Three days later, as the bell for the end of the final biology exam rang, the entire senior class of Jiangcheng Seventh Middle School breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"Hey, Yizhou, how’d you do this time?"
As soon as he walked out of the exam hall, several boys he usually hung out with surrounded Jiang Yizhou.
Jiang Yizhou calmly said while packing his pencil case,
"It was alright. Biology was no problem. The only hard part was the last major question on yesterday’s physics exam—that electromagnetic induction model was a bit difficult. But luckily, I’d seen it before."
These past few days, Jiang Yizhou felt that "core of the class" feeling returning.
Without Li Dong around causing stress, Jiang Yizhou felt he could even breathe more easily.
’That bastard. It’d be best if he never came back.’
Li Dong hadn’t attended a single one of the monthly exams over these three days, which caused the students of Class Two to gossip among themselves.
"Hey, do you guys think Li Dong dropped out? I heard his family’s financial situation wasn’t good to begin with...?"
"No way. The day before yesterday, I heard Old Yang mention he went to participate in that ’Huaxuan Cup’ physics competition, right?"
"A competition? Isn’t the preliminary round only one day? It’s been three days, and there’s been no sign of him."
Hearing the discussions around him, Jiang Yizhou’s heart was filled with contempt. ’Going to a competition doesn’t mean he’ll get first place. He’s just there to make up the numbers.’
However, what Jiang Yizhou didn’t know was that this boy he’d written off, Li Dong, was at that very moment sitting in the office of Dean of Students Zheng Hua.
The office was quiet; only the faint sound of Li Dong’s pen scratching across a test paper could be heard.
Not far from Li Dong,
Zheng Hua, Old Yang, and the physics teacher, Jiang Yang, were huddled around a few graded test papers, staring blankly at one another. The atmosphere was incredibly strange.
Three days ago, when the Huaxuan Cup preliminary round had just ended, the teachers, out of curiosity, had found the original questions and taken the test themselves.
The preliminary paper was out of 50 points, consisting entirely of multiple-choice questions, except for the final question which was a major calculation problem worth 10 points.
As the head of the physics department, Zheng Hua also had to handle some administrative work, so his memory of some obscure physics concepts had grown fuzzy. As a result, he got three multiple-choice questions wrong, for a final score of 47 points.
Meanwhile, the physics teacher, Jiang Yang, wished he could find a hole to crawl into and hide.
The test paper with a score of only 35 was pinned under a teacup; he didn’t even dare to glance at it.
"This question... Isn’t this question a bit too obscure!" Jiang Yang said, his face flushed.
"Who would have thought it would test thermodynamics combined with statistical distribution? This is completely beyond the curriculum!"
"Beyond the curriculum?"
Old Yang, who had been silent all this time, pushed up his glasses and slowly picked up his own test paper.
The "50 Points" on the paper was so glaring it made Jiang Yang’s eyes ache.
"Old Yang, you..."
"You’re a math teacher! How could you get a perfect score?"
Old Yang calmly took a sip of tea.
"Physics and math are two sides of the same coin. The final mechanics problem had a pretty complex physical model, so I just constructed a functional and used the calculus of variations to find the extremum. The process was a bit tedious, but all roads lead to Rome."
Jiang Yang: "..."
Zheng Hua: "..."
’Using Functional Analysis on a high school physics competition problem? As expected of a top student from Beijing Normal University!’
Finally, everyone’s gaze turned in unison to Li Dong, who was still working on his monthly exam paper, and then to Li Dong’s scratch paper from the preliminary round on the table.
"Li Dong," Jiang Yang asked, his voice a little hoarse.
"That last problem, about the analysis of radial motion in a rotating non-inertial frame... what was your thought process? I see you barely wrote down any equations."
Li Dong, who was in the middle of an English reading comprehension section, looked up and smiled a little sheepishly.
"Um... it actually wasn’t that difficult."
Li Dong put down his pen and pointed to a diagram on his scratch paper.
"Teacher Yang used the mathematical calculus of variations, which is an advanced university-level tool. I’m not proficient with it yet."
"But at the time, I thought that since it’s in a rotating reference frame, by using the conservation of angular momentum to construct an effective potential energy, V_{eff}(r), I could simplify the complex two-dimensional dynamics into a one-dimensional radial motion."
"Under the constraint of this potential well, the particle’s velocity at the radial turning point is zero."
"I didn’t even bother solving the tedious differential equation. I directly found the polar radius from the intercept of the energy conservation curve, and then used geometric constraints to find the maximum angle of deviation."
To be honest, Jiang Yang didn’t quite understand, but he nodded anyway, putting on an expression that said, ’That’s exactly what I was thinking.’
A flash of appreciation, however, appeared in Old Yang’s eyes.
"Effective potential? You kid, have you finished grinding through University Physics?"
"No, no, I’m still far from it," Li Dong said humbly.
Jiang Yang, listening on the side, was completely stunned.
’Who am I? Where am I?’
’Why did I only score a 35, while my student is discussing effective potential with a teacher? And the math teacher, no less!’
"Um..." Jiang Yang looked at Zheng Hua in despair. "Leader Zheng, I don’t think I can teach him anymore."
But Zheng Hua had no time for Jiang Yang’s fragile ego right now.
He was staring intently at the computer screen.
Just a moment ago, the official results page for the Huaxuan Cup had refreshed.
[First Place: Li Dong (Jiangcheng Seventh Middle School) — 50 Points (Full Marks)]
[Second Place: Zhao Ziv (Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School) — 48 Points]
[Third Place: Lin Xiao (Jiangcheng Tianli College) — 47 Points]
"Full marks... First place..."
Zheng Hua refreshed the page again.
No mistake. He was really in first place.
If someone had told him before that a student from Seventh Middle School could make it to the finals of the Huaxuan Cup, he definitely wouldn’t have believed them.
Because...
He glanced at Jiang Yang...
Jiang Yang: ??
But now, Li Dong’s name was at the top of the list.
Zheng Hua let out a long sigh of relief.
"This is my student! His success wouldn’t be possible without..."
Then he saw Li Dong, still calmly bubbling in his answer sheet.
"Li Dong! You got first place! A perfect score!"
"This question is D... Huh? Oh, got it."
Li Dong went back to doing his test.
Zheng Hua was a little speechless.
’Why aren’t you excited? This is first place in the entire city!’
"You’ll have plenty of chances to take monthly exams later. You should be focusing all your energy on preparing for the finals now!"
He was already starting to plan a special training regimen in his head. "Teacher Jiang... never mind, Teacher Jiang, you still have to prepare for your classes."
Jiang Yang: ??
"Old Yang! Old Yang! The intensity of training him by myself for the next few days might be a bit much. Starting today, we’ll take turns giving him private lessons. We have to keep this momentum going!"
Old Yang gave Zheng Hua a strange look. ’The intensity is too much? Or are you afraid you can’t teach him?’
But he was a leader, after all, and Old Yang had enough social intelligence not to point it out, so he just nodded in agreement.
However, Li Dong shook his head seriously.
"I can’t do that, Teacher Zheng."
"I have to finish this monthly exam. And I have to do well on it."
"Why?!" Zheng Hua didn’t understand.
Li Dong sighed.
"Because my mom wants to see my grades."
"If I tell her I won first place in a physics competition, she’ll definitely ask me, ’Does this give you extra points on the college entrance exam?’ When I say no, she’ll definitely think I’m not focusing on my studies."
"In her eyes, only the school report card, with its concrete scores, is what really counts."
Zheng Hua: "..."
Old Yang: "..."

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