I have few friends, but many childhood sweethearts.

Chapter 109. Math Olympiad Exam
The bus was speeding along the Ji-Guang Expressway. Due to safety concerns, the windows, which were originally open, were now only slightly ajar.

The strong convective wind rattled the windowpanes, and Xu Qingfan leaned his head against the window, his head bobbing back against the window every now and then.

The noisy wind didn't disturb his sleep; in fact, Xu Qingfan preferred the commotion.

Xia Xiaoxiao rested her little head on his shoulder without him noticing, and drifted off to sleep sweetly.

"Students, wake up! We'll be there soon!" After a long while, the teacher in charge woke everyone up by banging on a gong.

Xu Qingfan opened his eyes. He didn't know when the bus had left the highway and was now passing through Shipai Village.

Seeing the port city from twenty years ago suddenly, Xu Qingfan felt as if he had been transported to another world.

What will become a cluster of towering skyscrapers in the future is now a barren wasteland.

Many old bungalows that have not yet been renovated have a large "demolish" character painted in red, which contrasts sharply with the skyscrapers across the street.

"Where is this?" Xia Xiaoxiao leaned closer, looking at the scenery outside the window and asking curiously.

"This is Shipai Village. Several of the best universities in the port city are located nearby," Xu Qingfan said with a touch of nostalgia.

Xia Xiaoxiao nodded: "This place looks so dilapidated, it's not as pretty as Licheng!"

"That's how urban villages are. Qiujie Village in our area is the same," Xu Qingfan explained with a smile.

"We're almost there! Everyone, make sure you have all your things. Also, anyone who hasn't had breakfast, come and tell me!" The teacher in charge stood up and called out loudly.

"Have you had breakfast yet?" Xu Qingfan tapped Wu Lingyu's head.

"I ate eggs at home!" The little girl nodded seriously.

"Okay, good luck on the exam. If you have any questions, tell me." Xu Qingfan added, worried that Wu Lingyu might be too shy to report to the teacher.

"Thank you, Brother Fan."

"It's nothing~"

The car drove smoothly into Gangcheng Normal University and stopped in front of a teaching building.

"Bring everything you need, prepare your admission tickets, and then line up separately for second and third graders!" the teacher in charge continued to remind them.

"Let's go!" Only he, Xia Xiaoxiao, and Wu Lingyu participated in the second-grade group. After going down, they quickly lined up.

"I've been here before. My sister studied psychology here!"

What is psychology?

"Psychology is amazing; it can hypnotize you!"

"boast!"

"Next time I'll ask my sister to teach me, and then I'll hypnotize you!"

"."

Many students were visiting a university for the first time, and they chattered excitedly afterward.

"Quiet down, everyone. No running around after the exam. Come back here to assemble immediately, understand?" The teacher in charge said, taking out a megaphone that had been prepared beforehand.

"Okay!" The students looked around and answered the teacher sparsely.

Many college students who had just finished their 8 a.m. and were about to go back to their dorms to catch up on sleep looked curiously in their direction, with both groups treating each other as a spectacle.

"Is this school good?" Xia Xiaoxiao asked Xu Qingfan curiously on the way to the exam room.

"That's pretty impressive, it's one of the second batch of 211 universities in the country."

What does "211 university" mean?

"It means awesome."

"Oh, then I want to go to a 211 university in the future!" Xia Xiaoxiao said seriously.

Xu Qingfan glanced at her, thinking to himself: [If you skip one subject in the college entrance exam, you can get into a 211 university.]
In her previous life, Xia Xiaoxiao ranked 11th in the province in the college entrance examination. In the end, for some reason, she wasted more than 50 points to attend Gangcheng University.

Xu Qingfan scored just over 480 points on his first college entrance exam, ranking 110,000th in the province for science subjects.

In his past life, he often heard his teachers say that he should check his work carefully, because a difference of one point could mean more than a thousand places in the rankings. When he compared his grades with Xia Xiaoxiao's, he found that his teachers were obviously exaggerating. A difference of one point could mean more than five hundred places in the rankings at most.

Recalling his past life, Xu Qingfan shook his head helplessly again. [Is there any way to prevent Xia Xiaoxiao from studying abroad?] he wondered to himself.

The teacher in charge led the three of them to a huge classroom that could accommodate hundreds of people. After the three children handed their admission tickets to the invigilator for inspection, they sat down smoothly.

"Keep it up!" Xu Qingfan extended the back of his hand.

Xia Xiaoxiao glanced at him and placed her palm on top of his.

"It's your turn!" Xu Qingfan gestured to Wu Lingyu with his head.

"Oh, oh." The little girl quickly put her hand on it.

"Three, two, one,"

"Go for it!" Xu Qingfan finished counting down, and the three of them shouted in unison.

The students sitting in the classroom all turned their attention to them. Xu Qingfan shrugged and, led by the proctor, sat down in his seat.

The exam started at 9:30 and lasted for two hours, ending at 11:30.

With a few minutes left before the roll call was to be distributed, Xu Qingfan gazed into the distance, looking at the scenery outside the window, suppressing the palpitation that made him want to go to the toilet.

He seems to have had this bad habit since he was a child; he always feels the urge to go to the toilet whenever something important happens.

The bell rang, and the proctors began distributing the exam papers.

After receiving the exam paper, Xu Qingfan flipped to the back and began to read. After finishing the last question, he thought to himself, "[Is this how they test the cadres?]"
The final, most challenging question: If a monkey eats 3 peaches, it has 1 peach left over. If a monkey eats 4 peaches, it has 2 peaches short. How many monkeys are there? How many peaches are there?
The math olympiad doesn't require you to use only elementary school knowledge. Xu Qingfan didn't even bother to think about it. He simply set the number of monkeys to x and the number of peaches to y, and solved the problem in a flash with a set of two linear equations without any explanation.

Y = 3x + 1
Y=4x-2
Therefore, x=3 and y=10.

Almost all the major problems could be solved using equations. Xu Qingfan directly used a dimensional reduction approach, solving a major problem in less than a minute. A dozen minutes later, he had finished the other twenty major problems.

He deliberately made a loud rustling sound as he flipped through the exam paper, muttering under his breath, "How come it's so easy!"—the pressure had to be at its peak.

The multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions on the front side are equally simple. They either involve moving a matchstick to make the equation true, or they ask you how many pieces you can get at most if you cut a pancake into 5 slices.

Since the numbers were all within ten, Xu Qingfan used the exhaustive method on the scratch paper. With only thirty minutes left in the exam, he had already completed an Olympiad math competition paper that had stumped countless elementary school students.

All that was left was to keep checking. Xu Qingfan was worried about affecting Xia Xiaoxiao and Wu Lingyu's exam mindset, so he didn't dare to hand in his paper early.

"Damn it~" The examinees sitting around Xu Qingfan muttered under their breath when they heard him flipping through his exam paper.

"There are five minutes left in the exam. Students, please check that you have filled in your school, admission ticket, and name!"

[Holy crap!]
Xu Qingfan's pupils contracted. It seemed he really hadn't written anything; he had started working on the test paper as soon as it was handed out.

As expected, his attempt to show off backfired. He quickly flipped to the first page and filled in his name and exam admission ticket number.

"Ring ring ring——"

"The exam is over. All candidates, please stop writing and place your exam papers and scratch paper in the upper right corner!"

Xu Qingfan packed up his stationery, and Xia Xiaoxiao and Wu Lingyu turned to look at him at the same time. He waved to them and smiled.

"How did the exam go?" Xu Qingfan asked them as they walked out of the exam hall.

"Xu Qingfan, is there only 5 ways to fold that square?" Xia Xiaoxiao asked.

Wu Lingyu was clearly also unsure about the question, and looked at him nervously.

Xia Xiaoxiao's short story was the last fill-in-the-blank question. It gave a net of an eight-faced cube and asked how many ways it could be folded back into a cube.
“There are five types,” Xu Qingfan nodded and said.

"That's good!" The two of them breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.

"You're so stupid! Didn't I teach you to just make one with scrap paper if you can't think of anything?" Xu Qingfan said irritably, tapping each of them on the head.

"You're the stupid one! The proctor said we weren't allowed to damage the scratch paper, or it would be considered cheating!" Xia Xiaoxiao pouted and glared at him.

"Hiss! Haha~ Is that so? Well, it's a good thing I didn't tear it up, I was going to!" Xu Qingfan gasped, he almost got a red card and was eliminated.

"Hmph, so stupid!" Xia Xiaoxiao went up and tapped Xu Qingfan on the head.

As an observer, watching the two joke and play around, Wu Lingyu was filled with envy.

Thank you, Cheese! Look at the 5000 Qidian Coins you gave me!
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(End of this chapter)