Top Student at Their Peak
Chapter 99 - 75 A Phone Call That Changed Perception (Part 1)

Chapter 99: Chapter 75 A Phone Call That Changed Perception (Part 1)

Qiao Yu admitted defeat very straightforwardly.

Honor?

Doesn’t exist!

He’s a fifteen-year-old kid, nowhere near the time to care about honor.

If a bunch of professors really want to talk about honor with him, it shows they’re the ones lacking it.

Come on, if you have the guts, come argue with a fifteen-year-old brat. Let’s see who gets embarrassed when the word gets out!

This is the unstoppable and shameless age advantage, spread it and the professors would face social death.

But clearly, Qiao Yu overestimated the forum’s crowd composition.

If it was just private chats with professors, that’d be one thing, but posting such a thread on the forum really broke many graduate students’ defenses.

"Is this account hacked? Please show your method of solving equations before we talk!"

"Felt offended!"

"Hehe? High school student, do you think we would believe it?"

"Isn’t it? Qiao Yu? It can’t be the one from Star City Railway First Middle School, right?"

"What Star City Railway First Middle School?"

"The final list of the Little Alibaba competition is out, and the only gold medal in the algebra and number theory group is Qiao Yu, from Star City Railway First Middle School. Check the official website and you’ll see."

"What? So this newbie is indeed a high school student?"

"Ha, haha, hahaha... newbie?"

"Wow, guys, it’s true! Sorry to disturb, I’m out!"

"Wait for me, let’s delete our accounts together, I’m done with this!"

"Qiao Yu, I’d advise you to be sensible. I’ll give you two minutes; you’d better delete this post before my supervisor sees it!"

"Everyone, I took a screenshot of the Little Alibaba algebra and number theory group rankings, you can judge for yourselves."

...

Yes, for these graduate students, was Qiao Yu here to apologize? Hell no, he was here to flaunt!

Applying for answer privileges already ensured that everyone here was into math.

So no one’s conscience is any cleaner than anyone else’s.

Today is Saturday, and the day after tomorrow is Monday.

Even though it’s summer break now, everyone who’s been through grad school knows that to maintain the momentum of research and academic achievements, most of the time, even during winter and summer breaks, these no longer very valuable grad students need to continue working and studying.

Even though pure math research isn’t as grueling as engineering, not requiring you to stay in the lab twenty hours a day, and lenient supervisors might even allow you to go home for the break, if you want to graduate on time, weekly reports are usually unavoidable, even if they’re done remotely via WeChat or other software.

If the supervisor is busy, there’s usually a junior supervisor watching over, and graduate students who haven’t finished their tasks can already imagine their supervisor’s face and the likely comments when this news spreads.

"That’s it? After all this time you submit something like this? You’re getting worse and worse, don’t you know you’re even worse than middle schoolers?"

More pathetic are the domestic classmates on the forum who participated in the Little Alibaba math competition, made it to the finals, and even won awards.

Although there are five tracks in the Little Alibaba math competition finals, this forum discusses algebra and number theory, and graduate students competing here would surely choose the same track as Qiao Yu.

When someone posts the final results here, it doesn’t look good.

"Tsk tsk tsk... this ranking... oh well, I won’t comment, next please."

"I can’t understand it either, next please."

"Brother Zheng from Huaqing, first, congratulations on winning the bronze award. But I’m not trying to stir things up; I think Qiao Yu posting this thread here is a deliberate slap in the face."

"Ahem, I also think this is a bit overboard. Admin, delete this post quickly, it’s drawing too much hatred."

"I say, don’t be like this, that high school student might be lurking and feeling secretly pleased."

...

Qiao Yu indeed had been lurking all along, and it’s the kind where he kept refreshing the page.

This forum is too rudimentary, lacking a real-time reply notification feature, not even as good as Tieba, requiring constant manual refreshes to see new comments. It would only take a few lines of code in front-end and back-end cooperation, probably because the admin is too lazy to add such a practical feature.

But I have to say, the emotional value gained from the forum is way more satisfying than chatting in Class Thirteen’s group chat.

The only pity is that the forum ranks of those constantly complaining aren’t high. Forget about math experts, even math freaks are few. Most of them are math masters and math enthusiasts, with a few mathematics new rich in between.

But this is fine, it’s more relaxing to play.

For instance, when Qiao Yu saw a math enthusiast say he was lurking, he unhesitatingly replied.

"Sir, don’t slander me. I’m not lurking at all! And I’m only starting high school in September, so at most, you can call me a prospective high schooler. After all, I’m here to apologize to all the uncles and aunts and not embarrass the whole high school collective!"

With such a low title level, they mustn’t be professors.

Since everyone’s a student, Qiao Yu wouldn’t hesitate even a bit, he must display a proper apologetic attitude.

Thinking back now, when a bunch of math freaks were mocking him, these little Kalmis were also onlookers chiming in, so he can’t just let them off without an apology just because everyone’s a student. Agreed on equality among all beings.

...

Huaxia, Xiao Zhou.

It’s already late August, school is about to start...