A genius student? Ha, they're nothing but ants at your feet!

Chapter 10 A Devastating Blow

Chinese Academy of Sciences, Junior Class.

Fifteen-year-old Lin Shuwan clutched the certificate in her hand tightly, standing blankly in front of the teacher's desk.

Her usually arrogant and haughty eyes were now filled with a horrifying sense of collapse.

Because of the excessive force, the paper in his hand was trembling violently and making a rustling sound.

Second Place in the 19th Huaxia Cup Mathematics Competition

"What the hell? I only got second place?"

Lin Shuwan's voice was hoarse, each word sounding as if squeezed out from between her teeth, carrying an absurd disbelief.

What a joke!

Since she was born, the word "second" has never existed in Lin Shuwan's dictionary!

She's always number one!

In every exam, in every competition, without exception, she is always the one standing at the top of the pyramid, looking down on all others!

"Yes, it's really a pity this time."

Math teacher and homeroom teacher Zhao Jianping sighed and shook his head helplessly.

"Teacher, is this a mistake?"

I can't possibly make a mistake. Absolutely not!

I could answer all the questions on that roll with my eyes closed!

Lin Shuwan suddenly raised her head, her eyes revealing a kind of obsessive madness.

"My solution steps and final answer are written perfectly, and there's no way I could have made a mistake in the punctuation!"

I got a perfect score! A perfect score!

How could I possibly not get first place?!

Ugh.

A complex and indescribable expression appeared on Zhao Jianping's face, which was etched with the marks of time.

In fact, it wasn't just Lin Shuwan who was going crazy; Zhao Jianping almost went crazy the moment he saw the list!

He had reviewed Lin Shuwan's exam paper, and it was textbook perfect.

So when he saw the result, he immediately became furious and called the competition organizers to demand an explanation.

The organizer's response shattered his worldview.

"Old Zhao, it's not that Lin Shuwan isn't excellent, it's just that there's a very well-hidden loophole in the fourth question."

The student who got first place didn't solve the problem using the conventional approach; instead, he perfectly corrected the underlying logic of the problem!

This incident caused a major upheaval among the professors grading the papers!

The organizing committee originally planned to award both scores as perfect and tie for first place...

However, Professor Zhou Mingyuan, who was specially invited from Stanford, expressed his strong opposition.

Zhou Mingyuan.

When Zhao Jianping heard this name on the phone, goosebumps instantly erupted all over his body!

What is a world-class mathematician doing at a lousy math Olympiad in China?

Zhao Jianping still remembers how, back in his university days, he struggled to understand a paper by Professor Zhou published in a top-tier journal...

I spent countless desperate nights in the library, only to end up with a superficial understanding.

That's a true academic giant.

The paper he published when he was thirty-four years old, "On the Regularity Problem of the Navier-Stokes Equations," caused a huge sensation in the global mathematics community, like a tsunami.

On the core equation of fluid mechanics that has puzzled humanity for a century, he proposed a methodology that completely overturns common sense!

After that, he bombarded countless top academic journals with more than 30 papers, and the citation rate of his papers was definitely world-class!

Compared to this expert, these so-called competition problems in China are like child's play in kindergarten.

If he personally took the stage and determined the first place with absolute academic authority, the competition organizing committee would not be able to utter a single word!

Zhao Jianping swallowed hard and patiently explained the despairing situation to Lin Shuwan.

But for the proud girl in front of him, this explanation was still like an absurd dream, hard to accept.

I don't know what I did wrong!

If my answer is wrong, then I admit it!

I'll go back and work hard, and I'll do it right next time.

But I did nothing wrong, why should I lose?!

Lin Shuwan's eyes were bloodshot, and she gritted her teeth.

"Teacher, if I want to get first place, what should I do?"

"Am I...am I just supposed to helplessly wait for that monster who got first place to go to university and leave?!"

Why is this child so fixated on something?

Looking at the young face that was slightly distorted with resentment, Zhao Jianping suddenly realized that this student with exceptional intelligence was only fifteen years old, even without that dazzling halo.

I had been blinded by her extraordinary talent, which was beyond her years, and failed to see her true psychological state as an ordinary student.

"Lin Shuwan."

"Um?"

"Is it because... your parents put too much pressure on you to get good grades?"

Zhao Jianping asked tentatively.

According to her academic records, Lin Shuwan's father is an engineering professor at a top university, and her mother is a chief physician at a top-tier hospital.

Based on his many years of teaching experience, he knows that highly educated elite families with extremely high social status often impose extremely high, even cruel, academic requirements on their children.

This child may be secretly undergoing almost abusive cramming education, which is why he has developed such a morbid desire for "first place".

However, the other party's answer was completely unexpected.

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

Lin Shuwan was taken aback for a moment, then frowned and looked at Zhao Jianping as if he were an alien.

"My parents have been begging me to take fewer tutoring classes since I was little."

Especially my dad, every weekend he pesters me to skip school and go out with him. It always takes a lot of effort for me to get rid of him.

"Huh?" Now it was Zhao Jianping's turn to be dumbfounded.

"What's wrong?"

"Then why are you so obsessed with rankings?"

Second place is already a remarkable achievement; very few people nationwide could achieve that.

"Because I just love being number one!"

Lin Shuwan suddenly raised her head, and a strange, chilling light flashed in her eyes.

"That feeling of standing alone at the top, with everyone under your feet!"

When others can only look up to me as if I were a god, it really is...

At that moment, I felt truly alive!

Lin Shuwan closed her eyes, her hands tightly crossed in front of her chest, as if she were deeply embracing that illusory, flawless self.

Swah——

Zhao Jianping's arms instantly broke out in goosebumps.

An indescribable chill shot straight from the soles of my feet to my head!

This is not normal!

This is absolutely not normal!

Mental illness? Abnormality?

But she usually seems quite sensible and normal.

Isn't her mother a chief physician? What does she usually do at home?

Why didn't I realize my daughter was a psychopath?!

Countless thoughts flashed through Zhao Jianping's mind like an electric current. Faced with this genius girl who suddenly revealed her morbid side, he subconsciously felt a chill run down his spine and wanted to back away.

Lin Shuwan suddenly opened her eyes wide and stared intently at him!

The oppressive, overbearing aura that constantly loomed above him startled Zhao Jianping, an adult.

"So, teacher, I have a question for you."

The person who got first place is a senior in high school, right? They'll graduate this year, right?

If that's the case, I'll definitely be number one again next year, so there's no need to worry too much.

Lin Shuwan resumed her aloof expression, giving Zhao Jianping no chance to interrupt, and continued speaking on her own:

"Actually, it doesn't matter if I don't graduate. This time it was just bad luck."

Who knew that the crazy professor from America would insist on getting stuck on such a point?

However, just to be on the safe side, I still want to confirm.

What's that person's name?

"Su Hao," Zhao Jianping uttered dryly.

"Su Hao? Hmph!"

Lin Shuwan sneered, a mocking smile on her face.

"I know the names of the top 20 students in the country and those who were recommended for admission by special means by heart."

This is the first time I've ever heard of this person.

"Heh, looks like this time it really was some nobody who popped up out of nowhere and got incredibly lucky!"

Zhao Jianping looked at the genius girl in front of him, who was proud to the core.

She was always silent in class, aloof like an iceberg. He never knew she could be so talkative!

Now, he finally understood.

This girl's usual silence is not a sign of aloofness at all.

She was simply enjoying the adoration and praise from everyone around her in a superior manner.

Listening to Lin Shuwan's rapid-fire, morbid speech, Zhao Jianping felt his head buzzing and his heart about to flare up.

He decided to stop holding back and end this suffocating conversation as quickly as possible in the most ruthless way.

"He's not a senior in high school."

"A second-year high school student? That's impressive, but they'll definitely be my loser next year."

"He's a primary school student."

The air was sucked out in that instant.

Lin Shuwan's supposedly superior intelligence was like a computer that had been doused with liquid nitrogen; it instantly emitted a puff of black smoke and completely crashed.

She maintained her mocking expression, blinked blankly, her eyes filled with bewilderment.

"what?"

"Su Hao, the child who won first place and even amazed a Stanford professor, who personally stepped in to protect him."

Zhao Jianping looked at the girl before him, who seemed to have had her soul drained, and said, word by word,

"He's a primary school student."

The teaching and research office was deathly silent, with only the ticking of the wall clock.

"To tell you the truth, I shamelessly asked to see a copy of the answer sheet that got him first place."

Zhao Jianping gave a bitter laugh, his eyes revealing a deep sense of powerlessness.

"It's not just about restructuring the underlying logic of that fourth question..."

To be honest, I didn't fully understand many of the derivations on that exam paper.

I apologize for my limited teaching abilities.

He, a renowned math teacher who had taught math olympiad for many years, felt a barrier to his intelligence when faced with the answer sheet of an elementary school student.

Although Zhao Jianping's tone was full of sincere apology, Lin Shuwan's eyes had completely lost focus.

Her ears were ringing, and she didn't hear a single punctuation mark of what Zhao Jianping said afterward.

Only one sentence kept replaying in my mind in an endless, three-dimensional loop.

[He's a primary school student...]

[He's a primary school student...]

[He's a primary school student...]

"...This...this is impossible!"

From trembling lips, a most desperate murmur from the depths of her soul escaped.

In Lin Shuwan's fifteen years of smooth sailing and invincible life, an unprecedented and devastating blow suddenly struck!