"What's the point of reviewing?" Chen Zhao shrugged. "I'm already prepared, and I can't be bothered to review for this last little while. Once I'm in the exam room, whatever happens, happens."
Zhao Xiaobai pouted. "Fine, fine. You're amazing."
They soon arrived at the exam venue, but it wasn't time to enter yet, and the doors to all the classrooms were still locked. Chen Zhao and Zhao Xiaobai waited outside the exam room. Zhao Xiaobai was still making the most of her last few minutes to look over problems, while Chen Zhao craned his neck to check out the pretty girls nearby.
After looking around, Chen Zhao realized there weren't many pretty girls. Maybe the girls who focused on studying didn't bother much with their appearance. Within his field of vision, Zhao Xiaobai's looks really did stand out from the crowd.
Almost all the students were reading books, muttering to themselves as they studied. The atmosphere of learning in the corridor was so intense it practically exploded. Chen Zhao, with nothing to do, seemed out of place among them, like he was just there to make up the numbers.
Soon, the teachers arrived with the sealed exam papers.
The candidates began entering one by one. They showed their ID cards and admission tickets, then had the invigilators scan their bodies with metal detectors. The Middle School Subject Olympiad was a high-stakes competition, so it followed the same standards as the national college entrance exam.
Chen Zhao entered the exam room and quickly found his seat. He plopped down and waited for the papers to be handed out.
Once the other candidates came in, Chen Zhao suddenly stood out.
The reason was simple: the other candidates were so nervous that their faces kept turning red and white. They fidgeted and rubbed their faces repeatedly, as if they were about to be led to the execution ground. Chen Zhao was the only one who remained completely calm, as relaxed as a tourist out sightseeing.
The invigilators even took a few extra looks at him.
The two teachers whispered to each other:
"That student's really calm."
"He's probably a top student. He's taken so many exams that he's seen it all and has nerves of steel."
"Or he could be a slacker who's just here to go through the motions. He doesn't expect to get any points, so he has nothing to lose."
"We'll know once we see how he does."
The broadcast began, announcing the rules against cheating and the severe penalties for anyone caught, before the exam papers were handed out.
This session was math.
Chen Zhao received the exam paper and answer sheet. He took two deep breaths to get into the right frame of mind, then began reading the problems.
As expected, these were competition problems, and they were still incredibly difficult. The very first problem was a full sixteen lines long, practically a short essay.
If Chen Zhao were seeing competition problems for the first time, he would have been at a loss when faced with such a long and convoluted question.
But things were different now. Chen Zhao had already worked his way through a vast number of past competition problems and had seen all sorts of patterns. On top of that, the system had given him an IQ of 400. At this moment, his math skills could only be described as "extremely strong." A mere middle school competition didn't have any problems capable of stumping him!
After just ten seconds of thought, Chen Zhao had worked out how to solve the first part. He picked up his pen and began scribbling calculations on his scratch paper. Before long, he had filled the answer sheet with more than a dozen lines of work.
Meanwhile, the other students in the exam room sat with their pens poised, unable to put them to paper.
Most of the candidates were dumbfounded. They knew competition problems were hard, but only when they faced them in the exam room did they realize they were this damn hard! They were practically written in another language!
Some had already read the problem three times and still couldn't figure out what they were supposed to find!
Others were doing a little better. They understood the question, but had no idea how to solve it!
Some went even further. To save time, they decided to start with the problems they could do. They read one and realized they couldn't solve it, so they moved on to the next. They couldn't do that one either, so they kept going. Before they knew it, they had read the entire exam paper... and couldn't solve a single problem!
Chen Zhao was focused. He paid no attention to anyone else in the exam room and kept his head down, working on his own paper.
Problem one, done!
Problem two, done!
Problem three, done!
Chen Zhao had become the most conspicuous person in the exam room once again. Almost nobody else was writing; everyone stared blankly at the questions like statues. But the pen in Chen Zhao's hand barely stopped moving. He just kept writing and writing!
The invigilators watched Chen Zhao with astonished expressions.
They invigilated this Middle School Subject Olympiad every year, and the problems were always ridiculously difficult. In most exam rooms, the candidates spent nearly the entire exam without putting pen to paper. Occasionally, someone would get a flash of inspiration and solve one problem, but they would only write for a little while before stopping. They had never seen or even heard of anyone like Chen Zhao, who started working soon after the papers were handed out and kept going for more than ten minutes!
The two invigilators whispered to each other:
"That student's been writing for fifteen minutes. He's impressive!"
"I bet he'll stop by the twenty-minute mark."
"I think he'll last a little longer—maybe twenty-five minutes."
At fifteen minutes, Chen Zhao kept his head down and worked.
At twenty minutes, he was still working.
At twenty-five minutes, his pen was still flying!
At thirty minutes, he showed no sign of slowing down. Chen Zhao was working at full tilt, and he had already used up one entire side of his scratch paper!
The exam room was still almost exactly as it had been before. Most of the students had fallen into despair. They had thought they could manage to solve one or two problems if they sat there and thought for a while, but half an hour had already passed, and most of them still hadn't solved a single one!
Only a handful of students had hesitantly put pen to paper. They wrote for two or three minutes, then stopped and went back to staring anxiously at the questions.
The two invigilators spent most of their time watching Chen Zhao. They couldn't help it—this candidate was simply too conspicuous. While everyone else was pulling their hair out, their faces red with anxiety, Chen Zhao remained calm and kept working, looking every bit like a strategist in complete control of the situation.
The two invigilators were so shocked they couldn't put it into words. They couldn't help leaning together to whisper:
"That student's incredible!"
"He's been writing for half an hour and still hasn't stopped. Look at how much he's written on his answer sheet!"
"I've never seen a student like him. Do you think he'll manage to work for forty-five minutes?"
"He should. He might even keep going for a full hour."
"Ah, why couldn't we have taught a student this outstanding?"
"Forget our students—even our own sons and daughters aren't this impressive!"
Chen Zhao didn't even lift his head. He had no idea the teachers at the front of the room were talking about him; he just kept working on his problems.
Chen Zhao was getting worried. There were too many problems on this exam paper. At this rate, he might not finish!
All he could do was write as quickly as possible and solve as many as he could. He'd heard that getting twenty or thirty points in the preliminary round was enough to advance. He figured he was already close to thirty points from the problems he'd solved, and a few more should be enough to qualify. Still, the higher his score, the better.
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