My IQ Increases Year by Year

The opening ceremony ended.

The representative teams began to exit in an orderly fashion.

Stepping out of the fully air-conditioned auditorium, the sunlight once again fell upon them.

Cicadas chirped tirelessly in the trees.

Professor Wang had slipped out through a side door with his tea mug halfway through the opening ceremony.

Now he was waiting for them under a large tree outside the auditorium.

The six of them walked over and gathered in the shade of the tree.

Professor Wang looked at them and slowly took a sip of tea.

"Just had a smoke with a few old acquaintances."

He set down his tea mug, his gaze sweeping over the students.

"I managed to get some information out of them."

"For tomorrow afternoon’s individual experiment, don’t even think about it. There won’t be any pre-assembled, ready-to-use kits."

Zhou Kai froze for a moment, then immediately understood.

"All loose components?"

"Correct. And not just for electronics."

Professor Wang nodded and gestured with his fingers.

"The organizing committee is planning to put you all through the wringer this time. For electronics, they’re not giving you standard experiment boxes. You’ll just get breadboards, soldering irons, and a pile of loose resistors and capacitors. Whatever function the problem requires, you’ll have to build the circuit from scratch."

He paused, looking at He Gui, whose expression had changed slightly.

"For optics, there won’t be any optical benches with standard scales either. They’ll probably just give you a few bare lenses, a laser source, and some iron stands. You’ll have to figure out how to mount the lenses on a piece of white paper and align the optical axis for coaxial adjustment yourselves."

"It’s the same for mechanics and thermodynamics."

Professor Wang picked up his tea mug.

"No smooth, flat tracks, no perfectly insulated calorimeters. What you might get are rough wooden planks or aluminum cups without an insulating layer. You’ll have to design your own procedures, measure the physical quantities, and calculate the compensation for errors yourselves."

For students accustomed to the plug-and-play experiment boxes at school and ideal physics models, this news was an absolute disaster.

Building circuits from scratch, aligning optical axes by eye, dealing with crude models.

This wouldn’t just test their understanding of the fundamental logic of physics, but also demand exceptional hands-on skills, error-correction abilities, and adaptability to real-world conditions.

But to the members of the Su Province Team...

After a brief silence, the atmosphere suddenly became a little strange.

Wang Huashao grinned.

"Is that it? After all that buildup, I thought they were going to test us on some advanced, high-precision university equipment we’d never seen before."

The deep furrow in Zhou Kai’s brow also relaxed, and the corner of his mouth curved into a barely perceptible smile.

Back in the Jinling Laboratory.

For the past half-month, what they faced every day was a pile of broken-down junk that was missing parts.

Professor Wang had forced them to build timers by hand from loose components, find interference fringes with scrap lenses, and calculate coefficients of friction using rusty gears.

The committee’s "de-kitted" testing method was practically identical to the ways Old Wang had been torturing them.

In other words, this played right into their hands.

When it came to fundamental skills with loose components and error elimination under crude conditions, these six were definitely not afraid of any team in the country.

Professor Wang saw their relaxed expressions but offered no praise. He simply turned and started walking toward the bus.

"Alright, stop standing around grinning like idiots. Let’s go eat first. We’re heading to the examination venue this afternoon. All of you, keep your eyes peeled."

「2:00 PM.」

The bus took them to the site of the next day’s exam.

A newly built comprehensive laboratory building, located deep within the university campus.

The exterior was a solid glass curtain wall, giving it a modern feel.

Inside the building, the floor was covered with gray, anti-static linoleum tiles. Walking on it made almost no sound.

The volunteer leading the group led them up to the third floor and pushed open the double doors to a large physics laboratory.

Inside the enormous laboratory, rows of brand-new experiment tables were neatly arranged.

Overhead were cool-white, anti-glare, eye-protection fluorescent lights.

Everything looked clean, tidy, and professional.

The tabletops were empty, save for the white examination number labels stuck in the top-right corners.

The students from the various provinces dispersed to find their assigned seats.

They were not allowed to touch any of the equipment.

They could only see where their seats were, how far they were from the restroom, and get a feel for the environment of the space.

Lin Yi’s seat was in the second-to-last row of the room.

Wang Huashao and Zhou Kai’s seats were next to each other.

He Gui was in the first row, against the wall.

Miao Shian was in the middle of the third row.

Chen Zhuo’s seat was on the aisle, toward the right side of the room.

Chen Zhuo stood in the aisle, his calm gaze sweeping across the entire laboratory.

Chen Zhuo walked over to He Gui’s seat.

To He Gui’s left was the side wall of the laboratory.

Chen Zhuo looked at the white wall and reached out to tap lightly twice on a white plastic access panel on it.

"He Gui."

Chen Zhuo turned his head, his voice carrying the tone of a friend offering advice and a reminder.

He Gui turned his head to look at him.

Chen Zhuo pointed at the wall.

"Your seat is right next to the lab’s main power conduit."

He Gui looked at the wall, a little confused, not understanding what Chen Zhuo meant.

Chen Zhuo smiled, his tone relaxed.

"In a large lab like this, there’s a lot of equipment and massive power consumption. The main high-voltage power line runs inside this wall."

"In tomorrow afternoon’s experiment, if the task involves amplifying or measuring weak electrical signals..."

"...the 50-hertz alternating current in this wall will generate very strong power-frequency electromagnetic interference."

Realization dawned on He Gui, and his expression changed slightly.

Weak signals are most vulnerable to this kind of ubiquitous background noise interference, which would make the waveform on an oscilloscope a complete mess.

"Then what should I do?" He Gui asked.

"It’s not hard to solve."

Chen Zhuo pointed to He Gui’s spacious experiment table.

"When you come in tomorrow, place your breadboard and core test circuit as far to the right side of the table as possible, away from this wall."

"Also, for all the long wires connecting to sensors, you must twist them together yourself to minimize the loop area."

"That will minimize the electromagnetic interference."

He Gui listened attentively and nodded vigorously.

"Okay, I’ve got it. Place it on the right, twist the wires."

Chen Zhuo patted He Gui’s shoulder and turned to walk back down the aisle.

He stopped in front of Zhou Kai’s seat.

The afternoon sun shone in through the huge floor-to-ceiling windows on the west side of the lab.

Although filtered by the glass, a bright patch of light still fell diagonally across Zhou Kai’s experiment table.

Zhou Kai was sitting in his chair, resting with his eyes closed.

Chen Zhuo walked over and pointed to the sun outside the window.

"Brother Kai."

Zhou Kai opened his eyes and followed Chen Zhuo’s finger with his gaze.

"You’ve got a nice view from this spot."

Chen Zhuo said in a slightly joking tone.

"But tomorrow afternoon’s exam is from two to five. After three o’clock, the sunlight will shine directly onto your tabletop."

Zhou Kai glanced at the patch of light, his brow twitching slightly.

"If you have to do an optical interference experiment tomorrow, the ambient natural light will be the most fatal source of stray light interference," Chen Zhuo continued.

"If the background brightness is too high, your interference fringes will be completely washed out by the sunlight."

Zhou Kai immediately understood the severity of the problem.

Optical experiments have extremely high requirements for ambient light conditions. This kind of direct sunlight was indeed a major problem.

He looked up above the window.

"Are there blackout curtains?"

"Yes, in the groove in the ceiling."

Chen Zhuo pointed upward.

"First thing when you enter tomorrow, before they hand out the papers, ask the proctor to pull down the blackout curtain for your area completely."

"Just say it’s to ensure the accuracy of your experimental data. They’ll agree."

Zhou Kai smiled and nodded.

"Got it. Physical sunblock. Thanks for the reminder."

Chen Zhuo said no more.

He walked a lap around the exam hall, and in the most natural and casual way, pointed out all the potential environmental hazards his teammates might encounter.

「4:00 PM.」

The venue inspection was over.

The bus took the teams back to the hotel.

「Dusk.」

Professor Wang didn’t take them out for any big feast.

On the eve of a major exam, food safety and regularity were paramount.

They found a clean and tidy fast-food chain restaurant near the hotel.

The group pushed together a long table and ordered some simple rice bowls and noodles.

Eating the hot food, everyone’s mood was relatively relaxed.

Wang Huashao was discussing a beautiful sculpture he had seen on campus earlier with Miao Shian.

Chen Zhuo finished the last bite of rice in his bowl.

He put down his chopsticks, pulled out a napkin, and wiped his mouth.

Then, he picked up the disposable cup next to him and took a sip of water.

"Everyone."

Chen Zhuo spoke, his tone calm, as if he were discussing a small matter with friends.

The others at the table stopped talking and looked at him.

Chen Zhuo’s hands were on the table.

"Let’s set a rule."

He looked at Zhou Kai and Wang Huashao, his eyes sincere.

"After lunch tomorrow, no one is allowed to bring up a single question from the morning’s theory paper."

"It doesn’t matter if you finished the long-form problems, it doesn’t matter if you finished deriving the formulas. The moment the bell rings to hand in the papers, we treat the morning exam as if it never existed. Deal?"

Zhou Kai, holding his chopsticks, paused.

He frowned slightly and gave a somewhat helpless smile.

"If I made a calculation error, I can’t even ask to check an answer?"

Chen Zhuo looked at him.

"The afternoon experiment is worth sixty percent of the total score."

Chen Zhuo’s tone remained gentle, but his logic was clear.

"Brother Kai, if you check your answers at lunch and discover you made a mistake with a constant in the last long-form problem..."

"...then in the afternoon, while you’re holding a soldering iron and wiring things up, your mind will definitely still be dwelling on that wrong formula. You’ll keep thinking about the points you lost."

"Performing a precision experiment while emotional and distracted makes it far too easy to make mistakes."

Chen Zhuo spread his hands.

"So let’s just be blissfully ignorant. We’ll hold out until the exam finishes at five. How about it?"

After hearing him out, Zhou Kai looked down and thought for two seconds.

He knew Chen Zhuo was right. The frustration from getting a question wrong was sometimes more torturous than the difficult problem itself.

Under the high pressure of back-to-back exams, timely mental compartmentalization was more important than anything.

Zhou Kai nodded in acceptance and put down his chopsticks.

"That makes sense. I’m with you. Blank slate after submission."

He smiled and added a condition.

"If anyone can’t resist bringing up the paper at lunch tomorrow, they’re buying the whole team dinner."

Wang Huashao immediately raised his hand.

"Deal! I’ll definitely keep my mouth zipped at lunch tomorrow. None of you are tricking me into buying a meal."

Miao Shian nodded in gentle agreement.

Lin Yi, chewing on a straw, was drinking the Coke in his cup.

"I agree. Forgetting an exam as soon as it’s over is my specialty."

The simple dinner ended in a relaxed atmosphere.

「8:00 PM.」

Back in the hotel room.

The sound of movement could occasionally be heard from other rooms down the hall.

Chen Zhuo finished his shower and changed into his pajamas.

He neatly packed the stationery he would need for the exam tomorrow into a transparent document folder.

He placed it right in the center of the desk.

「9:30 PM.」

Chen Zhuo walked to the wall.

’Time to sleep.’

He pressed the switch for the overhead light on the wall.

The room was plunged into quiet darkness.

The city lights from outside filtered through the light-blocking curtains, casting a faint halo on the carpet.

There were only a few hours left before the high-stakes national showdown.

In the dark of the night, the team entered a state of steady hibernation.

All was silent.

Waiting only for the dawn.