Genius Basic Law

She is only upset for a little while.

When she gets off the bus, Lin Zhao has almost forgotten that call.

She goes back to school today, because of the College joint intellectual competition thing, President of Student Union Su Xiao Ming called to ask her to participate.

When she arrives at school, she goes straight to the second floor of the Student Center where the students would have a conference room.

The noise from the conference room can be heard from the outside, and Lin Zhao Xi checks the time. It is 5 minutes until the start of the meeting. Without thinking, she pushes the door open.

The conference room suddenly turns quiet, more than ten people are staring at her, Lin Zhao Xi is also surprised.

It has already started…

“Which school are you from, shouldn’t you at least knock the door?” Sitting next to the main table, a well-dressed girl speaks to her directly.

Lin Zhao Xi does not know her, she must be from other schools coming here to take part in the meeting. She has nothing to say about this matter, so she turns around to close the door, and the President of their school Student Union, Su Xiao Ming, has already spoken.

“We had the meeting started early, Zhao Xi came late, so she was not informed.”

“My apologies.” Lin Zhao Xi goes along with his excuse, and then she sits down next to Su Xiao Ming.

“Lin Zhao Xi, she is the one who came up with the quizzes from the last intellectual competition.”

After sitting down, Su Xiao Ming points at her to introduce.

Next, Su Xiao Ming introduces other participants to her, just as she has guessed, many of them are the representatives of other universities in the city.

When speaking of that proficient girl, Su Xiao Ming emphasizes: “An Xiao Xiao, Head of Study Department of Bai Cao University’s Student Union.”

Bai Cao, the rival of their university. (the original was “死敌”, which literally means “mortal enemy”)

While thinking, Lin Zhao Xi nods at An Xiao Xiao to greet her.

Because of this introduction, the meeting is suspended for a while, there are people starting to drink water, Su Xiao Ming jumps at this opportunity, and he lowers his voice to ask her: “How is your father?”

“Dementia.” Lin Zhao Xi answers.

“What?” Su Xiao Ming’s eyes wide open, unable to conceal the shock.

Lin Zhao Xi nods her head.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know.” She pats the boy on the shoulder, signals him to concentrate on the meeting and stop thinking too much.

Su Xiao Ming immediately sits upright, still a bit distracted. Right at that moment, An Xiao Xiao takes the chance to lead the meeting.

“Since we have no opinion on the multiple-choice questions, the remains are the major questions, questions 30 to 60 are the tasks we proposed, please discuss to choose…”

After An Xiao Xiao finishes, people begin to read the printed documents in front of them.

Lin Zhao Xi arrives late, Su Xiao Ming and another participant have shared the material, in front of her is an empty table, making it a bit awkward.

Just then, a thin stack of paper is pushed over from the side.

Lin Zhao Xi turns around and sees that it was the girl to her right who quietly shares the documents. The girl’s face is small, but her eyes are big, and she wears an over-sized uniform. Being stared by Lin Zhao Xi, she gets a little shy, and the girl avoids her stare.

Lin Zhao Xi turns to the girl’s position, pokes the back of her hand and whispers: “Thank you.”

Ah, the girl blushes.

……

Lin Zhao Xi stops teasing the adorable little girl, and she starts reading the questions seriously.

But she has not done reading two pages when she hears An Xiao Xiao speaks: “If Lin Zhao Xi from San Wei University is very experienced, then she can begin first.”

The rustling of the paper in the conference room stops at once.

She has not even had enough time to read the multiple-choice questions, so she feels a bit helpless: “Pick 10 major questions, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” An Xiao Xiao says.

“Then give me a minute.”

“Is one minute enough?”

Lin Zhao Xi carefully examines the questions and does not answer.

It is their College town tradition to engage in interesting intellectual competition. It is supposed to be simple, download some interesting intellectual problems on the Internet, the hosting university picks some for the contest. Several schools discuss together, and finally select 20 multiple-choice questions plus 10 major questions, and then everything is done.

However, the competition is held annually while interesting online intellectual problems become fewer and fewer, therefore, the choice becomes more and more difficult. On Lin Zhao Xi’s hand are a total of 100 questions selected by Bai Cao University this year. She will have to pick 10 from easy to difficult questions among these for the competition.

After thinking and reading all of major questions chosen by Bai Cao University, she finally raises her head: “Shall I go first?”

An Xiao Xiao: “You arrive late, you can continue reading.”

“No problems.” Lin Zhao Xi lowers her head, her fingers cross over the question number, turns the page and says the number: “31, 38, 44, 56, 58, 62, 63, 64, 70, 77…” She stops speaking, starts thinking for a while and adds, “Question 77 is good, you can make it the major finale.”

After she finishes, people from Bai Cao University become a bit unsettling.

No need for An Xiao Xiao to speak, another participant next to her has already said: “That is too quick, did you seriously read it?”

“About this,” Lin Zhao Xi thinks for a brief moment and decides to tell the truth, “in fact, last time I have checked all the interesting intellectual problems whether it’s online or offline…”

Suddenly, everyone begins to turn over the paper.

An Xiao Xiao’s face gets even more unsightly, but if she goes on she will lose even more demeanor, so she closes her lips and holds back.

After a while, someone speaks: “She… She* picks really good questions.” (the original version was “学姐”, refers to the female upperclassman).

“Outstanding difficulty control.”

“But question 62…” says the other man.

Lin Zhao Xi lowers her head to read it.

Question 62 is a graphic problem, there’s a drawing of simple mechanical arm, asking for a point of the path when the robot arm is rotated in a certain orbit.

As a major question, it looks really simple.

Lin Zhao Xi: “This is Peaucellier–Lipkin linkage, you can find a more complex replacement for this type of question.” (…well… I’m not quite sure about this. But it is the nearest translation that makes sense).

The conference room is filled with the astonished sounds “Oh oh oh”.

Everyone continues reading for a while, and suddenly, someone asks: “Question 77 as the major finale?”

“Can this be considered an intellectual question, is there anyone studying Physics here? Voice your opinion.”

“I study Chemistry, this question seems simple, but it requires intense thinking to solve.”

The speaker lifts up the paper, the paper is densely written, he himself looks like he’s going insane.

Lin Zhao Xi looks at the question again.

The complained question 77 is about arranging black-and-white board game pieces (not chess but the go board game with black and white pieces): if there are three pieces per line then it asks the maximum of lines that can be arranged.

Go (game board) illustration

The question seems to be simple, but it is utterly difficult, it requires mathematical foundation, it is a bit too hard for an intellectual competition. Nevertheless, there are no other suitable alternatives among the 100 questions picked by Bai Cao, thus she chooses this one.

An Xiao Xiao shamelessly blames: “Doesn’t this question focus too much on mathematics?”

“San Wei University is taking advantage of having the strongest mathematics faculty isn’t it? How resourceful!” Someone points at Su Xiao Ming with the end of his pen and says angrily.

“Therefore, this question is not suitable.” An Xiao Xiao says directly, “Pick another, do you guys have any opinions?”

Lin Zhao Xi still sits quietly and does not comment.

After a little while, people go over the questions again, and find no better choice than question 77.

“The others do not seem to be very good, Ms. Lin, do you have other choices?” someone asks her.

Lin Zhao Xi says: “Personally I think this question is great, it is also ingenious to solve, in fact it is quite appropriate.”

“You* are so amazing.” someone says. (It is still “学姐”, refers to the female upperclassman).

Lin Zhao Xi: “I needed to read the answers to understand.”

“In the end, is this question difficult? Does it require knowledge of mathematics to solve?”

“I study Philosophy.” Lin Zhao Xi shakes her head, implies that it is really hard for her to judge.

People start to argue again; more opinions are discussed.

Suddenly someone suggests: “Why don’t we find someone studying Mathematics to solve the question?”

“We are in San Wei University, what about asking your Pei Zhi?” someone pats Su Xiao Ming’s shoulder and asks.