Chapter 2 Crushing

Shi Yi completed his second round and waited for the scores to be released. Was this being graded by AI? Or were there dozens of teachers sitting in some office grading the papers together? It probably wasn't that extreme. If it was AI, there was a possibility of errors. But about thirty seconds later, the scores were out. This also confirmed to Shi Yi that the test grading was accurate.

Fourth High School, Shi Yi: 105 points.

That's right, because only a perfect score was possible. The rock-solid Shi Yi couldn't possibly submit a wrong answer. If he could do it, it had to be right.

But for others, they couldn't be so calm about this result. How was it possible! The leaders of the research camp were dumbfounded. Because once again, they saw the record being broken. You know, in the past, among several groups of people, including audience members below who might be 'cheating', no one had ever finished this set of papers in thirty minutes. No one even came close to finishing. The two who previously got 90 basically didn't even start the last question. The only one who submitted before the time ran out scored even less, only 80. But now, this student not only got a perfect score but also had a full two minutes to spare! That was two minutes! And in the first round, if he had been one second faster, he could have gotten 99 points. His score was much faster than the previous 99. That meant that if it weren't for the principal of Eleventh High School's trusted favorite, this Shi Yi would have broken the record twice in a row.

And one more thing. The previous record holders were several different people. Someone who could get 99 points might only get sixty points in the second round. But this guy Shi Yi was like a hexagonal warrior, incredibly versatile.

"..."

The leader of the research camp was speechless. All he felt for this person was shock. And a fear, as if he were looking at a monster.

Indeed, this group of students shouldn't be viewed with common sense. They certainly had the capital to be superior. Of course, the one who could be superior wasn't the three schools, but Shi Yi of Fourth High School.

"As expected of the child that Principal Zhang has been mentioning to us, today's performance is as dazzling as Chen Yuan's yesterday." The principal of Changjun High School was completely convinced. In the past, Fourth High School was always at the bottom of the research rankings because they lacked such an ultimate weapon. This Shi Yi could be said to be the intellectual apex of the entire group of research students from the four schools.

"Yes..." The principal of Hengzhong High School was even more impressed by Shi Yi's performance because he was personally doing the questions. "I'm almost finished, and I've only written five questions."

"..." The principal of Changjun High School was stunned for a moment, then looked over and found that this guy really was about to finish the fifth question. You're still competing even without being on stage?! And I'm actually being pressured by him. I've spent all my time on school management, so I've relaxed a little in maintaining my intellect. Look, isn't Changjun's research ranking far ahead of the others?

"Shi Yi's sense of oppression is really too strong..." Zhou Fu watched Shi Yi calmly sitting there after finishing the competition. The others were still desperately solving the problems. For a moment, she thought of a poem—"When I reach the summit, I will see all the mountains as small." This kind of domineering aura from a strong person was too exaggerated. It was like Usain Bolt looking back during the sprint stage when facing a group of American track and field athletes. It was a complete crushing victory.

"There's still time... Chen Yuan will catch up." But Tang Siwen, who was next to her, was full of expectations and belief in Chen Yuan, and didn't even bother to write her own questions.

"Yes, as long as he can finish this round, he'll be the second one to pass, with 104 points. In that case, with the 100 points from the first round, he can still hold on to first place." Zhou Fu also had more confidence in Chen Yuan. After all, Chen Yuan in her eyes had never been defeated. He was completely a protagonist from a爽文 (shuǎng wén, feel-good novel).

So, continue writing your story of turning the tables, my dear son!

Shi Yi noticed that Chen Yuan was sweating profusely while working on the questions. At the same time, Wu Wenxin, who was sitting next to him, was looking at him with a smile.

Huh? You finished? Shi Yi looked confused.

After Wu Wenxin understood the other party's expression, she quickly lowered her head and continued to write questions. Sorry, I haven't finished. In fact, I've only written three questions. She quickly figured out the seventh question because it was relatively simple. She came up with the first question after a long period of thinking and a flash of inspiration. She also solved one question using equations. As for the rest, there was absolutely no way to start. It was too difficult. After all, I'm an Australian international student. It's already good enough that I can do three questions. It's worth praising myself. In this round, our Wu-Yi combo isn't a complete loss, right? Five questions are my limit.

After writing the fifth question and realizing that there was only a little over a minute left, Xia Xinyu simply gave up. After all, it was definitely impossible to write another question in just over a minute. So, she looked at Chen Yuan. Then, she realized that her boy seemed to be facing the biggest difficulty he had encountered so far, and was very anxious...

That's right. Although he and Shi Yi were in the same three-person chat group, and they had some exchanges during usual exams and competitions, this was the first time they were facing each other in a real competition. A head-to-head showdown between Yuan and Yi.

Damn it, it's those kinds of tricky questions again. These questions weren't difficult for Chen Yuan. But because editing the words took a minute, and the exam time was only thirty minutes, and he also needed to read the questions, the thinking time for each question was only within 1 minute and 50 seconds. For some questions, one minute and fifty seconds was definitely enough. For example, Chen Yuan solved the seventh question instantly, spending only three seconds thinking. But the first question took three minutes to read, think, and write. And one of the questions was more difficult and took four minutes. This last question was slightly easier, but typing it out would probably take two minutes.

Question 10: A merchant riding a donkey wants to cross a 1000-kilometer-long desert to sell 3000 carrots. He can carry up to 1000 carrots at a time, but the donkey eats one carrot for every kilometer it travels. Question: What is the maximum number of carrots the merchant can sell?

After reading the question and thinking for about ten seconds, Chen Yuan found out how to do this question. The premise of selling more is that the donkey eats less and travels less. Then, the number of round trips is less. Therefore, the last 1000 carrots must be transported all at once. But there was only 1 minute and 42 seconds left. Typing out this question might take less than two minutes… If he wrote the answer directly, Chen Yuan could solve it in less than half a minute, but people need to explain the reasoning.

So, he thought of a desperate plan. Never mind, I'll just write as I think!

Just like that, Chen Yuan didn't care anymore and directly entered the answer area. He included his own thoughts—first consume the first 1000 carrots. The donkey carries 1000 carrots to a certain point, then puts down the carrots, then returns to the original place to carry the carrots, and transports them to the node again, back and forth, a total of five segments. 1000 carrots can travel 200 kilometers. The remaining 2000 carrots consume another thousand, back and forth, a total of three segments, traveling 333.3 kilometers. Finally, there are only 1000 carrots and 466.7 kilometers left, so 467 carrots must be consumed to sell 533…

Before Chen Yuan could type out the word "carrots," the keyboard suddenly disappeared. Damn it, it was submitted!

"Ah, give me some more time…"

"Yeah, damn it, I was almost done writing it."

"Are there partial credit points?"

"They wouldn't not give partial credit, right? I wrote eighty percent of it!"

The moment the competition ended, everyone in the arena was wailing. Because this segment was too tight on time. Although there were also simple and moderate ones, the amount of writing was really too much. For some who weren't used to using tablets and typed slowly, half of their time was spent writing the questions. Even the seventh question, which all the students thought was easy and everyone could do, took a minute just to write out. It could only be said that it was too harsh. If the time was extended to 40 minutes, then at least five people could get full marks. Probably twenty or so people could get more than 80 points. Thirty minutes was collectively the limit. Unless there wasn't a single second of redundant thought from beginning to end, it was possible to pass 100%.

So, all these students looked up and waited for the scores to come out on the big screen above. Basically, everyone knew what their level was and how many points they could get.

And Yang Jialan continued to lower her head, thinking about what happened just now. Then she looked up and looked at Shi Yi, the boy not far away, and suddenly asked, "I haven't even started looking at the last question yet. How long did it take you to do that question?"

"..." Shi Yi, who was asked, was stunned for a moment. After realizing that she was asking him, he thought for a while and replied, "It took two and a half minutes just to type and read the question. It should have been three minutes in total…"

Three minutes, plus submitting the paper two minutes early. I'm at least 5 minutes slower than this man. So, it's a complete crush.

At this time, she looked at Chen Yuan again. Obviously, he was at her level and didn't have time to submit the last question either. So, am I ranked third now, and 2 points less than Chen Yuan… And at least 15 points less than Shi Yi. It's difficult to compete for the championship. It seems that the current strategy has become aiming for the second place. After all, the 15-point gap is too huge. Sigh…

"I just looked at the last question and thought it was a bit interesting, but I didn't quite understand it. How should it be transported?" Wu Wenxin asked Shi Yi curiously.

Faced with Wu Wenxin's question, Shi Yi patiently said, "Because you can only transport 1000 at a time, not even one more, you have to carry them back and forth to move all the carrots forward. The key to the problem is how to minimize the one-way trip. So, it becomes how far you can move for every 1000 carrots consumed."

"Emmm…" Wu Wenxin frowned, pursed her lips, and felt a bit reluctant. She wanted to say, "Master, stop chanting," but she felt it wasn't very respectful to Shi Yi's teaching. But she felt that she would have to think for a while to figure out why she had to do this…

Until Chen Yuan opened his mouth to explain, "The round trips in the front are all to maximize the distance that one thousand carrots can be directly transported."

"…Oh, is that so." Only after Chen Yuan said this did Wu Wenxin understand. That's how it is! Because there are only a thousand kilometers in total, and you can only transport 1000 carrots at a time. If you don't go back and forth a few times, there won't be any carrots left after they are transported. But what carrots can last that long without spoiling? It's a pseudo-proposition!

"Am I explaining it that difficultly…" Shi Yi rubbed his forehead, feeling a little embarrassed. But suddenly, he realized that Chen Yuan was able to say the idea for the last question, which meant that he knew all ten questions. So it was really a matter of not having enough time to write? What a pity, that directly deducted 10 points.

Thinking of this, Shi Yi looked at Chen Yuan with a look of regret.

And Chen Yuan could only smile. Then, he regretted his strategy. I'm really an idiot. Why didn't I use some abbreviations when writing the questions? When I write "a few carrots," I could have omitted "carrots" at the end and still had time to submit it, right? Even if it's AI grading, it wouldn't think that what follows "a few" isn't carrots! Damn it, I'm stupid.

Thinking of this, Chen Yuan lowered his head. Yang Jialan noticed this. It seemed that he was more sorry than her, at least he finished reading the question. So, we're about the same, right?

Just like that, everyone waited for the questions to be graded. Then, after half a minute, all the papers were graded. The ranking was also updated in an instant. Undoubtedly, Shi Yi's score was the first. There were three others with 90 points, which was also ridiculously strong. But what no one expected was that there was a very strange score.

Eleventh High School, Chen Yuan: 100

"What the hell? How did this score come about?"

"If you finish writing and click submit, it's a stable 104!"

"How did he get all the answers right and not get extra points? Didn't he click submit?"

"0.5 seconds to click submit is not enough? With that hand speed, you can't even protect your family in the canyon!"

Everyone was shocked. Among them, Yang Jialan, who regarded herself as Shi Yi and Chen Yuan's strongest opponent, was even more unbelievable. At this moment, Chen Yuan was 12 points ahead of her. At this moment, Shi Yi was 15 points ahead of her. The difference between them was 3 points. In other words, this competition was a duel between these two people from the beginning!

Not just her. Others also discovered this.

"Damn it, even getting a double 100 can't get first place, what kind of monster is this Shi Yi?"

"This Chen Yuan is also outrageous. He hit the limit in both rounds. Except for the fact that his hand speed is something to complain about, he's also invincible."

"So, the current score is…"

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, the score rankings appeared.

Fourth High School, Shi Yi: 203 points
Eleventh High School, Chen Yuan: 200 points
Hengzhong High School, Yang Jialan: 188 points
Changjun High School, Ouyang Shaojie: 171 points

The remaining scores were all below 170. In other words, out of 100 people, 97 people had lost the possibility of competing for first place. And Yang Jialan, who was in third place, only looked like she had a chance. In reality, everyone knew that the top two were set. The remaining 98 people were all supporting actors!