Chapter 278: She Could Solve It
Tan Mo nodded and said, “Understood.”
Afterward, Ming Yeqing didn’t pay any attention to her anymore.
He went back to his study team to continue doing homework.
Tan Mo looked around the room, and there wasn’t really much to see. So, out of boredom, she went to look at the problem that Professor Yue had left for his students to work on.
Somehow, word got out that Tan Mo was visiting the cla.s.s. When students from other cla.s.ses heard that Tan Mo was in the building, a lot of them drifted over to get a look at her.
Right now at Beijing University, Tan Mo was considered a famous person.
Normally, she stayed around the Finance Department, the History Department, and the Language Department.
She didn’t come over here very often. So most of the students here have heard of her, but they’ve never seen her in person.
Knowing that she was here, out of curiosity, they all came to get a look at her.
In small groups, more and more students arrived. Soon, there was a small crowd.
Although Tan Mo was bored while she waited for Ming Yeqing, her attention was soon caught by the problem that Professor Yue had left on the blackboard. She became completely focused on it as a small crowd gathered around her.
Tan Mo hadn’t noticed as more students continued arriving. She was focused on the problem on the blackboard.
Tan Mo had moved the small blackboard closer to herself a bit so she could turn and look at it as she was writing on a whiteboard.
She was holding a marker and was about to write something on the board.
Among the crowd of students who had come to observe her, someone asked, “Didn’t Professor Yue leave that problem here?”
“Yes. Professor Yue left a problem for all his cla.s.ses to solve. He said that it is extra homework, and he wanted to see if anyone could solve it. When someone solves it, he will erase it from the board.”
“I’ve heard that Tan Mo is an expert in language and history. So what now? She wants to start involving herself in activities from our department too?”
“Our school is unlike language and history. It is way harder than simple memorization,” someone else said.
Tan Mo didn’t react to any of the voices around her. She started writing on the board.
“Yeqing,” a student who was in the same study group as Yeqing called out to him, motioning toward Tan Mo.
Yeqing turned and glanced at her and then turned back nonchalantly. “It’s fine. Let her try, and maybe she will actually be able to solve it.”
“Are you for real?” The student was astonished and continued, “The problem that Professor Yue left for us is extremely difficult. Yeqing, how much of the problem have you done so far?”
“About three-quarters of it. Today I’ll need to do more calculations at home, and then I’ll be about finished.” Ming Yeqing was considered the cla.s.s genius.
Hearing what he’d said, they all gave him with an astonished look. It was true that they were a bit envious, but they were more impressed than anything else.
“Can Tan Mo actually solve the problem?” someone in the study group asked quietly.
Ming Yeqing laughed and said, “I think so. But since she is focused on studying finance, history, and language right now, I am not too sure at what level of expertise she is at what we do. Back in high school, when we were choosing the paths of STEM or humanities, she was actually good at both. She would always get perfect scores for her STEM cla.s.ses, but in the end, she chose to go down the humanities route, because she is more interested in it.”
The truth was actually that Tan Mo was too lazy to do STEM. Ming Yeqing knew it in his heart, but he didn’t say it to anyone else.
Otherwise Tan Mo would be embarra.s.sed.
“So what if she got perfect scores?” someone said. “That was back in high school. The material from back then was so much easier. It was just the basics, but the stuff we are learning right now is extremely complicated. Even if she was good at the stuff in high school, it doesn’t mean she can do this well.”
“Yeqing, you should warn her… Maybe she doesn’t know the problem’s level of difficulty. If she gets stuck up there after writing down a couple of lines, she will be embarra.s.sed because everyone there is looking at her.”
“You could think about it another way… If she actually solves the problem, aren’t we the ones who should be embarra.s.sed?” Ming Yeqing laughed and said, “She is from the Finance Department, so we should be the actual professionals.”
“That’s just not possible. This problem even took you three days to solve. I’ve already been working on it for an entire week,” one of the students said. “The content is a.s.sociated with so many high-level functions that were never taught in high school. You also have to consider the errors involved when actually solving the problem. You have to go through the calculations over and over again to get the right answer. Even if she is a genius, and even if she knows the subject well, she still wouldn’t be able to solve it right here, right now, and correctly.”
“Mapping out the problem alone took us long enough, and there were many complex calculations needed just to figure out the right way to solve the problem. A single whiteboard isn’t even enough to write on.”
Ming Yeqing’s cla.s.smates spoke with some diplomacy, because they were familiar with Ming Yeqing and they knew he was friends with Tan Mo.
Although they also thought that Tan Mo wouldn’t be able to solve the problem and would embarra.s.s herself, out of consideration for Ming Yeqing, they didn’t actually say anything harsh.
But students from the other cla.s.ses had no such consideration.
A voice rang out from the crowd, “Tan Mo may be good at stuff like language and history, but that has nothing to do with aeros.p.a.ce engineering. She is actually trying to solve Professor Yue’s problem? What a joke.”
…
Yuan Keqing and her cla.s.smates were being taken by their school to Beijing University today for a tour, because their teachers wanted them to feel the studious atmosphere of Beijing University and thus be motivated to study harder and to do well on their high school leaving exams in order to get into Beijing University.
The high school seniors were being led by their teachers and a student amba.s.sador from Beijing University. The student amba.s.sador was taking them around campus and giving them lots of information and they were taking many paths all around the campus.
It seemed such a coincidence that they had now run into Ming Yeqing and all the other students in his cla.s.sroom at the moment..
Since they’ve come on campus today, they’ve already heard Tan Mo’s name more than once.
They had asked casually and had expected a brief overview of who Tan Mo was, but the student amba.s.sador obviously had a lot of good things to say about Tan Mo.
The student amba.s.sador went through all of Tan Mo’s achievements with familiarity and a proud look on her face.
And all Yuan Keqing’s cla.s.smates were obviously impressed. Every time the student amba.s.sador said something, a low murmur of astonishment would go through the group of students.
Yuan Keqing thought it was all silly.
She thought to herself that they should act with more composure, being the children of famous entrepreneurs and financiers.
They were acting like a bunch of idiots. Every time they heard a small achievement of Tan Mo’s, they expressed astonishment like they’d never heard anything better.
‘What an embarra.s.sment,’ she thought to herself.
While on the tour, Yuan Keqing was so sick of Tan Mo’s name.
“Oh, right, Keqing, I remember that you’ve talked about Tan Mo before. Isn’t she your cousin?” one of her cla.s.smates asked.
“Um, yes,” Yuan Keqing said with reluctance.
Immediately, the students exclaimed with astonishment.
“What? You are Tan Mo’s cousin?” they asked.
Even the student amba.s.sador from Beijing University noticed and asked with interest, “You really are Tan Mo’s cousin?”
Suddenly, everyone was noticing her because of Tan Mo.
Yuan Keqing hated that feeling.
She’d lived in the shadow of Tan Mo for too long. Tan Mo had stolen all the spotlight and all the admiration.
It seemed like they were all looking through her in an attempt to find Tan Mo’s shadow.
Suddenly Yuan Keqing remembered something that had happened when she was just six years old.
At that time, it was all just the same as now. Everyone could only see Tan Mo, and no one saw her.
It was as if she didn’t exist except as an offshoot to Tan Mo, a mere addition to her side.