Chapter 93 - 75: It Begins
6:00 AM.
The alarm clock on the nightstand let out a soft BEEP BEEP.
The numbers flickered.
Chen Zhuo opened his eyes.
The room was still dark, the heavy blackout curtains drawn.
The central air conditioning vent emitted a steady, low hum of white noise.
He sat up and threw back the covers.
He didn’t turn on the overhead light, instead using the sliver of dawn filtering through a gap in the curtains to find his way to the bathroom.
He turned the faucet, and cold water rushed over the back of his hands.
Chen Zhuo cupped the cold water and splashed it on his face.
The last trace of sleepiness deep in his mind was stripped away.
He finished washing up and changed his clothes.
He unzipped the clear, exam-regulation document pouch and gave its contents one last look.
Two black gel pens, two sharpened 2B pencils, a pristine white eraser, and a clear ruler.
Exam admission ticket, ID card.
The zipper closed with a soft click.
6:30 AM.
Breakfast on the second floor.
Breakfast took twenty minutes.
The entire time, the only sound was the crisp clink of silverware occasionally striking porcelain plates.
7:15 AM.
A coach bus pulled up in front of the hotel.
By morning in the Capital City, the sunlight had fully spread.
A dry breeze poured in through the bus door, carrying the faint scent of asphalt.
The teams from each province lined up to board.
The inside of the bus was much quieter than it had been during the site visit yesterday.
All the excited whispers were gone.
The air was thick with a tension akin to a fully drawn bowstring.
The bus started up and merged into traffic.
Chen Zhuo gazed out the window.
The roadside trees receded behind them, sunlight flickering between the leaves.
His breathing maintained an exceedingly steady rhythm.
Inhale, exhale.
His chest rose and fell faintly.
8:00 AM.
The convoy of buses once again drove through the gates of the top-tier university.
Today, the buses didn’t stop at the auditorium but drove directly to the academic zone.
Several tall, gray academic buildings stood in the sunlight.
Their outer walls were covered in green vines.
The students disembarked.
A volunteer leading the group held up a sign, standing before a huge directory for the exam rooms.
Several hundred people crowded around it.
Chen Zhuo tilted his head back, his gaze sweeping across the dense grid of tables.
The rules for the national competition were strict. To prevent cheating and collusion, contestants from the same province were completely split up.
Not only were they not in the same exam room, they weren’t even in the same building.
"Academic Building 1, Room 402."
Chen Zhuo had found his exam room information.
He turned his head to look at his teammates.
Zhou Kai was looking at the far right side of the directory.
"Academic Building 3, 105."
Wang Huashao rubbed his chin.
"I’m in Academic Building 4, fifth floor."
He Gui, Miao Shian, and Lin Yi also confirmed their locations.
The six of them had exam rooms scattered across every corner of the vast academic zone.
There were no unnecessary parting words.
No need to shout motivational slogans, no need for hugs.
"Meet up at 12:10 PM under the statue of the famous figure in front of Academic Building 1."
Zhou Kai nodded.
Wang Huashao made a gesture.
The group turned and, following the signs in their different directions, walked into the surging crowd.
Their backs were quickly swallowed by the throng of students in various school uniforms.
8:20 AM.
Chen Zhuo walked up to the fourth floor of Academic Building 1.
The floor tiles in the hallway had just been mopped, and the air held the faint scent of disinfectant.
A proctor stood at the door, holding a metal detector.
Chen Zhuo held only the transparent document pouch in his hand.
He walked to the entrance.
He handed over his admission ticket and ID card.
The proctor checked his photo, then scanned the metal detector in a circle in front of and behind Chen Zhuo. It didn’t beep.
"Go on in."
Chen Zhuo entered the classroom.
It was a lecture hall, very spacious.
There were only single-person desks.
Each desk was spaced very far apart.
Chen Zhuo walked to his assigned seat.
Third row from the back, near the middle.
He placed the document pouch on the top-right corner of his desk.
He took out the two gel pens, the pencil, the eraser, and the ruler.
He lined them up in a row.
Then he tucked the now-empty pouch and his ID under the corner of the desk.
Students continued to file into the classroom.
No one whispered to their neighbors.
The scrape of chairs being pulled out and the soft clatter of pens being placed on desks were infinitely amplified in the space.
On the round clock above the blackboard, the second hand ticked forward, one notch at a time.
It made a soft CLICK, CLACK sound.
8:45 AM.
Two proctors walked to the front of the lecture hall.
One of them held up a sealed bag.
He showed the entire room the intact seal.
Then, he picked up a small knife.
RRRIP—
The sound of the thick manila envelope being cut open was particularly jarring in the quiet classroom.
The proctor pulled a thick stack of exam papers from inside.
The edges of the white pages glinted in the sunlight.
The papers reached Chen Zhuo’s hands.
It was thick.
A full twelve pages.
The binding was stapled tightly on the left side.
"Check your papers for missing pages or printing errors."
The proctor on the stage reminded them.
Chen Zhuo opened the exam booklet.
Dense, printed text filled the pages.
There were no multiple-choice questions.
Only long paragraphs of given conditions, force analysis diagrams, and circuit topology structures.
Followed by large blank spaces for answers.
He flipped from the first page to the twelfth.
The paper rustled softly as it slid through his fingertips.
He confirmed there were no issues.
Chen Zhuo picked up his pen and, within the sealed section of the exam paper, wrote his name and exam number.
His handwriting was neat, the strokes reserved.
9:00 AM.
The electric bell in the hallway let out a sharp, sustained ring.
"You may begin."
Almost in that same instant, pen tips landed on paper, producing the first scratching sound.
Chen Zhuo’s eyes fell on the first question.
The tip of the black gel pen touched the white paper.
Ink flowed from the ballpoint, leaving a clear trail.
Half an hour passed.
The sound of writing in the classroom showed no sign of fading; on the contrary, it grew denser and more hurried.
The sheer volume of calculation on this exam was staggering.
Every physics model was nested within exceedingly complex mathematical derivations.
Calculus was just the most basic tool here; what was more terrifying were the boundary conditions you had to construct yourself.
Chen Zhuo turned a page of the exam.
He didn’t pause to think.
The formulas and theorems were like instincts carved into his memory.
The moment he finished reading a question, his brain had already laid out the path to the answer.
His wrist rested on the desktop.
The pen tip glided rapidly across the blank space.
Line after line of exceptionally neat derivations, like soldiers in formation, filled the white space on the page.
9:50 AM.
A boy to his front left raised his hand.
A proctor walked over.
The boy didn’t speak, merely pointing to the scratch paper on his desk, which was already filled on both sides.
The proctor took out a fresh sheet of A4 paper and placed it on his desk.
It was as if this were a signal.
One after another, students around the room began to raise their hands.
The proctors’ rubber-soled shoes made soft scuffing sounds as they moved about the room.
A thick stack of scratch paper was being rapidly consumed.
10:30 AM.
The exam was halfway over.
The sun had climbed higher outside, and its rays now crossed the windowsills to land on the desks in the front rows.
The sounds in the classroom began to change.
The continuous, soft rustling was now interspersed with other noises.
The sound of erasers rubbing forcefully against paper.
The sound was hurried and heavy.
Someone, upon reaching the final step of a derivation, discovered their dimensions didn’t match.
This meant that a huge chunk of their previous calculations was now useless.
A girl two aisles to the right stopped writing.
She covered her forehead with a hand, her fingers digging deep into her hair.
The rise and fall of her chest grew noticeably more pronounced.
From the back of the room came the sound of a ballpoint pen dropping on the floor.
It rolled twice, then stopped.
Chen Zhuo didn’t look up.
His gaze remained locked on those twelve white pages.
A major question on optical interference.
The light path diagram was extremely complex, involving non-linear integration where the refractive index varied with the thickness of the medium.
Chen Zhuo took a new sheet of scratch paper.
In the very center of the page, he drew a coordinate system.
He didn’t use a ruler; the lines he drew freehand were straight and steady.
The pen tip tapped the paper.
A series of partial differential equations poured out.
Time seemed to stretch on infinitely with the friction of the pen tip.
11:20 AM.
The air in the classroom had grown stuffy and hot.
Though the air conditioning was on, in an environment of such intense mental exertion, the body heat radiating from everyone still made the air feel thick and sticky.
The movements of most people had slowed.
Pen tips lingered on the paper for longer and longer.
The sound of pages turning became heavier.
Some started to look at the wall clock frequently.
Each time they looked up, the focus in their eyes would blur a little more.
Chen Zhuo turned to the last page of the exam.
The final, ultimate question.
The problem statement took up half a page.
He put down his gel pen.
He picked up the bottle of mineral water beside him and twisted off the cap.
He took a small sip.
The water slid down his somewhat dry throat.
He picked up the pen again.
His gaze swept over every word of the problem statement, missing no potential traps.
11:50 AM.
Ten minutes left until the end of the exam.
The proctor’s voice rang out from the front of the classroom.
"There are ten minutes remaining. Please check your exam number and name. No more scratch paper will be given out."
A chaotic flurry of paper-shuffling erupted in the classroom.
Some students frantically began to copy their answers from their scratch paper onto the exam booklet.
Chen Zhuo wrote the last digit.
He drew an exceptionally standard underline beneath the result.
Then, he capped his pen.
It made a soft click.
He placed the two pens, the pencil, and the ruler neatly back in the top-right corner of his desk.
He didn’t go back to check his work.
As he had written out each step of his derivations, he had already completed all the necessary self-checks.
Chen Zhuo leaned back in his chair.
He closed his eyes.
His eyeballs shifted slightly beneath his eyelids, and a stinging, sore sensation washed over them.
He didn’t rub them, just quietly savored the feeling of emptiness in his brain, like an ocean after the tide has gone out.