The Math Camp's twenty-six students were led by their instructor into a small classroom. Twenty-five were boys, and one was a girl.
"Hey, Shen Qi, look, there's a girl." Zhou Yu'an sat beside Shen Qi, as excited as if he'd discovered a new continent.
"A girl who got into Math Camp must have something special about her." From his school's Math Olympiad team to the provincial team and then the national team, Shen Qi had never once had a female teammate.
A blackboard hung at the front of the classroom. Two men stood in front of it, one fat and one thin.
The fat man was older, while the thin one was younger. The older man was the instructor, and the younger man was his assistant.
"Everyone, quiet down, please." The fat man spoke cheerfully, with an easygoing manner. "My surname is Sun, and my name is Sun Erxiong. I'm from the Northeast, and I'm the instructor for this year's Golden Autumn Math Camp. You can call me Teacher Sun or Old Sun. Either is fine. But don't get the wrong idea—Sun Erxiong and Sun Erniang are definitely not related. I work at Yanda's School of Mathematical Sciences, and I've never run a bandit inn. I, Old Sun, have traveled the world with an honest heart as my only credential."
The students chuckled.
Sun Erxiong continued, "I was born in the countryside. My parents weren't well-educated, and I have an older sister. Since I'm the second child, they named me Erxiong. This young man beside me is my assistant, Qian Fang. The two of us will be spending twenty pleasant days with you all. All right, that's enough about me. Now I'd like each of our twenty-six students to give a brief introduction."
Sun Erxiong had a list of the