Chapter 60

（Thank you to the book friends "☆づ惜ぉ尐夜" and "终极魔法911" for your generous support! Bow! Thank you to the book friend "暮光死神" for the ten perfect review votes! Bow! By the way, each review vote costs two yuan. If you want to cast a review vote, could you please give five stars? I can't afford anything less than five stars, sniff sniff... Once again, I beg for favorites! Recommendations! Clicks!)

At this moment, the forum was in an uproar:

"Can this program be further reduced?"

"Of course it can, but the reduced program won't be compatible with Windows 98 at all!"

"Obviously, that's what I meant. It's not difficult to reduce the program, but the compatibility issue is the real challenge. Some logical operations cannot be simplified. If any part of the logical operation is missing, the operation will be incomplete, and the result will be incorrect. This will cause the entire system to fail to run or parts of the program to not function properly!"

"I also encountered this problem. After reducing the program, I found that it couldn't be used normally at all!"

"Do you think this guy is deliberately giving us an impossible task to mock us? This problem has no solution. I thought he was kind and would give us an easy question, but it turns out it's not like that at all!"

"What a despicable guy!"

"Don't waste your energy, everyone. Let's ask him if he can provide the answer. If he can't, we'll quit this competition!"

The professors stopped arguing and no longer wasted their energy on this unsolvable problem. At this moment, the answering time was over. Chen Mo saw that no one had given an answer and couldn't help but chuckle as he typed: "Five minutes have passed, and no one has given an answer. According to the rules, no university will receive points. Now, we will proceed to the second round, with Huqing University providing the next question."

As soon as Chen Mo sent the message, someone immediately replied: "Zero, let's put the second round aside for now. Let's talk about the question you gave. This program is extracted from the Windows 98 system, and you asked us to simplify it without affecting its actual use, right?"

Chen Mo was slightly taken aback and then replied: "Yes, what's the problem with that?"

The other person immediately replied: "There is a problem! We have tried countless methods, but none of them can meet your requirements. Isn't this just a trick to trap us?"

Chen Mo finally understood and typed with a slight smile: "You mean this question is unsolvable?"

The other person replied: "Exactly! This question is unsolvable!"

Chen Mo smiled and typed: "If I give the correct answer, will you all be convinced? Right?"

The other person typed: "Of course, as long as you can give us an answer that we can't question, we will admit defeat today and acknowledge that Langhai University's Computer Science Department is the best in the country!"

Many people immediately replied: "Which university are you from? Can you represent all of us?"

"Exactly, what gives you the right to represent our Dongfang University?"

"Can you represent our Jingcheng University?"

The professors in the forum immediately explained the situation to the most influential students in their respective universities. Once these students learned that this was the decision of the professors, they quickly spread the message.

Soon, the four universities were in agreement. The professor who had previously questioned Chen Mo's question spoke on behalf of them: "The four universities have decided: as long as you can solve the question you gave, we will acknowledge that Langhai University's Computer Science Department is the best in the country!"

Chen Mo had long been tired of wasting time here. Seeing their response, he couldn't help but laugh: "This makes things easier. Since you've all decided, I'll settle this quickly!"

Chen Mo then typed: "No problem, give me three minutes, and I'll show you the correct answer."

Everyone began to wait in silence. The professors didn't believe what Chen Mo said. So many university professors couldn't achieve this, so how could Zero, no matter how skilled, be better than all these university computer science professors?

The students were conflicted. On one hand, they didn't want to see Langhai University take the lead. If Zero gave the correct answer, their universities would be overshadowed, which was hard for their proud hearts to accept. On the other hand, this matter had already transcended the competition between universities and reached the national level. If Zero could give the correct answer, it would mean his programming skills were better than the world's top programmers, which would bring glory to the country. They naturally hoped to see this.

Especially since, whether in hardware or software, Huaguo (China) was far behind Western countries, which was an undeniable fact. If Zero could do what the world's top programmers couldn't, this would be a groundbreaking event in the global software industry. As Huaguo citizens, they would be proud of it.

The three minutes, though short, felt like an hour. Everyone waited with mixed feelings. When the long three minutes finally passed, Chen Mo sent the program he had just written. Everyone carefully examined the answer Chen Mo provided.

After a while, someone spoke up:

"How is this program so different from the original? It doesn't even resemble the original."

"The sorting method of this program is very strange. I can't understand it... Does anyone recognize this sorting method?"

"I don't recognize it either. It seems to be a completely new sorting method, using the stacking of identical characters and a complex tree structure to eliminate unnecessary parts..."

"This tree structure is actually a numerical model. How did Zero calculate such a massive amount of data?"

"Each character must be in the right position. Even the slightest deviation would cause a huge error. If it were me, I definitely couldn't do this—especially not in such a short time."

"I never even imagined that there could be such a new program sorting method. It's truly amazing!"

Chen Mo saw their comments and smiled as he typed: "Don't rush to evaluate the program structure. First, let's check if this program can function normally."

The professors then remembered this and everyone got busy. Soon, they discovered a shocking fact—the tree-structured program was actually compatible with Windows 98! Moreover, it was reduced by one-fifth compared to the original program!

This was truly astonishing! To make two programs with such different code sorting methods compatible was no easy task. But Zero had achieved this. Not only did he reduce the original program by one-fifth, but he also solved the compatibility issue with the system. If not for seeing it with their own eyes, who would believe it?