Chapter 81 - 62: Absolutely Cannot Let Him Go
Behind the judges’ panel, Feng Yunhai and Gongtan were also deep in discussion.
The venue was so noisy that the two had to put their heads together, speaking practically cheek-to-cheek.
Gongtan’s chubby face was filled with excitement. "Old Feng, this problem from that kid Xiong Jia is really something else! It’s nothing like those formulaic competition problems. There are no standard tricks to it. It doesn’t use that many concepts or test your rote knowledge; it’s a pure test of mathematical talent and mental flexibility!"
Feng Yunhai chuckled. "Don’t just stand there critiquing it. You saw the problem too when Xiong Jia sent it to me in the group chat, didn’t you? I bet you secretly tried solving it. Fess up, how long did it take you?"
At his words, a smug look appeared on Gongtan’s face. He held up his chubby right hand and made a "three" gesture.
Feng Yunhai raised an eyebrow. "Three minutes?"
"As if!" Gongtan’s voice jumped an octave. "Thirty minutes!"
Feng Yunhai couldn’t help but laugh. "Isn’t that just an average time? What are you so proud of?"
Gongtan was displeased. He puffed out his chest and retorted, "Hey, this is a problem from Xiong Jia, and you even took a liking to it, which means it’s definitely not ordinary! I’d guess that even among the current graduate and doctoral students at the Yanbei School of Mathematics, there aren’t many who could solve it faster than I did, right?"
"Are you regressing with age? Now you’re comparing yourself to kids?" Feng Yunhai teased with a smile.
"Kids?" Gongtan’s eyes went wide. "You’ve seen how brilliant those graduate and doctoral students are these days. Their brains work faster than supercomputers!"
The smile on Feng Yunhai’s face faded, his expression turning serious. "Xiong Jia and I discussed it. Any student who can solve this problem within an hour can be considered to have exceptional mathematical talent. Not to mention..." He jutted his chin toward Chen Lin on the stage. "I only found out today that this Chen Lin is a Chinese Language and Literature major."
The playful smile on Gongtan’s face also gradually faded. He stroked his multiple chins and chuckled. "Besides coming to see Liang today, I really wanted to see with my own eyes if this mysterious figure is as amazing as you’ve been hyping him up to be in our alumni chat!"
He gave Feng Yunhai an enthusiastic wink. "I’ll bet you a meal he can’t solve it faster than I did!"
The words had barely left his mouth when a clear and steady voice came through the venue’s sound system.
"Um, Academician Liang, may I begin solving the problem now?"
The venue, which had been incredibly boisterous just a second before, fell silent in an instant, as if someone had hit a mute button.
The expression on Gongtan’s face froze.
Feng Yunhai, on the other hand, remained quite calm. He turned his head to look at his junior and said with a hint of schadenfreude, "Gong Dapang, have you decided where you’re treating me to dinner yet?"
Gongtan’s expression shifted rapidly from shock to disbelief. In the end, though, it didn’t turn sour. Instead, a powerful, almost fervent curiosity surged within him.
"Not so fast, Old Feng!" he said in a low voice, his eyes glued to Chen Lin on the stage. "I want to see exactly how he did it! Don’t worry, if he really pulls it off, I, Gongtan, will not go back on my word!"
...
Among the university students in the contestants’ area, the reactions were clearly divided.
The non-mathematics majors were mostly still whispering among themselves.
"He solved it already? No way."
"I don’t know, the problem didn’t seem that hard. It was just a bit confusing to read..."
"Yeah, I was expecting some super-complex formulas, but it’s just a few lines of text."
But the actual mathematics students, especially the top performers among them, were all so stunned they couldn’t speak.
They had either been racking their brains or quietly discussing it with their peers. It was precisely because they had actually tried to solve the problem that they could truly appreciate its difficulty.
Many of them were completely lost, and even more hadn’t even formed a clear approach to the solution.
’This Chen Lin... he’s just standing on stage, without even a single sheet of scratch paper, and he solved it in his head?’
’Is he even fucking human?!’
...
Liang Tianshi, however, was very composed. He simply gave a calm nod and gestured to a staff member at the side of the stage.
Soon, a staff member walked onto the stage with a tablet and carefully handed it to Chen Lin.
At the same time, the large screen behind Chen Lin instantly switched to a pure white digital canvas, clearly projecting a real-time feed from the tablet in his hands.
When his fingertips touched the cool electronic pen, Chen Lin felt the entire world change.
Just like every other time he had solved a problem under the effect of the "Little Mathematician" title, he entered a sort of mystical state.
Everything around him—the whispers of the judges, audience, and contestants below the stage, the countless gazes filled with curiosity, doubt, or shock—receded like the tide, vanishing without a trace.
In his world, all that remained was the problem before him and the logical web of mathematical knowledge coalescing in his mind.
Chen Lin’s mind became as tranquil as an ancient well.
He raised the pen and began to write.
The solution process officially began.
Behind the judges’ panel, Gongtan was practically leaning out of his seat, his eyes glued to every character appearing on the large screen.
"First step, use a corollary from Sylvester’s theorem. If an integer c cannot be written as a linear combination of coprime positive integers a and b with non-negative integer coefficients, then ab-a-b can be written as a linear combination of a, b, and c with non-negative integer coefficients... Mmm, not bad, not bad. Same approach as mine!"