Chapter 560: Causality Calculation
The secret weapon of the Happy Science Cult, the mysterious “Causality Calculation” program, was installed on an ordinary laptop.
Apparently, after a round of questions and answers, the data produced at the end would be uploaded to a super computer for computing. If we used an ordinary computer, it will take at least half a year to get the same results.
After the lecture, Professor Bai (who told us his surname was Bai before the lecture) told the three of us to stay and seemingly wanted to conquer our thoughts with his secret weapon. Although, in my opinion, Teacher Hu and Gong CaiCai had already been pretty much conquered.
Traditionally, the order of joining determines the order of priority, so the first one to enjoy the “prediction” was Teacher Hu, followed by Gong CaiCai, and finally me.
Professor Bai used the excuse of ‘removing distractions’ and wanted to talk to the three of us individually. It was a normal tactic for evil cults, so I wasn’t surprised.
After the crowd dispersed, Teacher Hu eagerly sat down in the first row of the cla.s.sroom while Professor Bai worked on his laptop at the podium.
I peeked at the laptop screen.
It was a white screen! Do you have any professionalism? Even putting a crystal ball on the table would be better than a laptop with a white screen.
As if guessing what I had in mind, Professor Bai smiled and said, “Sorry, for confidentiality reasons, the laptop screen has undergone special treatment. You can only see the contents by wearing special contact lenses, otherwise it would be a white screen.”
How high tech. I think I read online it uses polarized light to keep others from seeing the screen. I guess there’s nothing wrong with his statement…
In order to ensure that Professor Bai and Teacher Hu are alone and have an environment similar to a psychiatrist consultation, Gong CaiCai and I were sent out to wait on a bench in the hallway.
I have to say, spending time with Gong CaiCai alone, especially in this outdated office building where people often pa.s.s by, was quite dull.
If I was with Xiao Qin, she would talk to me about various “post-marital fantasies”, which was inappropriate, but at least it wasn’t boring.
If I was with the cla.s.s leader, our talks would be about “ideals” and “responsibilities”. In fact, I liked to deliberately raise arguments and watch the cla.s.s leader’s face turn red when she couldn’t refute me.
I felt the most relaxed with Xiong YaoYue, who was basically like another male friend. Also, her knowledge of sports and games even made me feel inferior.
As for Gong CaiCai, it was basically giving one answer per question. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the fact that she was about to receive Professor Bai’s ‘prediction’, but she seemed very nervous.
“Gong CaiCai, is there anyone religious in your family?” I asked casually.
Actually, it wasn’t really casual. Many of the lost sheep who enter cults have parents who are fanatical followers of a certain religion; after all, it’s much easier to get theists to join a cult than it is to get atheists to join.
“Well… my dad prays to Guan Yu when he’s making business deals.” Gong CaiCai said after a while, “Also, I heard from my sister-in-law that my mother prayed for Guanyin’s blessing when she gave birth to me…”
Those typical Chinese people who pray at the last minute basically have no faith at all. It looks like the cause doesn’t lie with Gong CaiCai’s parents. Maybe Gong CaiCai was influenced by her teachers, like Teacher Hu who has been tutoing Gong CaiCai in math could be the culprit.
While talking to me, Gong CaiCai held onto her iPhone 4 and was browsing the webpage of an animal conservation organization. She looked at pictures of baby kangaroos and pandas to alleviate her stress.
“Pandas are so lucky.” I commented, “If you’re reborn as a panda, you don’t have to do anything. You can roll around all day and people will bring you food, plus they live better than 90% of the country…”
Gong CaiCai froze for a moment as if she began to fantasize that she had become a panda (she said once before she wanted to be a scallop). At first her gaze seemed dreamy, but then she suddenly shook her head vigorously.
“No, no, I can’t be a good panda. Pandas will be stared at every day, I will be too shy to lift my head.”
What, you don’t confidence to be a panda? You’ll get shy simply with people staring at you? Let me tell you, as an adult panda, you will be forced to watch panda p.o.r.n and take up the glorious mission of making offspring.
At this time, Teacher Hu came out of the cla.s.sroom with a bright and cheerful face. When he saw the two of us, he was eager to share his joy:
“It’s amazing, it’s really just like everyone said, it’s really accurate.”
“Professor Bai was actually able to calculate that I wanted to invest in stocks. He even knew that I wanted to buy shares of a solar company, I never told anyone about it.”
“The causality calculation showed there was an 80% chance that I would be left bag holding if I invested in it. That was so close, I will listen to Professor Bai and use the money on a more secure investment.”
“Was it really that accurate?”
It was Gong CaiCai’s turn next, so she asked with both antic.i.p.ation and some concern.
“It’s absolutely accurate.” Teacher Hu’s excitement still hadn’t subsided and exaggeratedly stuck up his thumb, “It was only a basic level prediction. When I make more money, I’ll come back to do a deep prediction.”
I now understood how the cult made money.
Everyone looked towards the future with both respect and fear. If spending money can predict their future for a short period of time, they will definitely attract the rich who will offer up a lot of money.
I don’t believe the prediction of him losing money in the stock market. In the first place, in the Chinese stock market, the chance of retail investors having their money locked up was originally more than 80%. If you can really predict the rise and fall of stock prices, why bother creating the seminar, just trade stocks and become the next Buffett.
Teacher Hu said Professor Bai was uploading data to the servers, so Gong CaiCai had to wait ten minutes before she could go in. Then, Gong CaiCai’s phone had a low battery alert.
Although Gong CaiCai had set her phone to silent mode during cla.s.s to not disturb others, her iPhone 4 would still buzz even on silent mode.
“You can use my phone to charge it, so it doesn’t keep beeping.”
I pulled out my own phone, one of its signature functions was to charge other phones. Xiong YaoYue had already used it once to charge Gong CaiCai’s iPhone. Just like what Eunuch Cao once said: Once it’s been plugged in once, you don’t have to worry too much about the second time…
Teacher Hu also took out his own phone at the same time, he was a bit surprised when he saw I had an identical phone.
“Huh, Ye Lin also bought this brand? You can’t even buy one now even if you want to. Since you already offered, you can let Gong CaiCai charge with yours.
“Gong CaiCai, you can come in, the program is ready.”
Professor Bai called out from inside.
Gong Cai Cai walked into the cla.s.sroom quite eagerly and did not accept either of our offers.
For the next while, Teacher Hu and I sat on the bench. I didn’t do anything but listen to him talk about theories of the Happy Science cult.
Basically all of his words came in one ear and went straight out the other.
After a difficult 15 minutes had finally pa.s.sed, Gong CaiCai walked out slowly with a red face.
“How is it, is the predicted future accurate?” Teacher Hu asked impatiently.
“I, I don’t know…” Gong CaiCai stammered, “I think… there is that possibility…”
For some reason, Gong CaiCai looked at me very vaguely.
What, did your predicted future have something to do with me?
It’s not wrong, because I’m soon about to expose their pseudo-science and become your savior.
I strutted inside before Professor Bai’s preparation time was over. But he didn’t get angry and calmly let me sit in front of him.
After registering my name and age, Professor Bai asked a few questions about my hobbies. I answered truthfully because I didn’t think that this information would be able to predict my future.
Next, Professor Bai handed me a very bizarre printout. On it were various vaguely drawn abstract paintings with symbolic meanings. Some were peace doves, some were the sad faces of young girls, and on top of all the drawings was a huge maze.
Professor Bai asked me to solve maze within 5 minutes, so I did as I was told. The maze wasn’t actually very difficult, and I felt there was more than one solution.
Could this be a test of my subconscious mind, to determine which abstract paintings I intentionally avoided in the process of deciphering the maze.
Professor Bai took out a handheld scanner and scanned my maze map into the computer. After the hard drives spun for a while, he said:
“Ye Lin, you seem to to have a lot of worries…”
Nonsense, most people have a lot of worries, do you think I will actually take the bait?
“Judging by your expression, it seems you don’t really trust us… you may also think the laptop is just a pretense. To be honest, confidentiality is only one aspect. The other reason we use a white screen is because we must carefully decide what results we can tell the partic.i.p.ants and what we should hide.”
“After all, there’s nothing more cruel in this world than the truth. In the seminar, I am called ‘sage’, because I can somewhat distinguish what should be said and what shouldn’t.”
“I don’t need you to hide anything.” I raised my voice and said, “Whether I will become the president or be imprisoned in Shanxi to dig coal, you can tell me everything.”
“That won’t do.” Professor Bai smiled warmly and said, “Although the causality calculation program was written by the president, His Excellency the Great Sage, it is still not perfect and is still being improved…”
“All right, all right.” I said impatiently, “You can just predict my future, and if you don’t, I’ll have to tell everyone that you’re a bunch of liars.”
“Then I’ll start.” The corners of Professor Bai’s mouth curved slightly in confidence, which made me feel slightly uneasy.
“Ye Lin, the results show that you are troubled by an interesting predicament..”
“You are troubled by… not knowing if you have broken the law… and worrying about being caught and thrown in prison…”
I was astonished and barely managed to control my expression.
How did he know about the fact I was not sure if I had committed murder? How could he have worked it out through the program?
No, I can’t be fooled by him, he’s not any different from the fortune tellers you see on the streets. He might have talked to Gong CaiCai beforehand and asked for information about me. If he knows that I fight all day long, it is a normal choice to presume that I am worried about hurting people and going to jail.
“Am I right?” Professor Bai asked confidently.
I put on a face of disdain and said coldly, “Go on.”
“Well then, according to the calculations, you have a good relationship with your father…”
That’s not hard to calculate, it’s possible he heard about it from Gong CaiCai.
“But your relationship with your mother isn’t good…”
I don’t think that’s hard to guess if he knew I came from a single parent family.
“Wow, the results also show that there is a 97% chance that you have a sister and that you like her a lot…”
Calm down, it sounds scary, but it’s possible he heard about Ai Mi from Gong CaiCai. I mean they even met each other at her birthday party.
“That’s all?” I sneered, “Something you can hear from others isn’t a prediction, at least tell me something no one else would know.”
Professor Bai stared cautiously at the computer screen, thought for a while, and finally spoke.
“The Optimus Prime toy you like was s.n.a.t.c.hed away by someone…”
I… don’t think Gong CaiCai knew that. A sense of fear slowly crept through me.
“In addition, you seem to want your father to remarry. There’s an 86% chance that the person you have chosen to remarry your father is already pregnant with his child…”
d.a.m.n, this isn’t possible, how can that be calculated? I did tell the cla.s.s leader about it, but she promised to help me keep it a secret and she isn’t the type who would blab.