They're already in university, and the primary school system is only just starting out?

Yennan University, Department of Mathematics.

In a study room located in a corner, the digital clock on the wall shows that it is 11:30 a.m. on May 14th.

There are only 37 hours left until the final submission deadline for this year's Higher Education Press Cup National Undergraduate Mathematical Modeling Contest.

But right now, the girls in the study room are still having a heated argument about something.

"No! This definitely won't work!"

A long-haired girl frowned, her face was clearly very pretty, but now her hair was all messy.

"Compressing the incubation period isn't optimization at all. Our foundation is the SEIR infectious disease model. If this is the case, then everything has to be started from scratch!"

"Yan Yan, the value of mathematical models lies in approximating reality, not replicating it."

Another short-haired girl wearing glasses immediately retorted: "Based on the current parameters, the model's goodness of fit to historical data has reached 0.92, and the prediction curve matches the actual reported cases by more than 85%. Given the limited time and data dimensions, this is the optimal solution."

"Optimal solution?"

The long-haired girl seemed to be burned by the word and suddenly stood up.

"You're basically just modifying the parameters according to the answer! With this current model, if you change to any new batch of data, the error will be as large as West Lake!"

"Our goal is to provide hospitals with a workable early warning system for peak-period medical resources, not to write academic papers!"

"you......"

The short-haired girl was speechless for a moment upon hearing this, and her face flushed slightly.

Seeing that a big fight was about to break out, the other two girls next to them quickly spoke up to smooth things over.

"Hey, stop arguing!"

"Yan Yan, don't get agitated. Let's discuss this calmly; there's always a solution."

"Zihan, don't be angry. Don't you know Yan Yan's personality? She's not targeting you."

"Both of you sit down first. Lunch should be delivered soon. Let's eat first, and then we'll talk."

One person grabbed the other, and after a few words of persuasion, the short-haired girl calmed down, sighed, and sat back down.

But the long-haired girl didn't appreciate it at all. Without saying a word, she returned to the blackboard, picked up the chalk, and kept modifying the formulas on it.

The sound of chalk scraping against the blackboard was sharp and urgent, like metal scraping against glass, perfectly reflecting her current frustration.

"Ugh."

The three looked at each other, and all felt somewhat helpless at the sight.

But they were all aware of the long-haired girl's obsession with mathematics, so in the end they didn't dare to say anything more.

The atmosphere remained awkward for a while.

Then a boy walked in carrying several disposable lunch boxes.

"Students, your food has arrived."

"Same as always, one meat dish and one vegetable dish per person, one tael of rice, and one serving without spice."

"The bottom portion is the one without the spice. It's 48 yuan in total. Just transfer it to my WeChat."

The boy placed the lunchbox next to the short-haired girl and spoke quickly, seemingly sensing that this was a dangerous place and trying to leave as soon as possible.

It's terrible.

Mathematics + women, that's simply the most terrifying combination!

......

Chen Lin did not know these four girls.

Because he is a student in the Chinese Language and Literature Department who claims to have "paid tuition and studied on his own".

If there were a hierarchy of disdain among academic disciplines, literature and mathematics would certainly be at opposite ends of the spectrum.

One who despises everyone.

One who is despised by everyone.

Chen Lin, a literature major, strongly agrees with this.

So even though he was only a sophomore, he had already focused all his energy on making money.

One of his services is bringing meals from the cafeteria to students who don't want to order takeout and are also lazy.

The delivery fee is two yuan per order. Although it's not much, we can make four or five hundred yuan a month by selling in large quantities with small profits.

He had started delivering meals to these four girls a few days ago.

Through chatting, Chen Lin learned that the four of them were roommates and had teamed up to participate in this year's National Mathematical Modeling Competition.

The one with long hair, quite pretty, but not very sociable, is named Shen Yan, and is the academic core of the group.

The one with short hair and glasses is Li Zihan, the second-in-command, who should mainly be in charge of logistics.

She contacted me on the campus forum and asked me to help deliver food.

Finally, there were two unimportant NPCs whose names Chen Lin didn't ask.

All I know is that one of them is surnamed Zhang and the other is surnamed Sun.

In short, although he hadn't had much contact with them, Chen Lin still had a general understanding of the four of them.

The reason he knew so much was mainly because the atmosphere here was quite harmonious for the first two days.

Every time they came to deliver food, the four of them would chat and laugh.

Not only did he settle the payment promptly, but he also added a "Thank you for your hard work, classmate" as he left.

In this situation, it's perfectly normal to chat casually for a bit.

But starting yesterday, the style suddenly changed...

The four sisters, who were originally as close as family, suddenly became hostile to each other.

Shen Yan and Li Zihan, in particular, seemed quite dissatisfied with each other.

Based on Chen Lin's experience, there are only two possible reasons for this situation.

1. Fighting for men.

Second, arguing about right and wrong.

No matter which one, he couldn't solve it.

So it's better to leave as soon as possible.

After putting down the lunchbox and receiving the 48 yuan transferred from Li Zihan, Chen Lin planned to leave.

And then...

[Host detected to be 6 years or older!]

[Growth System Activated!]

[Host detected facing a mathematical problem!]

Mathematics is nothing more than combinations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division!

[Task requirement: Memorize the multiplication table (9 x 9) fluently]

[Award Title: Little Mathematician]

[Little Mathematician: You'll always get the correct answer when faced with any math problem!]

"..."

???

Chen Lin was completely bewildered as he stared at the light screen that suddenly appeared in his mind.

system?

Are you 6 years old or older?

Memorizing the multiplication table?

Chen Lin stared wide-eyed, completely dumbfounded.

Before he could even react, just a few seconds later, the system popped up two more messages.

[It has been determined that the host can now recite the multiplication table fluently!]

[Mission Completed! Rewards Issued!]

"..."

Has it been issued?

where?

Feeling no change in his body or mind, Chen Lin's lips twitched, and he silently resolved never to read online novels again.

However, just as he was about to continue delivering food, he accidentally caught a glimpse of the densely packed formulas on the blackboard.

Immediately afterwards, he froze.

Data prediction, differential equations, coupling terms, fitting...

Are you worried that gamma perturbations might trigger a system avalanche?

Without any warning, Chen Lin suddenly asked this question.

Li Zihan and the other two girls immediately turned to look at him, their expressions somewhat surprised.

Even Shen Yan, who was standing in front of the blackboard, turned around.

Chen Lin, meanwhile, continued speaking to himself amidst the increasingly astonished gazes of the four:

"Some of you want to solve this by adjusting the latency parameters."

"While this may prove the model's effectiveness, it actually puts the cart before the horse, and the model will lose its real application value."

"Actually, this problem is not difficult to solve."

"You may not have noticed, but this coupling term not only connects the incubation period and the infectious period, but also the latent transmission coefficient."

"Changes in gamma directly interfere with the propagation coefficient, which is the biggest black box in your model."

"Now......"

His gaze swept over the four dumbfounded people, finally settling on Shen Yan. Chen Lin carefully confirmed:

"You should understand now, right?"