He made a few rounds around the classroom and finally stopped beside Jiang Chan. Watching her solve the problem step by step, the competition teacher grew more and more pleased the longer he looked.
“Have you done competition problems before?” Teacher Zhang really could not hold it in anymore and asked in a low voice.
Jiang Chan’s pen paused. “No. I’ve just read some university textbooks that other people donated.”
Teacher Zhang nodded. “Stay behind after class. I have a set of teaching materials and the recent test papers. Over the next few weeks, read as much as you can.”
This was exactly like having someone deliver a pillow when she was drowsy. It even saved Jiang Chan the money and time she would have spent hunting down materials herself. Seeing Jiang Chan continue working on the problem, Teacher Zhang returned to the podium with light steps.
From the looks of it, City High had gained another promising seed for competitions. Of course, she was only in first year right now. This was just letting her try the waters. The real golden period would be second year.
By then, after a period of training, Jiang Chan’s performance would surely be even more eye catching.
The same thing happened in the biology competition class. Jiang Chan successfully earned plenty of goodwill from the biology competition teacher. By the time she returned to the dorm that evening, she was already holding two thick competition textbooks in her arms.
Jiang Chan did not rush to start doing practice papers. Instead, she planned to thoroughly familiarize herself with these textbooks first. When she worked on competition problems that night, she did feel some difficulty. Although she eventually worked through them step by step, it was not easy.
However, after revisiting those problems while studying the textbooks, Jiang Chan suddenly experienced moments of clarity. So this problem could be solved this way. This method was much simpler than the one she had used.
Her mental strength was now extremely strong, almost reaching the level of so called photographic memory. Still, a good memory alone was not enough. She needed to truly digest and integrate the knowledge.
Fortunately, Jiang Chan could calm her mind and was intelligent enough. After two weeks, she had already begun to show signs of surpassing the other students in both the physics and biology competition classes.
This caused tremendous pressure for many students, especially those in second year. Comparing people really could drive one mad. They had previously been glad they would not encounter a towering figure like Jiang Chan. Who knew reality would slap them in the face so quickly?
This was a girl who had never even been exposed to competitions before. How were they, who had studied for two years, supposed to feel? Did monsters like this really exist in the world? Others worked hard for two years and still could not compare to her two weeks.
Compared to the overwhelming pressure felt by the students, the teachers were delighted beyond measure. As soon as Jiang Chan showed her talent in physics and biology, the teachers from the math and chemistry competition classes had already set their sights on her.
The physics and biology teachers immediately felt as if facing a great enemy. They were counting on Jiang Chan to bring honor to the school in second year. What were these two doing trying to interfere?
Although they were optimistic about Jiang Chan, they only believed her learning ability was strong. They did not think she could achieve good results in this year’s physics and biology competitions. After all, she had only been exposed to competitions for a mere two weeks.
Their greater hope was that Jiang Chan could at least reach the provincial level this time. As for anything else, they would wait until next year. To put it plainly, this year was just about gaining experience.
One week later, the preliminary rounds for physics and biology arrived, both conveniently scheduled on the weekend, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Jiang Chan entered the exam room holding her admission ticket and fountain pen.
Nowadays, not many people used fountain pens anymore, but Jiang Chan had grown fond of the feeling of using one. Compared to gel pens on the market, she still preferred fountain pens.
After receiving the preliminary exam paper, Jiang Chan first skimmed through it. Seeing that there were no particularly extreme problems, she settled down and answered the questions at an unhurried pace.
All the way through the paper, Jiang Chan felt everything went smoothly and did not feel anything special. That made sense. Preliminary rounds were usually not too difficult. The real increase in difficulty came during the semifinals.
Of course, that was only Jiang Chan’s personal perspective. She was like someone who was well fed and did not understand hunger. She had no idea that the other competitors were already cursing furiously in their hearts. Such a difficult paper was simply insane.
The invigilator in Jiang Chan’s exam room was also a physics competition teacher. Amid an entire room full of students scratching their heads, Jiang Chan’s calmness and flowing movements stood out sharply.
The teacher did not think Jiang Chan was just scribbling nonsense. Could this be a dark horse emerging this year? Taking advantage of his patrol, the invigilator stopped beside Jiang Chan.
Seeing that Jiang Chan’s solution steps were written very clearly and that there were no errors at all, he could not help but show a look of surprise.
A teasing smile curved at his lips. When he noticed Jiang Chan’s school, he sighed inwardly. It seemed City High was going to make quite a splash this time.
The afternoon biology preliminary went much the same way. Jiang Chan left the exam feeling completely relaxed. She came out holding her admission ticket and stationery, and the competition teacher immediately went up to her, first pulling over the students who usually performed well.
“How was the preliminary this time? Compared to previous years, was it difficult?”
The boy who was pulled over wore a bitter expression. “Way too hard. I didn’t finish the last two big biology questions. There really wasn’t enough time.”
Jiang Chan looked at his miserable face, then glanced around. Everyone else looked equally distressed. Only then did she wonder if her sense of difficulty was off. But she truly felt it was not that hard. Some parts took a few twists, but in the end it all followed the same principles.
Seeing Jiang Chan remain silent, the biology teacher asked her, “Jiang Chan, what do you think?”
Jiang Chan answered honestly. “It was okay. It wasn’t really that difficult.”
As soon as she said that, the people around her let out even more wails of despair. Some were dismissive, believing that Jiang Chan had only studied for a few weeks and had no right to speak so boldly.
The biology teacher also assumed Jiang Chan simply did not understand the true difficulty of the paper and was speaking casually. He lightly changed the subject and moved on. Little did he know that some attentive listeners took Jiang Chan’s words to heart and spread them widely afterward.
Of course, Jiang Chan knew nothing about this. Among the students participating in the preliminaries, there were only five or six first year students. Many more had chosen to participate in math and chemistry instead, since those were more reliable options.
After leaving the exam room, Sun Xi stood off to the side the entire time. He had clearly heard what Jiang Chan said. He stopped beside her.
“What answer did you get for the last physics question?”
“I calculated…” Jiang Chan gave a number.
Sun Xi nodded. He had not managed to solve the last few major physics questions, and the official answers had not yet been released. Even so, he felt an odd certainty that Jiang Chan’s answer was correct.
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