Just like that, time flew, and the day of the national mathematical modeling competition arrived.
September 7th, Thursday, 6:00 PM sharp.
Over 1,500 universities and colleges across the country, 58,732 participating teams.
Over 176,000 university students.
At the exact same moment, they all logged into the problem download system for the National College Student Mathematical Modeling Competition.
From the Northern Border to Lingnan, from the Western Border to the East Sea.
In the competition site computer labs of every university, in every dorm room, at every desk, every single laptop was, at that moment, fixated on the same webpage.
The page on the screen buffered for half a second.
Refresh.
[2023 Higher Education Press Cup National College Student Mathematical Modeling Competition]
[Undergraduate Division Problem A: Optimal Design of a Fixed Sun Mirror Field]
[Undergraduate Division Problem B: Optimal Layout of a Multibeam Sounding Survey]
[Undergraduate Division Problem C: Automated Pricing and Replenishment Decisions for Vegetable Products Based on Sales Data]
Three problems, A, B, and C, were listed side-by-side on the competition interface.
In almost the same instant, every participating team across the country exploded.
"The hell?! What is this for Problem A? A Fixed Sun Mirror Field? Optics?"
"Is Problem B about mapping the seafloor? Multibeam?"
"Problem C is a data problem. I’m looking at C. C seems safer..."
Following the convention of previous years, most teams across the country would choose their problem within ten minutes.
The final distribution would also be nearly identical.
Over sixty percent of the teams would flock to Problem C.
A little over twenty percent would pick Problem B.
And only less than ten percent would dare to touch Problem A.
Problem A—[Optimal Design of a Fixed Sun Mirror Field].
Behind the prompt for this problem lay the real-world engineering data from a concentrated solar power plant in China.
Thousands of Sun-Fixing Mirrors were spread out in a field, surrounding a single heat-absorbing tower.
Each mirror had to precisely reflect sunlight to the top of the tower.
The number of things to calculate was absurd.
Geometrically, one had to calculate the relative position, shadowing, and blocking between each mirror and the tower.
Optically, one had to calculate the cosine efficiency of the reflection, atmospheric attenuation, and truncation efficiency.
For optimization, one had to maximize the average annual power output for the entire layout of thousands of mirrors.
For this thing, three days and three nights were nowhere near enough.
That was why the fewest teams chose it.
But the teams that did choose it, without exception, were all aiming for the Higher Education Press Cup.
Rongcheng.
In a lounge next to a temporary Sichuan University competition site, a converted gymnasium.
The room wasn’t large. Three folding beds were placed side by side.
A person lay on the innermost bed, snoring like a construction site.
A not-so-thin young man sat on the middle bed.
He had his legs crossed, his phone’s speaker blaring.
"Damn it, does this marksman even know how to play?"
"The frontline can’t even hold for one wave, and he’s still over there last-hitting minions!"
"I used my ultimate to set you up perfectly, what are you waiting for? Go in!"
The person on the other end of the call tutted.
"Buddy, your Yang Yuhuan wasting her ultimate is even more ridiculous than my marksman."
The two of them continued to ’politely’ flame each other.
About twenty minutes later, the sound of a shattering crystal suddenly erupted from the phone.
A single large word, [DEFEAT], popped up on the screen.
The voices of the random teammates on speakerphone came through again.
"...I’d like to thank your entire family."
"Yang Yuhuan, you seriously just threw your final ultimate into the river?"
This "Yang Yuhuan" grunted twice and put his phone down.
’Damn it, this marksman isn’t even as good as Dongzi.’
Just then, the door to the lounge was pushed open.
A tall, skinny young man pushed open the door and walked in.
He had dark circles under his eyes, and his hair was a messy bird’s nest.
He was clutching a thick folder.
This was the team’s captain—Lin Feng.
As soon as he entered, he first shot a glare at the still-snoring teammate.
Then, he spoke to the teammate who had just been playing on his phone.
"Chen Yue!"
He shouted.
"Stop playing your trash Yang Yuhuan!"
"I could hear people flaming you from outside the door!"
"It’s your turn! Get serious."
He slammed the folder onto the folding table.
Only after hearing him did Chen Yue slowly get to his feet.
"Senior Brother Lin."
"I’m just relaxing."
"This competition is too intense. I haven’t been sleeping well."
"Besides..."
"You know me."
"Whether or not I’m putting in an effort has nothing to do with me playing games."
Senior Brother Lin stared at him for three seconds.
He really couldn’t refute Chen Yue’s last sentence.
After all, he’d known what kind of guy Chen Yue was since the first day he entered the Sichuan University School of Physics as a freshman.
When it was time to study, he really was a fast learner.
And when it was time to rest, he would absolutely never touch anything academic.
The year he started, among the top students from their home province admitted to the Sichuan University School of Physics, Chen Yue’s college entrance exam score wasn’t actually that high; he had just barely scraped past the cutoff.
But once he was in the School of Physics, during the first internal departmental test, he just sat down, and three hours later, he had left more than half of the students in the dust.
By this year, he had even taken on a selection of courses from the most difficult specializations in the Sichuan University School of Physics.
For this competition, Lin Feng was the captain of the Sichuan University School of Physics team.
The other member of the team was from the School of Mathematics, there to provide support.
When the three of them sat down to discuss which problem to choose, Senior Brother Lin had originally wanted to play it safe and pick Problem B.
But Chen Yue, as casually as if he were ordering takeout, said,
"Let’s do A."
"That field of mirrors looks interesting."
"I’ll handle the optics."
"Anyway, if we don’t pick A, the best we can hope for is a National First Prize."
"If we pick A, we can still make a run for the Higher Education Press Cup."
Although Lin Feng hated his nonchalant attitude, then again,
when Chen Yue said he would handle the optics, Lin Feng believed him.
And so, the geometric blocking, shadowing, cosine efficiency, and atmospheric attenuation for that entire field of thousands of Sun-Fixing Mirrors—the whole set of the most grueling modeling tasks,
was all piled onto Chen Yue’s shoulders alone.
And Chen Yue had only used a day and a half to construct the entire set of mathematical expressions for the optical efficiency in his own scratch notebook.
Once the model was constructed, the remaining optimization and numerical calculations were much easier.
That was why now, in the first half of the third night, Senior Brother Lin dared to swap the kid out from the main battlefield to get a bit of sleep.
But the kid didn’t even nap; he played a round of Honor of Kings first.
Senior Brother Lin pushed the folder toward Chen Yue.
"I’m going to sleep."
Chen Yue took the folder and grinned at him.
"Don’t worry, go to sleep."
"I can hold the tower."
Senior Brother Lin rolled his eyes at him, but the tense look on his face instantly relaxed.
He collapsed onto the empty folding bed.
A few seconds later, another line of snores was added to the mix.
Chen Yue smiled.
He put his phone away.
Humming a little tune, he pushed open the door to the ’main battlefield’ room, folder in hand.
As the door opened, on the laptop inside running the simulation program, thousands of red dots were slowly revolving around a single bright point representing the top of the tower.
Chen Yue sat down.
Meanwhile, in the Capital City.
In a small seminar room on the second floor of the Yan University School of Mathematics.
Three people sat in the room.
In front of Gu Ming was a blank sheet of paper, on which was drawn the overhead view of the Fixed Sun Mirror Field provided in the Problem A prompt.
He was using a pencil to draw in the lines connecting each mirror to the top of the tower, labeling each one with its azimuth angle.
Sitting across from him was his teammate in charge of programming, a silver medalist from the ACM Regionals.
In front of him was also a laptop, its screen filled with code.
And sitting right by the whiteboard.
Gu Ming looked up.
"A?"
Wang Hao rolled his eyes.
"Is that even a question?"
The ACM senior folded the problem sheet in his hands.
"You two come up with the model."
"I’ll handle the code."
Gu Ming and Wang Hao looked at each other.
They both smiled at the same time.
The first half of the third night of the national competition.
The scratch paper in the room was already piled nearly half a knee high.
Gu Ming put his pencil down on the paper.
"Haozi."
"Where are you on the optical cosine efficiency part?"
Wang Hao, in front of the whiteboard, didn’t even turn his head.
"Finished it."
"Once I factor in the atmospheric attenuation part, your geometric blocking should be complete, right?"
Gu Ming grunted in affirmation.
"It’s complete."
Wang Hao twirled the marker in his hand.
"Gu God."
"That ridiculously strong rookie from Sichuan University..."
"You think he chose Problem A, too?"
Gu Ming looked up and smiled at Wang Hao.
"Haozi."
"That’s a pretty dumb question to ask."
"A guy like that isn’t going to pick Problem A? You think he’d pick C instead?"
Wang Hao tutted.
"Well, that just makes things interesting, doesn’t it."
He pulled the cap off his marker.
And continued deriving the equations on the whiteboard.
Outside the window, the sky slowly began to brighten.
Capital City, Rongcheng.
In two cities separated by more than a thousand kilometers.
Two teams, both aiming for the same trophy.
Were both in their final sprint.

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