Chapter 92

It wasn't until the second day that Chu Tingwu and the others found out that the sailboat had capsized because it had collided with another boat at sea.

Sailboat racing is not just about "speed," as it involves using techniques to differentiate rankings. The racing route includes areas with tailwinds, headwinds, and requires rounding buoys and staying within boundaries. Additionally, when two boats meet, there are detailed rules about which boat needs to yield.

Last night, two boats were practicing at sea, but a mistake during the yielding maneuver caused the collision. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

For now, they couldn't worry about the sailboats... because classes had already begun.

Teacher Fu, perhaps to cultivate a sense of competition among the students, had them form four-person teams during the first class, starting with a round of quiz competitions.

This involved a "hot seat" style of answering questions, where correct answers earned points and wrong answers deducted points. The scores would be tallied daily, and the top three teams would receive additional vacation time and greater freedom in the training camp.

What made it interesting was that team members could be swapped.

Each member of a team could invite someone from another team to join, but since the total number of students remained the same, someone from their own team would have to leave. When team members changed, the scores wouldn't be directly divided by four; instead, the points would remain tied to the team.

Therefore, lower-ranked teams had to persuade higher-ranked team members to join them.

When it came time to form teams, Chu Tingwu and her three teammates naturally grouped together, as if it were a given, and none of them considered looking for other members.

Chu Xiao was elected team leader.

The leader had to write the names of the four team members on a piece of paper and submit it to Teacher Fu. Chu Xiao's handwriting was the best.

But as Chu Xiao was writing the names, someone walked over from across the classroom and asked him to join their team: "We all won first prizes in the October competition. Your score is a bit higher than mine, so I think we'd be a good fit."

Chu Xiao: "No thanks."

Chu Xiao: "Why would I join a team with people who scored lower than me?"

The other person frowned: "Are your current teammates that strong?"

He only recognized Zhou Qiang; the other two didn't seem to have made any impression in any competitions.

Chu Xiao finished writing the names: "Being the top team in the winter camp doesn't necessarily mean you'll make the national team."

The other person probably thought Chu Xiao was implying that even if he worked hard, it wouldn't matter, since Chu Xiao had represented the national team in other competitions. He stormed off in a huff.

Shao Lingwu: "Huh?"

Chu Xiao: "What's he so mad about? The real selection hasn't even started yet."

This was a probabilistic event. If the probability of absolute success wasn't 100%, then the probability of failure wasn't 0.

Chu Xiao submitted the list and received the team number "11."

Since ​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌​​​​​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌​​​‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌​​​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌​​​​‌‌​‌​‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​​​​​​‌‌​​‌‌​‌‌​​​‌‌​‌‌​​‌​‌‍each of them had been issued a smart bracelet by the winter camp, the team number would appear directly after their names when they scanned their bracelets to enter the classroom. It was quite convenient.

However, Chu Tingwu noticed that they were originally supposed to be the ninth team to submit, but Chu Xiao deliberately waited a bit and submitted as the eleventh team.

She wrote down the number "11" on the paper, with two perfectly parallel vertical lines.

Chu Xiao nodded.

Yes, it was symmetrical.

He felt he had found the right teammates!

Teacher Fu had only given them fifteen minutes to form teams. By the time the process was over, half an hour of the first class had already passed, and many students hadn't even had time to get to know each other. However, Teacher Fu glanced around.

There were quite a few strong teams he recognized.

Most students didn't know each other, so they simply teamed up with people they were familiar with. Being familiar often meant they had met in inter-provincial competitions and left an impression.

This resulted in many of the stronger students forming teams together at the start, while the remaining students scrambled to find decent partners within the fifteen-minute limit. Those left at the end had no choice but to team up.

Since the class had sixty-seven students, one person was left out. The last team consisted of three people. When they sat down in confusion, Teacher Fu said, "Your team's score will be adjusted proportionally."

Since they were relatively weaker, adjusting the score proportionally would motivate the lower-performing students. Besides, fewer people didn't necessarily mean a disadvantage.

After the teams were formed, Teacher Fu quickly revealed the second rule:

"Every morning, there will be a half-hour hot seat session to wake you up. After all, you're just out of bed, so it's a good time to play a quick quiz to get your brain working."

"When I say 'Please answer,' stand up and give your answer immediately. The first person to answer gets the point. However, if two people from the same team stand up at the same time, the team gets no points."

The students looked at each other, puzzled. Someone stood up and asked, "If we all know the answer and it's correct, why can't we get the point?"

Teacher Fu: "You could... but if you stand up and give different answers, you'll lose all your historical points."

The student was speechless and sat back down.

Alright, it was just about fostering teamwork, forcing them to communicate, and increasing their understanding of each other.

Teacher Fu: "You knew that, so why ask?"

He ignored such attempts at cleverness and continued, "Each day, the questions you answer in class and the experiments you do will be given a comprehensive score, which will be added to your total. However, these points will generally be lower than the hot seat points. Don't put too much pressure on yourselves; the hot seat is just a game. Falling behind won't have a huge impact."

The students didn't quite believe him.

But Teacher Fu didn't give them time to discuss and knocked on the table, signaling that the hot seat could begin.

Still, they had to discuss their strategy.

Chu Xiao: "I'll stand up and answer the questions I'm sure about. For the ones I'm not confident about, you guys can step in."

After all, he didn't know the levels of his teammates yet, so it was better for him, as the "leader," to take on more of the responsibility.

In fact, Teacher Fu hadn't even mentioned the existence of a "leader." Everyone just saw that Chu Xiao had nice handwriting and tricked him into submitting the list.

...Essentially, he was just doing errands.

...But it was pretty much the same as being a leader, wasn't it?

A faint sense of guilt lingered in the hearts of the three, though only Shao Lingwu's face showed it. The other two were as calm as ever, showing no signs of emotion.

The hot seat began.

The biology competition covered several detailed subjects, with a lot of content that needed to be memorized. So, for those with good memories, the early questions weren't too difficult, and different teams managed to grab some points.

From the next team:

"Why didn't you let me answer that one? We were supposed to take turns."

"I got a bit nervous and forgot... sorry."

"How could you get that one wrong? I'm worried about your level—"

"I was too hasty and misread the question! I knew the answer, I really did!"

But soon, fewer people were claiming they "knew the answer." The questions were getting harder, and the early ones were clearly just a warm-up, giving everyone a taste of success before Teacher Fu threw them a curveball.

Chu Xiao, however, remained steady.

He kept scoring points, and the only difference between his team and the other top teams seemed to be whether he could stand up first.

Chu Tingwu watched from the side, assessing her own level.

She could answer some of the questions, though she might not think as quickly as others, but her answers were correct.

There were a few questions, however, that she didn't even understand the wording of.

The system tried to comfort her: "It's normal. You just haven't learned it yet."n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Did that kind of comfort even help?

Compared to humans, who tended to forget things, the system didn't have a "forgetting" function. So, it knew every bit of progress the child made.

After arriving at the winter camp, it scanned through all the study materials prepared by the camp, then compared them with previous years' questions and determined the camp's teaching objectives, noting:

"Some questions have already exceeded the exam difficulty level."

They were completely outside the exam scope, which is why some people were already showing bewildered expressions of "I can't even understand the questions."

Chu Tingwu couldn't understand them either, so she watched Zhou Qiang and Shao Lingwu play Gomoku.

Every time they looked at a question, they would place a piece, effectively multitasking while playing intensely—

Zhou Qiang: "I connected my pieces."

Shao Lingwu: "What? Weren't we playing Go?"

What exactly were they being intense about?

Chu Tingwu reached out and arranged the white and black pieces on the board to make a little house.

Zhou Qiang added a chimney to the house.

Shao Lingwu arranged pieces to make a spotted dog in front of the house.

Chu Xiao: "=="

When the next question appeared on the screen, no one stood up immediately. The team that had been eyeing them from the diagonal front brightened up and was about to stand, but hesitated and sat back down.

Shao Lingwu stood up and gave the answer.

Then he quickly sat down, covering his spotted dog, and whispered to Chu Xiao faster than his answer speed: "Is it the dog's fault that it's black and white? Why don't you go eliminate pandas instead—"

Yet they came to eliminate his dog!

Chu Xiao ῳ*Ɩ: Then it's the creator's fault—yours!

The screen displayed the additional points, and Chu Xiao's team temporarily took first place.

Zhou Qiang commented: "...your reaction speed was too slow before."

They missed opportunities to score more points on the simple questions.

So, even though Chu Xiao only got stuck on one question, he still lost valuable opportunities to earn points for the team—that's what Zhou Qiang said.

Now it was her turn to play Gomoku with Chu Xiao, while Shao Lingwu was sent to answer questions.

When Shao Lingwu got stuck on a question, the opportunity went to Zhou Qiang's side.

Other teams had noticed—

Unlike groups that divided tasks based on strengths and weaknesses, and only stood up to answer when it was their specialty, Team 11 used a rotation system. It seemed like they had no weak areas at all; if someone couldn't answer a question, they would simply switch to another team member.

Chu Tingwu, who hadn't stood up once: "..."

Don't look at her; there were some questions she genuinely hadn't studied before.

She observed both the Gomoku game and the quick-answer competition until the final question, which was about animal behavior. According to the system, it was a new question added recently, based on a newly published research paper. Zhou Qiang showed an uncertain expression.

Another group stood up and quickly gave their answer.

Teacher Fu: "Incorrect."

They lost points.

Chu Tingwu: "=="

It seemed that both from the question type and the "order" (why did they have this order?), it was her turn to answer, so she stood up ordinarily and gave the answer ordinarily—by then, the Gomoku game had also reached its conclusion.

Shao Lingwu: "I connected my pieces!"

Chu Xiao: "Weren't we playing Reversi?"

He was just about to flip the pieces.

Teacher Fu waved his hand: "Alright, the warm-up is complete. Everyone take a five-minute break, and I'll start the lecture afterward."

The classroom filled with quiet conversations, and some people stood up to stretch. No one showed any signs of drowsiness; instead, there was barely contained excitement... Although the final scores had no real impact on their studies, the teams with lower scores still showed disappointed and regretful expressions.

Teacher Fu observed their expressions carefully, actually evaluating the students' psychological states. Then he noticed someone from the currently second-placed team walking up to Chu Tingwu and her group.

They directly asked Chu Tingwu: "That last question was so obscure. Where did you see the answer?"

Chu Tingwu: "That question came from the reference section of a paper."

The person pondered thoughtfully: It seems they hadn't read enough papers...

Chu Tingwu: "Although I didn't write that paper, I think I'm the second author."

The person: "?"

Chu Tingwu shrugged.

While White's paper did use Chu Tingwu's data, it indeed had no practical connection to her... but it did to the system.

—Because Chu Tingwu's name was on the paper, the system had printed it out and framed it on the wall of her study.