A Shocking Piece of Draft Paper

"So that's how it is—that explains everything!"

Teacher Zhang's words caught the attention of others.

Qin Song looked at Teacher Zhang and asked, "Teacher Zhang, what do you mean by that?"

The other teachers also turned their gazes toward him.

Teacher Zhang stood up directly and walked over to where the scratch paper from each exam room was stored.

Their school's exam rules basically followed the college entrance exam regulations to the letter, so even the scratch paper for the math test was collected uniformly, with each sheet bearing the student's information.

Soon, Teacher Zhang found the scratch paper from Exam Room 4 and pulled out one sheet.

Turning around, he said to the teachers present, "This is it."

"Xiao Yi wrote four complete solutions to the final problem on his scratch paper."

As soon as he said this, the teachers present all widened their eyes.

Huh?

Four solutions to the final problem?

That would mean, together with the one on his answer sheet, there were five solutions?

Heavens, among the first four exam rooms they'd finished grading, barely anyone had scored full marks on the final problem—not even a handful, let alone a full hand. It was just two people.

One was the student who scored 145, and the other was Xiao Yi.

And now Teacher Zhang was telling them that Xiao Yi had come up with five whole solutions to the final problem?

"Why... did he do that?"

Someone asked.

They couldn't figure out why Xiao Yi would bother thinking up five ways to solve this one problem.

Wasn't that just wasting time for no reason?

"Uh..."

Teacher Zhang paused for a moment, then looked at the scratch paper again, recalling the overwhelming shock he'd felt back in the exam room when he'd understood the purpose behind Xiao Yi's four additional methods written on it.

Then he handed the paper out and said, "I think it's better if you all take a look yourselves."

Qin Song was the first to take it.

He'd watched Xiao Yi spend forty minutes writing on that scratch paper in the monitoring room today, so he was extremely curious about what was on it.

But after taking the paper, he couldn't make much sense of it.

After all, he wasn't a math teacher, so he couldn't explain what was written there. He simply passed the scratch paper to the other teachers.

"Take a look, you all. I'm not a math teacher—I can't understand it."

The other teachers set aside their grading and took the paper, examining it.

Soon, one teacher caught on.

His eyes widened, and he said in astonishment, "He's... constantly challenging himself to solve this final problem with simpler methods?!"

"Huh?"

The teachers present all wore puzzled expressions.

At that moment, Teacher Zhang finally nodded. "Yes, that's exactly it."

"The method he used on the answer sheet took nine lines to solve."

"On this scratch paper, he only used five lines to solve the same problem."

"I couldn't understand how he managed that at first, but just now, when I heard Director Qin say that this student has already caught the attention of the Gifted Class, I understood. No wonder he could do something like this."

Hearing Teacher Zhang's words, all the teachers wore expressions of disbelief.

Oh my heavens, what kind of god-tier student was this?

Qin Song was stunned too. So Xiao Yi had spent those last forty minutes studying something like this?

Finding a simpler way to solve a problem that other students couldn't even crack at all...

This kid...

So he'd definitely never studied seriously before this semester, right?

And then, once he started studying seriously this semester, he began pushing the limits of what they, as teachers, could accept?

Shaking his head, as the shock in his heart gradually settled, he finally let out a long breath.

Regardless, from this math exam and this scratch paper, Xiao Yi's true ability had far exceeded their expectations.

Now, he should immediately share this good news with Professor Liu Bin.

He was confident that this math exam performance alone would be enough to put Liu Bin at ease.

With that thought, he took the scratch paper back, snapped a few photos of it, then asked a teacher to send him a copy of Xiao Yi's test paper. After that, he said, "Thank you all for your hard work. I have something to attend to, so I'll take my leave. Please continue grading."

The other teachers nodded in acknowledgment. They had indeed spent quite a bit of time on Xiao Yi's paper, and now it was time to get back to grading the other exam rooms.

However, just as Qin Song was about to leave, he suddenly added, "Oh, right, actually I was in the monitoring room today watching Xiao Yi's exam. If I'm not mistaken, he finished all the questions on the paper in just twenty minutes."

With that, he left directly.

The teachers, who were about to start grading, were stunned by his words for a long moment.

Even Teacher Zhang was taken aback; during the invigilation, he really hadn't noticed that Xiao Yi had completed all the questions twenty minutes into the exam.

Twenty minutes—what did that even mean?

Well, it seemed the kid really had nothing better to do during the test, which was why he'd come up with so many solutions for the final problems.

At the University of Science and Technology of China, in an office within the School of Mathematics.

Liu Bin was in the office, and on his desk lay a stack of new books.

These were all carefully selected textbooks for university-level mathematics majors.

From advanced mathematics to algebra, from number theory to geometry...

In total, there were over a dozen books.

Besides these, there were also several collections of math competition problems he'd meticulously chosen over the past few days.

These were the things he'd promised to give to Xiao Yi.

Initially, Xiao Yi had only wanted the competition problems, but Liu Bin felt that beyond those, Xiao Yi should also start learning the knowledge required for university-level mathematics. So he prepared everything together, intending to hand it all over to Xiao Yi at once.

Suddenly, his phone rang. Glancing at the caller ID, it was Qin Song, the Grade 2 Director from the Affiliated High School.

His eyes lit up. It had been around the time of their school's monthly exams these past couple of days. If Qin Song was calling now, could it be good news about Xiao Yi?

With that thought, he immediately answered the call.

Soon, Qin Song's hearty laughter came through the line: "Hahaha, Professor Liu, you can rest easy now!"

Liu Bin chuckled as well. "What good news? Tell me."