Top Student at Their Peak
Chapter 87 - 71 That Guy is Really Sick!

Chapter 87: Chapter 71 That Guy is Really Sick!

The final competition at Xiao Lake University headquarters.

Although there were no hot meals, considering a bunch of high schoolers were still growing, the organizing committee prepared plenty of snacks like cakes, placed at the back row. They were available for anyone at any time.

Each person had an individual cubicle, and there were surveillance cameras with microphones in the exam room. The competition rules had been clearly explained, so everyone behaved very orderly.

The high school students who passed the preliminary rounds and were invited to the finals definitely had above-average intelligence. At least, they wouldn’t have trouble understanding crucial technical descriptions.

As the teachers often say: "A drum that doesn’t need heavy beating."

However, Qiao Yu never left his seat.

It’s not that he wasn’t hungry, or trying to make an early submission to show off, but Little Alibaba’s math competition answering system always had a few glitches. He had encountered them during the preliminaries.

Firstly, its built-in LaTeX couldn’t be edited, and the cursor easily jumped around. This sometimes caused formulas to insert in the wrong places suddenly.

These weren’t major issues, but occasionally if you stayed too long on one page, the system would automatically overwrite what you had written onto the first question. And the first question was particularly calculative.

In short, Qiao Yu felt that although the algebra and number theory track wasn’t difficult, it was full of details.

Loosen your focus just a bit, and you’re likely to make mistakes.

So Qiao Yu decided to push through and finish all the questions at once, then submit everything.

Just like that, around 1:50 in the afternoon, after nearly five hours, Qiao Yu finished the last question, uploaded his answers, and clicked the submit button.

All done!

Actually, Qiao Yu had estimated it would take about four hours, but because of the first question and considering the details, he overthought it, conducted a classification discussion, and spent much more time.

But it’s whatever.

Though he felt quite hungry around one o’clock, half an hour later he was past the point of hunger and felt pretty good now.

After submitting the answers, Qiao Yu stretched and then saw a staff member coming over. After a brief conversation, he followed the staff out of the exam room.

No commotion was stirred.

Everyone was busy answering questions, at most looking up for a quick glance.

Nobody thought Qiao Yu submitted early; someone going to the restroom earlier got the same treatment.

...

"Are you heading straight to your room to rest or?" asked the staff after walking out of the exam room.

"I want to find Teacher Lan," Qiao Yu replied.

"The lead teachers should all be waiting over in the rest area right now, I’ll take you there," the staff member said, then led Qiao Yu to the break room where Lan Jie had been earlier that morning.

Seeing someone bringing a student over immediately grabbed the attention of the lead teachers in the rest area, countless eyes focused on the door.

But to Qiao Yu’s surprise, he saw many people, yet Lan Jie was nowhere in sight.

"Um... it seems my teacher isn’t here," Qiao Yu said.

"Huh? Perhaps went to the restroom? Should I wait here with you?" The monitoring staff was momentarily stunned and instinctively replied.

He was responsible for on-site supervising, always stationed in the exam room, even had lunch distributed with a few colleagues in turns at the canteen, so didn’t quite know what was happening here.

Luckily at this moment, footsteps echoed in the hallway, drawing Qiao Yu’s gaze, and in came Teacher Lan alongside another middle-aged man.

"No need to bother, my teacher is here," Qiao Yu said.

"Professor Xue." Almost simultaneously, the staff greeted.

Qiao Yu immediately became somewhat alert.

Mainly because this surname had popped up several times in front of him these past couple of days.

The ID named Old Xue who posted a question on the algebra number theory small house forum privately messaged him, saying his real name was Xue Song, a professor at Yujiang University, asking for his contact information. He also saw the introduction of Professor Xue Song on the competition’s official website, a senior lecturer from Yujiang University’s Hundred Talents Program.

Considering Yujiang University was conveniently located in Xiao Zhou, Qiao Yu quickly figured out who the person walking beside Lan Jie was.

It felt a bit odd.

But Lan Jie’s single sentence cleared his confusion.

"We can see your answer process from the backend, and Professor Xue admires your performance in the finals very much. Just at noon while eating, he couldn’t wait to ask me to know about you."

Qiao Yu smiled; he got the implication from Teacher Lan.

Rather than introductions, Lan Jie directly said this, implying that the good guy guessed, knowing from the staff address earlier, that the Professor Xue beside him was indeed Xue Song.

The essential underlying meaning of this sentence was, he hadn’t told this Professor Xue that the equation on the small house forum was solved by him.

Though the remark was quite clever, Qiao Yu still felt it was a bit rough and blunt.

After all, starting off with such a sentence gives a strange impression.

If it were him, he’d certainly introduce his student methodically to this Professor Xue first.

Just saying this right away makes it seem like this middle schooler secretly knows this Professor Xue quite well.

However, Qiao Yu knew that the good guy’s dealings with people and society were too clumsy. To put it bluntly, he’s stayed in the school environment for too long, academic thinking is too rigid, not flexible enough.