Chapter 55: Submitting the Exam Early for the First Time

"This exam is closed-book. There are ten major questions and the total duration is three hours. Anyone with bags or mathematics textbooks, please place them on the podium voluntarily."

Following Liu Xinjie's words, everyone complied quite consciously.

Soon, the podium was piled high with belongings.

Once the test papers were handed out to the students, no one dared to waste a single moment. They immediately concentrated on reading the questions and formulating their answers.

Although three hours seemed like a generous amount of time, far exceeding the time limit for the mathematics portion of the national college entrance examination, everyone was well aware of the extreme difficulty of these comprehensive questions. Failing to find the correct problem-solving approach in a timely manner could easily waste a vast amount of time on a single problem.

Ultimately, this would lead to failing to finish the exam.

Xu Ming paid no attention to what others were feeling. After receiving the test paper, he habitually glanced through it before diving straight into the questions. A few seconds later, he was writing down the solution steps in the proof section.

He completely exuded a calm, relaxed, and effortless demeanor.

The first major question was a complex multi-factor polynomial factorization. Under his accelerated calculation speed, the derivation had already been completed entirely in his mind.

There was no need for manual scratchpad calculations, so he naturally progressed through the problem quickly.

After a mere twenty minutes or so, he had already written out the complete proof processes for the subsequent problems involving recursive sequence general term solving and combinatorial identity proofs. It was faster than simply copying from an answer key.

"Coincidentally, a congruence equation problem? That's rather a stroke of luck."

At this point, the fifth question, which involved number theory, drew a little extra attention from Xu Ming. Upon reviewing it, he found that it belonged to the exact same type of elementary number theory as the exercise handout he had seen in the library last night.

Solving it became even more effortless.

While whispering softly to himself, his rollerball pen had already finished writing a full line of formulas.

He only slowed his pace slightly when he reached the final four out-of-syllabus advanced supplementary questions of mathematical analysis.

"Let the function $f(x)$ satisfy $f(x+y) = f(x)f(y)$ on $mathbb{R}$, and suppose there exists a certain point $x_0$ such that $f$..."

"Prove: $f$ must be in the form of an exponential function."

...

After reading through all the problem information, two or three viable proof approaches instantly flashed through Xu Ming's mind.

"A variant of Cauchy's functional equation? That strikes right at the core mindset of analysis."

Muttering to himself, he settled on the precise method and proceeded to deduce the formulas according to his train of thought.

Ultimately, he derived the optimal solution.

He calculated and wrote out the complete, rigorous proof.

To Xu Ming's pleasant surprise, the final climax question actually involved the proof of the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality chain.

What a coincidence this turned out to be.

One had to know that he had previously invested a tremendous amount of effort in this very field.

He had successfully defined a weighted Gram matrix and established and proven a novel inequality for this matrix.

After thoroughly examining the question, he realized he could entirely apply his previous proof approach to solve it, and the efficiency would be two to three times faster than solving the Cauchy functional equation variant above.

As the very final mathematical symbol was penned down by the tip of his pen, Xu Ming immediately stopped writing, straightened his posture, and let out a long, heavy breath.

"Done."

He raised his eyes to check the clock hanging above the blackboard. It was not even six o'clock yet.

Ten complex major questions that were supposed to take a normal person three hours to complete had consumed less than a third of the time in his hands. Even though he was well aware of his own capabilities, a faint trace of joy couldn't help but rise on his face at this moment.

"My performance this time is holding up alright..."

He swept his gaze across the surroundings. Everyone else was still writing furiously, not even daring to spare a moment to look up.

Among them, his desk neighbor and roommate Jiang Xu had a troubled expression frequently crossing his face.

It seemed his answering process was not going very smoothly.

As for Ning Mingjie and Zhu Zhixuan, their brows were knitted tightly together.

Clutching their pens firmly, they hadn't moved them for quite a while.

Faced with the predicament of these few individuals, Xu Ming felt utterly powerless and could only pray they wouldn't end up in the bottom ten percent.

Furthermore,

what a pity it was that Mingming and Su Meng—the two figures highly praised by Jiang Xu—were seated quite far away.

There was no way to clearly observe their situations.

Seeing that there were still more than two hours left before the submission bell, Xu Ming pondered deeply and decided to submit his paper early.

This way, he could go to the library and spend a bit more time there.

After all, unlike the college entrance examination, university exams allowed students to leave the classroom directly once they handed in their papers.

With this thought in mind, he didn't bother to waste any more time. He simply packed up his belongings and immediately raised his hand to signal.

"Senior Brother Liu."

"I would like to submit my paper in advance."

Almost the instant these words echoed through the classroom, it immediately caused quite a few students to look up and stare.

However, the unanimous thought popping into everyone's minds was that Xu Ming must have found the questions too difficult, suffered a mental breakdown, and given up.

Even Jiang Xu and the others sitting beside him were no exception.

Jiang Xu even made a few exaggerated facial expressions and wiggled his brows, as if trying to convey that he should hold on even if he couldn't solve them.

Liu Xinjie was invigilating the exam in his capacity as a teaching assistant. Although sitting at the podium, he hadn't been idle either.

He was currently working on completing the thesis assignment given by his advisor, Zhang Luping.

Hearing Xu Ming's call all of a sudden, he raised his gaze, frowned slightly, and spoke with a slightly admonishing tone.

"I suggest you settle your mind and keep writing."

"Even though the mock exam scores won't be entered into the official system, choosing to give up so quickly is very likely to leave a rather poor impression on the professors."

"There is still plenty of time left before submission."

Xu Ming took in every word of Senior Brother Liu's advice. Naturally, he knew the other party was speaking out of concern for him, but he couldn't just sit there idly wasting time. After all, spending a little over two hours in the library last night had newly gained him nearly twenty points of mathematics discipline experience value.

Thus, he replied once more: "Um... I've already finished answering everything."

If the gazes cast by everyone just a moment ago were merely filled with empathy and a shred of admiration for Xu Ming's daring attitude,

then at this very moment, their facial expressions were utterly dominated by shock.

Their pupils dilated in sheer disbelief.

Especially when they glanced back at their own answering progress, a flood of emotionally complex thoughts surged through their minds.

Even Lu Mingzhe, a gold medalist in the mathematics competition, couldn't help halting his writing, tilting his neck, and glancing sideways toward Xu Ming's location.

He simply couldn't believe that among the incoming freshmen in the School of Mathematics, someone could answer the questions so much faster than he did.

He had to remember that he himself had only barely reached the fifth question.

"How could such deep and complex major questions with massive amounts of calculations be solved in less than an hour?"

"Who is this person?"

Just as the classroom descended into a wave of commotion, Liu Xinjie could no longer remain seated.

He hurriedly stood up and walked down the aisle.

Currently pursuing his master's degree, he had already spent six years in the School of Mathematics. Word of the situation regarding the freshman mock exams always leaked out every year, and while there had been plenty of mathematics competition exempted students who submitted their papers early,

they had always waited at least two hours into the exam.

Yet what had he just heard? Someone had completed all ten major questions in under an hour.

In the blink of an eye, he arrived right beside Xu Ming's desk. Without stopping to converse, he directly picked up the answer sheets and cast his gaze downward to inspect them.

At first, he wondered if the proof approaches were completely flawed.

However, as the step-by-step solutions entered his field of vision, he instantly fell silent, because he couldn't pick out a single flaw whatsoever.

He took a deep breath.

Gazing intently at Xu Ming, he paused for several seconds before finally spitting out a few words.

"You may leave."

With that, he clutched the test paper and rushed back to the podium, immediately plunging into grading with a face full of excitement.