My IQ has been increasing year by year.

Chapter 76 begins

Six o'clock in the morning.

The alarm clock on the bedside table made a soft ticking sound.

The number jumped.

Chen Zhuo opened his eyes.

The room was dimly lit, with thick blackout curtains drawn.

The central air conditioning vents emit a steady, fine white noise.

He sat up and pulled back the covers.

Without turning on the overhead light, I entered the bathroom using only a sliver of morning light filtering through the curtains.

I turned on the tap and splashed cold water onto the back of my hand.

Chen Zhuo scooped up some cold water and splashed it on his face.

The last bit of sleepiness deep in my brain was decisively stripped away.

After washing up and changing clothes,

He opened the transparent exam-specific document bag and took one last look at what was inside.

Two black ballpoint pens, two sharpened 2B pencils, a clean white eraser, and a transparent ruler.

Admission ticket, ID card.

The zipper closed with a slight clicking sound.

6:30.

We ate on the second floor.

I ate breakfast in twenty minutes.

The only sound throughout the entire process was the occasional crisp sound of tableware colliding with porcelain plates.

7:15.

The bus stopped downstairs at the hotel.

In the morning in Beijing, the sunlight had already spread out completely.

A dry breeze blew in through the car door, carrying a slight smell of asphalt.

Queues from each province lined up to board the bus.

The train carriage was much quieter than when I scouted the location yesterday.

All the excited whispers disappeared.

The air was filled with a tension similar to that of a fully drawn bowstring.

The bus started moving and merged into the traffic.

Chen Zhuo looked out the window.

The roadside trees receded into the distance, sunlight shimmering through their leaves.

His breathing remained at an extremely steady rhythm.

Inhale, exhale.

His chest rose and fell slightly.

It's exactly eight o'clock.

The convoy once again drove through the gates of that top-tier university.

Today, the bus did not stop at the auditorium, but drove directly to the teaching area.

Several tall, gray teaching buildings stood in the sunlight.

The exterior walls were covered with green vines.

The students got off the bus.

The volunteer leading the group held up a sign and stood in front of a huge sign indicating the exam venues.

Several hundred people gathered around.

Chen Zhuo looked up, his gaze sweeping over the densely packed forms.

The rules for the national competition are very strict. To prevent cheating and collusion, contestants from the same province are completely separated.

Not only were they not in the same exam room, but they were even in different teaching buildings.

"Room 402, First Teaching Building"

Chen Zhuo saw his exam room information clearly.

He turned his head and looked at his teammates beside him.

Zhou Kai looked at the far right of the sign.

"Third Teaching Building, Room 105."

Wang, who spoke little, touched his chin.

"I'm in the fourth teaching building, on the fifth floor."

He Gui, Miao Shi'an, and Lin Yi also confirmed the location.

Six exam rooms were scattered throughout this vast teaching area.

There was no further explanation.

There's no need to shout any cheers or hug each other.

"Meet at 12:10 PM, under the statue of the famous person in front of the first teaching building."

Zhou Kai nodded.

Wang, who spoke little, made a gesture.

Several people turned around and walked into the surging crowd, following the different directions indicated by the signs.

His figure was quickly swallowed up by the crowd of students in various school uniforms.

8:20.

Chen Zhuo walked up to the fourth floor of the first teaching building.

The floor tiles in the corridor had just been mopped and had a faint smell of disinfectant.

The proctor stood at the door, holding a metal detector.

Chen Zhuo was only holding that transparent file bag in his hand.

I walked to the door.

Hand over your admission ticket and ID card.

The proctor checked the photo, and the metal detector scanned Chen Zhuo from the front and back without triggering an alarm.

"Go in."

Chen Zhuo walked into the classroom.

This is a lecture hall with a large space.

Only one person per table.

The distance between each table is very far.

Chen Zhuo walked to his seat.

The third row from the bottom, the middle seat.

He placed the file folder in the upper right corner of the table.

Take out two ballpoint pens, a pencil, an eraser, and a ruler.

They were lined up in a row.

Then I placed the empty file folder and documents on the corner of the table.

Students entered the classroom one after another.

No one was whispering.

The creaking of pulling out a chair and the soft clinking of a pen on the table were amplified in this space.

The round clock above the blackboard ticked away, its second hand moving one tick at a time.

It makes a slight clicking sound.

8:45.

Two proctors walked to the front of the classroom.

One of the teachers held up a sealed bag.

The intact seal was shown to everyone.

Then, he picked up a small knife.

Sizzle—

The sound of the heavy kraft paper being cut was particularly jarring in the quiet classroom.

The teacher pulled out a thick stack of test papers.

The edges of the white paper reflected the sunlight.

The exam paper was passed to Chen Zhuo.

It's very thick.

It has a full twelve pages.

The binding thread was tightly tied on the left side.

"Check the exam paper for any missing pages or printing errors."

The proctor gave a reminder from the podium.

Chen Zhuo opened the paper.

The paper was filled with densely packed printed characters.

There are no multiple-choice questions.

It consists entirely of long passages of known conditions, force analysis diagrams, and circuit topologies.

Finally, there's a large blank answer section.

He flipped from page one to page twelve.

The paper slid across my fingertips, making a soft rustling sound.

Confirmed.

Chen Zhuo picked up his pen and wrote his name and exam number inside the sealed line on the exam paper.

The handwriting is neat and the strokes are restrained.

Nine o'clock sharp.

The doorbell in the corridor emitted a sharp, long ringing.

"Start answering questions."

Almost at the same instant.

The pen tip touched the paper, making the first sound.

Chen Zhuo's gaze fell on the first question.

The tip of a black ballpoint pen touches the white paper.

The ink flowed out along the ball, leaving a clear trail.

Half an hour passed.

The sound of writing in the classroom showed no signs of abating; on the contrary, it became more frequent and urgent.

The amount of calculation required for this set of papers is astonishing.

Each physical model contains extremely complex mathematical derivations.

Calculus is just the most basic tool here; what's more daunting are the boundary conditions that you have to construct yourself.

Chen Zhuo turned a page of the exam paper.

He didn't stop to think.

Those formulas and theorems are like instincts etched into the brain's memory.

The moment you finish reading the question, your brain has already laid out the path to the answer.

His wrists were pressed against the table.

The pen tip moved quickly across the blank space.

The meticulously crafted derivations, line by line, filled the blank spaces on the paper like rows of soldiers.

9:50.

The boy on the left raised his hand.

The proctor walked over.

The boy didn't say anything, but simply pointed to the draft paper on the table that was already covered with writing on both sides.

The teacher took out a brand new A4 sheet of white paper and placed it on his desk.

This seems to be a signal.

People started raising their hands in the classroom.

The proctor's rubber-soled shoes made a slight scraping sound as they walked on the ground.

A thick stack of draft paper was being used up quickly.

Half past ten.

The exam is halfway through.

The sun outside rose higher, and its rays shone through the windowsill onto the table in front.

The sounds in the classroom began to change.

The continuous rustling sound began to be mixed with other noises.

That's the sound of an eraser rubbing hard against the paper.

The voice was urgent and heavy.

When someone reached the final step of the derivation, they discovered a mismatch in the dimensions.

This means that all the previous large-scale calculations are now invalid.

The girl on the right, separated by two aisles, stopped writing.

She covered her forehead with her hands, her fingers digging deep into her hair.

The amplitude of chest rise and fall has become significantly greater.

I heard the sound of a ballpoint pen falling to the ground from the back row.

It rolled twice and then stopped.

Chen Zhuo did not look up.

His gaze remained fixed on those twelve pages of white paper.

A complex problem involving optical interference.

The optical path diagram is extremely complex, involving nonlinear integrals of the refractive index as a function of the medium thickness.

Chen Zhuo took a new sheet of draft paper.

A coordinate system was drawn in the very center of the paper.

He didn't use a ruler; the lines he drew with one hand were straight and steady.

The pen tip touched the paper.

A series of partial differential equations poured out.

Time stretched out infinitely with the friction of the pen tip.

11:20.

The air in the classroom became stuffy and sweltering.

Even with the air conditioning on, the body temperature and heat emitted by the body still made the air somewhat viscous in this extremely mentally taxing environment.

Most people's movements have slowed down.

The pen tip lingers on the paper for longer and longer periods.

The sound of turning the pages became heavy.

Some people started looking at the clock on the wall more frequently.

Every time I look up, the focus in my eyes becomes a little less.

Chen Zhuo turned to the last page of the exam paper.

The final, most challenging question.

The question is only half a page long.

He put down his pen.

Pick up the mineral water bottle next to you and unscrew the cap.

I took a small sip of water.

The water slid down my slightly dry throat.