After taking the advice, I became a top student.

"I've already finished grading the exams and submitted the scores. It doesn't matter if I know who he is now, right?"

Zhao Yiming appealed to his emotions and reasoned with him.

Li Huachun, however, remained tight-lipped. "I'm sorry, Lao Zhao, but as you know, the reason our competitions have such a high level of influence is because they are fair."

"How did I violate fairness? I was just asking who the examinee of this exam paper was. I've already submitted my score."

Zhao Yiming hadn't expected this matter to be so difficult to communicate.

Li Huachun was indeed in a dilemma. "It's not that you think it doesn't affect fairness, but the rules stipulate that the exam paper can only be declassified after the results are released. Even I don't know who the examinee of this exam paper is right now."

"We cannot achieve absolute fairness, but we can achieve the fairness we can achieve as much as possible by following the rules."

He then added a sentence.

"Old Li, I'm not trying to make things difficult for you, but there really is an urgent matter."

Zhao Yiming decided to be frank and said, "The candidate's answer to the last question was very interesting. It happens to be related to a research topic we've been working on recently, and we'd like to discuss it with him."

"What?"

Li Huachun was stunned on the spot, and almost thought that Zhao Yiming was teasing him.

You, a professor in the mathematics department of Yanbei University, want to discuss a problem with a high school student? Is this such a lame reason something you came up with with your toes?

But precisely because this reason was so outrageous, Li Huachun felt that it might have some truth to it.

"I'll send you his proof process and you'll see."

Without further ado, Zhao Yiming sent another photo via WeChat.

In the office of the Chengdu Mathematical Society, Li Huachun sat down behind his desk, opened a photo on his phone, and began to study it carefully.

"Huh, didn't you use the inclusion-exclusion principle?"

He became interested and picked up a stack of draft paper from the side, starting to deduce the solution.

Although Li Huachun hasn't studied mathematics for some time since becoming the president of the Chengdu Mathematical Society, he still has a solid foundation and can understand mathematics at his current level.

"Features and...Gauss and..."

"This equation is quite interesting!"

As Li Huachun deduced the process step by step, his interest grew stronger.

The proof on this exam paper reminded him of Ramanujan, a legendary figure in the history of mathematics.

That expert often comes up with a stroke of genius when proving something. You don't know where it comes from or how it's proven, but it seems to be there from the start, and its existence is the proof of its correctness.

The constant equations in this answer sheet have a similar feel to that.

Li Huachun knew that some exceptionally gifted individuals possessed this ability, or what could be called mathematical intuition.

"Hey, Lao Li, say something!"

Zhao Yiming's anxious voice came from the phone next to him, but Li Huachun was so engrossed in the deduction that he didn't notice the slight noise at all.

An hour later, Li Huachun finally smacked his lips and exclaimed, "Wonderful!"

"If this equality could be proven, it would be enough to publish a paper."

Thinking about the thesis, Li Huachun suddenly remembered that he was still on the phone with Zhao Yiming.

"This kid is indeed very talented, but the results will be out in three days, and the exam papers will be unsealed then. Can't you even wait that long?"

Li Huachun then picked up his phone and rattled off a series of messages.

Zhao Yiming glanced at Zheng Mingyang, and only after Zheng Mingyang nodded did he say, "Old Zheng has a paper here... so it needs to be done as soon as possible."

After listening to Zhao Yiming's explanation, Li Huachun returned to the equation he had written on the draft paper. He had thought he had overestimated the equation, but he had underestimated it.

Duke Mathematics Journal is not some low-quality journal; it is a top-tier publication in the field of mathematics, second only to the Big Four journals. The quality of papers published in such a journal goes without saying.

He pondered for a moment before saying to Zhao Yiming, "In principle, it is indeed not possible..."

……

Chengdu No.1 Middle School, Administration Building

Zhou Zhi stared at the computer screen, occasionally scribbling on the draft paper. This went on for more than half an hour before he finally looked at the stack of draft paper in his hand and swore.

"Is this supposed to be a high school student's test?"

The exam had barely ended when some students with exceptional memories memorized the questions. The coaches also got their hands on the questions and were trying to work through them so they could explain them to the students later.

Surprisingly, even a coach who has taught competitions for over a decade had a headache when faced with this problem. He had to consult some resources before finally solving it.

Solving this question in the exam room is quite difficult.

He finally understood why Chen Mo had handed in his paper early. Given Chen Mo's style, he probably wouldn't waste time on questions that were obviously impossible to answer.

At this moment, Jiang Fan strode into Zhou Zhi's office. "Old Zhou, how did Chen Mo perform in the provincial competition this time?"

Instead of answering his question, Zhou Zhi flipped the computer screen and said, "You try to solve this problem."

"Test me?"

Jiang Fan didn't quite understand what was going on, but since he was involved in physics competitions and his math skills were also good, he wasn't really afraid.

Take a look at the question.

Let n be an integer greater than 1...

"Huh? What's that thing in the back?"

Jiang Fan glanced at the formula once and refused to look at it a second time.

"I'm a physicist, why would you ask me to do math?"

Jiang Fan said confidently.

"This is the last major question in the second round of the provincial competition."

"No, this level of difficulty... have all the math whizzes gone mad?"

Jiang Fan was dumbfounded. He was quite confident in his math skills. Even he found the problems difficult, so how could those high school students really solve them?

Only then did he realize Zhou Zhi's purpose in giving him this question: "So Chen Mo didn't perform well this time?"

Zhou Zhi nodded and told Jiang Fan about Chen Mo handing in his paper early and being unable to find him anywhere.

"People who are good at math are truly awful!"

"Are you trying to shatter the Daoist aspirations of these young people by setting such difficult questions?"

Jiang Fan was furious. "You deserve to die too! I told you long ago to let Chen Mo focus on the physics competition, but you insisted on competing with me."

"Stop acting like a shrew, can't you be a little reasonable?"

Zhou Zhi also had a bit of a headache. He had been Jiang Fan's colleague for so long, so of course he knew Jiang Fan's personality.

"This is also a good thing for Chen Mo. As long as he can get through this difficult time on his own, he won't be afraid of anything else, no matter how difficult it gets in the future."

Zhou Zhichen was deeply moved.

"Get through what?!"

Jiang Fan immediately launched into a string of classical Chinese phrases, "You think you can get through this on your own?"

"We have to help him!"

"Then how do you suggest we help?" Zhou Zhi countered.

"Don't you know someone in the math club? Why don't you call and ask Chen Mo about his grades this time? Once we have the grades, we'll figure out what to do based on them."

Jiang Fan said decisively, "It's been almost two days since the exam, the results must already be out."

"this……"

Zhou Zhi hesitated for a moment. He wanted to say that this was against the rules, but he felt that Jiang Fan was right this time. They should indeed do something, so he decided to go for it.

The call was connected very quickly.

"Teacher Zhou."

A childish voice came from the other end of the phone.

"Xiao Zhang, it's like this, as you know, our school is also participating in the provincial competition this time. We wanted to ask you to help us check the results. I wonder if it would be convenient for you?"

Even though he was nearly fifty, Zhou Zhi's face turned slightly red after saying those words.

He knew the rules of the mathematics society, and his request was indeed a bit excessive.

Sure enough, there was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Teacher Zhou, well, I'm not in charge of that section right now, so I really can't get a grade. The results will be out in a couple of days, so there's no need to worry, Teacher Zhou..."

After a long while, the person on the other end of the phone said with some difficulty.

"These are your students?"

Jiang Fan snorted coldly, then took out his phone and started searching through his contacts. "I'll find the person."

"You can't blame Xiao Zhang for this; it really wasn't in accordance with the rules..."