Teacher, Did You Set These Questions? (Please Read On)

Luo Yao walked ahead while Wang Ye and Wu Tianming muttered behind him.

"Why is Luo Yao so attentive to Professor Xia? Could this kid have a crush on her?"

Wu Tianming shot him an annoyed look. "Give it a rest. Do you think everyone is like you, turning everything into romance the moment they see a woman?"

Wang Ye chuckled. "That's because you don't understand how wonderful women are."

"Like you've ever been in a relationship." Wu Tianming exposed Wang Ye without mercy.

"No, weren't we talking about Santuo? How did this get turned on me?" Wang Ye glared at Wu Tianming, deciding to shamelessly change the subject.

"Professor Xia is young too, so it's not like there's no—" The rest of Wang Ye's words caught in his throat when he saw Xia Qing suddenly appear from a side path.

"Not like there's no what?" Xia Qing stopped, her eyes narrowing slightly, and Wang Ye immediately sensed trouble.

Holy shit! She heard that!

"Not like there's no chance, Professor Xia—I mean, with your abilities, it's not impossible for you to become an academician someday." Wang Ye's mouth ran wild as he instantly made up an excuse.

Xia Qing glanced at him, then continued walking forward expressionlessly.

Wu Tianming sighed and draped an arm over Wang Ye's shoulder. "The Great Demon King has noticed you. Let me dedicate a song of farewell to you."

Wang Ye smacked his own mouth and said with difficulty, "It's all this mouth's fault."

Now that Xia Qing had already left, the two of them knew they could not delay any longer. They hurried to the classroom, only to find Luo Yao sitting in the very first row.

Wu Tianming and Wang Ye: ...

No matter what, they would never have dared sit in the first row during Xia Qing's class. But Luo Yao did not even have any books, so they could only bite the bullet and sit down beside him.

Xia Qing taught Integrated Circuit EDA Technology.

The terrifying thing about this course was that it combined physics, graphics, computational mathematics, Microelectronics, topology and logic, materials science, and Artificial Intelligence—subjects that made people see darkness before their eyes just from hearing their names.

The whole point was to leave people baffled during class and just as baffled after class!

There was a saying at East University of Technology: "Of the people who go insane during exam season, eight or nine out of ten are Microelectronics majors."

That saying was enough to show the misfortune of Microelectronics students, and one-third of that misfortune was caused by Integrated Circuit EDA Technology.

And Xia Qing, who taught the course, was a monster among monsters. She was known as the "Great Demon King."

The class bell rang, and Xia Qing walked in carrying a thick stack of papers.

"Pop quiz today."

Xia Qing succinctly announced the main event of the class, drawing a chorus of groans from the students.

"A quiz?! Can I say I've already forgotten everything from the last class?"

"Have mercy! Why is college so painful?"

"Why is there a quiz? Do they pull this stuff in college too?"

Wu Tianming looked miserably at Wang Ye beside him and whispered, "I swear this quiz is going to kill me. Save me!"

Wang Ye stared nervously at the thick stack of test papers on the podium, feeling as though they were about to devour him.

Xia Qing swept her gaze over the students below and found them all hunching their heads like ostriches. Only Luo Yao sat upright, looking straight at her.

He was just a kid who did not know the immensity of heaven and earth.

Having only arrived yesterday, he definitely did not know how difficult Integrated Circuit EDA Technology was.

So what if he was good at math, physics, and chemistry?

There was actually not much overlap among high school subjects. Each subject had its own independent system and way of thinking, and there were still methods for earning high marks.

But Integrated Circuit EDA Technology was different. It involved integrated knowledge from multiple disciplines and emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary and holistic thinking. The high school approach was difficult to apply here.

Thinking of the signature beneath that email sent to the editor of "Semiconductor," Xia Qing truly wanted to see Luo Yao's performance. But before that, she still needed to ask him first.

"Luo Yao, you only enrolled yesterday. You don't have to take this quiz."

Xia Qing actually did not want Luo Yao to take this quiz. After all, any intelligent person could tell from the reactions of the whole class just how difficult Integrated Circuit EDA Technology was.

Especially for someone like him, who had not studied it for even a single day.

It was simply impossible for him to solve every problem on the quiz using only his limited foundation in math, physics, and chemistry!

Xia Qing had originally wanted to give Luo Yao a way out, hoping he would back down when faced with the difficulty.

Unfortunately, Luo Yao simply did not know what "difficult" meant. Instead, he asked eagerly, "Teacher, did you set these questions?"

What kind of question was that?

Having never been asked such a question before, Xia Qing did not understand why Luo Yao was asking, but she still answered him.

"I did."

Professor Xia had written the questions? Great. He had been wanting to see Professor Xia's level.

A smile appeared on Luo Yao's face. "Then I'll take it."

Not only Xia Qing, but the fifty-odd people in the classroom were stunned as well.

It seemed the new top student still did not know just how vicious Integrated Circuit EDA Technology was!

Now he still said he wanted to take part? In a while, he would definitely be crying for his parents!

Once upon a time, we were just as foolish and naïve. Who would have thought that top students were the same as us!

In the silent classroom, everyone cast sympathetic looks at Luo Yao. They could practically foresee him scratching his head and sighing in frustration next.

Xia Qing could do nothing about Luo Yao either. She had already given him the chance; if he did not cherish it, he could not blame her. She immediately handed out the test papers, and sure enough, waves of sharp intakes of breath rose through the classroom.

Xia Qing had created this set of test questions to assess the quality of her recent teaching. Just from the gasps around the classroom, she knew it was over.

This batch of students was absolutely the worst she had ever taught!

As Xia Qing swept her gaze over the room, those students had already turned into zoo monkeys in her eyes, striking all sorts of bizarre poses in their seats.

The only thing their faces had in common was utter bewilderment. Even Tang Dong, the class study representative, did not know where to begin.

Still unwilling to give up, Xia Qing walked down from the podium and passed by the students in the row near the door, checking their answers one by one. After looking over the first row, her head began to ache.

It was understandable if they could not handle highly specialized questions, but how could they not even answer the free points?

Xia Qing moved on to the second row. The first student was Wang Ye, who was already so absorbed in calculating on his scratch paper that he seemed possessed. Xia Qing watched for a while and spotted two mistakes.

Then she looked at Wu Tianming beside him.

Other than the multiple-choice and true-or-false sections, where he had written something, the entire long-answer and proof section was spotlessly blank.

Wu Tianming had originally wanted to risk cheating with Wang Ye, but Xia Qing kept wandering around them, leaving them no opportunity at all.

East University of Technology's strict atmosphere had always been one of the school's defining traits, and Xia Qing was among the foremost representatives of that strict academic culture.

So everyone had the desire to cheat, but none of them had the nerve.

Besides, whose answers could they copy?

Xia Qing sighed silently. She had a feeling that this test would wipe out the entire class.

Xia Qing attached great importance to this exam. The results could be said to affect her future teaching methods and the difficulty level of her classes.

And now, judging by the situation, she felt she would have to teach them as if they were kindergarten children, breaking every bit of knowledge into pieces and spoon-feeding it to them!

"Teacher, I've finished. Can I hand in my paper?"

Just as Xia Qing was stewing in frustration, a voice suddenly interrupted her thoughts. She looked up and saw Luo Yao properly raising his hand.

Finished?

How was that possible?

The other students, who had been staring blankly into space, all looked up at Luo Yao upon hearing this, their eyes full of disbelief.

At that speed, had he just scribbled nonsense all over the paper?

If he could not answer the questions, then he did not need to answer them. There was no need to force himself to maintain some top-student persona!

How had he finished such a difficult paper?

Xia Qing quickly walked over and picked up Luo Yao's test paper.

The entire paper was indeed filled in.

Xia Qing did not look at the multiple-choice or true-or-false questions at the front. Instead, she went straight to the long-answer questions at the back.

Her gaze fell on the difficult question she had deliberately included—the one on FPGA technology.

FPGA is an integrated chip primarily based on digital circuits, and it is also a programmable logic device. Use FPGA technology to design a voice recognition program.

Xia Qing had actually placed this question at the end just to fill space. She knew this group of students had not yet studied FPGA, but in order to let them know what they would learn in the future, she had decided to expose them to FPGA first.

By all rights, this question should have been left blank. Yet now, the empty space below was filled with writing.

Luo Yao usually liked writing in the rigorously structured Wei Script, so Xia Qing could easily make out his answer.

``` module speech_recognition_system (

input wire clk,//clock input

input wire reset,//reset input

input wire [15:0] audio_input,//microphone audio input

//configure FFT IP Core

fft_core fft_inst (.

clk(clk), .

rst(reset), .

in_audio_data(audio_input), .

out_data(audio_input_fft)

);

The more Xia Qing read, the more alarmed she became. The answer was actually correct!

How was that possible?

For someone who had only been a freshman for two days, it should have been impossible for him to know what an FPGA or an IP Core was.

She had briefly mentioned IP Cores to the class before, explaining that they were instruction sets, functional descriptions, code, and so on that had been repeatedly validated by chip manufacturers and users.

These days, if you wanted to make chips efficiently, you had to use various mature IP Cores. Otherwise, no amount of money or time would be enough to burn through.

But what Xia Qing had never expected was that Luo Yao actually knew about this—and had even written down the specific names of IP Cores in his answer!

"Luo Yao, you know about FPGAs and IP Cores?"

Luo Yao looked at Xia Qing seriously and said, "I studied them before."

"Who taught you?" Xia Qing felt that she might really have struck gold this time.

"Professor Xia, I taught myself. What, did I calculate something wrong?"

"I worked through the entire test twice. There shouldn't be any problems," Luo Yao said in confusion.

The classroom was deathly quiet. Everyone stared at Luo Yao in disbelief, thinking he was just showing off.

FPGAs and IP Cores?

They did not even know what those were. What could someone who had just arrived at the university possibly know?

And in such a short time, he said he had worked through it twice?

Their gazes shifted to Wu Tianming and Wang Ye, who sat beside Luo Yao. Could those two have helped him cheat?

Or had Luo Yao copied their answers?

The students quietly speculated, but none dared make a sound, because after Luo Yao finished speaking, Xia Qing actually turned and walked toward the podium!

P.S. The mass update I promised everyone when the story went premium is here~ This little author may have written code before, but I will not dump a whole pile of code into the story, so don't worry. As for bonus chapter rules: if there is a guild leader or monthly votes reach 1,000, I'll update 10,000 words a day for ten consecutive days!