The Strongest Brain in the Interstellar

Everyone here hadn’t eaten anything all day, after all… She was hungry too, but at least she wasn’t making it as obvious, with her stomach growling out loud for attention. Ahhh, now she was really hungry. She hadn’t even felt it that much before, but hearing his stomach growl like thunder just intensified it.

It was odd—she had eaten plenty in the mental space, but it did absolutely nothing to ease her hunger in reality. It’s like she could rest there and not need to sleep here, but why couldn’t her appetite switch over the same way?

Jiang Hui, of course, kept these thoughts to herself. Noticing Zhou Xiuwen pull out a few nutrient packs, she sighed, a bit frustrated. “That’s probably the last of them, right? I have a few more myself, but it’ll only be enough for one meal at best.”

Yet there were still more than twenty hours left until the end of the competition. A full day and night. The thought of going that long without real food—or even proper sleep—made Jiang Hui’s head throb.

Clearly starving, Zhou Xiuwen didn’t hesitate, popping the cap off one after another, grumbling as he gulped them down. “What’s up with these lousy nutrient packs? They’re nothing like the regular ones. Even after downing a whole row of them, I’m still hungry…” Could the school have given them watered-down versions?

Of course, he didn’t dare say that last part out loud. How awkward would it be if his complaints ended up on the broadcast and the school officials overheard?

Hearing him, Jiang Hui paused in mid-motion as she leisurely unscrewed her own pack, realizing he had a point. She hadn’t used many nutrient packs before, given her relatively short time in the interstellar world. But she remembered using one as a meal replacement recently, and it had kept her full for quite a while.

So why was it that, in this competition, even downing several packs, or practically an entire row of them, seemed to do nothing?

At first, she hadn’t noticed it as much. After taking the first dose, she found herself needing to refuel every few hours, and the frequency only kept increasing. Was it a problem with the nutrient pack itself, or something else entirely?

“These are stamina-restoring organic nutrient packs,” someone explained. “They’re designed to balance both replenishing energy and staving off hunger. While they do help with stamina, the hunger-satiating effect is weaker. Given how much energy you’ve burned through, these packs alone won’t do much to satisfy hunger.”

“If we had regular nutrient packs, they’d probably work better for keeping you full.”

Regular packs? They were lucky to find any nutrient packs at all. She hadn’t even checked what kind they had grabbed in the scramble, just taking whatever they could get. Since the competition began, her luck finding resources had been dismal, with very little to show for it—and even fewer nutrient packs. The few she had now were only thanks to Zhou Xiuwen sharing with her.

But Zhou Xiuwen, hearing this, shook his head in surprise. “There’s a difference? I didn’t know that. I just used whatever I found. But, thinking back, everything I picked up was this type.” He held up an empty tube to show her.

Huan Xian glanced at the tube in his hand, surprised. “Well, then you’ve been pretty lucky—finding the stamina-boosting organic packs. They might not be the best for keeping us full, but on the field, these are probably more useful.”

Jiang Hui looked at her own nutrient pack with a wry smile. If they weren’t starving, they’d probably feel grateful for this “good fortune.”

Then, without a word, Huan Xian pulled out two rows of what looked like nutrient packs from his bag and handed them generously to Jiang Hui and Zhou Xiuwen.

“I don’t have much to offer, just these… regular nutrient packs,” he added, looking slightly embarrassed.

“This…” Jiang Hui hesitated, wanting to decline. It wasn’t as if they had jointly acquired these resources, so taking them felt like accepting a handout. But her common sense won out—she really needed it. She was starving to the point of dizziness, and if she didn’t eat something soon, who knew when she’d pass out from hunger?

“Take it. I can’t repay you for everything I’ve owed you on this journey,” Huan Xian sighed deeply. He felt a bit down, as if he had been suppressing something ever since the competition began. Everything just felt off, uncomfortable.

He had never really taken this competition seriously.

It wasn’t because he was confident in his victory; even if he were arrogant, he wouldn’t be foolish enough to think he could outdo all the outstanding first-year students from Beska Intermediate Academy. It was simply because he found it meaningless, utterly meaningless.

Everything was meaningless. Absolutely meaningless.

Huan Xian was like a wandering soul, a drifting reed, floating aimlessly through this world. He had no home, no place that would accept him.

Perhaps there had been such a place once, after all, he couldn’t have come from nowhere. He must have had some family, some origins.

In the faintest of his almost nonexistent memories, there was a time when he had a family. Though only a few vague images remained, the figures were blurred, and all that was left were dim shadows of things that once were.

But he could still faintly remember some indescribable, strange emotion lingering in his chest. However, even now, he couldn’t tell what it was, because Huan Xian had long lost his ability to understand emotions. All he felt was a slight sourness, a dull discomfort that settled in his heart, a faint color in his barren soul.

But it was only a faint trace, and as time passed, this trace—the last remnants of something long gone—was fading away, replaced by the years that had passed.

White walls, white people, a white world… His world had once been so cold, devoid of any warmth of the living. He had never been seen as a human being. He had no hope for this world.

Then he was saved from that place and brought to a colorful world, a place entirely different from where he had lived for almost ten years.

He no longer had to participate in the tedious and strange “activities” every day. He now had his own identity, met many people, warm people who were nothing like those white-clad figures… He had learned how to be human.

Yet beneath the shell of this person named Huan Xian, there was still emptiness—an empty soul, an empty heart. He still didn’t understand humans, but in order to fit into the surrounding environment, he pretended to be a normal person. He faked his actions, his words, his personality, his temperament, and even his thought processes, creating the illusion of the emotions that a normal human should have.

It seemed like he had truly deceived those around him.

And then, on an ordinary day, he was sent here. The person who sent him, like ordinary parents, handled the formalities for him, told him to study well, and then left—Huan Xian was completely free, truly free.

But did he really still have the ability to be human…?