287 Plenty of Pretentiousness at the Scene
The school bus drove on the road at a moderate pace and no one spoke throughout the journey.
Ye Lingchen was seen sitting all alone with a heart of stone, looking to his left and right without a care in the world. As a result, anger began bubbling inside Zhang Yu and Cao Tongtong.
They could be described as the pride of heaven in the math world and were crowned as geniuses, yet they had to team up with a useless piece of garbage. They would feel no pride if they lost but the slacker would get the benefits if they won, thus trapping them in a dilemma.
They were both nervous and uneasy as they braced themselves to face the competition. When they looked at Ye Lingchen’s nonchalance, their ire increased even more.
“Hey, since you’re going to participate in this competition, you ought to have some foundation in math, right? The contents of this competition span an entire university’s syllabus, up to the graduate level. Even the most partial formulas are included in it. How about we warm up? “Zhang Yu challenged Ye Lingchen.
“I agree.” Cao Tongtong nodded.
Ye Lingchen merely glanced at them and remained silent.
Zhang Yu was already saying to himself, “I’ll go first. Since we’re in the car, there’s no way we can do anything too high-level, so why not just compare our calculation speed.”
“Okay, in this game, quick calculation skills are crucial. You need to compete for speed,” Cao Tongtong agreed.
The two of them decided on that with a simple exchange and started asking questions.
Both individuals were truly worthy of being mathematics geniuses. They were more perceptive to numbers than ordinary people, and the answer to a random math problem—no matter how many twists and turns, no matter how complicated the calculation formula was—could be calculated in mere seconds.
Although the problem was not particularly complicated, it was stunning enough that they could add, subtract, multiply, and divide a five-digit number and answer at lightning speed.
Zhang Yu and Cao Tongtong kept up the question-and-answer session amongst themselves with neither being put at a disadvantage.
In the car, teachers and professors had looks of amazement in their eyes. The unhappiness caused by Ye Lingchen gradually disappeared, and although there an extra person holding them back, there was still hope yet for two of Capital’s prodigies.
Even though they might not get first place, there was still hope that they could make the top three.
“Awesome, awesome!” the driver could not resist exclaiming. “Looks like Capital will be getting another good ranking. I remember our miserable loss last year where we only managed to get second place. We’ll get first place this year!”
“Sigh, it’s going to be a bit difficult,” Professor Bai lamented with traces of anxiety. “Last year we lost to Beihai Province, I heard that one of their contestants today is more talented than the previous champion.”
“It’s not just Beihai, I even heard that Nanking City produced a math prodigy too. Last month, there was news that this genius broke twelve years of unbroken quick calculation records. Some people even compared him to a calculator,” Professor An chimed in as well.
“I’ve also heard rumors about geniuses in other regions. In simple terms, all major provinces and cities have put in a lot of effort this time to make a push.” Professor Tang felt pressured too.
They glanced at Ye Lingchen simultaneously and their hearts became heavier.
A computer was used in the competition to decide match pairings at random. For example, one person each from Capital and Beihai would be sent in for a Capital vs. Beihai duel. The winner would then proceed to the next round while the loser would be eliminated.
Teams consisted of three individuals. In other words, it meant that a certain region would have three opportunities, which were independent of each other. It was considered a way of maintaining the competition’s fairness by giving each province and city more opportunities to perform.
There was supposed to be three opportunities, but for Capital, Ye Lingchen could simply be considered a direct pass. Due to that, there were only two opportunities left.
It was a painful thought, and one could only hope that Zhang Yu and Cao Tongtong could carry the team.
Cao Tongtong and Zhang Yu were tired of asking and answering. In the end, they turned to Ye Lingchen and asked, “Hey, why aren’t you saying anything? Do you know anything or not!”
“We’re already kind enough to take you into account with the question that we’re asking. We’re basically limiting them to the range of freshman questions. Don’t tell me you don’t know all this?”
“Forget it. We might think that some topics are simple, but others might feel that they’re difficult. Just forget about it, he probably can’t understand it. After all, not everyone is as smart as we are.”
“You’re right. The difference between two people can potentially be very large. Some can only walk through the back door, and in fact, their level is completely unbearable to look at!”
They could not make any direct comments despite their unhappiness, so their only outlet was to vent their dissatisfaction through sarcasm.
Ye Lingchen looked at them, then took out his phone without saying a word.
“Hey, one one zero? I’m calling the police! There are pretentious people here and the scene is going out of control. Please send support!”
The next moment, he placed his phone down and looked at Zhang Yu and Cao Tongtong, “She said you’re a bunch of stupid p*ssies!”
“F*CK, she’s talking about you!” Zhang Yu retorted. He was stunned by Ye Lingchen’s actions.
“You like giving out questions, don’t you? How about I give you a question.” Ye Lingchen looked at them and offered.
Zhang Yu and Cao Tongtong nodded and agreed without so much as a second thought.
Others also showed an interest and began looking at Ye Lingchen. They wondering what kind of question he would have.
Ye Lingchen took pen and paper then started working hard, writing down calculations one by one, with brackets for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and brackets within those brackets that contained fractional decimal functions. It was all arranged in a long line, and instead of stopping on the first page, he continued onto the second page.
Zhang Yu and Cao Tongtong looked at Ye Lingchen and sneered inwardly. The kid was probably thinking that the difficulty of a question was related to its length. How naïve!
“Done.” Ye Lingchen gave the question to the two of them.
“Oh, is this difficult? Watch closely!” Zhang Yu and Cao Tongtong grabbed it hurriedly and started doing frantic calculations.
Ye Lingchen’s question was not particularly complicated. It was merely the numerical values that were relatively large, coupled with various complications mixed together. It only looked scary.
Zhang Yu’s eyes quickly scanned the numbers. His hands were clenched tightly and his brain was running wild as he started calculating quickly.
Cao Tongtong was mumbling something. A series of numbers were spoken from her mouth and she quickly made her calculations according to the order.
Their imposing character was breathtaking and the calculation on the first page was finished in a short amount of time. They then turned to the second page.
They reached the end in just one minute, but at that moment, their faces froze. The accompanying professors and teachers froze too because the last step of the question required one to multiply by zero!
Oh f*ck!
Multiplied by zero???
Whatever calculations they did before that zero ended up going to waste because irrespective of what the results were, multiplying by zero would only result in zero!
Zhang Yu and Cao Tongtong’s face turned all shades of green and white. They were so gloomy that they nearly vomited blood. ‘What the flying f*ck are you doing? You wanna make a fool out of us?’
