Super God-Level Top Student

So...

They must have gone out to have dinner with the girls as well.

Putting oneself in others\' shoes is a fine virtue, said the teacher from the elementary school\'s Law and Morality class — the only teacher from those years Qiao Ze had a good impression of.

Although this phrase shouldn\'t be applied to such a situation, at least Qiao Ze remembered it, so he often tried to put himself in others\' shoes.

But before he could follow his usual routine and head to the balcony to wash up, the next moment, the dormitory door was pushed open, and in came three guys, staggering with each step, their arms over each other\'s shoulders. They reeked of alcohol as they stumbled inside.

Coincidentally, this scene was all too familiar to Qiao Ze.

He still vividly remembered that his father had passed away when he was in the first grade of elementary school.

Right after his father\'s death, Lu Xiuxiu used to cry her eyes out every day and would get dead drunk at least three days a week.

If Qiao Ze hadn\'t learned how to cook and been able to replicate it perfectly, he might have starved to death back then.

Fortunately, Lu Xiuxiu quickly pulled herself together, gave up drinking, and took on all the pressures of life.

Otherwise, Qiao Ze\'s life might have been a completely different story.

So, seeing the state of these three now, Qiao Ze felt puzzled.

After all, alcohol really tastes awful. Were these guys drinking so much because they had lost a loved one as well?

...

"Hey, Qiao, Brother Qiao, you haven\'t, haven\'t, haven\'t slept yet." Zhang Zhou said, his eyes blurry with drunkenness as he eyed Qiao Ze standing in the center of the dorm. He tried to stand up straight to greet him, but his cerebellum was not cooperating, leaving him still swaying, and he slurred his words.

It seemed that a man who could conquer The End of the World six times still couldn\'t get past the seventh challenge.

"Yeah, I got too absorbed in writing my paper and missed dinner, so I went to eat noodles after leaving the library," Qiao Ze replied.

"You were, were, were with Su Mucheng, right?" Gu Zhengliang, already sitting in his spot, asked.

"Mmhmm!" Qiao Ze nodded. There was nothing worth hiding about that.

"Ahh... Brother Qiao, last term, under Zhang Zhou\'s, Zhang Zhou\'s persuasion, I also, also asked, asked our class representative out to dinner, ahh..."

"Damn it, Gu, why, why didn\'t you tell us before?"

"Shit, I was just, just, just flat-out rejected. What\'s there, there to say?"

Qiao Ze listened expressionlessly to the two\'s choppy dialogue, silently picked up the water kettle, and filled the cups on the table with water for the three of them.

Based on his experience taking care of Lu Xiuxiu when he was in elementary school, someone who\'s drunk always ended up looking for water to drink.

After pouring water for his roommates, Qiao Ze went to the bathroom beside the balcony to wash up.

The disjointed conversation seemed to continue, but Qiao Ze turned on the tap. The rush of water nearby effectively blocked out his overly sensitive hearing.

He thought he heard some "bang bang" noises, but Qiao Ze ignored them.

He had no interest in talking to fools, especially those who weren\'t quite lucid.

After he finished his nighttime routine and returned to the room, he unexpectedly found that all three had already climbed into their beds.

That was good.

Qiao Ze turned off the light and, as usual, got into bed, ready to sleep.

Suddenly, a melancholic sigh came from the guy who had been silent on the opposite bed, "Ah... I can\'t sleep. How about we chat?"

"Chat, chat about what?"

"Let\'s talk about Qiao Ze."

"Brother Qiao, have you, have you fallen asleep?"

Qiao Ze kept quiet.

He thought Gu should have asked him if he was dead instead.

Who falls asleep the moment they get into bed?

Unless they\'re a god.

"Looks, looks like he\'s asleep."

"Ah, it\'s painful to be roommates with a prodigy."

"Who\'s, who\'s going to say it isn\'t?"

"I think, he doesn\'t, doesn\'t look as handsome as me."

"Heh, Gu, are you auditioning for something? If you were half as good as him, maybe Su Mucheng would\'ve agreed to have dinner with you."

"What\'s even, even more infuriating is that Brother Qiao can, can understand the professor\'s papers, and he doesn\'t even, doesn\'t even wear glasses. Isn\'t that just too demoralizing?"

Oh, can someone be distressed without wearing glasses?

"Ah... I can\'t even make sense of the question, Qiao, Qiao can solve it in seconds... in seconds! Did I say anything?"

Solve it in seconds?

I clearly took at least fifteen seconds to read the question and needed another ten seconds to think. Gu Zhengliang really knows how to exaggerate.

"By the way, I have something to tell you. I left the teaching building a bit late this noon and ran into Professor Zhu of Mathematical Analysis. He told me to prepare well for this year\'s final exams, saying that to truly test our level, the difficulty of the specialized course exams will likely be much higher than previous years."

Chen Yiwen, who obviously had the best tolerance for alcohol, suddenly spoke in a gloomy tone.

"What? How much more difficult are we talking about?"

"No, why do they suddenly want to do this? Aren\'t the professors already clear about our level? Don\'t they grade the heaps of homework we do every day?"

Huh? These two guys aren\'t stammering anymore?

"The college wants to test our level? When will you guys have some sense of urgency in your hearts?"

"This... damn it..."

"No way, does the college really think they can stump Qiao with the test papers? Have the professors gone mad? How difficult must the questions be? Qiao is a genius who can find flaws in the professors\' papers!"

"The good news is that this year, the regular grades count for forty percent of the total final exam score. Professor Zhu told me that in this year\'s Mathematics Analysis final, there will be 35 points\' worth of questions that are relatively simple, and if we can get all 35 points, we should basically pass. If we lose points on these 35 points, then it\'s all down to luck.

Zhu also said that Su Mucheng and I should be able to score more than 60 points. Don\'t spread this around; it\'s enough that you guys know."

"What does that mean? Does it mean that Zhu has no hope that we can really solve the remaining 40 points\' worth of questions?"

"Can\'t you understand human language? Zhu said that only Chen and the class representative have a chance of scoring 60 points! We\'re the kind that, if we can\'t secure the 35 points, have to rely on luck!"

"Fuck! My morale is shattered!"

The tone is so desolate... could their morale really be shattered?

Unusually, Qiao Ze felt a twinge of guilt.

After all, he requested the questions to be made more difficult, but he didn\'t anticipate it would cause trouble for his classmates.

Fine, I\'ll get a pair of plain glasses to make you feel better, and we\'ll call it even.

Then Qiao Ze suddenly thought of Su Mucheng.

She seemed not to have paid much attention to the videos today.

If the final exam questions are challenging, then I\'ll have to urge her to study seriously tomorrow.

We really can\'t afford to waste time in class anymore.

Sleepiness crept over him, and Qiao Ze closed his eyes!

...

At this moment, Li Jiangao\'s morale was also shattered.

Even though he knew that Qiao Ze was genuinely a genius.

Even though Qiao Ze wanted to be his student.

Even though Qiao Ze insisted on dragging him into this project.

But when it\'s time for morale to break, it breaks!

Who would believe that a paper, written in eight hours, barring the format which might have significant issues due to lack of experience, contained no other errors upon his thrice careful review?

This isn\'t some superficial paper!

It\'s a solid paper with original ideas.

And it\'s eight pages long.

Most importantly, those eight pages are all substance.

No acknowledgments, no citations!

Yes, you read that right, no citations!

All the theorems and lemmas in the article are self-proven.

If there\'s any issue, it\'s probably that the word "obviously" is used a little too frequently.

Many lemmas in the derivations are directly omitted by Qiao Ze, causing some parts where Li Jiangao also can\'t quite follow.

If these contents were expanded and the formatting refined, it would be a top-quality paper.

Submitting it to a prestigious journal shouldn\'t be a problem. If the results stand up to scrutiny, it would be of world-class top journal quality.

And all this was done in eight hours.

Honestly, Li Jiangao was beginning to doubt whether choosing to pursue a PhD was a waste of Huaxia\'s academic resources!

His advisor is tired, he\'s tired too! Why bother?