From child prodigy to chief scientist

Zheng Qinhong and Qin Wei didn't feel ashamed at all that a child had solved a problem that even they couldn't.

They had already witnessed Xu Xiao's terrifying mathematical abilities when they first met him.

As the next math class was about to start, Sun Yifei arrived at the classroom.

Seeing Zheng Qinhong, Qin Wei, and Xu Xiao gathered together, Sun Yifei walked over out of curiosity.

"Hey, what are you guys researching?"

Zheng Qinhong and Qin Wei are both among the best math students in the class, while Xu Xiao's mathematical talent is extremely rare and has unlimited potential.

"Teacher, I got stuck on one of the questions while I was doing the exercises, so I discussed it with them."

As he spoke, Zheng Qinhong showed the question to Sun Yifei.

After looking at the question, Sun Yifei immediately said with great certainty:

"I won't bother studying these kinds of questions again; they definitely won't be on the college entrance exam."

This question belongs to the elective course 4-5 "Selected Topics on Inequalities" and is an optional question in the college entrance examination.

Because this section of the questions is quite difficult, test takers generally do not choose inequality questions during the exam.

Moreover, this question is considered extremely difficult even among inequalities, and it would absolutely not appear in a formal exam.

"I just want to practice more, so that the exam won't actually include such obscure questions."

Zheng Qinhong usually gets full marks in math exams, so it's hard for him to get interested in doing ordinary problems anymore.

Although Sun Yifei dismissed the practice value of the problem, he still picked up the solution on the draft paper and looked at it.

"Hmm...this certificate is pretty good. Who made it?"

Sun Yifei felt that the entire proof process was very smooth and seemed to have nothing special about it, but it demonstrated an extremely profound mathematical foundation.

"Teacher, it was Xu Xiao who did it."

Zheng Qinhong truthfully admitted this, and Sun Yifei was naturally somewhat surprised upon learning this result.

However, the handwriting does indeed resemble Xu Xiao's, and considering his previous behavior, this matter is not so surprising.

But this is enough to prove just how fast Xu Xiao has improved. Compared to when he first came to the high school to audit classes, Xu Xiao's math skills have improved considerably.

After the bell rang, everyone returned to their seats, and Sun Yifei went up to the podium to begin his lecture.

Now, when Xu Xiao listens to Sun Yifei's lectures, she seems to be very comfortable with it. Even when doing exercises while listening to the lectures, she can keep up with Sun Yifei's pace.

"It seems that I won't need to audit any more math classes from now on."

Xu Xiao's experience participating in math competition training camp brought his math skills to a whole new level.

Even without using knowledge beyond the curriculum, his problem-solving skills are much better than before.

…………

Before we knew it, it was already the end of October.

Recently, Xu Xiao has been devoting more of his time to math competition training.

In the days leading up to the start of the math competition league, Xu Xiao even temporarily stopped preparing for the college entrance examination and devoted himself to preparing for the math competition.

After all, if you can get a provincial first prize in the math competition, you will at least have a chance to qualify for a reduced score on the college entrance exam.

Finally, the day arrived for the start of the league.

Qian Feng and others, along with members of the Yucai Math Competition Team, traveled to the Liaoning Provincial Math Competition test center—the Provincial Experimental High School.

Although the test center was not located at Yucai High School, the Provincial Experimental High School is also located in Shengjing, which is relatively convenient for students from Yucai.

By this time, many students had already gathered at the school to participate in the competition.

Xu Xiao was quite unique in the crowd. She looked like a junior high school student at most, and was very inconspicuous compared to those high school students who were 1.7 or 1.8 meters tall.

Before entering the examination room, Qian Feng specifically reminded the students of the examination precautions and asked them to double-check that all their examination materials were complete.

At 7:30, the exam room door was opened, and the candidates entered one by one.

Xu Xiao's exam room was on the third floor. After finding her classroom, Xu Xiao showed her admission ticket to the invigilator.

When Xu Xiao arrived, the proctor was taken aback. He checked Xu Xiao's admission ticket several times before confirming that Xu Xiao was indeed a student participating in the competition.

Somewhat coincidentally, He Muzhou was also assigned to the same examination room as Xu Xiao.

After greeting Xu Xiao, He Muzhou started talking to the other people in the examination room.

"Dai Kun, Luo Yinqiu, you two are in this exam room too?"

"Yes, it seems that the strength of our examination room is quite strong."

"After the second exam, don't forget to go over the questions together."

"No problem, we'll meet at the exam venue entrance."

Xu Xiao didn't recognize the other two people and had no intention of chatting with them. She closed her eyes and rested in her seat.

The math competition league is divided into two rounds, with a total score of 300 points. The first round accounts for 120 points and the second round accounts for 180 points.

The first test is relatively easier, and the exam time is only 80 minutes, which is just a warm-up for those better students.

The second test was much more difficult. Although there were only four major questions, each question was worth 45 points, and the test lasted 170 minutes.

To achieve a good result, the score in the second round is extremely crucial.

Before the trial began, Xu Xiao had already turned off the feature to focus on specific keywords.

For Xu Xiao, the first test didn't require much effort; she could handle it simply by answering the questions normally.

If you wait until the second round to give it your all, you'll have more energy.

"Dear candidates, we will now distribute the exam papers and answer sheets. After receiving the exam papers, please check if any pages are missing. If everything is in order, please fill in your name and exam number on the answer sheet..."

After receiving the exam paper, Xu Xiao glanced at the questions and quickly got a feel for the questions.

These questions are basically the same types of questions we practiced in class, and the difficulty level is similar to that of the previous Yucai School internal selection exam.

At that time, Xu Xiao was still able to answer most of the questions correctly even though he was not familiar with them.

After these days of intensive training, Xu Xiao naturally found it much easier to tackle problems of this level.

As soon as the exam bell rang, Xu Xiao immediately picked up her pen and started working on the exam.

Xu Xiao had already mentally calculated the set operations for the first question and the modulo operation for the second question, and simply filled in the answers.

The third question involved a recursive sequence, which required more calculations, but Xu Xiao still managed to arrive at the answer within a minute.

Xu Xiao solved the first few questions very easily, and only stopped to think for a while when it came to the eighth question, analytical geometry.