Li Dong heard Qiao Fan’s question.
After all, the other boy had just helped him solve a problem, and he had a very pleasant demeanor. So, Li Dong didn’t hold back and nodded honestly.
"I am indeed preparing for the English paper and defense for the Qiu Prize. I’m not too familiar yet with the grammatical standards for international academic journals."
"Thanks for your help just now."
"I’m Li Dong, from Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School."
Qiao Fan was a little confused.
’He’s Li Dong?’
’Wasn’t he from Jiangcheng Seventh Middle School? How did he end up at Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School?’
But Qiao Fan was clearly very well-brought-up. Despite his surprise, he didn’t pry into the other’s personal business.
"You’re welcome. Actually, for rules like tense switching, you’ll get used to them after reading a few original top-tier journal articles from Nature or Science."
Then, realizing he hadn’t introduced himself, he added,
"Qiao Fan, from Rongcheng Seventh Middle School."
’Qiao Fan?’
After spending this period at Sixth Middle School, Li Dong wasn’t so out of the loop anymore.
This Qiao Fan... Li Dong had heard from Elder Chen that Rongcheng Seventh Middle School treated him like a treasure. He was exceptionally talented in the sciences and was a strong contender to win a national first prize even as a first-year high school student.
Just then, not far away, the two team leaders, Elder Chen and Su Wan, finished their pleasantries.
Elder Chen waved with a cheerful smile.
"Li Dong, let’s go."
Qiao Fan also returned to Su Wan’s side, and the two teams went their separate ways.
Walking along a tree-lined path at Fudan University, Su Wan turned her head to glance at Qiao Fan, who was still lost in thought.
She had been standing nearby and had overheard parts of the two students’ conversation.
"Qiao Fan, was that boy just now Li Dong from Jiangcheng Seventh Middle School?"
Su Wan asked.
Qiao Fan nodded.
"Yes. He was reading a style guide for writing scientific papers, all in English. It looks like he’s preparing for the Qiu Prize."
"But it seems he’s a student at Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School now."
"Sixth Middle School?"
Su Wan’s steps faltered slightly, a flicker of surprise in her heart.
It was no secret in the coaching circles of top schools that Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School wanted to break into the most elite tier of "super high schools" in the country.
And the Qiu Chengtong Middle School Science Award was the stepping stone Sixth Middle School currently coveted most.
’I see...’
Su Wan nodded.
She had previously thought Li Dong was just a "lopsided talent" who got lucky in engineering.
But now, it seemed her assessment of the student who placed first in the semifinals had been a bit too low!
Although Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School wasn’t among the absolute top super high schools, it was still a school that had produced two top college entrance exam scorers in the same year. Its performance in major competitions was also quite good. This year, a student named Qin Yan had even won a national first prize and made it to the national team.
For them to swallow their pride as a key high school and poach a student directly from a third-rate school like Jiangcheng Seventh Middle School...
What did that imply?
’Could this Li Dong really have what it takes to win a medal in the Qiu Prize global finals?’
’This kid... what’s so special about him?’
Su Wan glanced back at the Sixth Middle School team, which had already walked some distance away.
...
「At the same time, in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang High-Tech Park.」
Huaxuan Technology, R&D headquarters.
In the director’s office, Old Zhou, the head of the Huaxuan Cup question-setting group, was holding a schedule and giving a routine report to R&D Director Lin Wei.
"President Lin, the final round is tomorrow at 8:30 AM."
Old Zhou reported.
"The final will only have one capstone comprehensive application problem. The final rankings should be out by 4 PM tomorrow."
For this kind of routine report, Lin Wei usually just had to sign his name and be done with it.
After all, as the vice-president-level director in charge of the core optical R&D department under National Power Equipment, the project funds Lin Wei dealt with daily were in the hundreds of millions. A high school competition like this usually wasn’t worth much of his attention.
But to Old Zhou’s surprise, after hearing the report, Lin Wei capped his pen.
"Alright. Cancel two of my morning appointments for tomorrow. I’ll make some time to go take a look at the examination hall."
"Huh?" Old Zhou was stunned.
Seeing Old Zhou’s surprised expression, Lin Wei smiled.
"After all, the quality of the semifinals this time was very high. I was especially satisfied with the answers from those promising young talents."
"Especially that one named Li Dong. I’m very interested in him. I want to go see the style and presence of these young people in person."
At this point, Lin Wei seemed to suddenly remember something.
"Oh, right, Old Zhou. Go find the legal department and the IP management department in a bit."
"Have them draft a ’Class B Results Transfer and Exclusive Research Fund Agreement’."
’A Class B Results Transfer Agreement?’
Old Zhou was a little shocked.
Inside Huaxuan Technology, agreements were tiered. Class C was typically for external collaborations on horizontal projects with universities.
But Class B was for the level of directly acquiring core technology from national-level laboratories! This was the highest level of authority Lin Wei could directly approve as both R&D Director and Vice President!
’Is President Lin... preparing to just throw money at someone to lock them down?’
"Understood, President Lin. I’ll get right on it!"
Old Zhou hurriedly left the office.
「The next day, 8:30 AM.」
In a large lecture hall at Fudan University’s physics building, students from all over the country, here for the competition, already filled the seats.
The examination hall was quiet. No one was whispering. There was only the R-R-RIP of the proctor tearing open the sealed bag of exam papers.
Li Dong sat in a window seat in the fourth row.
As the exam papers were handed out, Li Dong habitually took his copy and scanned it from beginning to end.
The exam wasn’t long, with only five problems.
The first four were calculation problems, and the last was a comprehensive problem worth 40% of the total score.
[Problem 1: A relativistic charged particle with charge q is accelerating in a non-uniform magnetic field. Using retarded potential, write the expression for the electromagnetic field radiated by this particle in the far field, and derive its total synchrotron radiation power P.]
’Retarded potential and synchrotron radiation? Is this from Electrodynamics?’
If this had been half a month ago, Li Dong might have had to spend a great deal of time thinking due to his "islands of knowledge."
But after more than half a month of systematic cramming with Elder Chen, the bridges connecting those islands had been built. They weren’t that sturdy yet, but handling this problem was no issue.
’I just need to list the Maxwell stress tensor, use the Lorentz transformation to generalize the Larmor formula from a stationary frame to the relativistic case... P = (μ0q2a2)/(6πc). Then just plug in the relativistic invariants.’
Li Dong quickly organized his thoughts.
Then he looked at the second problem.
[Problem 2: Consider an ideal gas system composed of N diatomic molecules. Consider its translational, rotational, and vibrational degrees of freedom. It is known that at low temperatures, the vibrational degrees of freedom are frozen. Please write the partition function Z for this system at temperature T, and find the functional relationship of its isochoric heat capacity Cv with respect to temperature.]
The first things that came to Li Dong’s mind were the Boltzmann distribution and the image of energy level transitions.
’Multiply the partition functions for translation, rotation, and vibration. Then use the formula E = -∂/∂β ln Z to find the average energy, and then take the derivative with respect to temperature to get the heat capacity... Isn’t this just a pure partial derivative calculation?’
Li Dong nodded. These two problems had some difficulty, but not much.
These problems were indeed at the difficulty level of the Ossai semifinals, but their underlying logic was still just deduction within a known framework.
Full of confidence, Li Dong turned to the last page of the exam, ready to see the capstone problem worth 40 points.
However, when he clearly saw the problem description and accompanying diagram for the final question...
The relaxed expression on Li Dong’s face vanished, and he froze in his seat.
’What... what the hell is this?’

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