"Bibi labu bila bu, labu bibi la kuku..."
Readers who don't understand what I'm saying shouldn't worry. I'm not an alien hiding among humans planning to invade Earth. I am a prodigy.
Let me emphasize again: I am a prodigy.
The sentence above was personally created by the internet-famous prodigy Zhang Yufan (English name: Mick) recently. It is top-tier program code—"B Language"—that only prodigies among prodigies can understand.
Readers might find this name unfamiliar and consider it somewhat insignificant, but please trust me: once you learn about his complete life story so far, it's hard not to look at him with renewed interest.
Zhang Yufan, aged nine.
Don't let his young age fool you. As the saying goes, ambition isn't measured by age. Leaving aside Kong Rong giving up pears at nine, even the new "Three Kingdoms" records "historical facts" such as Sun Quan serving as an envoy at nine, Emperor Gaozu shooting a fierce tiger at nine, and Emperor Wu drawing his bow to kill enemies at nine. Compared to these historical figures, this young prodigy living in 2026 is quite comparable—he already has over five years of senior coding experience at age nine.
According to his interview, he finished learning Scratch at four, started learning Python at five, and has now received an offer from Cloud Valley Center Game Company, making him their youngest Engineer.
Additionally, he can currently communicate in five foreign languages, including English, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese, and French, and is proficient in professional skills such as Roblox Studio, Unreal Engine 5, Unity, and Blender for game development and 3D modeling.
It can be said that his level is hard to summarize with a simple phrase like "another person's child." You might even need the tongue-twister "the other person's child as described by the parents of another person's child" to describe him. Compared to him, I, who repeated kindergarten senior year and at nine was still in the back of the classroom competing with my deskmate to see who could eat more dirt, was practically the Loser of Losers.
And speaking of which, we haven't finished introducing the spectacles surrounding this prodigy.
With such an impressive resume, he has also achieved much in the gaming field. Until a month ago, he had created over forty games, ten of which were successfully published. Moreover, the code behind these games isn't comparable to simple college assignments like Snake; each averages between 100,000 and one million lines, with a cumulative total exceeding ten million lines.
Readers outside the industry might not have a concrete concept of the figure "ten million lines." According to my university professor's "Ten Thousand Lines to Entry" theory, his hands-on coding experience far exceeds that of a legitimate computer science student like me by hundreds or even thousands of times. Furthermore, he claimed on camera that his IQ is as high as 177, surpassing renowned geniuses like Newton, Einstein, and Hawking.
We have reason to believe that prodigies like him will soon contribute to breakthroughs in frontier human science, or bring one or even a series of influential next-generation works to the gaming industry—all using his self-created "B Language."
So, what exactly is "B Language"?
Although this concept is complex to explain, we can offer a straightforward interpretation: any language that facilitates showing off can be called "B Language."
Concepts far beyond normal cognition, such as his claimed IQ of 177, ten million lines of code, five languages, and five years of experience in a nine-year life, can all be defined using "B Language." We can go further and include another label others have placed on him: "Prodigy."
First, I must admit that prodigies and geniuses objectively exist based on real-world data. However, we must also clarify that these definitions are relative concepts. If only one person out of a hundred knows the multiplication table, they are a genius in that microcosm. As that number grows to two, ten, fifty, or even everyone, the title of "genius" waits for someone to discover mixed operations before being re-bestowed. In other words, the more geniuses there are, the fewer true geniuses remain.
But when you search for "prodigy" online and encounter numerous examples of individuals with inflated IQs, exaggerated abilities, and increasingly younger ages of enlightenment—down to seven, six, five, or four—you're left thinking one of two things: either humanity is indeed progressing, or some people are just faking it.
The former is certainly good—but clearly, the protagonist of this article, Zhang Yufan, belongs to the latter.
For instance, netizens discovered in a video of his interview where he claimed, "Scratch at four, Python at five," that he was asking an AI for help while coding. He was even using Doubao, a free AI tool considered somewhat comedic among programmers. This clearly doesn't align with his persona as a high-IQ senior coder.
Furthermore, despite claiming proficiency in English, he mistakenly typed "kill" instead of "skill" during a query, thereby "killing" (terminating) the script.
If you look closely at the title of this query, you'll notice that Doubao automatically named the starting point of this conversation "English Expressions for Internships and Skateboarding Activities." Skateboarding is a hobby he specifically emphasized in his self-introduction. However, judging from the query summary, he doesn't seem as familiar with the word "skate" as he claims.
Besides these firsthand evidences found directly in interview videos that expose the inflation of his prodigy status, netizens have refuted his other outrageous claims from various angles.
It starts with the opening phrase, "Bibi Labu." This secret code is actually his onomatopoeic imitation of the sounds made while typing and coding. The reason it became a meme in "B Language" is due to his unchanging keyboard technique—"One-Finger Zen," meaning he types using only the index fingers of both hands.
For a computer beginner, typing with one finger is a common and understandable situation. But for a senior programmer like Zhang Yufan, who claims to have written ten million lines of code, it's highly abnormal. With all ten fingers intact, typing ten million lines using only two index fingers is a theoretical possibility but a practical impossibility.
In response, he specifically released a video denying that he ever claimed to have written ten million lines of code, despite this claim being archived on the internet.
Subsequently, he began introducing his newly developed game. This shifted public attention to his professional identity as a "game developer."
However, his game development journey clearly struggles to gain recognition from the broader player community.
First, outside the game itself, he made statements like, "If you don't make games, what's the point of playing them?" Such self-sabotaging remarks would be a guaranteed PR disaster for any game company's promotional video.
His mother also emphasized that her son doesn't play the games he develops; he only focuses on development and academics. But if you don't play the game, programmers can't debug it; developers won't know what gameplay issues need immediate improvement; and players won't trust a developer who doesn't play their own game.
As for his development skills, since his games are published on Roblox, a platform that allows users to play works created by others, netizens can personally evaluate his creations if they find his account. Based on the gameplay footage shown in interview videos, his Roblox account was successfully located.
However, after actual experience, netizens found that these games lacked substantial content and featured very simple gameplay, resembling online saves of parkour levels built in Minecraft. In other words, they are more akin to after-school homework appropriate for his age and ability.
Thus, apart from the IQ of 177, most of this prodigy's self-proclaimed achievements have been debunked by netizens one by one. Zhang Yufan is just a very ordinary nine-year-old child, nothing more.
However, if we go by this year's internet slang, he would be classified as a "Jiahao" beyond the ordinary—the kind overflowing with bravado. But in reality, if we look at it more rigorously, at nine years old, he clearly isn't at an age where he can truly "act big." It's actually quite normal for children of this age to brag and try to elevate their own status.
But what's unusual is that someone like him shouldn't have been visible to us in the first place.
At this point, if you carefully check Zhang Yufan's Roblox account information, you'll notice the account was registered in 2024, just two years ago. Even without debating the claims of "ten works in two years" or "ten million lines of code," the timeline alone contradicts his previously stated "five years of development experience."
If we dig deeper and scroll back two years on Zhang Yufan's Douyin account, we discover that he actually had another parallel identity back then—a child model, even serving as a brand ambassador and runway model.
Tracing further back, there is also footage circulating online from 2022 showing Zhang Yufan auditioning as an actor, when he was only five years old.
For a five-year-old, most learning-related hobbies are "forced interests" rather than natural ones, let alone someone like Zhang Yufan, a child actor, model, and game developer who also manages skateboarding, surfing, parkour, chess, ukulele, and Muay Thai in his spare time—a veritable "prodigy."
It's not hard to see that behind the camera, there is clearly an invisible hand manipulating the child.
Speaking of which, we finally arrive at the true protagonist hidden behind the entire prodigy marketing event—his guardian.
In recent years, a new profession called "Kindergarten Programming Teacher" has become very popular and lucrative. During the period I stayed at home after graduating from university, I even received a high-paying offer for this role. My elders at home also encouraged me to try it, given my major matched. But since you are reading this article today, you know the outcome. I believe it is a distorted profession—why should kindergarten children learn programming? Shouldn't they be playing?
In the previous generation's view, children needed to win at the starting line. Ordinary families enrolled their children in tutoring classes, while wealthier families taught them music, chess, calligraphy, and painting. As times changed, programming, AI, and game development entered their视野 (field of vision), becoming new options for preparing children for the future.
Are Zhang Yufan's parents part of this group?
Is it...
If that were truly the case, the article should probably end here. The topic of "parents expecting their children to succeed and children being dragged along" has been discussed extensively over the past decade, with little room for further expansion. But clearly, this is not the end of the article, nor is it the endpoint of Zhang Yufan's prodigy narrative.
Judging from online archives, his guardians don't seem to be ordinary parents simply hoping their child finds their passion. They resemble the type of people who would have hired me back in the day. After a few media interviews, Zhang Yufan's account quickly began selling courses to parents, complete with a structured curriculum and discount marketing strategies ranging from referral bonuses to limited-time offers.
At this point, the previously mentioned controversial statement, "If you don't make games, what's the point of playing them?" takes on practical meaning—it is a specialized programming language aimed at other children's parents. The subsequent addition by his mother that "her child doesn't and doesn't need to play games" successfully acted as a code patch injecting reassurance.
Fortunately, this prodigy marketing campaign wasn't very successful. To date, the account's statistics remain mediocre, while critical reviews of "Prodigy TV" frequently trend. This might be considered a good ending.
But whenever such events occur, there must be a victim.
There is a famous essay in the seventh-grade Chinese textbook titled "The Lament of Zhongyong." It tells the story of Fang Zhongyong, a Northern Song dynasty prodigy who could compose poetry at age five. Due to his father's greed, he was taken around to visit villagers daily, neglecting his studies. His talents gradually declined, and by age twenty, he had become "indistinguishable from the common people."
We find that these two stories are surprisingly similar from a certain narrative perspective. Admittedly, the "prodigy" label on Zhang Yufan shows obvious signs of packaging. But fairly speaking, he is not a worthless child. His English level is excellent compared to his peers, and he has indeed been exposed to more hobbies like programming, game development, and skateboarding. If he continued along the growth trajectory of an ordinary child, these abilities might yet bear fruit. There is still hope for Everythinggj.
But it seems he may never reach that future.
Zhang Yufan's mother revealed in an interview that the young prodigy dropped out of school in the second semester of fourth grade because she wanted her child to pursue what he desired. But acting last year, modeling this year, developing games next year, and finally pivoting to selling courses—is this erratic approach really what the child wants to do?
Perhaps it really is.
Because during the early stages of development, parents constitute a child's entire world. Children at this age tend to be blindly confident and speak in "B Language," such as, "I want to develop games, and I've already written ten million lines of code."
At this point, parents need to respond quickly with another form of adult "B Language"—the "Big B Slap." It could be physical, though that is strongly discouraged. More often, reality itself delivers a slap to lying children. Presenting facts and reasoning is clearly more persuasive than corporal punishment. In short, children need to understand: wanting to develop games is fine; claiming to have written ten million lines is nonsense.
But if parents fully indulge their child and let them "build courage" on camera by reciting a long list of achievements—including ten million lines of code, one-finger typing, an IQ of 177, five years of coding experience, five languages, and numerous hobbies—lying becomes a habit. Moreover, receiving affirmation from the "whole world" might lead the child to deceive themselves, believing in the prodigy packaging and viewing exam-oriented education as a waste of youth.
This perspective actually has some market traction. There's a saying circulating online: "Only after graduation do you appreciate the beauty of the classical Chinese texts you memorized by rote," followed by laments about exam-oriented education and school experiences.
But as a science-stream editor who failed high school sophomore Chinese and barely scraped a 120 on the college entrance exam through rote memorization, I believe that in many cases, forcing intake before learning is a more common method. These seemingly useless pieces of knowledge are like consumable items in games that are "hard to obtain but never used." They might never be used until the game ends, but they might also come in handy unexpectedly.
Opting out of compulsory education completely severs ties with these foundations. Having attended only up to the fourth grade, he won't meet Fang Zhongyong in two years, nor will he recognize his situation as "The Lament of Zhongyong." Lacking basic cultural literacy and rich gaming experience, how can he create a good game?
Recently, I came across a saying: if you divide life into 24 hours, your early twenties are roughly equivalent to 7:30 AM. Your mental state for the rest of the day mainly depends on the quality of your sleep the night before.
This statement lacks theoretical basis and, like the sighs mentioned earlier, only provides emotional value. But unlike before, I want to believe this.
For a nine-year-old child, what he needs to learn is how to play games, not how to make them.
Even if he truly is a prodigy, he deserves the right to enjoy an equal childhood.