The smile on Dewitt's face abruptly vanished, and a trace of confusion flashed through his eyes.
"What's wrong?" Deng Puhe asked. "You observed all three young people. What's your conclusion?"
"To be honest, it was beyond my expectations," Dewitt said. "Galois, the Sloan Research Fellowship winner, has a solid foundation. Katerina, the Bennett New Talent Award winner, has a nimble mind. Both of them are quite capable and stand at the forefront of the younger generation."
"But..." Dewitt hesitated for a moment. "The one who seems to have the highest level is actually Tang Jiang, who hasn't won any award at all! That's very strange. I don't know whether I judged incorrectly."
"Oh?" Deng Puhe raised his brows. "I didn't look at the problems, but I noticed that every time Tang Jiang spoke, the rest of you fell silent. Galois was practically always opposing his ideas. I thought Tang Jiang performed the worst."
"That's precisely the problem," Dewitt said. "Galois and Katerina are very close in ability, so they can keep up with each other's thinking. But Tang Jiang is above them—and not by just a little, but by a lot! So the two of them can't follow Tang Jiang's thinking right away."
"You were silent too. Could it be that you couldn't keep up either?" Deng Puhe asked in astonishment.
"I wasn't silent because I couldn't keep up, but because I was shocked. Tang Jiang's thinking... is extremely unorthodox!" Dewitt said. "I suspect he isn't a scholar who came through systematic academic training, but a self-taught wild fox who forged his own path. He hardly has any Academic School style of thinking."
"You guessed correctly. He really is self-taught. As far as I know, he's addicted to chewing through papers. He spends a great deal of time every day