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

At 1:55 PM, in the School of Mathematical Sciences office building.

Chen Lin, dressed in a neat casual outfit, appeared right on time at the door of Professor Gu Ming's office.

He raised his hand and knocked on the door, and Gu Ming's enthusiastic voice immediately came from inside.

"Please come in!"

Chen Lin pushed open the door and entered, only to see Gu Ming sitting behind his desk. Upon seeing him, Gu Ming immediately put on a warm smile and stood up to greet him.

"Chen Lin, you're here! Come in and have a seat!"

Although this was only the second time the two had officially met, Gu Ming's enthusiasm was undiminished, as if he had met his most prized student.

As he gestured for Chen Lin to sit down on the guest sofa, he quickly filled a glass of warm water from the water dispenser and handed it to him.

"How are you? Have you been resting well these past few days? Are you still living in the school dormitory?"

Chen Lin: "No, I've moved off-campus now."

Gu Ming: "Yeah, that's great. Are you getting used to the new house?"

"It's fine, thank you for your concern, Professor Gu." Chen Lin took the water glass and replied with a smile.

After a few brief pleasantries, Gu Ming got straight to the point. He pointed to a door next door and said, "My office is small. Let's go to the small conference room next door; it's more spacious there."

"OK."

Gu Ming led Chen Lin into the conference room next door.

This place was indeed much larger than the office, with a long conference table in the center, large enough to accommodate more than a dozen people for a meeting. At this moment, it was empty, with only the two of them present.

"Chen Lin, wait a moment, I'll go get the test paper."

After Gu Ming finished speaking, he turned around and was about to go back to his office.

"Professor Gu, wait a moment." Chen Lin called out to him.

"Huh? What's wrong?" Gu Ming turned around in confusion.

Chen Lin said with a slightly embarrassed tone, "It's like this, there are five papers in total, and it might take too long to finish them all at once. How about we split it into two sessions? I'll do three today, and we can schedule another time for the remaining two?"

When Chen Lin was running a business on Xianyu (a Chinese online marketplace), he did a test with graduate-level questions, 8 questions in an hour. Now it's undergraduate-level questions, 10 questions in an hour shouldn't be a big problem.

Although the time spent writing the answers was the main part, Chen Lin still insisted on limiting the use of the "Little Mathematician" app to within three hours, which he had set for himself.

"Of course, no problem!" Gu Ming agreed without hesitation. "I was just worried you were under too much pressure. Okay, let's do it your way, three exams today!"

An approving look appeared on his face, and his opinion of Chen Lin rose even higher.

He is humble and steady, and many students who are not as good as Chen Lin do not have this attitude.

Soon, Gu Ming returned with three brand-new test papers. He spread the papers out one by one on the table in front of Chen Lin, the papers making a slight "rustling" sound as they touched the tabletop.

"Let's start with these three subjects today," Gu Ming said, pointing to the exam papers. "Algebra, Mathematical Analysis, and Topology."

Chen Lin nodded, his gaze sweeping over the exam papers. Each paper had the words "Yannan University School of Mathematical Sciences 20XX Major Core Course Credit Assessment (Exceptional)" printed on its header, making it appear quite formal.

"Okay, let's begin." Chen Lin picked up the ballpoint pen that had been prepared on the table and unscrewed the cap.

Seeing this, Gu Ming prepared to turn around and leave, giving him a quiet testing environment.

But as soon as he took a step, the sound of a pen nib scraping across paper behind him made him instinctively stop and turn around in surprise.

Chen Lin was already sitting up straight, holding a pen in his right hand. Without even looking at the question, he put his pen down in the answer area.

His movements were fluid and effortless, without the slightest pause or hesitation, as if he had already rehearsed those complex proof processes a thousand times in his mind.

Gu Ming's eyes widened slightly, and a look of surprise appeared on his face.

This... doesn't even require draft paper?!

It's important to understand that these three courses are not like the step-by-step calculation problems of high school mathematics. Algebra and topology, in particular, are filled with a large number of abstract concepts and logical deductions, and each step of the proof requires rigorous design.

Let alone undergraduates, even graduate students would have to repeatedly work out and refine their ideas on scratch paper before daring to copy them onto the exam paper.

But Chen Lin's posture was like doing a first-grade addition and subtraction problem!

Gu Ming stood there, stunned for several seconds, before he could suppress his surprise.

He didn't make a sound to disturb them, but quietly retreated to his office, took a stack of blank A4 papers from the printer, and then tiptoed back to the conference room.

He didn't hand the draft paper directly to Chen Lin, but placed it on the table next to him.

He thought to himself, "Young people should be confident; that's a good thing."

When he gets to the more complex problems later on and finds himself stuck, he will naturally need scratch paper.

I'll hand it over myself then, so he won't feel awkward.

After doing all this, Gu Ming sat down in the chair opposite Chen Lin, opened his laptop, and prepared to read some of the latest academic papers, while also acting as a "proctor" for Chen Lin.

The meeting room fell silent for a moment, with only two sounds remaining.

One type is the continuous "rustling" sound made when Chen Lin's pen tip moves at a steady speed across the paper.

Another sound was the occasional tapping of the keyboard and scrolling of the mouse by Gu Ming.

While looking at the paper on the computer screen, Gu Ming kept glancing at Chen Lin out of the corner of his eye.

He was also silently making calculations in his mind.

The three sets of test papers he brought out today are definitely not easy.

Each exam paper was a new set of questions that he rewrote after reviewing some of the key questions from previous years' final exams in the mathematics department.

According to his estimation, if he called over a top-tier undergraduate like Shen Yan from Yannan and had her focus on the test for two hours without distraction, she could only manage to get a passing score of 60 on a single test paper, which would already be quite remarkable.

Of course, his expectations for Chen Lin would be even higher.

After all, this is a genius that even Academician Liang Tianshi values.

At the competition last time, Chen Lin had already demonstrated his intuition and flexibility in solving mathematical problems to the fullest extent.

But what Gu Ming wanted to take this opportunity to investigate today was another matter.

From the algorithm solution Chen Lin provided for Shen Yan's modeling competition, it can be seen that he has some knowledge of mathematical knowledge that is usually only learned by graduate students.

Gu Ming wanted to use this diagnostic test to gain a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of Chen Lin's breadth and depth of knowledge in the vast discipline of mathematics.

A person's energy is ultimately limited. Many geniuses tend to be somewhat specialized, perhaps exceptionally gifted in one area but relatively weak in others.

Gu Ming needs to know Chen Lin's strengths and weaknesses so that he can tailor guidance for Chen Lin's upcoming graduation thesis.

Thinking of this, Gu Ming turned his gaze to Chen Lin again.

The young man was still writing furiously, his focused expression suggesting that the whole world was irrelevant to him.

Gu Ming nodded in satisfaction and turned his attention back to his laptop.