Just as Huang Yifan expected, Tieshikou Middle School's rival had sent out their strongest student, and with just a narrow margin, they won the first question.
How could this be? How could this be happening?
When the host announced that the other side had taken the first round, Jiang Weiwei was in disbelief.
How could she lose? How could she lose?
But no matter how much she didn't want to believe it, a loss was still a loss.
Second question: Li Luozhi versus Xiao Ping from Datang Middle School.
This time, there were no surprises. Li Luozhi secured a win with absolute dominance.
At this point, both sides had one win and one loss, a tie for now.
Only one question remained.
Jiang Weiwei suddenly felt like crying.
She finally realized, they had fallen into the opponent's trap.
If she had let Huang Yifan go first, even if he lost, they could have gone all out on questions two and three. But now, only one question was left, and everyone knew, the third question was always the hardest. Huang Yifan had never even passed math before. Forget the third one; even the first question might have stumped him.
This time, it looked like Tieshikou was going to be eliminated.
"Jiang Weiwei, the competition isn't over yet. You might have given up, but I haven't."
Seeing that Jiang Weiwei had completely lost the will to fight, Huang Yifan stood up, dusted himself off, and stepped into the ring.
At this moment, the host had already displayed the final question on the screen.
It was a function problem.
Function problems were notoriously hard, whether in junior high, high school, or even college.
And this one? It was a function problem of extreme difficulty.
The moment it appeared, the entire room gasped.
"No way I can solve this."
Jiang Weiwei shook her head.
A moment later, Li Luozhi also shook her head.
Then, the other team's representative for the third round also shook his head.
Seeing this, Jiang Weiwei's face lit up.
If no one could solve it, then the match could be redone.
And if they could redo it, Jiang Weiwei was confident she could defeat her opponent.
"Host, since neither side can solve it, I request a rematch."
Jiang Weiwei quickly called out.
The host looked over and said, "Tieshikou Middle School is requesting a rematch. What does the other team say?"
"We object."
The other team shook their heads.
They knew full well the strength of Li Luozhi and Jiang Weiwei. Their earlier win had been more luck than anything.
If they went again, they'd never stand a chance.
"Well, since you object, then I'll give you three minutes to solve this problem. If neither side can answer it, I will declare a rematch."
The host stepped aside to let both sides continue.
"Are you done?"
Three minutes later, the host asked again.
"We can't solve it."
The three students from the opposing team all looked distressed.
They now understood, even if they opposed the rematch, it wouldn't change the outcome.
"In that case, since neither side can solve it, I now declare…."
Just as the host was about to announce a rematch, a voice rang out.
"Wait, I solved it."
Huh? You solved it?
"Oh? Then please present your answer."
"x = 1."
Huang Yifan gave his answer.
"Congratulations to Tieshikou Middle School! You've won this match. Tomorrow, you will compete in the finals."
...
"Huang Yifan, you're amazing!"
After their win, the three members of the Tieshikou team advanced to the finals. That evening, the teachers and students gathered in a small restaurant to celebrate.
Wu Haihua and Sun Jin both looked at him in awe. "We didn't think you'd be able to solve such a hard question."
"Yeah, Huang Yifan, how come you didn't write out your solution? You just said the answer right away?"
The supervising teacher, Mr. Zhang, who taught math, was also surprised. He knew that the problem, although technically based on junior high concepts, was actually an Olympiad-level question, and incredibly hard. Even he had struggled to solve it, and was still stuck when Huang Yifan announced the answer.
So he asked, "Huang Yifan, how did you solve it?"
"Well..."
Huang Yifan took a sip of tea to moisten his throat.
At the same time, Jiang Weiwei had been staring at him the entire time.
His performance earlier had shocked her.
Could it be, like Hui Ping said, he really was a genius?
Had he just been pretending all along?
She didn't want to believe it, but she couldn't help hoping it was true.
And if it was true, she felt a bit embarrassed.
If he really had been hiding his abilities, how was she supposed to face him in the future?
God, how humiliating.
Of course, Huang Yifan had no idea about the little storm going on in Jiang Weiwei's head.
He already had his answer ready.
"Sigh, Mr. Zhang, don't look at me like that. Honestly, it was just dumb luck, I didn't really solve it."
"Huh? You didn't?"
"Right. I mean, come on. Even if I am a genius, there's no way I'd be able to solve something that hard. If I could, I would've written out the solution."
Everyone nodded. That actually made sense.
Especially for Mr. Zhang, even though he believed Huang Yifan was talented, no genius could solve something that stumped even experienced teachers. But then he asked, "If you couldn't solve it, how did you get the right answer?"
"Well, I noticed the other team couldn't solve it either, so I figured, why not just guess? I thought, maybe if I just put down a number... What if I got lucky? And... you all saw what happened. Turns out x = 1 was the correct answer. I have to thank my homeroom teacher, Ms. Lin, who always told us, even if you don't know the answer, never leave a blank. Just write something."
"Pfft"
At that, all the students and teachers nearly choked on their food.
"Dear god, that actually worked?"
"Huang Yifan, you need to go buy a lottery ticket right now."
"Hang on, I'm going to laugh again..."
"Looks like even the heavens are rooting for Tieshikou Middle School."
...
Since the finals were the next day, the group stayed overnight at the hostel near the cultural center.
Because they were students and rooms were limited, there were two people per room.
Sun Jin and Wu Haihua shared one. Huang Yifan and Yu Bin shared the other.
"Wow, there's a computer here? Awesome!"
As soon as they entered the room and saw the desktop computer in the center, Yu Bin jumped up excitedly.
Although Huang Yifan also wanted to check how his new novel had been doing lately, he decided to hold off since someone else was around. They were going home the next day; he could wait until then.
"Sorry, Huang Yifan. I'm gonna hog the computer for a while to read some novels. I'll let you use it later."
"No worries, go ahead. Oh, you read web novels?"
Seeing Yu Bin log into Lingdian, Huang Yifan couldn't help but smile.
He hadn't expected Yu Bin to be a web novel fan too.
"Of course I read them! Not just me, half my class reads web novels."
"Really?"
Hearing this, Huang Yifan nodded.
He'd noticed that quite a few kids in Class 2 read web novels too. But since he was always busy and didn't interact with them much, he never looked into it.
"Totally! Let me tell you, there's this one novel I'm hooked on lately. It's amazing, super satisfying to read. And the author is super talented. Not only can he write novels, but he also writes poetry! The other day, he posted this insanely badass poem, it nearly made me pee myself!"
"Come on, seriously? Lingdian has someone that good?"
"Absolutely. You don't read web novels, so you don't know. If you did, you'd be a fan too."
"Alright, alright. So who is this guy? I'll check him out sometime."
Since Huang Yifan wrote web novels too, he figured the author Yu Bin was talking about was a fellow writer.
Seeing how obsessed Yu Bin was, he decided to look into it later.
"His name is The Number One White Under Heaven. We all call him Big White or White Boss."
"What? Who did you say?"
"The Number One White Under Heaven. Cool name, right? That's why I like it. His novels are pure noob-style, totally straightforward, no tricks. Oh, the one I'm reading now is called 'How a Bad Guy Is Made'. It's about a high schooler joining the underworld."
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