Top Student at Their Peak
Chapter 91 - 72: The Return of the Gold Medalist

Chapter 91: Chapter 72: The Return of the Gold Medalist

"That Qiao Yu is crazy; he must have something wrong with his head."

On the other side, Yu Wei, who had walked a distance away, said the same thing, his tone very serious.

The coach beside him just smiled and didn’t respond.

It’s quite amusing for someone who’s extremely proud and a moderately obsessive-compulsive person to say that another math genius is crazy.

Although it was the first time this student actively commented on someone, he was just a math Olympic Competition coach, not particularly skilled in psychological counseling.

"No, it’s not ’maybe,’ he definitely has something wrong with his head, he’s crazy!"

After walking around the guesthouse twice and planning to return to his room, Yu Wei emphasized once more.

...

Little Alibaba was quite sincere in its hospitality.

Although the finals were over, the young contestants invited to this event didn’t need to rush back home.

Little Alibaba gave everyone a week of buffer time, arranging for travel plans before contacting the appropriate person to book tickets.

In other words, if a contestant really wanted to stay and play for a week in Xiao Zhou, Little Alibaba would provide free meals and accommodation during this time. If they wanted to stay longer, well, that wasn’t impossible either. But free food and accommodation definitely wouldn’t be an option, and they would have to book their return tickets themselves.

To be honest, this rule was very generous, equivalent to a week-long sponsored sightseeing trip.

If someone was still dissatisfied after such a long time, they would truly be ungrateful.

However, most of those invited to the finals probably weren’t very interested in sightseeing.

This was obvious from the ticket booking information received by the person responsible for reception this time at Little Alibaba.

About half of them chose to head home the next day. If you counted the day after tomorrow, this number would reach 90%, and by the third day, no one chose to stay in Xiao Zhou any longer.

Partly because they probably felt it wasn’t necessary to take advantage of the offer, and partly because the students who could participate in the finals were quite busy. In the second week of September, the Mathematical Competition League would begin in each province, and for those who wanted to attend the National High School Mathematics Winter Camp, they needed to score as high as possible in the league.

It wasn’t a joke when they said that each student representing their province in the national competition had a trail of countless practice behind them.

The high school students who achieved something in this Little Alibaba Math Competition largely targeted the top 60 spots in the national competition. After all, as long as they got into the national training team, whether they could stand out in March next year or not to represent the national team in the world competition, at least they could directly secure a place in top universities like Yanbei and Huaqing.

For kids involved in competitions, not having to take the college entrance exam was quite important.

Not everyone was an all-rounder; once they chose the competition route, it meant sacrificing a lot of time originally used for studying other subjects. If they really had to take the college entrance exam, they might not have any advantage over regular students.

Qiao Yu wasn’t in such a hurry.

However, after discussing with Lan Jie, he decided to return to Star City the next day. Little Alibaba was very efficient as expected of Xiao Zhou’s most famous enterprise; as soon as Lan Jie sent the message, in ten minutes, the confirmation of their tickets had already arrived on his phone.

They even got first-class seats, next to each other.

During the summer holidays, high-speed train tickets were quite scarce, so being able to get tickets on such short notice surely had some strings pulled. Qiao Yu certainly didn’t believe there was nothing fishy about it, but this time he had no objections.

...

The next day, Lan Jie and Qiao Yu got up at seven sharp. After washing up, they went downstairs to have breakfast, then returned to their room for a short break before the car that would take them to the high-speed train station arrived.

Originally, Lan Jie planned to just take Qiao Yu in a taxi, but the hosts were overly enthusiastic and insisted on arranging a special car for them.

After arriving early at the high-speed train station, Qiao Yu dragged Lan Jie to the automatic ticket machine to print out the tickets for their round trip.

Lan Jie was quite speechless.

"Teacher Lan, don’t be shy. Principal Zhang specifically reminded me on WeChat to save the tickets so they can be reimbursed. Four tickets, nearly three thousand bucks, that’s almost a week’s salary for you."

"Alright, I’ll transfer the money to you after reimbursement," Lan Jie immediately promised.

Qiao Yu promptly refused, "No, I’m not the type to take advantage of such small benefits."

Lan Jie believed him.

Just after getting on the train, Qiao Yu took out his phone and found out that someone had bombarded him with messages on WeChat.

"Hey big shot, why did you leave already?"

"Damn, didn’t I send you a message yesterday, inviting you to hang out at Xiao Lake today?"

"It’s hard to get out like this, why not take a day off instead of rushing back? Are you in a hurry to go back and suffer?"

...

Qiao Yu glanced at the messages from Yu Yongjun and remembered that this guy did send him a message last night, inviting him to spend a day at Xiao Lake.

But after seeing the message, he went to take a shower, and when he came out, he discussed returning to Star City with Lan Jie.

Of course, Lan Jie preferred to return to Star City as soon as possible.

The good guy wasn’t too comfortable taking advantage of others, and also, the Olympic competition class at school had to continue during the holidays, and he needed to go back and oversee things.

It couldn’t be helped; the provincial league kicked off as soon as the new school year started. Their students already had a weaker foundation compared to those from elite schools, and if they didn’t maintain a certain level of training during the summer, making a significant mark seemed nearly impossible. He had to take responsibility for the kids who trusted him.

In short, laden with heavy responsibilities and not in the mood to play.

Qiao Yu was indifferent as usual.

He had seen Xiao Lake’s scenery in videos. No matter how well-known, it was just a lake, nothing special.

Qiao Yu couldn’t be bothered to explain and directly took a photo of the view outside the train window, casually explaining: "Sorry, I actually prefer watching the scenery from the train."