I control the AI ​​empire thanks to the geniuses in my group.

"Su Zhou, it's good to be confident, but you can't just talk big. Even top students in our country who win first prize in high school English competitions and are good at taking tests are often stuttering when they actually have a face-to-face conversation with foreigners."

"You're only in the first year of junior high school, have you built up a sufficient vocabulary?"

"I have a friend who is a foreigner, and I often communicate with him."

Su Zhou's English was entirely forced upon him; in that magical parallel universe, he actually spent time with Newton and others from the 17th century.

Thanks to his frequent interactions with those British guys, his English improved by leaps and bounds.

"If it's true, that's wonderful. As an instrumental language, if you can master English in advance, it will be of great help in reading original English papers and directly engaging with cutting-edge research in the future." Zhang Hengyuan became more and more satisfied with Su Zhou as he looked at her.

Hu Kai couldn't help but ask, "What about physics?"

"Junior high school physics is too easy. I've also looked at some high school physics myself. I can understand the mechanics and kinematics parts, but I'm still a bit behind in electromagnetism."

"Chemical?"

"I've memorized the periodic table and can write basic reaction equations, but I haven't been exposed to organic chemistry yet."

"biology?"

"...I really didn't look at this much," Su Zhou honestly admitted.

Zhao Fang smiled and shook her head: "You've already learned most of what other people need to learn in their first year of high school."

Ma Jianguo finally made a decision.

He picked up the teacup, took a sip, and put the cup down with a soft sound.

"Okay, I've made the decision. Starting tomorrow, no, this afternoon, Su Zhou will transfer to the first year of high school. I'll coordinate with the first-year class leader about which class he'll be assigned to. I'll handle the student registration. I'll communicate with the Education Bureau."

He looked at Su Zhou and said seriously, "But there is one condition: your overall score cannot fall out of the top 100 in the grade during the midterm exam. If you can't keep up in other subjects, I will consider letting you return to the junior high school."

"No problem," Su Zhou replied readily.

Ma Jianguo nodded in satisfaction and waved to the waiter: "Add two more dishes! And another bottle of Huiyuan juice."

He's in a good mood today, very good.

The fact that such a gifted student came from his own school is a real achievement. In the future, when he achieves good results, Ma Jianguo's name will definitely appear in the Education Bureau's year-end summary report.

The dishes were served one after another.

While eating and chatting, Ma Jianguo suddenly remembered something, put down his chopsticks, and looked at Zhang Hengyuan: "Old Zhang, can Su Zhou participate in this year's National High School Mathematics League?"

Zhang Hengyuan paused in his hand, which was holding a chopstick.

"League preliminaries?"

"right."

Zhang Hengyuan shook his head with a wry smile: "Principal Ma, the league preliminary rounds start tomorrow, and registration closed a month ago. Su Zhou didn't even participate in our assessment back then, let alone register."

The smile on Ma Jianguo's face froze instantly.

"I'll forget about this tomorrow."

"Yes, the province-wide unified exam is tomorrow morning at nine o'clock."

Ma Jianguo sighed and put down his chopsticks with a regretful look: "Doesn't that mean Su Zhou will have to wait until next year to participate in the league? That's a whole year wasted."

Zhao Fang wiped her mouth with a tissue and glanced at Ma Jianguo with a smile: "Principal Ma, you're too anxious. You're even more anxious than Coach Zhang. Even the real coaches aren't this anxious."

Ma Jianguo said, "For students like Su Zhou, the window of opportunity for growth is limited. He is thirteen years old now, and his mathematical thinking is in its most active stage. Every year wasted in regular teaching means one less year of opportunity to hone his skills in the competition system."

"Look at those IMO gold medalists, which one of them didn't start systematic training from junior high school?"

Zhao Fang glanced at Ma Jianguo with some surprise.

She originally thought that the principal only saw the achievement point of "genius students coming from our school", but she did not expect that he had a thorough understanding of the path of cultivating students through competitions.

Zhang Hengyuan remained calm, picking up a piece of chopped chili fish head and putting it in his mouth. After chewing it a couple of times, he slowly said, "Principal Ma, you don't need to worry about the league. I know what I'm doing."

Ma Jianguo's eyes lit up: "You have plans?"

"Given Su Zhou's current situation, she definitely cannot follow the usual path to higher education."

Zhang Hengyuan wiped his hands with a tissue and said firmly, "We did miss the league this year, but we won't waste this year."

"I will have him join your school's on-campus training program and develop a separate training plan. We will first fill in all the basic modules in the competition system, including the four major areas of combinatorics, number theory, geometry, and algebra. His algebra and analytical abilities are already very strong, but he still has obvious weaknesses in combinatorics and geometry."

He paused, glanced at Su Zhou who was engrossed in eating ribs, and said, "Given his learning speed, he'll definitely be able to get into the provincial team by next year's league season."

When Ma Jianguo heard the words "provincial team," his eyes lit up like flashlights.

Are you serious?

"When have I ever joked with you?"

Ma Jianguo nodded vigorously, raised his glass and clinked it against Zhang Hengyuan's: "Then I'll leave this child in your care!"

Zhang Hengyuan smiled but didn't say anything more.

He actually had more on his mind than he said.

Provincial team?

That's just the minimum target.

If Su Zhou's growth rate is indeed as fast as he expected, it wouldn't be impossible for him to directly challenge for the national training team next year.

Moreover, he didn't actually want Su Zhou to follow the conventional process of participating in the high school league before joining the CMO, as that would take too long.

Geniuses need to take shortcuts.

But he didn't say that.

Saying it too early can put pressure on the children and may also cause principals like Ma Jianguo to get overly excited and do some fancy things that interfere with normal training.

Sometimes, doing is more important than saying.

Halfway through the meal, Ma Jianguo took a phone call and went out for a few minutes. When he came back, he chatted with Zhao Fang and Hu Kai about the textbook reform.

After lunch, Zhao Fang and Hu Kai needed to catch the afternoon high-speed train to the neighboring city, so Ma Jianguo drove them to the station. Zhang Hengyuan also had to leave earlier.

Before leaving, Zhang Hengyuan pulled Su Zhou aside and handed him a business card: "My phone number and WeChat are on it. You don't need to worry about tomorrow's league match. I'll organize the training plan for this year and send it to you. You should finish reading these two books first."

He took two books out of his bag: one was "Elementary Mathematics from Its Higher Perspective" and the other was "Introduction to Combinatorial Mathematics".

Su Zhou took the book and flipped through the table of contents.

"Finish the course within a month, complete the exercises, and contact me anytime if you have any questions."

"it is good."

Zhang Hengyuan patted him on the shoulder, turned around and got into the car.

Su Zhou stood at the restaurant entrance, holding two books in her hands, watching the car merge into the traffic and disappear at the intersection. Suddenly, she felt as if someone had pressed the fast-forward button on the rhythm of her life.

This morning he was just an ordinary student sitting in a junior high classroom listening to a lesson. Now he has the business card of a provincial Olympiad coach and two university math textbooks in his hand. Soon he will be going to register for senior high school.

Skipping a grade to the first year of high school means he has to leave his current class, and he probably won't have it so easy from now on.

It seems being a top student isn't easy!

Liu Zhi took a taxi and drove Su Zhou back to school.

It was already the second period in the afternoon. The campus was very quiet, with only the faint sound of teachers lecturing coming from the teaching buildings.

"Let's go find your homeroom teacher, Ms. Li, first." Liu Zhi pushed open the car door.

Meanwhile, in the office of Class 3, Grade 7.

Old Li was sitting at his workstation with a lesson plan spread out in front of him, but he couldn't concentrate on reading a single word.

Su Zhou was called away by Liu Zhi, the math teacher, during the second period in the morning, and then never came back.

It's been a whole morning.

All morning!

When he went to the cafeteria for lunch, he specifically went to check, but there was no one there.

When asked, Su Zhou's deskmate Lin Xiaoxiao didn't know either.

As Old Li was lost in thought, the office door was pushed open.

He looked up sharply.

Liu Zhi walked in front, and Su Zhou followed behind.

Old Li stood up abruptly, his eyes scanning Su Zhou up and down. She wasn't crying or making a fuss; she seemed to be in a normal mood, even quite energetic.

"Old Li," Liu Zhi greeted him with a smile.

"Old Liu, what have you been doing all morning?" Old Li's pent-up anxiety finally erupted.

When he asked this question, his voice unconsciously rose a few octaves, and several teachers who were grading homework nearby looked up.

Several people turned their gazes towards this spot, all silently watching the drama unfold.

Liu Zhi pulled up a chair and sat down, looking smug: "Old Li, don't be nervous, this is good news."

"Good news?"

"You know that Coach Zhang Hengyuan from the provincial Olympiad coaching team came to the school today for selections, right?"

Old Li nodded.

He knew about it; the academic affairs office had mentioned it briefly at a meeting last week, saying that people from the province were coming to assess potential math competition candidates.

"Today's selection test consists of six competition questions."

"Um."

"Guess how many points Su Zhou got on the test?"

Old Li's heart skipped a beat, and a feeling of disbelief suddenly welled up inside him.

"……How many?"

"Full marks."

The slightest noise in the office has disappeared.

A perfect score on six math competition problems?!

"?!"

A teacher's red pen fell onto the table with a thud.

Another teacher almost spat out the goji berry water he was drinking.

Old Li's eyes widened, his mouth opened and closed repeatedly, and he said in disbelief, "You mean... a perfect score? You got all six competition questions right?"

"All correct." Liu Zhi nodded. "Not only are they all correct, Coach Zhang said that Su Zhou's problem-solving approach is the most talented he has seen in recent years. The last problem was so difficult that even contestants like Chen Feng, who had studied for competitions for two years, couldn't solve it. Su Zhou solved it directly using calculus."

"Calculus...calculus?" Old Li's voice cracked. "He's a first-year junior high student, using calculus?"

"I taught myself," Liu Zhi said.

"Self-taught?!"

Finally, one of the teachers couldn't hold back any longer and leaned over: "Wait, Teacher Liu, are you really talking about Su Zhou?"

"It's him."

"Oh my god!" the teacher blurted out, then realized his rudeness and quickly covered his mouth.

Old Li took several seconds to process the information, then slapped Su Zhou on the shoulder, his voice trembling, "I told you! I knew you weren't an ordinary kid! I could tell from your performance on the first day of school!"

Old Li slapped Su Zhou hard on the shoulder, and Su Zhou responded with a shy yet polite smile.

The teacher at the next desk mercilessly exposed Lao Li's hindsight: "Lao Li, come on! What could you possibly learn on the first day of school?"

He turned to stare at Liu Zhi, "Teacher Liu, did Coach Zhang really say that exactly? That was a test paper at the level of the second round of the National Higher Education Institutional Entrance Examination! Calculus... this kid managed to digest advanced mathematics all by himself?!"

"Absolutely true!"

"Hey, Su Zhou, you should study physics! Physics will let you see the fundamental laws of this world!"

The teachers chatted amongst themselves, their usual professional demeanor completely forgotten. They all looked at Su Zhou as if he were a rare treasure.

While the teachers were arguing heatedly about whether Su Zhou should focus on math or physics first, Su Zhou quietly took a half step back, reached into his school uniform pocket, and secretly took out his phone to glance at the screen.

As expected, a barrage of notifications popped up at the top of the screen.

The mysterious cross-time and space group chat called "No. 42" has become lively again.