Notebook of Fortune

Chapter 27: The Equal Sign

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
The powerful Mages on this continent could establish laws and theorems that allowed the future generations to walk faster and farther.

Just as an example, the Moya Formula, the Wuxiang Theorem and the Fujiang Function had been proven by their predecessors and could be readily used. Bai Yu knew them, but who were Ampere, Tesla, Einstein and Newton?

She couldn’t have been ignorant about them if they were Mages!

She read on, only to discover that Shen Zhe’s answer was more and more ambiguous and confusing. It seemed that he was only filling the paper with random words so that it wouldn’t be empty.

Bai Yu turned grim.

Most of the questions in the quiz were of the easiest kind. Shen Zhe could’ve answered them without any trouble in the last semester. However, his current answers were a mess!

How could he write such nonsense even if he had learned nothing in this semester?

“He definitely did it on purpose!”

Bai Yu narrowed her eyes.

Even her answer to the question the other day was wrong, but Shen Zhe offered an exact answer that was later proven by practice. She didn’t think it was a coincidence.

He worked out a difficult question, but then he answered easy questions with nonsense. It was obviously that he wasn’t interested!

Otherwise… why would he have drawn a pig on the paper?

He was clearly mocking her, implying that she was as silly as a pig!

That could be the reason why his pig wore a skirt, when the pigs other people drew were generally asexual.

Bai Yu held back his fury and collected the answers.

“Mr. Geng Xing swapped his class with mine. So, you will be stuck with me for the whole morning…”

Bai Yu remained in the classroom and began to grade the answers.

Soon, her work was done.

Her face was gloomy as she looked at the ordered grades.

“Your performance is unsatisfactory. Ling Xueru has the highest grade, scoring 93 points. The class average is 82 points. The lowest is… zero!”

“Zero?”

“Who’s so good?”

“The man is a genius…”

Everyone was stunned.

It was more difficult to get a zero than full marks, because it meant avoiding all the correct answers.

“Silence!” Bai Yu interrupted their discussion and looked around, “Only a few questions in the quiz are challenging. Aren’t you ashamed of your results?”

Everybody lowered their heads.

An average grade of 82 points was the worst result in history.

Of course, it also had to do with the test duration. Finals would normally take six hours; there was enough time to work on the difficult questions. A class quiz would be much shorter.

It was understandable that their performance was unsatisfactory because of the limited time.

“Distribute the answers…”

Cui Xiao walked forth and returned everyone’s papers.

Shen Zhe’s lips twitched as he checked his own paper.

He wrote all the names and formulas he remembered, but none were correct… It seemed that he wasn’t as lucky as in the last class.

He truly didn’t know what he could do with a zero.

“Let’s focus on question number one!”

Seeing that everybody had their papers, Bai Yu looked at Ling Xueru and said, “Tell us your answer and how you figured it out.”

“Yes, Ma’am!”

Blushing, Ling Xueru stood up.

That was the only question she answered wrongly.

She only got three out of ten points for this question. It was her worst result.

“My answer is… around 21 minutes!”

Ling Xueru looked at her answer and spoke, “The purple iron-toothed wolf king is as strong as a level-one Martial Artist. In a fair fight, our teacher does not have a lot of advantages. However, the question is about fleeing, not fighting. Ms. Bai is famous for her agility in our school, so it shouldn’t be difficult for her to get rid of the beast in ten minutes!”

“However, there has to be a pack in the vicinity since a wolf king has shown up. Although the common iron-toothed wolves aren’t a big threat to our teacher, they can be obstacles when there are lots of them. However, she can use them to avoid the wolf king’s attack if she takes advantage of the limited space. I’ve written the formulas to get rid of the beasts on the paper. According to my calculation, the answer is about 21 minutes!”

“Okay!”

Bai Yu nodded and hinted for her to sit down. She looked at Cui Xiao, “Tell me your answer and how you figured it out.”

“My methodology is similar to the monitor’s, and my result is seventeen minutes. Our teacher should be stronger than the wolf king with her longsword. Also, she can take advantage of bushes and trees since she is fleeing. So, the time cost should be shorter!” explained Cui Xiao.

He only received two points for this question.

Bai Yu gave no comments after they explained their answers. Then she gazed at an absentminded Shen Zhe while wearing an expressionless visage. “Shen Zhe, you will answer this question!”

“Me?”

Shocked, Shen Zhe stood up and felt like crying.

“I got a zero. I’m just an outsider here…”

“Why do you have to ask me?”

“That’s right. You!”

Squinting, Bai Yu seemed as if she would explode at any moment due to the power boiling in her body. “If your answer is wrong, I will slap you three times consecutively… Whether you die or not will depend on luck!”

“Three… three slaps…” Shen Zhe was stiffened. “Why…?”

That was too severe a punishment!

Even the two geniuses failed to answer correctly. Why did the teacher demand so much from him and even threatened to beat him?

“You know the reason very well!” Bai Yu sniffed, “You can try if you don’t believe me…”

If Shen Zhe had calculated the precise amount of time it would take for her to knock out an iron-toothed wolf and carry it back to the school, it would certainly be easy for him to calculate the time it would take for her to get rid of the wolf king.

After all, that question was only part of the previous one.

“I…” Shen Zhe was almost in tears.

“I truly don’t know anything…”

The teacher must be pissed that he got a zero.

However… He really couldn’t answer any of the questions!

“I tried working hard, and I even studied math yesterday… But I couldn’t stop my eyes from closing! There was nothing I could do!”

“Cut the crap. Tell me your answer, one that is different from what you just wrote!”

Bai Yu glared at him aggressively.

“I want to keep a low profile, and I don’t want to be beaten up…”

“Why do you have to push me?”

“Is it fun?”

Seeing that his teacher was not joking and that she would obviously punish him as she promised, Shen Zhe thought hard and helplessly, “What is the answer equal to…?”

As he wondered how he should reply, the “=” on page two of his notebook suddenly surfaced and appeared before his eyes.

It seemed to be on a screen that nobody else could see.

After a momentary daze, Shen Zhe picked up the pencil that just showed up and circled the question.

Hum!

The most detailed answer immediately popped up, with the steps and the final result.

Shen Zhe trembled in excitement.

Could the equal sign offer the most correct answer to any question?

He could change the guidance book by writing on page one, but he might be busted for doing so. However, nobody would notice anything wrong if he gave correct answers!

“This is a treasure…”

With the notebook, he could get a full score easily by copying the answers in the next quiz.

In such a case, were exams anything to be scared of?

However, Shen Zhe recovered from his astonishment two seconds later.

He discovered that… his pencil had been shortened by one third again.

It meant that the cost of using the equal sign was the same as writing on page one. He would need twenty pencils to get the correct answers to sixty questions in an exam with the “=”.

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How many good things would he have to do?

He was bummed, but he knew that it was not the time to worry about it because the teacher was still staring at him.

He raised his head and said, “The answer is… two hours, eight minutes, and 17.32 seconds!”

“You…”

Bai Yu quivered and looked at him in disbelief. She asked with a shaky voice, “How did you reach that answer? Tell us your methodology!”