Ye Cheng Is Struck

Regarding this paper, which is famous in both Chinese and Chinese history, Xiao Yi had naturally read it before.

Although it wasn't as time-consuming as his research on Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem or Zhang Yitang's breakthrough on the Twin Prime Conjecture, he had already grasped about eighty to ninety percent of this paper.

After all, this paper was from decades ago, more than twenty years earlier than the paper on Fermat's Last Theorem.

In a way, even though this paper wasn't something an undergraduate could casually understand, it was relatively much easier to comprehend.

Therefore, the academicians had shown some leniency in their choice for this first question.

Looking at the excerpt again.

Xiao Yi quickly scanned it and understood.

"They mainly extracted Lemma 8 and Lemma 9, which Mr. Chen used to prove the theorem in the paper. Hmm, Lemma 8 states: [Let x be a large even number, then Q ≤ 3.9404xCx/(logx)^2]. Lemma 9 states: [...], and Lemma 9 uses Bombieri's Theorem..."

After one read-through, he had completely grasped it.

Finally, he took a look at the questions the academicians had posed based on this excerpt. Hmm...

The difficulty of the questions was much lower. Basically, as long as one analyzed the mathematical methods used in this excerpt, the question could be easily solved.

Overall, for students who had studied mathematics competitions, the most crucial aspect was to have a solid grasp of the Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion.

The Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion is one of the competition's syllabus items, and it is also a major foundation for Eratosthenes's Sieve, which Chen Jingrun used to complete his proof.

Coupled with some hints provided by the academicians in the question, there was a good chance of solving this problem.

With the first question out of the way, and since it wasn't yet time for the official start of the exam, Xiao Yi turned to the second exam paper and looked at the second excerpt.

However, upon seeing the second excerpt, his expression turned peculiar.

Well, what a coincidence!

The second excerpt was precisely Zhang Yitang's paper on the Twin Prime Conjecture!

How should I put it?

In this examination hall, no one understood this paper better than he did!

Well...

Perhaps even the academicians who set the questions didn't understand it as well as he did.

He had read this paper too many times. He estimated that he could tell which page of the original paper any excerpt the academicians had chosen was from.

Then he glanced at the excerpt and, as expected, he immediately knew it was from page 26.

The dispersion method, the method Zhang Yitang used.

In addition, a section was added, which was also a relatively crucial part of this paper, concerning Bombieri-Vinogradov Theorem.

Simple.

Xiao Yi shook his head.

However, it was simple for him. But for other candidates who hadn't studied this paper, this excerpt would likely become their nightmare tonight.

It seemed that although the academicians had been relatively merciful in their choice of the first excerpt, this second excerpt was filled with malice.

He could almost call it: bullying of mathematics beginners by mathematics seniors.

Although the candidates present couldn't be called mathematics beginners, in front of the academicians, they were not much different from beginners.

In short, to write out the solution for this second excerpt, unless one possessed exceptional talent or had already studied this paper beforehand, there was a 90% chance of not understanding it at all.

"Ring ring~"

The bell rang, signaling the official start of the exam.

Xiao Yi stopped thinking, flipped back to the first exam paper, and immediately began to write, without even thinking.

After all, the thinking that needed to be done had already been done when he first saw the paper.

Beside him, Ye Cheng, who had been looking at the paper for several minutes but was still confused by the excerpts, couldn't help but turn his head upon hearing the sound of writing next to him.

Then, he was stunned.

What the heck?

What was he seeing?

Xiao Yi... was already answering the questions?

In fact, Xiao Yi was the only one writing in the entire hall.

"Squeak, squeak..."

Although the sound was faint, it was exceptionally noticeable in the quiet examination hall.

If the morning exam, where Xiao Yi finished in just 20 minutes, was considered acceptable to them, it was because they heard that God Wei from Jingda University, who had won an IMO gold medal for China back then, could also finish all the questions in tens of minutes.

But now, if Xiao Yi could even solve such an exceptionally difficult question, wasn't that a bit...

Unreasonable?

As a 14-year-old genius, he felt his worldview was about to be distorted!

He turned back and looked at the excerpt from Chen Jingrun's paper again, then clutched his head with both hands, as if he were about to go crazy.

However, it wasn't long before he heard the sound of pages turning nearby.

No way...

He slowly turned his head, looking at Xiao Yi, and his eyes widened.

Xiao Yi had already finished the first section of the test?

This...

Right, the second section looked much harder than the first. This way, Xiao Yi shouldn't...

The next moment, Ye Cheng's eyes widened even further, because after turning to the second page, Xiao Yi had once again started writing directly!

Ye Cheng rubbed his eyes, suspecting he was seeing things.

But when he opened his eyes again, Xiao Yi had already written several lines.

Seriously, can you do it without even thinking?!

After being stunned for a moment, he suddenly realized he had been staring at Xiao Yi for too long. Would the invigilator notice?

He immediately snapped back to attention, glanced towards the front of the exam hall, and froze.

Huh? Where did the invigilators go?

There were three of them, so why were none of them visible?

He shifted his gaze, and when his peripheral vision caught sight of Xiao Yi's back, he was stunned once more. Well, I'll be, when did these three invigilators sneak around to the back? They were currently watching Xiao Yi solve problems, their faces full of surprise.

Great, the invigilators are joining the fun too, huh?

Ye Cheng covered his face.

Truly worthy of being the "national top scholar," easily accomplishing something so many of us couldn't.

After calming himself down internally, he finally lowered his hand.

No matter what, he had to keep trying!

He lowered his head and looked back at his own test paper, no longer distracted, and began to think seriously.

Although he had been discouraged by Xiao Yi, he wouldn't lose his composure just like that. On the contrary, Xiao Yi's image in his mind had become even more impressive. Perhaps one day, he might even surpass his admiration for Terence Tao.

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