Huo Fanjin turned around in surprise. “Frank…”
The next second, her smile froze visibly.
The person who arrived was short and stocky, both short and round. Even among Chinese men, let alone the generally taller Westerners, he would only be considered a shorty.
His skin was very fair, with visible blue veins, which only made the red and swollen acne on his face more startling.
If there was one redeeming feature, it was his thick, smooth blonde hair, reminiscent of a sunlit beach.
“Hello? Who are you?” Huo Fanjin asked in English.
The boy was taken aback. “H-Hello…” he replied with a heavy German accent.
Huo Fanjin was stunned, disbelief flashing in her eyes. “Oh my god! Don’t tell me you’re Frank, or I’ll lose it!”
“No, no, I’m not,” the boy quickly denied, shaking his head. “I’m Frank’s teammate. He’s busy right now and can’t come, so he sent me to tell you.”
Huo Fanjin sighed in relief, though disappointment soon followed. “I see… When will he be free? I can wait for him.”
“Sorry, I don’t know.”
“Alright,” Huo Fanjin quickly adjusted her mood. “We still have several days left. We’ll meet eventually. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What’s your name?”
“…Jonas.”
Jonas left, seemingly only to deliver the message.
Huo Fanjin picked a small flower and turned to Jiang Fuyue to complain, “That was close! I nearly freaked out.”
“Why?”
“Thank goodness Frank doesn’t look like that,” Huo Fanjin muttered, glancing in the direction Jonas had left. “He’s shorter than me…”
Jiang Fuyue: “Our teachers taught us from a young age not to judge people by their looks.”
Huo Fanjin stuck out her tongue. “I’m not looking down on him, just that I prefer handsome guys. Don’t you?”
“Not particularly,” Jiang Fuyue said, turning to walk inside.
“Hey,” Huo Fanjin caught up with her. “What do you mean ‘not particularly’? Do you like them or not? Make it clear…”
The next day passed relatively calmly.
On the morning of the third day, at 7:40 AM, contestants from various countries started entering the exam hall.
At 8:00, the theoretical exam officially began, lasting a total of five hours. The proctoring environment was relatively relaxed; students could go to the restroom and even visit the relaxation area for drinks and snacks. However, every corner, except the restrooms, was under surveillance.
The exam consisted of three theoretical questions. Jiang Fuyue didn’t start immediately but followed her usual routine of reading through the questions first.
This process took her ten minutes, much longer than usual.
After reading, Jiang Fuyue couldn’t help but click her tongue.
As expected of Country D, the difficulty of these three questions was lethal.
Perhaps because they were the host country this year, their arrogance was on full display:
You think our questions are tough? Fine, we’ll show you just how tough.
No hardest, only harder!
Ling Xuan had also developed the habit of reviewing questions before starting. After going through all three questions, his heart sank.
However…
His eyes flashed as he scrutinized the questions further. He realized they weren’t unsolvable; two of the three questions seemed very familiar.
Although the given materials and contexts were different, the underlying thought process was clear.
Ling Xuan’s eyes suddenly lit up as he recalled where he’d seen them before!
In the compilation of Country D’s past IPhO questions that Jiang Fuyue had put together, there were similar questions.
At the time, he and Lin Shumo had both solved them but ended up with different answers, leading to a long argument.
When Jiang Fuyue returned from Linhuai, she had said, “Both wrong.”
Two big red Xs.
Ling Xuan still remembered Lin Shumo’s shocked and disbelieving expression.
Before then, Lin Shumo had been so confident that his answer was absolutely correct.
Tsk…
Then Jiang Fuyue explained her thought process and methods, pointing out their mistakes.
Lin Shumo was thoroughly convinced.
As for Ling Xuan…
He had been convinced long before.
Now, sitting in the IPhO exam hall, looking at the two familiar questions, even the trap settings were similar. His expression became complicated.
Lin Shumo, too, had a complicated feeling when he saw the two questions. He remembered immediately and didn’t need to recall much.
That day, Jiang Fuyue had just gotten off the plane. They picked her up and went straight to Q University to find a classroom and started solving questions, twelve in total, without a break.
Lin Shumo, after getting several answers wrong and hearing “wrong, wrong, wrong” from Jiang Fuyue, was hit hard. While doubting himself, he couldn’t help but admire the girl on the podium.
That was the first time he sincerely respected a peer in his field of expertise.
And this peer was a girl.
Thinking back, his feelings were complex.
He had thought these feelings would fade over time, and indeed they had faded somewhat since Jiang Fuyue’s extraordinary talent wasn’t always on display.
But at this moment, looking at the familiar questions, Lin Shumo gave up. They wouldn’t fade. Every incident reminded him of how amazing Jiang Fuyue was.
Fang Canyang quietly murmured, “Sister Yue is the best,” and focused on solving the questions.
Huo Fanjin’s eyes widened, staring at the two questions, swallowing nervously. Her movements were so exaggerated that they drew the attention of the proctor.
“Hey, do you need help?” the proctor asked.
“Yes, I do. Can you pinch me?”
“What?”
“Beautiful lady, you heard me right. Pinch me, please. Thank you.”
“Oh, if that’s what you want, I’ll oblige, though I don’t know why.”
“If you feel sore or pain, please tell me.”
The next second, “Ouch!” Huo Fanjin yelped.
“Alright, it seems you felt the pain,” the proctor released her, smiling apologetically.
Huo Fanjin quickly thanked her and muttered in Chinese, “So it’s not a dream…”
Ling Xuan glanced at her disdainfully.
Lin Shumo: “Idiot.”
Jiang Fuyue was unaware of her teammates’ feelings. She was entirely focused on answering the questions.
While Ling Xuan and Lin Shumo were still starting, she had already finished the first question.
Next, she easily tackled the second question. Both were familiar, and she encountered no mental blockages, although the calculations were twice as much.
But for her, it wasn’t much different.
Finally, she reached the third question.
According to IPhO’s tradition, the last question was usually the hardest.
But after reading it, Jiang Fuyue didn’t find it particularly difficult.
The question focused on Zero-length springs and slinky coils.
Nothing high-end, just very ordinary.
In fact, spring problems were a standard part of every country’s IPhO training curriculum, just entry-level stuff.
The question statement was also straightforward:
“A zero effective length spring (ZLS) is a spring for which the force is proportional to the spring’s length…”
Then, it incorporated seismology knowledge:
“A ZLS is useful in seismography and allows very accurate measurement of changes in the gravitational acceleration…”
Jiang Fuyue started answering the first sub-question directly:
“The force causes the spring to change its length from L0 to L…we get…”
Done.
The second sub-question was also easy but had an unusually large amount of calculations.
The third sub-question surprised her; it was a proof question?!
“What the heck?”
By then, only twenty-five minutes had passed since the exam started.
Jiang Fuyue stared at the third sub-question, as if in deep meditation, her pen motionless.
Five minutes later, she mentally replayed the steps for the first two sub-questions.
She was sure there were no issues, neither in the thought process nor the calculations.
So why was the third sub-question a proof question?
It made no sense!
The conclusion required by the question had already been used in the first two sub-questions. Proving it again would be redundant.
Just as Jiang Fuyue was about to redundantly “prove” it according to the question’s requirements, her eyes suddenly froze. She glanced at the second sub-question, then back at the first, and finally re-read the question statement carefully.
Suddenly, her gaze stopped on a certain line. Something clicked in her mind, and she understood!
The next second, Jiang Fuyue rang the bell to call the proctor. “Please give me a new answer sheet, thank you.”
Then, she swiftly crossed out all her answers for the first and second sub-questions of the third question on the original answer sheet.
This move shocked the proctor. “Oh my god! What are you doing?”
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