Time passed, and it was now late August.
"How is your paper coming along?"
Xiao Yi received a call from Professor Liu Bin.
When it came to the status of Xiao Yi's paper, Liu Bin could be said to care even more than its author did.
"It's still under expert review. The process hasn't finished yet."
Xiao Yi answered.
"That's good."
Liu Bin said happily.
Xiao Yi's paper had already been under expert review for two weeks, which meant there were no major issues with its basic quality. All that remained was to wait.
"You don't need to be too anxious. The longer the reviewers spend on it, the more seriously they take the paper. Getting accepted probably won't be much of a problem either."
Xiao Yi grumbled inwardly. You're obviously more anxious than I am...
Naturally, he still said, "Thank you, Professor. I understand."
"Mm." Liu Bin said, "Also, the date for your mathematics class assessment has been set: August 29th. There are eight days left, and also..."
Liu Bin paused before saying, "Prepare well."
"Alright," Xiao Yi replied.
After hesitating for a moment, Liu Bin worried that Xiao Yi was merely agreeing verbally without taking it seriously, so he reminded him again, "Some of the questions on this exam may be rather unusual. This time, the questions were written by quite a few academicians."
Xiao Yi froze.
What the hell?
Questions written by multiple academicians?
Although he had not looked down on this exam just because his own abilities had grown strong, Liu Bin's words still left his mind struggling to process it.
He could not help asking, "Why were they written by multiple academicians?"
He had previously looked up information on USTC's Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science. Wasn't Academician Hu the only name listed under academicians?
Besides, why would an exam like this require academicians to set the questions?
Liu Bin said helplessly, "There has been a change this time. All the universities across the country that run mathematics classes will be taking the exam together."
Just thinking about it left him with a whole mouthful of complaints and nowhere to vent them.
Everything had begun that day, when Academician Hu said he wanted to write the questions himself and make things difficult for Xiao Yi.
Once word got out, it naturally caused a huge stir within their academy. Their dean and several other leaders came to persuade him, saying that even if Academician Hu insisted on setting the questions himself, he should not make them too difficult.
Academician Hu was unhappy, but he could not withstand so many people trying to persuade him. In the end, he could only agree to make the questions roughly match the difficulty of previous years.
But afterward, he told academicians from other peer universities about it, complaining that his academy's leadership was too rigid. Who could have expected that this idea would attract the attention of academicians from other universities that also ran mathematics classes?
For example, Shangjing University and Tsinghua University both had mathematics talent classes. When the college entrance examination results came out, they had even considered poaching Xiao Yi from USTC.
After the academicians from those two universities saw Academician Hu's complaints, they immediately said they also planned to write questions for their own mathematics classes this year. Then, once academicians from mathematics departments at other universities nationwide—or scholars exceptionally capable in mathematics—learned of it, they all responded in turn.
There were few universities with Gifted Classes, but many ran mathematics classes.
Thus, with fifteen universities joining in, it was decided that this year's mathematics classes would take a written examination at the same time, with the questions set by academicians.
Even the Ministry of Education expressed support after learning of the news. It even seemed to be thinking that, if things went well this year, they could continue it next year.
After all, mathematics was an extremely important science. China lacked talent in fundamental sciences such as mathematics, so the Ministry of Education was willing to support any method that could help select and cultivate mathematical talent.
After hearing Liu Bin explain the reason, Xiao Yi was stunned.
Good lord, just good lord.
So this major event had actually started because Academician Hu wanted to personally write questions to stump him?
What had he done to deserve this...
What a sin, what a sin.
"Anyway, prepare well. The exam syllabus has already been released. The questions are somewhat different from competition problems, um... They've created a QQ group. I'll send you the group number. The syllabus is in the group files."
"Alright! I understand."
Xiao Yi replied, though he probably did not notice that a trace of excitement had entered his voice.
If it had merely been an ordinary exam with ordinary questions, he would not have underestimated it, but neither would he have taken it too seriously. The difficulty of such questions was about what one would expect; they might not even be harder than the Math Olympiad problems Liu Bin had given him.
But now, the questions would be set by numerous domestic mathematics academicians, and Professor Liu Bin had even said they would be unusual.
Unusual was good!
Unusual meant difficult!
He immediately grew curious, wanting to know what kind of questions the academicians would set.
Before long, Liu Bin sent Xiao Yi the group number, and Xiao Yi joined it directly.
There were nearly three hundred people in the group at the time, and more were still joining. It basically included every student applying to mathematics classes. It would probably eventually reach six or seven hundred people. Aside from the students, there were also liaisons or people in charge from the various universities responsible for this exam.
The group was currently engaged in a lively discussion about the joint examination.
Xiao Yi glanced through the messages.
Peking University—Chen Muhua: Oh my god, having academicians write our questions—aren't they deliberately making things hard for us? The question types listed in the syllabus are way too abstract!
Tsinghua University—Jiang Long: I'm crying too. This is way too terrifying, isn't it? Are questions like this really meant for students like us to solve?
Beihang—Chen Lue: You two, don't think we don't recognize you! Both of your names were on this year's National Training Team roster, right? If even you're scared, aren't the rest of us doomed?
Fudan—Xu Kangcheng: Exactly! What terrible luck. I really don't know why they suddenly decided to hold a joint exam like this. Oh god, what if we fail to get in?
Seeing the uniform stream of complaints, Xiao Yi started beating a wooden fish in his heart.
What a sin, what a sin!
He truly had not expected something like this to happen.
He really had not done it on purpose. It had absolutely nothing to do with him.
Still, the students' messages also piqued his curiosity. Just how difficult did the question types have to be for even these big shots, some of whom had entered the Math Olympiad National Training Team, to complain?
He immediately opened the group files and found the syllabus for this exam.
Once he opened it—
At first, it did not seem like anything special to him. It looked fairly normal: just three written-response questions, with the scope being the usual exam scope.
But when he looked further down, he froze.
They could actually test this kind of question?!
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