Awesome!

This one-and-a-half-hour math exam was probably the most torturous stretch of time Xiao Yi had experienced in a long while.

Why one and a half hours? Because the math exam lasted two hours, and you could hand in your paper thirty minutes early.

It only took him twenty minutes to finish all the questions, and he hadn't used a single bit of scratch paper.

With questions that simple, did anyone really need scratch paper to work through them step by step?

Couldn't they just close their eyes and fill in the answer sheet directly?

In the end, after finishing all the problems in twenty minutes, he had no idea what to do. There were still seventy whole minutes left before he could submit his paper, so he spent thirty minutes reviewing previously learned knowledge in his mind, then another forty minutes challenging himself to find the simplest solution for the final tough problem.

Finally, he succeeded in compressing the solution to that problem into five lines, totaling forty-three characters, which made him feel a bit of interest.

Compared to the nine lines and eighty-six characters on the answer sheet, it was cut in half.

That was the simplest method he could find within those forty minutes.

Just then, the bell rang, and he immediately raised his hand to signal that he was turning in his paper.

The invigilator came over quickly. Since he hadn't invigilated the Chinese Language exam that morning, he didn't know this was already Xiao Yi's second time handing in his paper thirty minutes early.

But the other examinees in the exam room were all very aware.

What the hell?

How come this guy is handing in his paper early again?

Handing in the Chinese Language paper thirty minutes early in the morning had already shocked them enough, but turning in the Chinese paper early was at most a mild surprise—there were others who could hand it in twenty or ten minutes early too, so it only made people marvel at how fast this guy wrote.

But math was different.

Handing in early might mean you couldn't go on, but in this exam room, that possibility was very slim. It basically came down to a display of skill.

Every examinee in the room could deeply feel how hard this math exam was. Whether it was the multiple-choice or fill-in-the-blank questions, the final tough ones were insanely difficult. Many had wasted dozens of minutes on those two problems without solving them, so much so that most people, with only half an hour left in the exam, might have just started on the problem-solving section or only finished the first two problems there.

There were still dozens of points' worth of questions left undone!

So why could this guy still hand in his paper early?

Had he wisely skipped those two tough problems, saving a ton of time, then only written what he knew on the problem-solving section and skipped what he didn't, allowing him to turn in his paper thirty minutes early?

But no matter which possibility it was, their hearts had all grown tense.

Chen Wei, sitting in the same exam room, watched Xiao Yi's retreating figure as he left the exam hall, and his eyelids twitched.

He couldn't help but recall earlier, when Xiao Yi said he was that mysterious Grade 2 student who had solved several Math Olympiad problems over at the Senior Year Department.

Could it really be this kid?

Impossible, absolutely impossible!

After all, they had agreed to stay together in Exam Room 4 until the end of time. Xiao Yi would keep his word...

Right?

"Stop looking at others and keep working on your own papers. What others write is theirs; what you write is yours."

The invigilator, seeing that the other examinees were all affected by Xiao Yi's early submission, reminded them with a word.

Then he picked up Xiao Yi's test paper, glanced it over, and a look of amazement appeared in his eyes.

This student...

Impressive!

He finished everything in an hour and a half?

And the multiple-choice questions... all correct. The fill-in-the-blank questions... the first three were right, the fourth...

This invigilator was a math teacher. During the exam, he had idly worked on the test questions himself. His answers matched Xiao Yi's on everything else, but for the fourth fill-in-the-blank, they differed—Xiao Yi's result had an extra "0."

He thought it over carefully and immediately realized his mistake. When solving, he had overlooked the case where the condition was zero.

So Xiao Yi's answer was the correct one!

Maybe he missed that case because he was an invigilator, not a test-taker, and wasn't being thorough enough, but at that moment, he couldn't help but admire this student named Xiao Yi.

Impressive!

He glanced at the class—Class 3 of Science Stream.

This should be even better than the students in Class 1 of Science Stream, right?

Shaking his head, he was about to look at the problem-solving section.

But just then, Xiao Yi's scratch paper suddenly caught his attention.

He picked it up and looked it over, frowning slightly.

Hmm?

Why was the scratch paper all about one problem?

Was it the final tough problem?

He looked more closely, and finally, when he understood what was written on that scratch paper, this invigilator—

Went numb.

Inside the monitoring room.

"He... handed in his paper early again."

"If we're not mistaken, he actually finished all the questions around the twentieth minute."

A moment of silence.

Otherwise, there was no explaining how, after twenty minutes of the exam, Xiao Yi had spaced out for a full thirty minutes, then doodled on his scratch paper for another forty.

"Finished in twenty minutes... isn't that a bit... too exaggerated?" Chen Liang couldn't help but say.

Luo Penghua: "Maybe... just a little?"

Qin Song: "But that's how it is."

Another stretch of silence.

Finally, Luo Penghua laughed. "At least, for now, this exam really doesn't seem to be much of a problem for Xiao Yi."

Qin Song nodded. "That's true."

"Alright, today's exams are over. Tonight, let's go straight to check on the math grading. Hope it brings us a surprise."

Chen Liang said, "Let me know when there's a result."

"No problem."

The last half hour passed quickly. As the bell rang, it signaled the end of today's exams.

The students had two hours of rest time, then evening self-study starting at seven.

The teachers for today's two subjects had to start grading the papers. Results were usually fully tallied one day after the exams ended.

And so, that evening, the Chinese Language and math teachers were the busiest.

Grade 2 Math Grading Site.

"This test was really tough. Not a single perfect score from Exam Room 1."

"The highest is Shen Xing, 148 points. He lost the last step on the final problem, but that step was indeed a difficult one."

"148 is pretty good. Should be the highest in the whole grade."

The grading teachers chatted as they worked.

Most teachers agreed with the conclusion that "148 is the highest score."

But just then, a teacher suddenly spoke up. "That's not necessarily true. When we get to Exam Room 4 later, there's a student who might just surprise you all."

This teacher was none other than the one who had proctored the math exam in Exam Room 4!