Shen Qi walked over to the two-meter-tall guy and crouched down to watch him make something move in a circle.
The two-meter-tall guy carried on with what he was doing, paying Shen Qi no attention.
In the end, Shen Qi was the first to speak. He humbly asked, "Senior, may I ask what experiment you're conducting?"
The two-meter-tall guy kept his eyes straight ahead. "I'm measuring the angular velocity of Earth's rotation."
"Oh, have you measured it yet?" Shen Qi's physics knowledge didn't include anything about using an instrument made from a woman's hair and a branch picked up off the ground to measure Earth's angular velocity.
"Of course this crude Bravais pendulum can't give you an accurate value," the two-meter-tall guy said casually.
Oh, a Bravais pendulum. Shen Qi silently memorized the technical term so he could show off with it when he got back. Their high school had plenty of long-haired girls.
The two-meter-tall guy stopped the Bravais pendulum's circular motion. His gaze turned wistful as he looked into the distance, and he fell silent again.
"Senior, I'm a high school student. I'm here at Shuimu University for the National Mathematics Competition, and I happened to run into you. Your extraordinary style has deeply moved me. I wanted to ask, is it hard to get into Shuimu?" Shen Qi asked.
"When I was in high school, I searched online and found out that Harvard was the world's number-one university. I decided to apply there, but I messed up the entrance exam and couldn't go to America, so I just picked some university back home. Shuimu accepted me. That's all there is to my life. I'm just an ordinary person, nothing extraordinary." The two-meter-tall guy recalled the past, looking even more dejected.
Shen Qi kept his expression neutral. "Oh, you only got into Shuimu because you messed up your exam. That must've felt so helpless and hopeless."
Just then, the college girl who had lent the two-meter-tall guy her hair ran a lap around the lake and came back.
"Hey, miss, wait a moment," the two-meter-tall guy called out.
The girl stopped running and glanced at the crude Bravais pendulum in his hand. "Handsome, you're using a branch as the pendulum bob. You can't correct for its thermal expansion coefficient."
"That's not the point." The two-meter-tall guy shook his head and asked her, "Why did you go to Shuimu?"
She smiled bitterly. "What could I do? Do you think I wanted to? I've taken IQ tests, and I've gotten scores of 172, 179, and 183. Even my lowest IQ was over 170. With my intelligence, I ended up at Shuimu... Ah, forget it. The more I say, the more it makes me cry."
"Go on with your run. Run into the wind—freedom lies ahead." The two-meter-tall guy sympathized with her plight and pointed into the distance.
"Come to the Workers' Stadium tonight. Drinks are on me. 138XXXXXXXX." The girl gave him her phone number.
"See you tonight." The two-meter-tall guy nodded, apparently memorizing the number she'd given him.
The young woman, who claimed an IQ over 170, continued running laps around the lake, picking up speed as though venting her excess hormones.
"Kid, see? This is how we ended up at Shuimu," the two-meter-tall guy said to Shen Qi, looking melancholy and wistful.
Damn, Hawking's IQ was supposedly only 160. Shen Qi couldn't take it any longer. "Hey, sir, who's the biggest King of Show Offs at Shuimu? Is it you and that girl?"
The two-meter-tall guy laughed. "There's no such thing as a King of Show Offs. If you think she and I count, then half the students at Shuimu are Kings of Show Offs."
"I see." Shen Qi felt as if he'd taken a critical hit. He hadn't felt this way in months. He asked again, "Sir, what's your major?"
"Life Sciences."
"If you study biology, why are you researching Earth's angular velocity?"
"I've also studied Projective Geometry. You can find my math papers in Mathematical Physics. In my sophomore year, I got interested in patents and applied for three national patents on self-leveling cement. That's related to Material Science and Inorganic Chemistry. I was already 1.9 meters tall in high school. After the college entrance exams, I spent two months that summer training in high jump. In my freshman year, I represented Tsinghua at the Universiade and won the high jump championship. Any other questions?"
"I was ignorant. Sorry." The two-meter-tall guy had completely upended Shen Qi's understanding of things in just a short time.
"King of Show Offs, huh? Honestly, if such a person really existed, I'd follow him for life and do his bidding." The two-meter-tall guy stood up.
"Good heavens, you're tall." Shen Qi crouched on the ground, looking up at the multitalented high achiever. "Senior, what would someone have to be like to count as a King of Show Offs?"
"If someone could do even better than me in all the fields I just mentioned, that'd make him a King of Show Offs." The two-meter-tall guy walked away, casting a long, slender shadow behind him.
A biology major who could conduct physics experiments, publish math papers, earn national patents in chemistry, and win a Universiade championship in sports... To surpass him at all that—that was the standard for a King of Show Offs.
An aimless stroll had given Shen Qi a glimpse of the culture at Shuimu. If you only had one skill, you were a nobody here. If your IQ was below 170, you'd be embarrassed to go drinking at a nightclub with the girls from Shuimu. They knew how to show off with such effortless grace, turning their melancholy into something profound, finding thunder in silence. That was what it meant to be at a top university.
Shen Qi suddenly understood. Sometimes, people really did live in different circles. Why did so many people break their heads trying to get into top universities? Different stages nurtured different talents; different fireworks shone with different brilliance; different environments produced different kinds of show-offs.
That evening, Teacher Tian kept his word and treated the entire team to a feast as a send-off.
Over the next two days, the six team members would continue fighting. There was never any shortage of miracles at Shuimu. Who would make one happen this time?
The night passed without incident.
On the morning of July 5, the upper half of the National Finals was about to begin, once again in Classroom Building No. 2.
The National Finals were divided into an upper and a lower half. Today, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., the four and a half hours made up the upper half.
Tomorrow, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., would be the lower half.
Each finalist would solve three problems in each half, for a total of six problems. Each was worth seven points, for a maximum score of 42.
After the routine checks, the upper half of the National Finals began.
Shen Qi took the exam paper and glanced at the first problem. He laughed. The people at the Chinese Mathematical Society really had no limits when it came to setting questions. The hell with you and your damn... Thank goodness he'd learned Go as a kid. He was terrible at it, but he knew the basic rules.
Even if he knew the rules of Go, the hell with you and your damn... Damn, why was he suddenly so furious? Shen Qi took a sip of Nongfu Spring to calm his nerves and ate a Little Bear biscuit to settle himself down.
Contestants were allowed to bring their own snacks and drinks into the National Finals. The exam lasted four and a half hours—what if someone fainted from hunger or thirst?
The first problem in the upper half of the National Finals read:
"Emperor Taizu of Ming Zhu Yuanzhang enjoyed Go, though he was an average player. Xu Da, a founding general and master of the game, was often summoned by Zhu Yuanzhang to play."
"Whenever they played, Xu Da deliberately let Zhu Yuanzhang win. He never once defeated him."
"One day, Zhu Yuanzhang said to Xu Da, 'My dear Xu, there's no need to hide your skill. Go is about state of mind, not winning or losing. If you can beat me once, I'll grant you the Mochou Lake before us.'"
"Xu Da knew he could no longer afford to lose on purpose, so he gave the game everything he had and soundly defeated Zhu Yuanzhang."
"Zhu Yuanzhang was a man of unpredictable moods. After losing, he flew into a rage and shouted, 'What kind of conduct is this?'"
"Xu Da hurriedly fell to his knees and cried, 'Your Majesty, please look closely at the board!'"
"Zhu Yuanzhang examined it carefully. The black and white stones on the board had formed the words 'Long Live.' His anger turned to joy, and he granted Mochou Lake to Xu Da. He also renamed the pavilion by the lake where they had played Go Shengqi Tower."
Up to this point, Shen Qi had been under the misapprehension that this was a math problem rather than a history question.
The real twist came next:
"Setting aside whether this story is true, let us assume that it is. What is the probability that Xu Da cleverly arranged the Go stones to form the words 'Long Live'? Prove your answer. Note: Go record attached. See image below."
Before you continue