“You created the question?” Professor Jiao was utterly shocked.
“Yes.” Tan Mo nodded.
“Well, if you guys don’t believe that, then why not look it up online and see if you can find a similar one? We’ve checked, and there isn’t one that’s even close.”
Professor Jiao and the others immediately took their phones out to search the question online.
In under just a minute, the result came back as negative.
“If you still don’t believe me, then I can create around eight to 10 more questions. If you want something harder, it wouldn’t be a problem either,” Tan Mo said as if she was at complete ease.
Professor Jiao was now looking at Tan Mo dumbfoundedly.
“There’s no way you can put Tan Mo and Peng Jiayou in the same league.” Professor Yao laughed. “Tan Mo is the one who got personally invited by the presidents of all six of the best universities in the country. Except for the president of Shuang University, the rest of them all personally visited Tan Mo in B City to try and recruit her. Even our President Mu and your President Shi did the same thing. They even gave her a lot of benefits. I’m sure you are familiar with this story.”
“I know. You don’t have to repeat it…” Professor Jiao grunted, knowing that his peer was saying that to provoke him even further. He also silently blamed President Shi for not being able to recruit Tan Mo to Hua University.
If Tan Mo was a student at Hua University, then their roles in the current situation would’ve been reversed.
Professor Jiao didn’t know was that Professor Yao had intended his words for Lin Jingyuan, telling her that the real genius was Tan Mo.
Tan Mo was the only one in the country who had been personally recruited by the presidents of all six top universities.
As for Lin Jingyuan, only the heads of department from both universities had come to recruit her, and it wasn’t to the point that they really needed her to study at their universities.
In the end, Professor Yao was showing Lin Jingyuan that her talent wasn’t that great for her to be so full of herself.
It wasn’t clear as to whether Lin Jingyuan understood what Professor Yao was trying to tell her. After hearing about the treatment that Tan Mo had received, she couldn’t help but look at Tan Mo.
The high school senior frowned and scanned Tan Mo from top to bottom.
“How about this?” Professor Yao suddenly suggested. “Since no one took more than an hour to finish the previous questions, why don’t we set a one-hour time limit? Well, in the end, this is all my fault. I should’ve set this rule from the beginning. Since Peng Jiayou has been trying to solve the question for half an hour, we’ll just set the limit at the one-hour mark. If he still can’t solve it by then, he’ll have no choice but to give up.”
There wasn’t anything wrong with Professor Yao’s suggestion. Thus, Professor Jiao was forced to agree with it.
However, Peng Jiayou was already on the verge of collapsing.
He felt as if he was a clown that was being stared at by a crowd.
With a loud snap, the chalk broke into two pieces once again.
Peng Jiayou took a deep breath and put the chalk down. “I can’t solve it.”
“Then, it’s our win!” Song Mingqi exclaimed.
As Peng Jiayou gave up on answering, both Du Zeyang and Chi Xuanzi did the same thing as well.
They couldn’t answer it and had planned to ask Tan Mo about it once they got back to the hotel.
Peng Jiayou lowered his head and returned to his seat.
It was then that Lin Jingyuan suddenly spoke. “Tan Mo, can you solve the question for us?”
Even though she said it that way, everyone understood that Lin Jingyuan did not believe that Tan Mo couldn’t answer the question herself.
“Sure thing.” Tan Mo nodded without any hesitation and walked to the blackboard. She picked up the chalk that Peng Jiayou had used.
Before she started writing, she erased all the algorithms that Peng Jiayou had written.
She didn’t even need to do any calculations and started to write on the board.
Every step was clearly written down. When she filled the first blackboard, she moved to the second one.
After writing everything down, Tan Mo put the chalk down and said, “Alright. If there’s any of you who wants to challenge more questions like this, I can write some down.”
Everyone in the room shook their heads.
The difficulty of the question wasn’t something a high school senior could solve.
Lin Jingyuan did not shake nor nod her head.
She didn’t want to shake her head, but if she were to nod and let Tan Mo give a few questions, she could never answer a single one of them.
Tan Mo could see the struggle in Lin Jingyuan’s eyes but chose to ignore it.
She walked off the stage and went back to where the people from Beijing University were.
“Let’s go then,” Professor Yao said and turned to leave.
Seeing the people from Beijing University leave without saying anything to her, Lin Jingyuan finally got nervous.
In the end, she was still a teen and had a lot to learn about how to control her emotions.
“Professor Yao!” Lin Jingyuan suddenly stopped them.
The professor stopped and turned to look at the high school senior.
“A-are you all leaving?” the senior asked.
“Of course. Is there anything else for us to do here?” the professor replied with another question.
Lin Jingyuan paused for a second to ponder it but swiftly came to a decision.
She was the one who had said that she would apply to the university that had won the competition.
Now that the Beijing University had won, it was natural for her to apply there.
There was no need for her to hesitate.
The only problem was that Professor Yao didn’t even say anything to her or offer her any scholarships.
The high school senior was completely confused.
in the end, she said, “I’m going to apply to study at Beijing University.”
After hearing that, Mr. Zhu couldn’t help but shake his head.
Everything that Lin Jingyuan had done resulted in her losing all her advantages.
At first, no matter which university she applied to, she would definitely be welcomed with open hands.
She would have also gotten a hefty scholarship out of them.
At the very least, the scholarship was something both Professor Yao and Professor Jiao could promise.
Yet, she had to go and suggest the two universities have a competition.
During the process, Beijing University was embarrassed by its opponents while the competition ended in Hua University’s embarrassment.
After the competition, Lin Jingyuan did not leave a good impression on either of the universities that came to scout her.
Now, even if she mentioned that she was willing to apply to a certain university, all she could do was go through the standard procedure. There was no way they would offer her any preferential treatment anymore.
In the end, she wasn’t the only top scorer in the country.
Even some of the students who weren’t the top scorer in a certain field had a better overall score than her.
The two professors would rather give the scholarships to the latter.
“Of course, our university is always welcome to those who have met the requirement to apply,” Professor Yao responded, treating Lin Jingyuan as if she was any other applicant.
It was only then the high school senior finally noticed something was wrong.
As the people from Beijing University were about to walk out of the classroom, Lin Jingyuan stopped them again. “Tan Mo!”
“Yes?” Tan Mo turned around and asked.
“I’ll catch up to you when I get into Beijing University!” Lin Jingyuan now knew that Beijing University did not think highly of her. She thought that if she stated she could catch up to Tan Mo, then it would definitely catch their attention.
“I’m afraid you won’t be able to do that,” Tan Mo replied with a smile.
“Why not?” Lin Jingyuan scolded. “What makes you so sure that you’re better than me?”
“Well, if you can get a perfect score in the graduation exam and enter Beijing University at the age of 15, then you might have a chance.”
