You're Not Ashamed, but I Am!

Plagiarism rate: 0.3%...

More than qualified.

"Lu Zhou, let me ask you something. Answer me honestly—did you really write this paper yourself?"

Professor Tang Zhiwei fixed Lu Zhou with a sharp gaze. Behind his thick reading glasses, surprise flickered unmistakably in his clouded eyes.

Along with a hint of excitement.

He simply could not believe, and dared not believe, that the mathematical arguments in this paper had come from the hands of an undergraduate student.

Lu Zhou did not avoid his questioning gaze. He smiled and said modestly, "It was all thanks to Professor Tang's guidance."

I did spend points to get it. That should make it mine, right?

He said that with a clear conscience!

Tang Zhiwei withdrew his gaze from Lu Zhou and continued reading the paper for a long time.

Lu Zhou was in no hurry and simply stood beside him, waiting.

The sky outside gradually darkened. The hour hand on the wall clock slowly crept toward six, and Professor Tang finally reached the last line of the paper. He let out a long breath.

"The argument is very good—excellent, even. The only flaw is that there are still some formatting issues. Some wording details and citation formats are slightly inappropriate, but those are all minor problems. To be able to write something like this as a freshman... young man, you have a bright future!"

As he spoke, Professor Tang removed his glasses and set them on the desk. Looking at Lu Zhou, he smiled and said with satisfaction, "Leave the paper with me for now. I'll make a few revisions for you."

Lu Zhou was overjoyed and quickly thanked him. "Thank you, Professor!"

If he hired a professional company to revise it, not only would it cost him a lot of wasted money, but they might not even do a good job. If he ran into some shameless company and his paper failed to pass, they could just say the paper itself was garbage and brush him off.

"I've taken up quite a bit of your time. Go back first. Remember to come find me here in a couple of days, or I'll call you... Leave your phone number here. I'm too lazy to look through the roster." Professor Tang pointed at an A4 sheet on his desk, then tossed Lu Zhou a pen.

Naturally, Lu Zhou went along with it and quickly wrote down his phone number.

"Oh, right, Xiao Zhou. Let me ask you something. Have you thought about which journal you want to submit to?"

Lu Zhou smiled sheepishly. "I looked online, and AMC's impact factor seems pretty high. Its review speed is also fairly fast, so I was planning to—"

"Nonsense!" Professor Tang rebuked him in a low voice. "What's the point of submitting to that thing? Good thing I asked, or you'd regret it when the time came. Do you know that papers submitted to AMC don't count toward our university's doctoral graduation evaluation requirements?"

Huh?

That was a thing?

Even if he had known, though, Lu Zhou would not have cared much. He had not even decided whether to take the postgraduate entrance exam, much less pursue a doctorate. He only wanted the review process to move faster so he could complete the system's mission.

If he submitted to a rigorous journal and ended up waiting in line for months, only to get a "completed-reject" at the end, Lu Zhou would be completely screwed.

"As for mathematics journals, the domestic situation is uneven in quality. I suggest you submit overseas whenever possible. For your paper, either the Journal of Symbolic Logic or Communications in Mathematics and Applications would be good. The former tends toward original academic papers and review articles in symbolic logic, while the latter focuses on research papers in applied mathematics, mathematical physics, and mathematical analysis. Think over my advice when you get back. And remember this: if you dare submit this paper to a journal like AMC, don't ever come see me again."

Lu Zhou: I...

Holding it in, Lu Zhou changed what he was about to say.

"Thank you for your instruction, Professor. This student—"

Professor Tang waved a hand and scolded him with a smile. "Quit kissing my ass and get out!"

Lu Zhou promptly slipped away, closing the door behind him on his way out.

The office returned to silence. The student revising papers at the neighboring desk stretched, glanced at the paper on his professor's desk, and asked softly, "Professor, is that one of the undergraduates you mentor?"

"You don't believe it, do you?" Professor Tang chuckled. "Let me tell you this—not only is he an undergraduate, he's also a freshman!"

The other graduate student's eyes widened. He even stopped working on his project and said incredulously, "A freshman?! He's already submitting to SCI as a freshman?! Are undergraduates these days all this amazing?"

"Heh, that's why you two need to work hard." Looking at his two students, Professor Tang said earnestly, "Don't let your junior surpass you someday. You may not be embarrassed, but I am!"

Just as Lu Zhou was taking his flash drive to see Professor Tang Zhiwei, the Advanced Mathematics 2 exam finally ended. As soon as the papers were collected, cries of misery filled the examination room and the hallway outside.

"Fuck, there wasn't nearly enough time! I still had two big questions unfinished. I'm gonna cry!"

"That was way too hard! How did you do the last fill-in-the-blank question?"

"The Fourier series question? I didn't even look at it. I skipped it straight away!"

"The second-to-last big question, about the convergence domain and function of a power series, then finding the sum of the series or whatever—"

"Don't ask me. I don't know, I don't understand, who am I? I just want some peace and quiet..."

"How'd you do, Brother Tao? Think you passed?"

"Don't mention it. I'll just wait for the makeup exam."

Of course, poor students were a minority after all. And while so many people were wailing miserably, quite a few top students had sneakily blended in among them.

For example, Liu Rui was currently squatting outside the classroom and posting on Moments.

[Math is so hard ahhh! I bombed the exam, I couldn't write anything at all, and now I'll have to take the makeup exam T.T]

Well, he had not only finished the test, but also checked it from beginning to end.

After editing it, he tapped send.

Just then, Huang Guangming and Shi Shang walked over.

"Liu Rui, what are you doing?"

"Waiting for you guys, playing on my phone." Liu Rui locked his phone screen and stood up as if nothing had happened. "Come on, let's go eat at the cafeteria."

"What's up with Lu Zhou? I saw he left after only sitting there for half an hour," Shi Shang asked.

"No idea. We'll ask him when he gets back." Liu Rui shook his head.

Huang Guangming chimed in, "By the way, Brother Rui, what did you choose for the last multiple-choice question?"

Liu Rui said, "I think it was A... That question was hard. I just guessed."

Huang Guangming burst out laughing. "Fuck, I picked A too! Hahaha, looks like my guess was right after all!"

Shi Shang thought about it miserably for a while, then frowned and asked, "Wasn't it B?"

Liu Rui recalled the question and shook his head. "Definitely not B. Based on the information in the question, if the series Un converges, then the square of Un can't possibly diverge... Well, that's just my guess. Maybe I guessed wrong."

At the end, he emphasized it again.

Huang Guangming and Shi Shang had already grown used to this big shot's "modesty," so neither found it strange.

Thinking back to the terror of being dominated by math problems half an hour ago, Huang Guangming sighed. "This exam was fucking hard. I feel like everything I learned turned into a pile of shit."

Shi Shang remained silent.

He felt that he might not even be as good as shit.

At that moment, another top student from their class walked over.

This boy had a buzz cut and was tall, dark, skinny, and unremarkable-looking. His name was Luo Rundong, and he was a genuine academic ace. He was also the only person in their class who had scored 150 on the math section of the college entrance exam. The others might have been assigned to the mathematics department, but he had chosen it himself.

In terms of GPA alone, Liu Rui might have been slightly better, since Luo Rundong was truly terrible at English. But when it came to Advanced Mathematics and Mathematical Analysis, Liu Rui really was no match for him.

"Liu Rui, did you solve the last fill-in-the-blank question?"

"I did solve it, but I don't know whether I got it right..."

The two began discussing math problems, occasionally spouting terms that were difficult to understand. The people beside them could not get a word in edgewise.

Huang Guangming and Shi Shang exchanged glances, each seeing the same trace of helplessness in the other's eyes.

If only Lu Zhou were here.

Without Lu Zhou bringing up the rear, it felt like the two of them had become the poor students.

That feeling was awful!