Early morning, the former KUST Mathematics Department cafeteria.
The newly built Mathematics Department cafeteria was extravagantly grand. The ceiling was a full six meters high, and the seats were not hard benches but uniformly crocodile-leather sofas. The tables were spaced far apart, and the layout showed no sign of an ordinary cafeteria at all. It looked more like some luxurious restaurant.
Shrimp soldiers and crab generals swam and ran behind the glass walls. The ceiling kept its golden, artificial-sunlight lamps on day and night. They shone as if powered by a nuclear fusion reactor, bathing everyone who entered the cafeteria in a layer of holy-light effects. The trays, glass cups, and dishes all gleamed brightly.
At a table in the corner sat Lu Geng, Yu Banmeng, and Cha Xinran.
A large bowl of noodles sat before each of them, but none of the bowls faced their owners. They had all been pushed to one side.
Nor were the three holding chopsticks. They each had a stylus in hand and a folding tablet in front of them, covered densely with handwritten formulas and equations. All three were completely absorbed in writing without pause.
After a semester of struggling, the three originally radiant top scorers had changed beyond recognition. Each was thinner and more haggard than the last. Their refugee-like faces and designer clothes seemed to exist on entirely different layers, as if their faces had been pasted on afterward.
They looked like they were having a hard time... and in reality, they truly were.
Being worth hundreds of millions was utterly useless in the face of mathematics. The former KUST Mathematics Department matched Peking University Mathematics Department in teaching intensity. A large crowd of Child Prodigies, competition students, and overseas master's and doctoral students returning for further study had gathered here.