Schultz's News

The morning exam ended, and the afternoon exam began at 2:00 p.m.

As time quickly passed, all the candidates entered the examination hall again at 1:30 p.m.

This time, the moment Xiao Yi appeared before everyone, he immediately drew all eyes.

Xiao Yi shook his head helplessly. Just as expected.

He was merely an ordinary, unremarkable student who had finished the exam in twenty minutes.

Was there really any need to pay him this much attention?

Whenever he moved, the heads in the examination hall turned with him, following him all the way until he sat down in his seat.

"Scholar Xiao, you're incredible!"

Ye Cheng looked at him with admiration. "You'll definitely get first place this time! Maybe even first place across all the joint examinations!"

Xiao Yi laughed awkwardly. "Not necessarily. Someone else might get a perfect score."

"That's true." Ye Cheng nodded. He seemed somewhat confident that he could get a perfect score himself, though he was not sure whether he had made any mistakes in the details. Then he added, "There's still one more exam. You should be able to get a high score too, right?"

Xiao Yi said modestly, "It hasn't started yet, so I don't know what questions they'll set. Let's take a look first."

"Mm!"

Ye Cheng nodded and said nothing more, quietly waiting for the exam to begin.

Meanwhile, an online meeting room named "15 Universities Mathematics Class Entrance Joint Examination Remote Proctoring" was opened.

Before long, quite a few people joined the live meeting room.

If their names were placed in China's mathematics community, every one of them would be a prominent figure.

Almost all of them were academicians, with only a few professors among them.

Peking University—Academician Liao Huan: "Oh, everyone's here."

Fudan—Academician Chen Yaozhong: "The young people's exam should be starting soon, right?"

Tsinghua—Professor Liu Min: "Yes, Academician Chen. The exam starts at two, so there are still ten minutes left."

Fudan—Academician Chen Yaozhong: "Good. I'm already looking forward to seeing how they do."

Peking University—Academician Liao Huan: "Where's Old Hu? Didn't you say USTC had an incredible candidate? Let's see whether USTC's candidate is better, or Peking University's candidate is better. Hu Guangde, say something!"

USTC—Academician Hu Guangde: "Liao, I know you're in a hurry, but don't be. Wait until they're done with the exam. Besides, in terms of overall quality, USTC really can't compare to Peking University, but all your Peking University students put together still wouldn't be enough to take on our student!"

Peking University—Academician Liao Huan: "That confident?"

USTC—Academician Hu Guangde: "Why wouldn't I be? Don't get anxious when the results come out. This student nearly got recruited by your university, but he chose USTC instead."

Peking University—Academician Liao Huan: "Then that's tragic. If he really is a genius, wouldn't going to your place ruin him?"

USTC—Academician Hu Guangde: "We'll see. Just don't get so worked up afterward that you go bother your university's admissions office."

The two academicians started arguing the moment they joined, and the other academicians in the meeting immediately settled in to enjoy the show.

To be fair, the deeper reason this joint examination had come about was that Academician Liao Huan and Academician Hu Guangde, these two longtime rivals, had once gotten into an argument in the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science academicians' group. In order to prove that their respective candidates were outstanding, they had pushed for this joint examination.

The two had been unable to stand each other for many years, and nobody could persuade them otherwise.

At last, an academician interrupted their quarrel and changed the subject. "All right, Old Hu, Old Liao, stop arguing. There are so many people here."

"Speaking of which, Peter Scholze suddenly posted on his blog today that he might have found conclusive evidence proving Shinichi Mochizuki wrong, evidence that would definitely convince everyone. Do any of you have any news?"

The moment this topic came up, the academicians in the meeting room immediately became interested.

"This again? It's been going on for years. Is it finally going to be settled? How did he find the evidence?"

"I saw it too. I asked someone I know over there, and apparently Schultz recently read a paper on Far Abelian Geometry and found the key in that paper. But no one knows which paper it was."

Hearing their discussion, Hu Guangde stopped arguing with Liao Huan and asked, "Something related to Far Abelian Geometry?"

He was a little sensitive to those words now.

But it probably was not what he was thinking.

He shook his head. That was simply impossible.

"Yes. Shinichi Mochizuki's Inter-universal Teichmüller Theory was built on Far Abelian Geometry. As long as an error is found in that theory, it naturally proves that his method for proving the abc conjecture was wrong."

In response to Hu Guangde's question, that academician gave him an answer before asking, "Old Hu, do you have any news on your end?"

Hu Guangde smiled and waved his hand. "No, no. I'm not familiar with Schultz. Hearing Far Abelian Geometry just reminded me that one of my students recently wrote a paper on the subject."

Upon hearing that, Academician Liao Huan from Peking University immediately burst into laughter. "Old Hu, you didn't just think that Schultz read your student's paper and got inspired by it, did you?"

Hu Guangde's expression immediately darkened. "Liao, cut the nonsense."

Liao Huan continued laughing heartily, and the entire online meeting seemed filled with cheerful energy.

At last, Professor Liu Min from Tsinghua stepped in to stop them. "Academician Hu, Academician Liao, let's not argue for now. The students' exam has already begun. Let's watch how they're doing."

Liu Min's words temporarily calmed the two of them down.

Afterward, the online meeting began broadcasting the examination venues of the fifteen universities.

USTC examination hall.

The test papers began to be distributed.

There were two sheets of paper, each containing only one question: passages selected personally by the academicians from two mathematics papers.

As the candidates in the examination hall received their papers, sharp intakes of breath began to sound throughout the room.

Clearly, the moment they saw the questions, they were already at a loss.

In that atmosphere, the moment Xiao Yi received his paper, he eagerly looked it over.

But when he saw the first passage, his eyebrows rose.

It read: selected from Chen Jingrun's "Every Even Number Is the Sum of a Prime and a Product of at Most Two Primes."

Well, damn. The first passage had actually been selected from Chen Jingrun's research on the Goldbach Conjecture. In this paper, Mr. Chen had proved the Goldbach Conjecture in its 1+2 form, and this achievement had become a major milestone in the history of the Goldbach Conjecture.

The selection of this paper was quite representative.

However...

He had already "accidentally" read this paper before.

Please save it, vote with recommendation tickets, monthly tickets, and continued reading.

A quick preview: there would be an extra chapter tomorrow. The major climax was coming soon.