A Top Student's Study Plan!

"Dean Hu, Qi Hao also has a major project to work on. I'm honestly worried the Imagine Cup will take up too much of his time."

Dean Hu understood what he meant and played along. "True. This really puts us in a difficult position."

Professor Zhou's expression changed as he listened. He turned and asked, "Qi Hao joined a research team too? Which professor is he working under?"

Old Wang relished the feeling of being impossible for Professor Zhou to ignore. He deliberately kept him guessing. "He's not working under one of our professors. A company specifically asked to collaborate with Qi Hao."

"A company asked for him by name?"

Professor Zhou's mind began to turn. What company did Qi Hao have connections with?

He remembered a company speaking up for Qi Hao on Big Eye a few days earlier and instinctively pressed him. "Was it Huaji?"

Old Wang merely smiled without answering. The collaboration had only just been agreed upon, and there was still a long way to go through the procedures before an official announcement. He certainly wasn't going to reveal the details.

Seeing Old Zhou getting worked up made him happy.

If Professor Zhou found out they had secured a twelve-million-yuan project, he would probably jump up and down in frustration.

Seeing that Old Wang wouldn't talk, Professor Zhou began to calculate. Their bid for the Imagine Cup last year had ended without a prize. As the Experimental College for Exceptional Talents' vice dean in charge of research competitions, he had already made a solemn pledge to the university president that they would win at least one Imagine Cup award this year.

If they came away without a single grain again this year, both the college's year-end funding specifically for research competitions and his own evaluation as a discipline leader would be affected, not to mention those old geezers at the college who were eyeing him like tigers, always looking to replace him.

This time, he had to make sure the team had a good chance of winning, no matter what.

A smile immediately spread across Professor Zhou's face again, and his tone became exceptionally warm. "Qi Hao, you don't need to worry about the competition. If there are any scheduling conflicts, just tell me or Old Wang, and we'll work them out for you. Focus on the part you're good at, and we teachers will take care of everything else."

"If you have any other requests, just say so."

Zheng Qiang stood where he was, looking as though none of this concerned him.

Qi Hao saw things as clearly as a mirror. After Old Wang and Dean Hu's performance just now, he had completely stolen Zheng Qiang's thunder. Zheng Qiang was probably even more annoyed with him now.

Qi Hao was utterly speechless. Even so, at their university, the students from the Experimental College for Exceptional Talents really were more capable than those from the other colleges. If he turned Professor Zhou down, he would have no choice but to work with people from another college.

Under those circumstances, the chances of running into a deadweight would be even higher.

Forget it. I'll deal with Professor Zhou first. Qi Hao smiled and said, "You're too kind, Professor Zhou. I can help with the modeling, algorithms, and paper. If there's anything else you need me to help with, we can discuss it anytime."

Anyone could say nice things. He couldn't be bothered to compete with Zheng Qiang at a time like this.

He had to win the Imagine Cup. Once they started working together, it wouldn't take long to expose who was the carry and who was deadweight.

If someone really was deadweight, they couldn't blame him for showing no mercy.

He remembered Wang Jun telling him that in games, newbies weren't the scariest. They were easy to lead and did whatever they were told. The worst were veteran players who thought they could carry the whole game, ignored instructions, wandered around blindly, and then turned around and cursed their teammates.

Sometimes deadweight wasn't scary. What was scary was deadweight that didn't think it was deadweight.

That conclusion applied just as well in real life.

Professor Zhou, for his part, was very pleased with Qi Hao's answer. He brought the hammer down. "Then it's settled. Old Wang and I will both be listed as advising professors. We'll meet in classroom 303 of the Liren Building at nine tomorrow morning. We'll have an initial meeting and decide on the direction of our project."

All four agreed.

After leaving Dean Hu's office, Zheng Qiang walked in front, with Wu Xue beside him. As they passed Qi Hao, Zheng Qiang walked straight by without so much as lifting his eyelids.

Wu Xue, on the other hand, turned her head and gave Qi Hao a slight nod by way of greeting, then jogged a couple of steps to catch up with Zheng Qiang.

Zhao Ping had fallen behind. Only after the other two had gone a good distance did he catch up with Qi Hao and lower his voice. "Qi Hao, don't take it personally. Zheng Qiang's always like that. He acts aloof with everyone. He's not targeting you."

Qi Hao asked casually, "Is he like that when he works with companies on projects, too?"

Zhao Ping froze. "Well, no. He's actually pretty good at handling people when he deals with clients..."

Halfway through, he caught the implication himself, and his voice grew quieter and quieter.

Qi Hao said nothing.

He finally understood why "fawning on superiors" and "bullying those below" could be put together in one expression.

It was straight out of real life!

Zhao Ping took out his phone and hurriedly changed the subject. "Oh, right, let's add each other on Q. I'll make a group and add all four of us, so it'll be easier to communicate if anything comes up later."

Qi Hao gave him his number, and Zhao Ping tapped away on his iPhone and added him.

"Ah, the Imagine Cup is actually pretty tough. You could start preparing in advance."

"Our university's team last year made a smart shared logistics scheduling system for campus. Sounds impressive, right? But when they got to the competition, the judges took one look: the system froze completely when faced with complex, changing demands. In the end, they didn't even get a ticket to the second round."

"You've only just started your first year, so you might not have encountered this kind of competition before. I suggest you look into the kinds of problems the competition focuses on and the winning entries from previous years. There's plenty shared on Mathematics Tieba and CNBlogs. Get a general idea beforehand, and you won't be completely lost at tomorrow's meeting."

"If you have enough time, you'd also be best off looking at some materials on computer languages."

"The thing we fear most in this competition is communication across specialties. If you don't even understand the most basic programming languages, you might not understand what we're talking about in meetings later. You could borrow a couple of books on C# or Python from the library and leaf through them. Even just knowing the basic concepts would do."

Qi Hao hadn't expected someone so big and brawny to be so thoughtful. He replied, "I was planning to do just that."

"That's good. You're not heading back to class now, are you?"

Qi Hao glanced at his phone. If he went back now, he could still attend two more classes, but they were far less efficient than studying on his own.

Whether it was the Huaji Dafei project or the Imagine Cup that was about to begin, the demands on his fundamentals would only grow higher.

He had to use this brief lull before the competition officially started to fill as many gaps in his knowledge as possible.

Qi Hao casually told Zhao Ping he was "going back to the dorm to read a few things," and the two parted at a fork in the road.

On the way back to the dorm, he was already arranging his study plan. He still had more than half of the three books he'd hauled back from the provincial library last time left to read, and he also had to learn computer languages.

Getting through that pile in a short time would be difficult even for geniuses like Elder Qian, Kolmogorov, and Perelman.

Qi Hao suddenly remembered that he still hadn't used the Mind-Clearing and Brain-Strengthening Pill the system had given him!

The system had warned him that taking it might cause an abnormal condition, but that broken system hadn't said what kind.

For the sake of safety and his own dignity, he certainly couldn't test the effects of the Mind-Clearing and Brain-Strengthening Pill at the library.

He had another option!

All three of his roommates were in class that afternoon, leaving the dorm empty. For Qi Hao, it was the perfect place for an experiment!

Having made up his mind, Qi Hao quickened his pace.

Today, he would find out exactly what abnormal condition occurred after he took the Mind-Clearing and Brain-Strengthening Pill!

Note: Qi Hao won't come out on the losing end, and someone won't be whitewashed either. You'll see how Qi Hao strikes back in Tuesday's update. There will be an extra chapter on Tuesday!