based on what was reported in Hope Media’s newspaper. If you have any questions, you may ask them now.”

A girl suddenly asked, “Professor, you mentioned the geopolitical situation of the Wang Consortium, Zhou Consortium, and Kong Consortium during the previous lesson. I think it’s very dangerous for our Luoyang City since we’re smack dab in the middle of these three consortiums. Our school has already been placed under lockdown. Is this related to the things you’re telling us about?”

Jiang Xu gave it some thought and said, “It’s somewhat linked, but it’s not something you all need to worry about. No matter how serious the situation is, it won’t affect us at school.”

A male student said, “Professor, I have a question. You mentioned the consortiums are all greedy, and it isn’t something that will change according to the will of the leaders because the consortiums need to stabilize their own power base and interests first, so the huge war machine must march on. However, to maintain this march, there needs to be a stable class structure in place, right?”

“No.” Jiang Xu shook his head and said, “Actually, it’s this stable class structure that might encourage rot to fester sometimes. If a ruler has great ambition, they could choose to shatter this class structure first to energize the lower classes back to life.”

“Then does the Wang Consortium’s high profile announcement of Stronghold 61 taking in refugees mean that Wang Shengzhi has great ambition?” a male student asked.

“Yes.” Jiang Xu said, “I’ve never ever doubted that. Furthermore, Stronghold 61’s acceptance of refugees has severely damaged the Zhou and Kong Consortiums’ industry. This can be considered killing two birds with one stone. Regarding this, I’m also very impressed by Wang Shengzhi’s boldness. When he wanted to implement this policy, he would definitely have faced objection from those in the Wang Consortium with vested interests. This is because an empty stronghold requires many key positions to be filled. Since Wang Shengzhi was able to successfully make use of the refugees for that, it also shows that his authority within the Wang Consortium is secure. No one dares to challenge his authority.”

Ren Xiaosu was stunned. Jiang Xu could understand the situation better than him. Ren Xiaosu only saw the damage the Wang Consortium did to the Zhou and Kong Consortiums, but he did not think of the implications.

Jiang Xu spoke with assuredness and used 20 minutes to thoroughly analyze the Wang Consortium based on one incident.

Ren Xiaosu suddenly felt a little jealous of the university students. They only had to pay tuition to gain the wisdom others had accumulated over their lifetime, all in the comfort of their ivory tower.

As for the lecture’s mode of delivery, Jiang Xu did not just regurgitate what was covered in the textbooks. Instead, it was carried out in a discussion format. Jiang Xu had everyone pay attention to current affairs, then used some of the minor details to ignite their thinking. This method was not meant for imparting knowledge but to improve the wisdom of the students.

One of the female students asked, “Professor, I’ve seen the line ‘don’t let the sorrows of our era become your sorrow as well’ printed on the fifth page of your newspaper recently. Why did you publish such a statement? We all like it a ton.”

“Oh, that.” Jiang Xu smiled as he flicked a glance at Ren Xiaosu and said, “A young man around your age shared it with me. I also like it a lot, so I decided to publish it in the paper.”

The students looked at each other. They did not expect those words to come from the mouth of someone their age.

When they were done discussing this, Jiang Xu suddenly looked at Ren Xiaosu. “Representative, do you have any questions for me?”

The students looked at Ren Xiaosu sympathetically. Even a substitute student could get picked to ask a question.

But it so happened that Ren Xiaosu really did have a question. “Professor, what I want to ask is, is the artificial intelligence that the Wang Consortium has really that reliable?”

Jiang Xu thought for a moment and replied, “It’s still too early to say whether it’s reliable. But in terms of managing the strongholds, it has displayed an extremely powerful ability. However, I’ve also heard a story about it. I’m just going to share it, no notes needed.

“Apparently, one of the Wang Consortium’s computer engineers mentioned this story to someone after his retirement. He said there was a time when he got bored and wanted to put the AI through a Turing test. The Turing test is a test that requires a human to communicate with an intelligent machine without being aware of that. If more than 30 percent of the human evaluators do not discover that their conversation partner is a machine, that means the device possesses ‘intelligence.’

“In fact, the Turing test was devised a very long time ago. It cannot truly be considered the standard for assessing whether AI is intelligent. Furthermore, this engineer was already confident beforehand that the Wang Consortium’s AI would definitely pass the Turing test.”

Jiang Xu smiled and continued, “So out of boredom, he started experimenting for fun. But something unexpected happened. That AI did not pass the test.”

Ren Xiaosu suddenly felt that Jiang Xu was stealthily trying to reveal something. He did not explicitly say what it was but just shared a story. The teacher’s intention was far more difficult to understand than the deeper meaning behind the story itself.

Ren Xiaosu suddenly remembered the artificial intelligence did not raise the alarm about the creeper vine growing in Stronghold 61.

Ren Xiaosu actually started becoming very interested in Jiang Xu’s lecture. He would have to come and attend the class next time.

When class was over, Jiang Xu took out the student roster. He looked at Ren Xiaosu with a faint smile and said, “We’re going to mark attendance now. Those who aren’t present will get ten points deducted on their final exam.”

“Shu Linlin.”

“Here.”

“Gao Yingyu.”

“Here.”

“Zheng Hang.”

Ren Xiaosu said helplessly, “Here.”

But all of a sudden, Jiang Xu said, “Yang Xiaojin.”

The class fell silent. Ren Xiaosu was also stunned!

When this name rang out in Ren Xiaosu’s ears, he felt like he had been shot through the heart by a sniper bullet from thousands of meters away.

This name was too familiar to him, so much so that when Jiang Xu mentioned it, Ren Xiaosu felt his entire body go numb as he sat dazed in his seat.

It was a name he had not heard in a long time.

Jiang Xu frowned and said, “Is Yang Xiaojin here?”

Yang Xiaojin also used to ask him questions, so he had quite a good memory of her, if only because the questions she posed were different from what a normal student would ask. They were more brutal questions.

A female student explained, “Professor, Yang Xiaojin has already left Luoyang City after applying to take a leave of absence from school ten days ago. You didn’t mark attendance during our previous lecture, so you didn’t know.”

“Oh.” Jiang Xu sighed and said, “What a pity.”

Ren Xiaosu looked around his surroundings. So these were Yang Xiaojin’s classmates? So Yang Xiaojin had really attended college here? But now, she had left for some unknown reason.

As Ren Xiaosu was pondering over this, Jiang Xu said to Ren Xiaosu, “Zheng Hang, come to my office after class.”