Chapter 173: Top Coder Rankings, The Aloof Woman
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
A farce comes to an end.
Liang Bing, supported by a doctoral student, left, but before leaving, she specifically asked Xu Kaiqing for two days off.
Xu Kaiqing nodded, “Go ahead, take a good rest.”
Then, he reiterated the safety operation regulations to all laboratory members.
Jiang Fuyue didn’t linger any longer, she bid farewell and left straight away.
Shen Qiannan stood in place, staring at Jiang Fuyue’s retreating figure, lost in thought.
If he didn’t mishear, did the junior sister just call Professor Xu in a hurry?
Lao Xu?
Interesting.
…
Jiang Fuyue left the laboratory, turned a corner, and slipped into a secluded corner.
“Hey, Niu Rui, can you help me keep an eye on someone over there…”
After ending the call, Jiang Fuyue made her way to B University.
Just as she reached the cafeteria, she ran into Fan Ye, Huang Hui, and Gao Zhaoming.
“Sister Yue!” Fan Ye bounced over to her.
The four of them agreed to have dinner together.
Due to the closed management during the training period, they couldn’t leave the campus, so they had to make do with the cafeteria.
After dinner, the four of them went to the library for self-study.
The NOI training was different from the Physics Competition training. The former mainly involved programming on the computer, focusing on a large number of exercises, while the latter required cooperation with classroom explanations, emphasizing both theory and practice.
Jiang Fuyue spent half an hour completing the homework, then sent it online to the coach’s designated mailbox, before starting on something else.
Gao Zhaoming leaned over, looking curious, “What are you doing?”
“Last year’s ACM Finals questions.”
ACM, the International Collegiate Programming Contest, also known as ICPC, organized by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), is one of the most influential collegiate programming contests globally.
Gao Zhaoming had heard of it, but…
“Isn’t this a team competition?”
ACM-ICPC competitions are usually held in teams. During the competition, each team uses one computer and has five hours to use either C/C++, Java, or Python to solve 7 to 13 problems.
Highlight: 7 to 13 problems.
Compared to IOI, this competition not only has a large number of questions but also places high demands on individual psychological qualities and teamwork skills.
Jiang Fuyue nodded, “It’s a team competition.”
“Then why are you doing team competition questions?”
“Is there a problem?”
Gao Zhaoming: “…No problem.” I’m not worthy.
He slinked back to his seat dejectedly.
Huang Hui asked, “What’s wrong with you?”
Gao Zhaoming mumbled absentmindedly, “I… went to see someone lonely.”
“?”
After finishing the ACM problem set, Jiang Fuyue had some time left, so she browsed Topcoder.
This is a global website mainly for graphic designers and programmers from various countries.
There are usually two to three online competitions organized each month, where participants can use Java, C++, C#, VB, or Python to complete three programming questions of varying difficulty within 1 hour and 15 minutes. The time taken to complete each question determines the score received for that question in the programming section.
Finally, based on the competition results, participants are ranked anew.
The competition can be roughly divided into three parts: Coding Phase, Challenge Phase, and System Test Phase. Unlike ACM-ICPC, there is an additional Challenge Phase in Topcoder, where participants browse through the source code of other participants allocated in the same room and try to find errors in them. They then propose a test parameter to make the program fail the test.
If a participant’s program cannot pass the test from others or the system, then the score for that question will be zero.
Currently, Jiang Fuyue’s ranking on the leaderboard is fifth. Although she hasn’t entered the top three, she receives more attention than the top three.
Because she only joined less than two months ago and managed to squeeze into the top ten, and she has never been targeted during the Challenge Phase, but she has targeted many big shots herself.
For example, the E-country guy who’s currently vigorously shaking her chat box —
Andre: [Yue, are you online?!]
He’s using Russian, with the Chinese character “月” inserted in it, giving it a strange and incongruous feeling.
Jiang Fuyue: [What’s up?]
Andre: [Oh, you’re too cold, freezing me.]
Jiang Fuyue replied with a string of ellipses.
Andre: [What does that mean?]
Jiang Fuyue: [It expresses speechlessness in Chinese.]
Andre: [Ah! Chinese is truly wonderful.]
Jiang Fuyue: […]
Andre: [I’m here to bid farewell. I have a task to complete recently, so I might not be able to run into you in next month’s competition.]
Jiang Fuyue: [I probably won’t participate in next month’s competition either.]
Andre: [Why? You’re so outstanding. Participating in a few more competitions could easily get you to first place! I can’t wait to see you compete against Xie. That would definitely be very interesting!]
Xie, first on the Topcoder leaderboard, rumored to be a legendary figure.
His competition record is all perfect scores, with a 100% success rate in the Challenge Phase and a 0% being targeted rate.
In other words, he has never been defeated.
Andre: [Currently, only you have the qualifications to compete with him.]
Because Jiang Fuyue has also had zero defeats so far.
Andre: [It is said that Xie is also a compatriot of yours.]
Jiang Fuyue’s reaction was flat.
But Andre became more and more excited as he chatted. The blood of a warrior flows in the veins of the fighting nation: [Are all you Chinese people so formidable?]
Jiang Fuyue replied seriously: [Yes, the Chinese people are indeed great.]
Andre: [Oh, you’re like an educator.]
Jiang Fuyue: [Please call me a patriot, thank you.]
Andre: [Patriot, why aren’t you participating in next month’s competition?]
Jiang Fuyue: [I have something to do.]
Next month is the International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), and she might not have time to go online.
After closing the chat box, Jiang Fuyue logged out of the website and glanced at the time on her wrist: “I’m heading back now.”
After she left, Gao Zhaoming looked at the homework he had just finished and still didn’t know how well he had done.
“Um… have you finished?” he asked.
Fan Ye: “I’m done.”
Huang Hui nodded as well.
Gao Zhaoming asked again, “How long did it take?”
Fan Ye: “One hour and fifty-two minutes.”
Huang Hui: “Two hours and fifteen minutes. What about you?”
Gao Zhaoming breathed a sigh of relief, “Two hours and eighteen minutes.”
Suddenly feeling comforted, he realized that he wasn’t that far behind ordinary geniuses. As for Jiang Fuyue…
Hmm, she’s not human, so she’s not in the same league as him.
…
The next morning, after breakfast, Jiang Fuyue walked into the classroom.
As soon as she sat down, a glass of peanut milk was placed in front of her.
Ling Xuan: “Please have a drink.”
Jiang Fuyue: “I’ve already had breakfast.”
“……Oh.”
Lin Shumo glanced away indifferently, hiding the scorn in his eyes.
He took out his phone and sent a WeChat message to Zhong Ziang: [I suddenly realized that being a bit aloof as a woman isn’t necessarily a bad thing.]
Young Master Zhong was still sleeping and didn’t reply.
Today marked the second group assignment.
There were still five sets of test papers, with the group members assigning them amongst themselves and having two hours to complete them.
Jiang Fuyue took on two sets alone, while Lin Shumo and Ling Xuan tentatively took one set. Whoever finished first would then tackle the remaining set.
The two boys’ eyes met, and they could see the rising fighting spirit in each other’s eyes.
But soon, they realized that the difficulty of this test paper was far beyond the previous one.
There was also a commotion starting around them —
“Why is it so difficult?”
“I got stuck on the first question, the first sub-question.”
“I suspect I got the hardest set of questions among the five, d*mn it!”
“Sigh… Seeing everyone struggling like this makes me feel better.”
…
As the difficulty of the exam increased, everyone’s speed visibly slowed down, and they had to be extra careful to ensure accuracy.
But this didn’t affect Jiang Fuyue –
Fifteen minutes later, she finished the first set.
Setting it aside, she grabbed the second set and continued.
Twelve minutes later, the second set was completed.
At that time, Lin Shumo and Ling Xuan still had the last big question and the last two sub-questions left untouched.
Jiang Fuyue didn’t say anything, she just grabbed the remaining set of papers and started writing.
Both boys blushed to different degrees due to embarrassment.
During this time, Jiang Fuyue’s neutral pen ran out of ink, and Lin Shumo took out a new one from his bag and handed it to her.
“Thanks,” she didn’t need it, she took out a pen refill from the drawer, replaced it, and continued to work on the problems.
Lin Shumo: “…”
Ling Xuan: Heh.
In the end, the three of them almost finished writing at the same time.
Jiang Fuyue smoothly completed the third set of papers.
Ling Xuan and Lin Shumo each finished the last two sub-questions.
“Should we check?” she asked.
Both shook their heads simultaneously.
Jiang Fuyue raised her hand, “Teacher, we’re done with my papers.”
Here it comes again, every time they do a test, the words everyone fears to hear arrive on schedule.
Very good, this time it only took fifty minutes, five minutes less than last time.
What happened to the difficulty being high and the speed being slow?
[Wave] JPG
Yan Zhenfeng collected the papers, and the three of them prepared to leave.
When Lin Shumo was packing up, he saw the neutral pen that wasn’t given away.
With a tight-lipped smile, he took out his phone, opened WeChat, and found Zhong Ziang –
“Women being too cold isn’t good either.”
On the other end, Zhong Ziang was puzzled, what does this have to do with anything?
Hmm, he must not have fully woken up yet!
Want to show your support? Go donate at Paypal or Ko-fi to show your appreciation! :)
<Previous Chapter<Table of Contents>Next Chapter>
