Chapter 14 (1/2)

Translator: Atlas Studios

Editor: Atlas Studios

Old Man Tang laughed and shook his head. He pointed at the paper in front of Cheng Nuo and said, “Come and take a look at what problem he is solving.”

Curious, the other math teacher leaned over for a closer look.

“Sss… Mr. Tang, are you serious? You are actually asking your student to solve this problem?!”

The man drew a startled breath when he saw what Cheng Nuo was working on.

That was a famous problem!

It was the second to last problem of the IMO last year.

It was said that only one person out of the ten members of the Chinese national team was able to solve it. Among all the participants, only five people could do it.

After the IMO, one of the teachers in the math department managed to get the problem.

Hence, all of the math teachers had attempted it.

However… it was a disastrous experience! Three days had passed and none of them had made any meaningful progress.

Therefore, it was perfectly natural for this teacher to be surprised that Old Man Tang was testing a student with this problem.

Those who represented China to participate in the IMO were the cream of the crop students from across the entire country. They were the top few math geniuses competitively selected from millions of smart brains. However, only one of those geniuses had solved the problem.

That problem was very challenging indeed!

“Is Mr. Tang expecting his student to be as smart as the math genius?”

The teacher wanted to stop Old Man Tang. It all seemed too ridiculous to him.

But Old Man Tang stopped him before he could speak another word.

“Shh, be quiet. He’s getting there. Don’t distract him.”

Meanwhile, Old Man Tang’s eyes were glued to the string of formulas Cheng Nuo had written down on the paper. He had reached the crucial step for the first part of the problem.

The teacher who was standing behind Cheng Nuo had thought that this student was simply fooling around with the numbers. But Old Man Tang’s words soon made him realize that this young man sitting in front of him was making real progress on the problem!

He started to read Cheng Nuo’s work from the beginning. The more he read, the more amazed he became. After that, he was unable to shift his attention away.

As more math teachers arrived at the office, all of them were drawn to Old Man Tang’s desk, curious about what was going on.

Just like the first teacher, they were initially surprised that Old Man Tang had asked a student to do that problem, but all of them were dumbfounded after they had witnessed the two A4 pages of work written by Cheng Nuo.

Before long, five math teachers had gathered behind Cheng Nuo.

Meanwhile, Cheng Nuo was fully concentrated on the problem. He had not noticed the people around him at all. His attention was highly focused and his brain was running rapidly like a perpetual motion machine. Countless numbers were combined and calculated in his brain.

“Yes! Finally!”

After ten minutes, Cheng Nuo stopped writing and had a good stretch in the chair.

Then he turned and met the eyes of the five teachers behind him.