That night.

The conference hall was brightly lit and empty.

From familiar audiences, they would recognize at a glance that the center of the hall was the stage where "Brain Power Burst" was recorded.

The day’s recording had ended.

The staff were cleaning up, and some people went on stage to carefully remove equipment.

A middle-aged man dressed in a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans sat in the front row, with a laptop on the table in front of him. He was intently staring at the screen, his brow furrowed and not moving an inch.

He was Zhou Fangsheng, the director of the "Brain Power Burst" column group.

Zhou Fangsheng looked impatient and waved his hand, shouting, "Xiao Zhao! Come here."

The person addressed as ’Xiao Zhao’ was a man in a casual suit. His face was determined and there was a subtle smile, giving people the impression of a ’just and rigorous’ type of seriousness.

Those who frequently watched TV would recognize him at a glance. He was the host of the "Brain Power Burst" program, Zhao Bo.

Zhao Bo quickly walked down the stage, "Director Zhou, what’s wrong?"

"What should we do about this online controversy?" Zhou Fangsheng said with a frown, "People are questioning our show, and it will definitely affect our reputation. And our reputation is our foundation."

Zhao Bo bitterly smiled, "It’s all because of Jia Hongning. Who knows why he mentioned a high school competition for no reason!"

"And then?"

Zhou Fangsheng spoke sharply, "How did that student hacker named Zhao Yi end up targeting our show? Without your consent, would Jia Hongning dare say such things? And wanting to pursue legal responsibility, childish!"

"This is ruining the image of the show!"

Zhao Bo muttered without speaking.

Zhou Fangsheng sighed and didn’t continue, as he was the column director and played half the role of scriptwriter, but not everything was under his control.

"Brain Power Burst" was operated by several groups working together.

For example, selecting contestants, casting auditions, and inviting guests were all handled by Tianyuan Studio.

As for the show’s promotion and commercial operations, it was the responsibility of the professional operation team of the television station.

Zhao Bo was a member of this operation team.

The matter must be related to the operation team, but the team couldn’t be entirely blamed. "Brain Power Burst" became popular largely due to the efforts of the operation team.

There would always be mistakes in any job.

Now, a problem had arisen.

After the work on the scene was completed, Zhou Fangsheng gathered the key team members and held a small meeting, setting the tone, "We must solve this problem as soon as possible. We will find professionals to analyze the video online and then issue a statement."

"If that doesn’t work, we’ll go to Zhengyang where it seems he’s a high school student, and we’ll settle this matter privately."

"We can’t let public opinion ferment any longer. As long as we can calm it down, it’s worth the price."

Others nodded in agreement.

If it was favorable to the promotion of "Brain Power Burst," the more heated the public opinion, the better. Otherwise, it was better to have no public opinion that could affect the reputation of the show and make the audience feel ’deceived.’ This could become a fatal problem for the show.

...

The next morning, the "Brain Power Burst" column team issued a statement.

The statement addressed the online public opinion, indicating that the show team was willing to accept public questioning and would not resort to legal action.

This was tantamount to an apology.

Later, Jia Hongning apologized again, looking very sincere on camera. Whether it was genuine or feigned, it was difficult to criticize him for stepping forward and apologizing again.

Discussions on the internet were mostly, "Jia Hongning was forced to apologize again, the first time by the Education Bureau and this time by the show team."

"So pathetic!"

"He must feel awful inside!"

Most of them were just enjoying the spectacle, and it was hard for Jia Hongning to attract sympathy since he was the one who started it all.

In addition, the statement also indicated that there was no fraud in the show’s competition, and it absolutely guaranteed fairness and justice. Some contestants also came forward to support the show team.

Furthermore, the show team’s heavyweight academic guest, Dr. Li Lin from Stanford University, a member of the computer society, said in an interview regarding the focus of online public opinion - the match between Jia Hongning and Zhou Junkai, "There can be no absolute fairness in scrambling a Rubik’s cube."

The "Brain Power Burst" show’s method of scrambling referred to the rules of international simulation competitions, in which the staff randomly twisted the Rubik’s cube twenty-two times (a 180-degree twist in one direction counted as one time).

Scrambling the cube twenty-two times didn’t mean it needed twenty-two moves to restore it, and random scrambling couldn’t result in the cube becoming more chaotic every time.

So, it was normal for two scrambled cubes to require a different number of steps to restore.

Li Lin also questioned the accuracy of Zhao Yi’s data.

His original words were, "Just because he can restore the Rubik’s Cube doesn’t mean it takes the fewest steps. Maybe there’s a faster way to restore it more quickly."

"So far, there’s no efficient way to calculate the minimum number of steps to restore a 3x3 Rubik’s Cube."

"This is a difficult problem worldwide."

At the same time,

Zhao Yi was immersed in math problems along with Sun Liang, Lin Xiaoqing, and others, working in the classroom.

Niu Lianhua arrived early.

In the previous days, Niu Lianhua would just come over, take a look, and guide on which problems should be done. She mostly took a ’hands-off’ approach to Zhao Yi, Lin Xiaoqing, and the others. The requirement was just ’as long as you can come,’ doing problems and getting inspiration was good enough.