Black Technology Director Can Make Anything Come True (7): “what?” “convinced”

Si Lin was dumbfounded. After a long while, he finally came back to his senses, turned off the video playing on the computer, and said to Si Qi: “But brother, weren’t you editing videos nonstop not too long ago?”

Si Qi: “Yeah, and once I finished editing, I had free time, didn’t I? Of course, the very first thing I did was to figure out the task you asked me to do!”

Si Lin was even more bewildered. He did the math—Si Qi had only submitted his video less than two days ago. In just this short time… he already figured it out???

But back then, he had struggled for ages to complete a side mission, then spent an entire year after expanding his mental capacity just to understand AR technology. What did that make him now!

So all those praises and admiration in his past life, calling him a genius, were completely fake. Compared to his brother, he was nothing but the dumbest fool alive!

Just like the black-tech system that was utterly stunned, Si Lin couldn’t help but ask: “Brother, can you tell me what AR technology is like?”

He thought maybe his brother only grasped the concept of AR, and hadn’t learned the deeper production principles yet. Perhaps it was just a misunderstanding.

But who knew Si Qi calmly nodded, said no problem, picked up paper and pen from the desk, and began explaining to Si Lin.

Since Si Qi knew that Si Lin already understood what this technology was, he didn’t waste time simplifying things but went straight to the key points, moving from one to a hundred—from the technical core to the previously unsolved challenges. Each and every one was something that had taken Si Lin an enormous amount of time in his past life to figure out!

Si Lin was completely stunned!

And so was the black-tech system, which had witnessed firsthand how Si Qi “learned” AR technology. Its computation program buzzed wildly, shocked nearly to the point of crashing, unable to say a single word.

After talking for about ten minutes, Si Qi, certain that Si Lin now believed he had truly mastered the technology, said: “Once I finish writing the full program for this set of techniques, I’ll give it to you as a birthday present.”

Si Lin slowly regained his senses. His eyes, brimming with admiration, looked at his brother, his face flushed with excitement as he nodded again and again: “Yeah!!”

Heavens! His brother was this much of a genius—what was that measly system-issued mission compared to him? It was nothing at all!

And he had even worried about whether the system would bully his brother. What a joke. If the system knew how incredible his brother was, it would already be kneeling down, singing songs of surrender. How could it dare punish him!

In fact, inside Si Qi’s consciousness space, the black-tech system really had kneeled down. Bowing low to the ground in despair, it wept rivers of tears: [wuwuwu… If you’re this amazing, why did you have to oppose me in the beginning? You could’ve finished my tasks in a minute, but instead you wasted so much of my energy with your electric shocks… Do you have something against me!!]

Si Qi: [You barged into my “home” without knocking, then tried to act like the master and force me to obey you. If I didn’t, you smashed things inside my brain. So what if I have a problem with you?]

Black-tech system: [QAQ]

Si Qi: [Will you dare do it again next time?]

The system frantically shook its head: [Never again, I’ll never dare again. As long as you complete tasks, you’re my dad!]

Xiu Xiu, who was watching the show, exploded in outrage. Jumping up, it spat electronic spit at the system and pounced on it: [Pah! You little black thing! I treated you like a sidekick, and you want to call my young master your boss? Keep dreaming!!]

The black-tech system covered its head, dodging the attacks, pitifully begging for mercy.

Ignoring the squabbling in his mind, Si Qi smiled at his little brother, who was gazing at him with starry eyes: “What are you doing?”

Si Lin quickly came back to his senses and said: “I was watching videos! This competition is still a semi-public format. Judges’ scores make up seventy percent, online votes thirty percent. I want to help promote your video so more people can see it! Of course, with your ability, even if I didn’t run around, you’d still be way ahead! Look, your votes are already really high…”

While Si Qi submitted his video and paid it no further attention, Si Lin had been closely monitoring it the whole time.

Although he really wanted to use hacking to help his brother, he knew his brother wouldn’t want his painstakingly made work to end up with fake results. Si Lin himself also didn’t want to insult his brother’s effort with cheating, so he refrained. Instead, he consciously promoted the contest everywhere, drawing in outsiders unfamiliar with the photography industry to join the voting.

These passersby, once on the contest site, would casually click into one to three videos. Whether they voted depended entirely on their own will. But anyone who happened to click on Si Qi’s video would basically watch it all the way through to the end, be deeply moved, and vote without hesitation—because Si Qi’s video was worth it.

As this repeated, Si Qi’s retention rate was so high that his votes visibly grew faster and outpaced others, which made Si Lin thrilled.

It was clearly just a small circle competition, and even winning couldn’t compare to a fraction of what he had achieved in his past life. But seeing the vote count under Si Qi’s video rise little by little, seeing so many people recognize his brother’s work, Si Lin felt indescribably happy.

When Xiu Xiu noticed Si Lin’s many moves online, it realized it had forgotten to help its master promote. Feeling its “number one fan” position threatened, Xiu Xiu quickly copied Si Lin’s methods and promoted on an even larger scale.

This made the contest receive far more outside attention than previous years. Many domestic netizens began noticing it. After casually clicking in, watching some videos, they were surprised at how high the quality was. Upon checking the contest background, they were shocked to find it was an international industry-level competition.

Then, among the thousands of videos, people suddenly saw one extremely familiar short film. Not that they had seen it before, but its content was something every single one of them knew and had lived through.

Originally watching casually, their attention was instantly captured. And once the short film had their initial focus, everything else was left to it.

Many started just watching idly, but before they knew it, a long time had passed—they had watched the entire thing without blinking, and even when the progress bar ended, they still wanted more.

As the crowd in the video slowly dispersed, their boiling blood calmed down. An indescribable mix of shock and passion surged inside them. Taking a deep breath, they exhaled slowly, cast their vote for the contestant, and then hit the share button with a note: “You have to watch this video. It made me think back to when we were in school…”

Everyone had friends, and those friends, after watching, wanted to share again. Word spread like wildfire. Because of the resonance, votes for the short film skyrocketed, rising faster in a few hours than in the past two or three days combined, and still climbing.

Si Lin immediately noticed, though he felt something odd. Looking at the comments under the voting page, he saw most were from Chinese netizens. Following their posts, he found where they had first discovered the contest and more posts spreading it.

He quickly thought of the black-tech system he had spent decades with in his past life. This silent, all-encompassing manipulation was undoubtedly its doing. Back then, whenever he had online trouble, he never had to worry—he just paid some points, and the system solved everything. But would his brother ever use the system to promote himself? No. His brother was the type to hand in an exam paper and then completely forget about it, turning to other things while waiting for the perfect score to come back on its own.

Si Lin strongly suspected the system had made this decision on its own to please his brother.

Comparing how the system had treated him in his past life versus how it treated his brother now, Si Lin once again marveled—his brother was truly extraordinary, able to effortlessly tame even a being like the system. His pride swelled to bursting.

Si Qi, unaware of how his two little fans were “competing for favor” behind the scenes, simply continued his calm routine—going to school, taking midterms, completing the system’s tasks. His life was as still as a pond, just like the calm before a storm.

Three days after the midterms, the school administration held their monthly meeting. Homeroom teachers, academic directors, grade leaders, and the principal and vice-principals all gathered.

The grade leader asked Si Qi’s homeroom teacher: “Are the midterm results tallied yet? Bring me the chart when you’re done.”

The homeroom teacher adjusted his glasses: “It’s already done and on your desk.”

The grade leader glanced at his desk, picked up the file, looked it over, nodded: “Alright, let’s head to the conference room.”

On the way, they met the academic director, who was also heading there. Just then, the director’s phone rang. He answered while walking.

“Yes, this is the academic director of Yucai High School.”

“Si Qi? Where did you hear that name? A student from Class 2, Grade 12…” The director turned his head, exchanged a surprised glance with Si Qi’s homeroom teacher, who nodded in confirmation. The director said: “Yes, that student exists. What about him?”

“A video?” Listening to the caller explain the situation, the director’s expression grew increasingly astonished. Finally, he nodded: “Alright, I’ll discuss this with the principal. You’ll have my reply by tonight at the latest… Yes, no problem.”

After hanging up, both the homeroom teacher and the grade leader looked at him curiously. The director, his face strange, said: “Let’s wait until the meeting. I’ll explain then.”

They nodded, suppressing their curiosity for the moment.

They entered the conference room, and once everyone arrived, the meeting proceeded step by step as usual—from campus discipline, to the arrangements for next month’s autumn outing and sports day, then to various competitions, and finally to the evaluation of candidates for Outstanding Teacher.

When it came to the Outstanding Teacher nomination, the senior-year grade leader proposed Si Qi’s homeroom teacher. He was indeed a good teacher, but the homeroom teacher from the neighboring class slapped the file in his hand with dissatisfaction and objected: “I really cannot agree. Teacher Yang is not serious about his work, he indulges his students in idling about and disrupting school order—if he cannot even fulfill his basic duties, how can he be considered an Outstanding Teacher?”

Among colleagues who saw each other every day, such words were equivalent to tearing the mask off completely. Many teachers from other grades, unaware of the “grudge” between the two, were surprised. The principal’s expression grew stern: “What student are you talking about?”

The neighboring homeroom teacher said: “In Yang’s class, there’s a student named Si Qi. Very gifted, a smart kid, but his attitude toward learning is extremely improper! He does things carelessly and without discipline!”

“Si? I know this kid. I taught him for a while when I was covering a class. He’s cheerful and lively, very sharp in his thinking, and learns with ease. But when it comes to attitude, yes, he isn’t very serious…” A sophomore English teacher remembered who Si Qi was and spoke up.

The neighboring homeroom teacher sneered: “Not just careless in studies—he even rallied over a hundred students to gather on the playground for extracurricular activities. Instead of focusing on studying, he’s always thinking of ways to play! He even contradicted me in front of other teachers and students, threatening me not to confiscate the electronic equipment he smuggled into school! Yang not only failed to stop him, but even got other teachers to stand in my way. Ha!”

The principal frowned deeper: “Teacher Yang, is this true?”

Si Qi’s homeroom teacher rubbed his nose and nodded: “Yes, it happened.”

The principal, not an unreasonable man, gave him a chance to explain: “Why didn’t you stop him, but instead helped that student organize extracurricular activities on campus?”

Yang smiled: “I felt it was the same in nature as autumn outings or sports meets. The students study for long hours; they also need some space to relax…”

The neighboring homeroom teacher cut him off: “That’s just an excuse! Hundreds of students crowded on the playground, jumping around with no organization or discipline! If something happened, the school would be held responsible! This is the critical senior year! If one student injured his hand and couldn’t write, do you know how badly it would affect his college entrance exam?”

Yang retorted: “They’re old enough. If something this small could injure them, then what about daily running drills or PE? Should we cancel all of that too?”

The neighboring homeroom teacher scoffed: “If something happens, you can try explaining it to the parents with that logic!”

The principal frowned: “Regardless, the college entrance exam is approaching. We cannot encourage students to waste time on unnecessary activities during such a critical period. Seniors don’t even join autumn outings or sports day for this reason…”

Seeing the principal’s stance, Yang looked helpless. The neighboring homeroom teacher smiled smugly. The principal continued: “You need to pay closer attention to this Si Qi. From what I gather, he seems to be the main instigator…”

Still, the thought of one student being able to gather hundreds to cooperate with him so easily struck the principal as remarkable. But this was not the time to praise him. He suppressed the thought and added: “From what Teachers Zhou and Huang said, this student has talent but lacks focus. Yang, it’s not acceptable for you to just let him waste time. As his homeroom teacher, you must supervise him. Otherwise, what if other students start following his example?”

Yang explained: “I’ve considered that and won’t let other students imitate him. But Si Qi’s personality is like this—you can’t force him too hard, or it’ll backfire and make him resent studying.”

The neighboring homeroom teacher immediately mocked: “You talk as if you’ve tried! If he were in my class, I would never let him waste time like this! Leader Ma, just check his exam results this time. Hm? He’s been lugging a camera around for a month. His grades must have dropped again!”

At that, the grade leader flipped through the files. When he saw the first line, he froze.

Looking up at the crowd watching him expectantly, he said with a half-smile: “First place.”

Neighboring homeroom teacher: “See, I told you—what??”

The grade leader handed the file to the astonished principal, repeating: “First place, and with full marks. He scored over forty points higher than the runner-up.”

Si Qi’s homeroom teacher, already aware of the result, chuckled to himself.

The neighboring homeroom teacher’s face darkened as if he had swallowed a fly, furious: “He—he couldn’t possibly be first, with full marks?? He’s never ranked higher than the top ten before!”

Yang cheerfully said: “That’s why I said, this child is a special case and needs special handling. This month I let him freely do what he wanted, and he promised to study well. And see—he accidentally ended up first in the grade. That proves my approach works.”

The principal, seeing the string of perfect scores next to Si Qi’s name and his previous ranking, nodded in satisfaction: “Yang makes a good point. Teaching according to a student’s character is very important. Since he scored full marks, this method clearly has merit.”

The neighboring homeroom teacher’s eyes went wide as he breathed heavily in anger: “So what if his grades improved? He still disturbed the other students!”

The grade leader disagreed: “I heard from other teachers too. All he did was call some classmates to the playground after class to film something. It lasted at most ten minutes before everyone left. Ten minutes—like a recess break. Is that really such a big deal?”

The neighboring teacher argued: “It’s not about the time, it’s about necessity! Si Qi doing this was just nonsense, distracting other students!”

“Whether it’s nonsense, that’s not certain.” The academic director, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke: “Reporters from B City News contacted me. They said a student from our school won an international award for his work, and they want to come for an interview.”

Everyone froze, unable to connect that news with the student they had just been criticizing for extracurricular antics.

Hearing that a student from their school had won an international award felt like being struck by gold falling from the sky.

Seeing they hadn’t connected the dots, the director continued strangely: “Just now, when you mentioned Si Qi and his organizing an activity, I didn’t make the connection. But then Leader Ma said it was for filming, and it clicked—the film he made must be the one that won the award!”

The words left everyone stunned. The neighboring homeroom teacher was the first to react, flushing with shame and anger, unwilling to admit it: “Impossible! Just some random student’s thing—how could that possibly win such an award? It must be some unknown little contest—”

“If it were just a little contest, why would the city’s news agency contact me? They want to broadcast it on local TV for all citizens to see. Even as a key high school in the city, we rarely get on local TV. Besides, from the reporter’s tone, this competition has high prestige. Apparently, only professionals usually participate, and even renowned directors follow it closely.”

The principal glanced at the still-dazed Yang and couldn’t help but laugh: “This is wonderful news! Great news! You said an interview? Of course the school will support it! Yang, go ask Si Qi about his opinion. If he agrees, we’ll arrange a venue…”

Speaking, the principal burst into hearty laughter, unable to contain his joy.

An international award! A city-level interview! This was a real achievement, delivered right into his hands without effort! If this didn’t make him happy, what could?

The more he thought, the more delighted he grew, boasting: “This child is truly remarkable. Having good relationships is one thing, but his academic record is excellent too! He spent just a month making a film, and it won an international award—hahahaha!!”

Regardless of how livid the neighboring homeroom teacher was, Yang curiously asked: “Where did the reporter see the news? How come none of us knew?”

After all, Si Qi had never mentioned it.

The academic director recalled carefully: “I think he said the competition’s website had just announced it…”

Saying this, he took out his phone to search.

Since this concerned the school’s honor, the principal and others didn’t stop him from “slacking off in public.” They all pulled out their phones as well.

Soon, someone found the relevant information.