Chapter 21

Because of those multitude of reasons, Wang Zhong would never allow any dishonest practices to be swept underneath his nose. In his mind, opening the back door for an underqualified personnel would do more damage than good.

A population of half a million people was enough to populate a small city, and if any bad problems were to crop up in deep space, it would be rapidly magnified. Humans were instinctively benefit-seeking creatures. So if everyone were to learn from these bad practices at that time and repeatedly sought favors and relied on connections, how were they supposed to build a powerful civilization?

When he thought of that, Wang Zhang said with a chilly indifference, “I’ll give you a set of questions to do. If you manage to impress me, I can help you to see if there are any suitable mentors.”

The hidden meaning behind his words were: If you are incapable, don’t even think about relying on connections!

“Ah?” Zhang Yuan was surprised by the sudden test.

“I’ll give you a set of math questions. After all, Math is universal regardless of what profession you are in.”

Zhang Yuan had the urge to scratch his head as he found the whole situation baffling. He only came here to pay a visit to his father’s mentor and describe his future plans. Why did he have to do a test all of a sudden?

But… it doesn’t really matter. He would just humor the elder.

“Little Xu, go and prepare a set of test papers for him. I’ve already emailed it to you.” Wang Zhong ordered.

“I understand… You follow me.”

Zhang Yuan followed behind the senior and he was promptly given three sets of test papers about three different topics, namely: Elementary Algebraic Geometry, Lie Algebra, Modular Forms and Number Theory.

Obviously, Xu Yunjing was unaware of her mentor’s grand plan. As such, she was blissfully unaware of what her mentor’s had planned for this junior in front of her.

She smiled and consoled Zhang Yuan. “Professor Zhang’s personality is like that. Don’t take it to heart. He has a bad temper—even more so now that he is getting on in his years. His train of thoughts becomes very erratic and normal people cannot keep up with him. Perhaps he just wants to check how firm is your mathematical foundation.”

Zhang Yuan nodded and hugged the pile of test papers.

Xu Yunjing added, “But in regards to talented youngsters, Professor Zhang has always done his best to try to pass every bit of knowledge he has in his brain to them. In any case, he is a good mentor and dislikes people who muddle in their way.”

‘Wait a minute, is she implying I’m muddle-headed?’

However, when Xu Yunjing saw the test papers that were printed out, her face turned blue, ‘Aren’t these… my test papers?’

She was a postgraduate student for goodness sake and she nearly flunked these papers. How could Professor Wang give this set of papers to an undergraduate?

She nearly failed not because of her lack of hard work or prep, but it was because Professor Wang’s expectations were too high.

Particularly in the abnormally difficult Elementary Algebraic Geometry.

You might be asking—what was ‘elementary’ about it?

It was simple stuff like telling you 1+1=2, following that it would be quadrature ∫{[arctan(x]/(1+x^2)^2}dx…

In summary, it was similar to reading a book of algebra for normal people.

“Attempt what you can first, I’ll check something for you. These test papers… are a little strange.” Xu Yunjing felt apologetic for this junior of hers and left in a hurry.

However, when she arrived at Wang Zhong’s office, she saw him talking on the phone with a stern expression.

Following which, Wang Zhong looked up and said, “Follow me to a meeting!”

“Oh, okay!”

When she saw his serious expression, Xu Yunjing immediately became flustered, forgetting what she had come here for in the first place.

…

The meeting lasted for an entire afternoon, leaving Zhang Yuan behind to rack his brains inside a small room.

The loads of difficult questions were just like rows of steep mountains in which the process of climbing was very difficult, but the scenery at the mountain peak was breathtaking.

He was happily absorbed in solving those questions that he forgot all about dinner.

…

At eight o’clock in the evening, Wang Zhong and Xu Yunjing finally returned to the office.

Wang Zhong sighed and said, “The foundation has to prepare for a rainy day. Even though we don’t lack funds right now, it might not be the case in the future. It would also be good if those astronauts could contribute their remaining assets to us. Sigh, it’s also good in a sense that humans need to be forced to be productive…”

“If everyone were to donate 10,000 federal dollars each, it would be 5 billion federal dollars with half a million people…”

Wang Zhong felt sad for a moment. He was a retired scientist, and yet he had to care about financial issues. What did his life’s work amount to?

“Go and open the door.”

“Oh, okay!”

Professor Wang was a very careful and mindful person. He would habitually keep the door open whenever there was a female student in his office. His explanation for that was, such actions could reduce those unnecessary gossip, even though it was impossible for any such gossip to be true when he was already in his eighties.

“Forget it, you can return first and have an early rest. It will be good to avoid taking part in such activities in the future. It is meaningless other than to waste our spit in a fruitless quarrel. If we should instead use the time to read more theses.

Xu Yunjing also released a deep sigh and organized the meeting materials.

Wait a minute, she seemed to have forgotten something!

‘Oh gosh! My pitiful junior… I’ve let you down as your senior.’

‘I’m finished!’

“Professor Wang, erm…” Xu Yunjing coughed embarrassingly and mentioned about Zhang Yuan who was still doing the test papers. However, she did not dare to mention anything about postgraduate mathematics test paper lest she had to bear the brunt of his anger.

“It’s already been so long, and he hasn’t finished them? It’s just three sets of math papers.”

Wang Zhong snorted and squinted his eyes. He was already in a bad mood and when he recalled Zhang Yuan’s earlier behaviour, he became increasingly dissatisfied. “Call him over.”

Internally, he was thinking that if Zhang Yuan had only managed to get aboard the spaceship due to his father’s name, he needed to carefully vet him.

It did not matter even if he was Zhang Qiming’s son. Those who were underqualified had to scram!

Xi Yunjing walked into the small classroom and softly asked, “Erm, junior… are you done with the test papers?”

“I just finished them.” Zhang Yuan was slightly embarrassed. Based on the fact that each paper was given two hours to finish, he had greatly exceeded the time limit.

‘You’re done? I bet you casually wrote the answers?’

Xu Yunjing curiously peeked at his papers.

His words were neat, the format was also considered normal, and the answers seemed to be not written at random…

‘Eh? He managed to solve the first few questions. He’s pretty good…’

Postgraduate education was no longer at the same level as undergraduate education; it also was when they started cultivating their scientific research ability. The math papers were all created by professors themselves and they were all proof equations without any multiple choice options. If you know the solution, it meant you could answer them and if you didn’t know, there were no multiple choice options available for you to choose from.

When she took a few glances, Xu Yunjing started sweating.

“Senior… erm, senior? What’s wrong?”

“Ah, it’s nothing.”

What were all these that he wrote?

Why couldn’t she understand them?

Xu Yunjing entered the office with a head full of question marks and carefully passed the papers to Professor Wang.

Wang Zhong frowned, wore his presbyopia glasses, and reviewed the paper with a strict attitude.

He had a habit when setting papers to use the first few questions to test the student’s basic knowledge.

If they cannot solve them, then apologies to them and he or she can get lost! If you can’t even solve these basic questions, then what have you studied? It would be better to withdraw from school as soon as possible and stop wasting everyone’s time.

The questions in the middle portion of the paper were all of medium difficulty and if the student could not solve them, well, sorry about that. Your foundation was lacking and it was highly likely that you didn’t have any talent in scientific research. On the bright side, you could just stay as a lab assistant.

It’s just a master’s degree, and if you can graduate, I’ll let you graduate. If you can’t, please scram.

The last few questions were more difficult and his true pupils must know how to solve them. Otherwise, he would be very disappointed and they would receive a scolding right in their faces.

After all, they were his pupils—students who had the hopes of getting a doctorate.

As for the final question, the difficulty level was set at an abnormal level.

Be it a genius or a god of studying, they better lay down. The intention behind this question was to let them be in awe of knowledge!

In the professor’s point of view, scientific research was much more difficult than solving a bunch of preset questions. At the very least, there was a solution to mathematical problems. Using something someone had already invented and inventing something completely new were two different concepts. Scientific research was similar to fishing a needle in a haystack, requiring both hardwork and talent.

Wang Zhong glanced through the papers and noticed that the first few simple questions were correctly answered.

…