Returning to Jiangcheng from Zhejiang University, Li Dong felt groggy and light-headed, his eyelids fighting to stay open.
"Reporting."
Hearing the voice from the doorway, the math teacher, Old Cai, paused his writing and turned to look.
"Come in."
Li Dong walked into the classroom listlessly, and out of the corner of his eye, he happened to see the problem on the blackboard.
"Huh?"
Li Dong’s somewhat unfocused eyes suddenly gained a sliver of focus.
’This problem is a bit interesting.’
He walked to his seat in the back row and sat down.
’This problem came at just the right time. A good way to relax...’
Li Dong didn’t even pick up a pen, just stared at the blackboard with half-lidded eyes.
For him, this kind of extremum problem on a simplex was no trouble at all.
’Since it’s symmetrical, I can just use the smoothing principle to push the variables to the boundary.’
’Assume only two variables are non-zero. Let x1 = x2 = 1/2, and all others be 0. Plug them in... the original expression equals (1/4) * (1/4 + 1/4) = 1/8.’
’Then, I’ll construct a difference function to prove that 1/8 is the upper bound. A quick application of the AM-GM inequality should do the trick.’
After about a minute, Li Dong had jotted down "1/8" on his scratch paper.
He stretched lazily. The fatigue and dizziness from his long journey had dissipated quite a bit.
’As expected, math is the best way to de-stress.’
Meanwhile, up at the front, Old Cai was looking over the students.
This was an actual problem from the CMO finals.
The top students below all had their brows furrowed, and not a single one dared to meet his gaze.
Well... except for one person.
Li Dong sat in his seat, stretching comfortably.
The corner of Old Cai’s eye twitched.
That expression practically screamed, ’Call on me, call on me!’
Old Cai snorted inwardly.
’You want to show off? I’m not going to give you the chance!’
He decisively pretended not to notice and looked toward Qin Yan in the third row.
"Qin Yan, come up and share your thought process with the class."
Qin Yan was currently looking at the physics model for a "Hysteresis Loop" that Li Dong had left on his scratch paper.
His mind was full of elliptic integrals. When Old Cai suddenly called his name, he froze for a moment before snapping out of it.
"Oh... okay."
Qin Yan put down his pen and walked up to the blackboard.
He looked up at the problem on the blackboard. To be honest, he hadn’t even looked at it until now.
Now, as he examined the problem carefully, Qin Yan’s brow furrowed slightly.
’As expected of a final question from the CMO, it’s definitely a bit difficult.’
However, as a study god from the national training team, Qin Yan’s fundamentals were beyond question.
He stood before the blackboard, thinking for about three minutes.
Then, he picked up a piece of chalk and got straight to the core idea.
"Using the local adjustment method, let’s assume x1 and x2 are the non-zero variables."
"Equality holds if and only if x1 = x2 = 1/2, and all other xi = 0."
"We can prove the upper bound by applying the AM-GM inequality."
"Final answer: C = 1/8."
The chalk clacked against the board, and Qin Yan turned and walked away from the front.
Watching from their seats, the students of the honors class saw the clear and concise core of the solution on the blackboard, and their eyes lit up.
"Holy shit, so it was the local adjustment method!"
"Yan God is still Yan God! He just insta-solved it? Didn’t choke at all!"
Migo and a few other boys exchanged glances, secretly thrilled.
’Awesome! So our class does have someone who can take down that monster in the back row!’
’After class, we have to pull Yan God into our Anti-Show-Off Alliance! Let him put that arrogant guy in the back in his place!’
Just as the entire class was mentally cheering for Qin Yan...
Li Dong, sitting in the back, was completely bewildered.
’Why are these guys looking at me with those weird ’we won’ expressions? Is something wrong with them?’
KNOCK KNOCK.
Someone was knocking on the classroom’s back door.
Elder Chen was standing at the door. The moment he saw Li Dong was back, his face lit up with joy.
"Hey! Old Cai, I’m looking for Li—"
Before Elder Chen could finish, Old Cai, up at the front, sighed speechlessly and waved a dismissive hand.
"Go on, go on. It’s a waste of time for him to sit here anyway."
Old Cai was already immune to Elder Chen’s bandit-like behavior of poaching his student every day.
"Heh heh, many thanks, many thanks."
Elder Chen walked in with a chuckle, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw the CMO problem on the blackboard.
"Oh, Old Cai, this is a nice problem. Quite profound."
Elder Chen offered a casual compliment, then turned to Li Dong, who was just getting up, and instructed him.
"Li Dong, copy this problem down. When you have some free time in the lab later, you can work on it to broaden your thinking."
Li Dong replied casually.
"No need. I finished it right when I sat down. Let’s go."
With that, Li Dong very naturally followed Elder Chen out the back door.
Inside the classroom...
Migo hadn’t quite processed it.
’Just now... what did he say?’
’Right when he sat down... he finished it?’
’Yan God stood at the blackboard for a full three minutes before he even started writing!’
’And you finished it just by looking at it for a second after sitting down? The fuck?’
The other students looked at each other, feeling as if the light in the classroom had suddenly dimmed.
That familiar dark cloud had fucking floated back in!
「Meanwhile, in Rongcheng.」
Inside an office building in the Southern High-tech Industrial Park.
Li Yang was sitting on the sofa in the reception room of Chengfu Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., looking a little anxious.
A female clerk in professional attire walked over with a cup of tea, handing it to Li Yang with a smile.
"Mr. Li, please have some tea. If you’ll wait just a moment, I’ll go inform Chairman Liu."
"Oh, okay, okay. Thank you so much."
This past month, Li Yang felt like he was living in a dream.
Not long ago, he had been worrying about a 10,000-yuan inventory system. Then, just a few days later, Chengfu Precision, a rather large company in the industry, had proactively sought out his small workshop.
Not only did they give him a large order for non-standard parts with an extremely high profit margin, but the quantity was also huge.
Li Yang’s small workshop, with only five employees, simply couldn’t handle that level of production.
But Li Yang, despite not having much formal education, had survived by clawing his way through the world, relying on a ruthless willingness to gamble.
Faced with such a massive order, after confirming it wasn’t a scam, he immediately took out a mortgage on his factory’s equipment and threw in his entire net worth.
Hiring workers, buying CNC machines, running three shifts around the clock!
Finally, yesterday, they managed to rush out the first batch of goods, meeting both quality and quantity standards, and completed the delivery successfully.
Today, he was here to collect the first payment.
According to industry norms, for processing jobs with large companies like this, you just had to reconcile the accounts and wait for the finance department to wire the money. The boss didn’t need to make the trip in person at all.
But this was money Li Yang had bet his life and livelihood on, his blood, sweat, and tears. The loan interest was still accumulating. He wouldn’t have a moment’s peace until he saw the money, so he had simply come all the way from Jiangcheng to Rongcheng to wait for it personally.
Meanwhile, in the chairman’s office.
The female clerk knocked and entered.
"Chairman Liu, the person in charge of one of our suppliers is here to settle an account. He says he’s here for the payment on the first batch of goods," the female clerk reported.
Liu Chengfu frowned, exhaling a smoke ring with displeasure.
"Asking for payment? Doesn’t he know the rules at Chengfu Precision?"
"All our external suppliers are paid once every three months. We hold payment for one quarter! Who comes running for money after just one month? He’s breaking the rules!" Liu Chengfu said impatiently.
"Go tell him to follow the contract procedure. Have him come back in three months!"
"Yes, Chairman Liu."
The female clerk nodded and turned to go send Li Yang away.
"Wait!"
Liu Chengfu stared at the clerk’s back. It was as if... he had forgotten something important.
"That company outside asking for payment, what’s its name?"
The female clerk glanced at the visitor log in her hand.
"It’s called the Dongyang Hardware Processing Factory from Jiangcheng. The person in charge is named Li Yang."
Dongyang Hardware... Li Yang...
Liu Chengfu muttered the names to himself twice, then suddenly shuddered.
He remembered!
A month ago, Director Lin Weilin from the Huaxuan Technology Research and Development Headquarters had personally called him from his private number!
On the call, Director Lin had asked him to take care of a factory in Jiangcheng called Dongyang Hardware and had made a special point to add something.
"That factory is small and under a lot of financial pressure, so let’s set the payment cycle to monthly."
’Holy shit!’
Liu Chengfu instantly broke out in a cold sweat.
’This guy is practically royalty!’
He scrambled up from his executive chair and straightened his suit.
A smile as warm as a spring breeze spread across his face as he walked out of the office.

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