Chapter 62: Capital

“Stop looking at me. I won’t give it to you so you can wear it.” Yao Yi was quite ruthless, “You laughed at me the entire way here.”

“Hmph, who wants to wear it.” Qin Li retorted disdainfully, but his eyes were still glued to Yao Yi’s coat. That coat looked a bit too big on Yao Yi, he could actually wear it.

The teacher didn’t fully hear what the two students were saying, and thought they were having a conflict. He immediately stepped forward to dissuade them: “You two come from the same school, and both of you are even in the same class. You should be united and friendly towards each other.”

“Oh.”

“I know.”

The above “Oh” was said by Qin Li, and Yao Yi subconsciously looked at Qin Li when she heard the familiar tone.

“What are you looking at, you can only say ‘oh’?” Qin Li was very narrow-minded, probably because of Li Ge’s influence.

Fortunately, after walking in the freezing cold for a while, they arrived at the airport lobby. It was so warm that Qin Li was so happy and moved that he shed tears.

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“Tlzzs, ulp?” Mbl vlynbla alnlkhle y nyzz, “Zsw twup oykv vblal qkapv, ol okzz cl vblal pssd.”

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“Mbl svblap byhl yzalyeu yaakhle, ol byhl vs bwaau wr.” Mbl uswdt vlynbla oyp yzps blzrzlpp, bl eked’v oydv vs awpb vss xwnb, cwv bl nswzed’v ktdsal vbl pvweldvp obs olal pwqqlakdt qasx vbl nsze.

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Mbl xspv pwkvyczl rlapsd qsa vbl nsze blal oyp Zys Zk. Fbl osal y alhlapkczl nypbxlal nsyv vbyv oyp iwkvl oyax yde nswze yzps czsnj vbl okde obld oyzjkdt swv.

Mbl vball sq vblx awpble vsoyaep vbl xllvkdt rskdv. Mbl ryaldvp yde pvweldvp sq Ls. 1 Tktb Fnbssz olal hlau nsdprknwswp pvydekdt swvpkel, cwv vblu nswze yzps pll vbl pvweldvp qasx svbla yalyp tskdt kdpkel.

Mbspl pvweldvp rascyczu eked’v wdelapvyde obu psxl rlsrzl olal pvsrrle swvpkel. Lsv vs xldvksd vyjkdt rzlypwal kd svblap’ xkpqsavwdl, vblka lulp olal lhld psxlobyv tayvlqwz yde raswe.

“Hey, you are the teacher in charge of the No. 1 High School students?” A parent angrily strode towards Yao Yi and the others, “Why are you here so late? Do you not care about the students’ lives? We almost froze to death standing here, those gatekeepers won’t even let us in, saying we need the teacher’s pass.”

“Mom!” The student next to her should be the parent’s son, and he couldn’t bear to listen anymore, “Stop talking, isn’t the teacher here?”

“We were frozen here for almost an hour.” The parent seemed to have to have right and wrong justified.

The young teacher didn’t really want to deal with this parent, but he had to reply: “You guys have worked hard, and now I will take the students in.”

The parents followed behind, still nagging: “Teacher, you have to make it clear to the guard that our children are all here to participate in the Olympiad, and their brains are not comparable to ordinary people. If something goes wrong, can they afford to compensate?”

“Which of the students here don’t have a good brain?” A young male voice came from behind with casual mockery.

The group of people from No. 1 High School who were blocked outside looked over, but Yao Yi and Qin Li didn’t move. The two of them kept their heads down and held a ballpoint pen in their hands, writing non-stop.

A well-dressed young man with gold eye-rimmed glasses walked in the front, followed by several gray-haired, plainly dressed scholars.

“Miss… are you confident that your child will be the first in the winter camp?” The young man seemed to be particularly disgusted with the parent’s behavior, and he didn’t care about the people present at all when he spoke.

“Okay, Zhou Cheng, stop talking.” A tall and thin middle-aged scholar was helpless, and then said to the teacher from No. 1 High School, “Take the students in quickly, don’t let them freeze from the cold.”

The parents didn’t dare to say any more. This group of people might be the teachers on the judging panel. Although the young man didn’t look like one, the people behind him 100% looked like some.

“Follow me in.” The teacher of No. 1 High School waved his hand, “Parents, go back first.”

“That’s fine, after you all finish the exam, we will come back to the capital to take the children home!” Some parents couldn’t stay here the entire time, they could only compromise.

The young man and the people who looked like scholars entered the same door with them, but they didn’t go in the same direction as the students of No. 1 High School.

“Are they all studying mathematics?” Qin Li took the time to glance at the backs of the group of people and asked.

Yao Yi was still scribbling on the paper in her hand. She didn’t even raise her head: “How do you know?”

“They are all thin.” Qin Li noted very seriously, “We who study mathematics are all thin.”

Most of the people here were here for the rankings, for the famous colleges, even Qin Li is mixed with selfishness. Out of all the participants, Yao Yi’s purpose was the purest.

She came purely for math problems.

“Okay, stop chatting, you guys need to get to know the other students later.” The teacher of No. 1 High School looked at the students behind him rather seriously, “There are crouching tigers, hidden dragons, and many young geniuses.” (TLN: the saying with crouching tigers and hidden dragons means that there are a lot of prodigies that may not be visible right now)

The teacher of the No. 1 High School was only responsible for bringing the students into the hall, and then he would leave. After that, there was going to be special personnel to take care of these students.

Qin Li looked at the figure of the teacher walking away, but was not interested in communicating with other people. Instead, he lightly punched Yao Yi in the arm: “Are you a genius?”

Yao Yi just wrote the last number on the back of her hand, raised her head to look at Qin Li, and sighed inexplicably: “Have you ever seen a genius fail in essay composition?”

Qin Li thought about it carefully and comforted her, “I think your math is pretty good.”

Yao Yi nodded: “I also think that you are good at math.”

At this time, a boy leaning against the wall let out a sneer, probably because he heard what they were praising each other of.

Both Qin Li and Yao Yi were not curious people, and the only thing that attracted their attention the most in this world was mathematics. Neither of them even looked at the boy.

Or… young boy.

He wasn’t even 1.6 meters tall, and his face looked very immature among the group of high school students. He was probably some young genius.

And obviously his reputation has spread to various places, at least at the moment, the students were gossiping about him the most.

The other four students from No. 1 High School probably grouped together because they had been friends before this. The four of them had stuck together the entire time, making Yao Yi and Qin Li independent of the group.

Fortunately, the two of them didn’t care. Yao Yi found a corner and sat down. Qin Li took out his phone and probably found a good question. He didn’t pace around anymore, so Yao Yi had to drag him to sit down.

“This question is interesting.” Qin Li showed Yao Yi the phone to take a look at the question.

“It does seem good.” Yao Yi nodded.

Qin Li frowned: “I just looked at it for a while, but I don’t have any clue on how to solve it, you try.”

“Hold the phone, I’ll take a look.” Yao Yi told Qin Li to hold it steady, and the two sat on the steps in the corner and began to study.

When they came, they only had a change of clothes and no scratch paper in their bags. They only had the pen because Qin Li didn’t put it back into his pocket.

Yao Yi crossed her legs and pinched the hem of her coat. The coat was black on the outside, but off-white on the inside.

Yao Yi directly grabbed a corner of the inner hem of the coat, turned it over to her lap, and started to calculate on the clothes with the ballpoint pen.

There were many formulas that needed to be used in this question, and they went around and around with the numbers. Yao Yi wrote a whole lot on the inside of her coat.

“You can do that? What is your theorem?” Qin Li had never seen it before, and looked down at it for a long time.

“I saw it on a website before?” Yao Yi would occasionally use her father’s computer and go over the wall to research foreign periodical websites.

Qin Li didn’t have this kind of opportunity, and he didn’t even know what going over the wall was.

“Let me tell you.” Yao Yi also knew about Qin Li’s situation, so she pulled on her coat again, revealing more of the off-white insides, and buried herself in it to explain the principle of the formula.

In a room in another building, a group of well-known domestic mathematicians were discussing fervently.

“What’s the point of coming every year?” A slightly older scholar sat on a chair. “The current students are not good enough. They all come here only for the competition, they all come here to gain points.”

“If there are no points, why come to participate in this stupid competition?” The young man who spoke at the entrance earlier just now curled his lips, “Students are also working hard. You’re always saying, this can’t work, that can’t work.”

“You! It’s because of you people that the academic world needs dedicated talents, not the ones like you who have to dress up when you go out.” The scholar was so angry that he wanted to get up and leave immediately.

“What’s wrong with the way I dress? Can’t there be good-looking people in math class?” The young man flicked the latest windbreaker on his body, “Last time, I don’t know who said behind my back that I am the face of the domestic math circle.”

“You…” The scholar’s face turned red and he pointed at the man speechlessly.

“Okay, okay.” The people next to him couldn’t stand it any longer, “Wang Li, your apprentice gave you a good face, and Zhou Cheng did the same, stop arguing.”

The person who spoke was not a professor of mathematics, but simply came to join in the fun and feel the atmosphere of students majoring in the sciences.

“I heard from Professor Zhang that several children came here this time.” The gray-haired scholar smiled kindly, “It should be selected from these few children.”

In recent years, domestic players participating in the IMO tended to be younger, and most of them were going to end up in the junior class.

“It’s true that we have to choose from among them. There are not many talented high school students nowadays, and they only have a bunch of standard tactics.” Wang Li’s facial expression was not very good-looking. He admired talented students who were purely interested in mathematics, not the students who wanted to be valued by colleges and universities by doing well in the math competition. Only with this reason was why they were desperately squeezing in.

After all these years of judging, Wang Li didn’t have a good impression of high school students of the normal age of sixteen, seventeen, and eighteen. He usually came just for the sake of coming. The focus was on the younger students. They couldn’t see the other benefits from the winter camp now, but later, it does prove one thing:

In terms of mathematics, the bunch of standard students aiming for results were no match for talented and passionate students.

Wang Li looked out of the window feeling a little disappointed, that was, the current students were led badly by their parents. You have to make money in everything, and you also make money by studying. They thought that mathematics was useless in the real world, they couldn’t make money from mathematics, and that it was difficult to learn. Many students choose to major in finance and business.

That was right, mathematics was boring, and now the outside world was so tempting, who wanted to study these numbers so wholeheartedly.

Before Yao Yi finished explaining the theorem to Qin Li, an amiable teacher walked over.

“Hello everyone, I know that many of you have just arrived in the capital, so I will be taking you to your own accommodation, get a good rest, and then get up bright and early and have a meal.” The teacher said kindly, “As for the exam, don’t worry about it yet.”

Yao Yi went with the crowd, and because there were not usually any girls, only a few, the teacher specially assigned another assistant teacher to come over.

The author has something to say: My heart is beating a little fast, probably because I stayed up all night, I’m a little flustered 〒_〒