"So that's how it was. Then it all makes sense!"
Teacher Zhang's words drew everyone else's attention.
Qin Song looked at Teacher Zhang and asked, "Teacher Zhang, what do you mean by that...?"
The other teachers all turned to look at him as well.
Teacher Zhang stood up directly, then walked over to where the scratch paper from each exam room was kept.
Their school's exam rules basically followed the college entrance examination rules completely, so scratch paper from math exams was collected centrally as well, with each sheet bearing the student's information.
Before long, Teacher Zhang found the scratch paper from Exam Room 4 and pulled one sheet from the stack.
Turning around, he said to the teachers present, "This one."
"Xiao Yi wrote a full four solutions to the final problem on his scratch paper."
The moment he said that, all the teachers present widened their eyes.
Huh?
Four solutions to the final problem?
Wouldn't that make five solutions altogether, including the one on his answer sheet?
Good heavens. Among the first four exam rooms they had finished grading so far, there were very few students who had gotten full marks on the final problem. Forget counting them on one hand—they could be counted on half a hand, because there were only two.
One was the student who had scored 145, while the other was Xiao Yi.
And now Teacher Zhang was telling them that Xiao Yi had come up with a full five solutions to the final problem?
"Why... did he do that?"
Someone asked.
They could not understand why Xiao Yi had bothered to come up with five different solutions for this problem.
Wasn't he just doing it because he had nothing better to do?
"Uh..."
Teacher Zhang fell silent for a moment. He looked at the scratch paper again, recalling the overwhelming shock he had felt earlier in the exam room when he understood why Xiao Yi had written those other four methods on it.
Then he handed over the scratch paper and said, "I think you should see it for yourselves."
Qin Song was the first to take it.
He had watched Xiao Yi write on this sheet of scratch paper for forty minutes in the monitoring room today, so he had been extremely curious about what was written on it.
Yet after taking the paper, he could not really understand it.
After all, he did not teach mathematics, so he could not make sense of what was written on it. He simply passed the scratch paper to the other teachers.
"Take a look. I don't teach math, so I can't understand it."
The other teachers stopped grading as well, taking the paper one after another and studying it.
Very soon, one teacher figured it out.
His eyes widened as he said in utter astonishment, "He was... constantly challenging himself to solve this final problem with simpler methods?!"
"Huh?"
The teachers present were all completely bewildered.
At that moment, Teacher Zhang finally nodded. "Yes, that's exactly it."
"The method he used on the test paper took nine lines."
"But on this sheet of scratch paper, he ultimately solved the problem in only five lines."
"At first, I simply could not understand how he had managed to do that. But just now, after hearing Director Qin say that the Gifted Class had taken an interest in this student, I understood. No wonder he could do something like this."
Listening to Teacher Zhang, every teacher wore an expression of disbelief.
Good heavens, what kind of god-tier student was this?
Qin Song was stunned too. So Xiao Yi had spent the last forty minutes studying something like this?
Using a simpler method to solve a problem that other students could not solve at all...
This kid...
So before this semester began, he definitely had never studied seriously, right?
Then, after he began studying seriously this semester, he started pushing the limits of what teachers like them could accept?
Shaking his head, he gradually calmed from his shock. In the end, he let out a long breath.
No matter what, judging from this math exam and this sheet of scratch paper, Xiao Yi's true ability had already far exceeded their expectations.
Then he should immediately tell Professor Liu Bin this good news.
Surely, Xiao Yi's performance in this math exam alone would be enough to put Professor Liu at ease.
With that in mind, he took back the scratch paper, snapped several photos of it, then asked a teacher to send him a copy of Xiao Yi's test paper. After that, he said, "Thank you for your hard work, everyone. I have something to take care of, so I'll be leaving first. Please continue grading."
The other teachers nodded one after another. They had indeed spent quite a bit of time on Xiao Yi's test paper, and it really was time to continue grading the other exam rooms.
However, just as Qin Song was about to leave, he suddenly added, "Oh, right. I was actually in the monitoring room today, watching Xiao Yi's exam. If I'm not mistaken, he had finished every question on the paper in twenty minutes."
After saying that, he left directly.
The teachers who had been about to resume grading were stunned for a long while because of his words.
Even Teacher Zhang was the same. While proctoring the exam, he truly had not noticed that Xiao Yi had already finished every question twenty minutes after the exam began.
Twenty minutes—what kind of concept was that?
Well, it seemed this kid really had been bored out of his mind during the exam, which was why he had come up with so many different solutions to the final problem.
At the University of Science and Technology of China, in an office at the School of Mathematics.
Liu Bin was in his office, and several brand-new books sat on his desk.
Every one of them was a university-level mathematics textbook he had carefully selected.
From advanced mathematics to algebra, from number theory to geometry...
There were more than a dozen books in total.
Besides those books, there were also several collections of Math Olympiad problems that he had carefully selected over the past several days.
These were the things he had promised to give Xiao Yi.
Originally, Xiao Yi had only wanted those competition problem sets, but Liu Bin felt that besides those problems, Xiao Yi should also begin learning the knowledge required for a university mathematics major. Therefore, he had prepared them all together, intending to give them to Xiao Yi at the same time.
Just then, his phone rang. Looking at the caller information, he saw that it was Qin Song, the Grade 2 Director of the Affiliated High School.
His eyes lit up. It seemed to be the time for the school's monthly exams these past two days. Was Qin Song calling now because there was good news about Xiao Yi?
With that thought, he immediately answered the phone.
Very soon, Qin Song's hearty laughter came from the other end of the line. "Hahaha, Professor Liu, you can rest easy now!"
Liu Bin immediately smiled as well. "What good news? Tell me."
Before you continue