Study Monster Cultivation System
Chapter 246 - 245 The best way to break up a fight!

Facing Lin Yujing’s provocations, Li Zheng simply smiled.

How could his current realm be understood by such a child?

Her thinking was still confined to taking shortcuts, looking for the simplest solutions.

Although her talent was exceptional, that was still just the first layer—

Using formulas.

The second layer was to forget the formulas.

Letting thoughts wander freely between graphs and equations, solving problems gracefully.

Maybe Lin Yujing, through dedicated practice, had touched upon this layer.

But that didn’t matter.

Because Li Zheng was already on the third layer.

After nearly a thousand hours of struggle, he had woven math and physics into a vast net.

In this network of mathematics and physics, he could shuttle to any point like electricity.

The heavy sword does not need sharpness, and without a sword, there are no techniques.

This was the equivalent of winning without moves in the world of mathematics and physics—

Winning without formulas over winning with formulas.

This realm was a lonely one.

Because it couldn’t be described, others couldn’t understand it.

Li Zheng watched Lin Yujing, who strutted proudly ahead, and felt a sense of loneliness himself.

But from this loneliness emerged a tinge of envy.

The pride of students, the recklessness of a young girl.

So naive, so blissfully unaware of their own limits.

How wonderful, how blissful.

Watching Li Zheng’s smile, like that of an indulgent father, Lin Yujing felt nauseated.

"Brainwashed by training camp, huh..." Lin Yujing shook her head and walked straight to her seat, taking out the traditional space pen case and water bottle at a leisurely pace, "Now, I can understand Gu Jianfeng’s words."

Li Zheng’s brows tightened: "What did he say again?"

"Nothing." Lin Yujing squinted at Li Zheng, waved her hand nonchalantly, "You wouldn’t understand anyway, scrub."

"Heh." Li Zheng was not upset, he too waved his hand casually, "Childish prattle, that’s all."

The two turned their heads away from each other, entering a state of mutual disregard.

This state lasted until the third period, biology class.

In accordance with his agreement with Zhu Hongbo, this was the time to go to the mathematics research group for a math class.

Both of them were silent all the way until they got to the office, continuing to ignore each other.

Zhu Hongbo, crafty and calculating as ever, knew better than to meddle in the affairs of these... two students.

So he didn’t say much, but instead directly asked about their progress this week.

Li Zheng replied steadily, "I’ve made some progress in math."

Lin Yujing replied even more confidently, "I don’t see the ceiling anymore."

Li Zheng laughed aloud, "I’ve never seen someone so shameless."

Lin Yujing’s eyes were sharp as knives, "A defeated opponent, daring to bark so loudly in the math office!"

Li Zheng’s eyes narrowed, "Be clear about who is the defeated one."

Lin Yujing counted on her fingers, "Whoever has lost more is the one."

"Okay, okay," Zhu Hongbo was already laughing uncontrollably, "Is this petty matter really something to fight about?"

"Teacher Zhu, it’s not a fight." Li Zheng turned his head, "It’s just that now, in terms of mathematics, I’m afraid it will be hard for me to find common ground with Lin Yujing."

"Not Now," Lin Yujing chuckled and waved her hand, "Never."

"Good." Li Zheng’s face turned stern, "I didn’t want to argue with you, but this is bullying. Now, you’ve successfully provoked me."

After saying that, he turned to Zhu Hongbo, "Bring on a real math problem, Teacher Zhu."

"Ah..." Zhu Hongbo hesitated, "There’s no need, let it go... Forgive my bluntness, Li Zheng, you certainly have potential, but to truly surpass Lin Yujing, especially in the field of top-level problems, you still have a long way to go."

Lin Yujing nodded in agreement, fully convinced.

"Enough," Li Zheng waved his arm, pulled out his pencil case and scratch paper, "Just right, let’s also reassess my math ability."

"" Zhu Hongbo glanced at Lin Yujing, and after she winked mischievously, he said with resignation, "Since you insist, I will give you a problem. But I must say this first, I can’t stand you two causing such disturbances every other day. Just this once, the one with the higher score is the winner, and we won’t have this kind of competition anymore."

"Decided by a single blow, just as I wish."

"Hmm!"

Watching the antics of the two, Zhu Hongbo also smiled.

The pride of students, the recklessness of a young girl.

So naive, so blissfully unaware of their own limits.

How enviable.

But.

Thinking you can handle the math problems of a physical competition and assuming it means you are strong in math?

That’s not even the start.

Spouting "real math" so easily.

You people who have no reverence for mathematics.

It’s about time for a proper lesson.

Zhu Hongbo didn’t bother looking through problem sets, instead, he simply raised his hand, "Just one problem, the question is very simple, I’ll say it, and you just write it down."

Li Zheng instantly picked up his pen.

Lin Yujing also hurriedly pulled over a chair, slapped a notebook onto the table, and prepared to take notes.

"I will only say this once, please listen to the question," Zhu Hongbo declared—

[Please determine whether there exists a positive integer n that satisfies the following conditions:]

[n is exactly divisible by 2000 distinct prime numbers.]

[And 2 to the power of n, plus one, is divisible by n.]

Zhu Hongbo paused after speaking, seeing that both of them were staring blankly at the problem they had just written down, he burst into laughter.

"Just like that, there’s no need to force yourself to solve it," Zhu Hongbo said, glancing at the wall clock, "It’s five minutes to 10 now; I’ll give you two hours until noon. You can give up halfway, and I will explain the thought process."

With that, he pulled over two large stacks of papers and started grading homework.

On the other side, Lin Yujing and Li Zheng almost simultaneously stole glances at each other.

After catching each other’s furtive looks, they simultaneously panicked and hurriedly lowered their heads to look at their own papers.

And they felt a bit more at ease—

[Good, she (he) is also clueless.]

Since the other was also bamboozled, the panic subsided.

Li Zheng reviewed the question again.

Good, these kinds of questions that don’t rely on formulas and theorems, aren’t they his strength?

The net of mathematics and logic, spread out!

Mathematical Brain, activate!

No technique is better than technique!

5 minutes later.

Li Zheng’s head was smoking, and he had crashed.

To hell with the Mathematical Brain.

To hell with the net of mathematics and logic.

What the heck is this.

What kind of crap question is this...

Prove your sister-in-law, prove.

It’s not just about having no idea whatsoever.

He didn’t even have an idea about how to think of an idea.

All the problems he had encountered and the questions he had done were unrelated to this one.

Such inexplicable things should be called "XXXX conjecture," right?

Even if Gu Jianfeng were here, he probably wouldn’t stand a chance, right?

Maybe Jie Qifen would have a shot.

Li Zheng couldn’t help but take another peek at Lin Yujing.

Holy crap!

She was furiously writing!

At that moment, Li Zheng panicked.

Could it be... she wasn’t on the first layer?

But on the fourth, the fifth?

That’s impossible, the third layer which took him thousands of hours to reach.

Even geniuses should have their limits.

Even someone as scheming and calculated as Zhu Hongbo wouldn’t be so shameless as to give a high school student a problem that’s completely out of their depth to puzzle over.

There must be some straightforward standard solution that he had forgotten...

Because of always focusing on the link between physics and mathematics, he had neglected basic mathematical methods.

Li Zheng held his breath; in just three seconds, a clear routine jumped out at him—

Mathematical induction!

Look at this memory, it’s been so long that he had forgotten about it.

However, this problem was not a simple case of induction; knowledge of divisibility was also needed, maybe some algebraic transformation as well.

The only certainty was that thinking was far more important than calculating.

Because it was impossible to compute an issue with 2000 primes, not to mention compute, writing down 2000 primes was impossible.

Logic was the essence, the logic had to be completely clear to have a chance at solving the problem, and it would need a ton of logical connectors in between, maybe even utilizing contradiction and proof by contradiction.

So first, he had to forget the number 2000.

Obviously, that was just a random number thrown in by the person setting the problem, meaningless in itself.

23333 would work, 666 too, whatever makes you happy.

Being exactly divisible by 2000 distinct prime numbers was just a smokescreen.

In reality, what needed to be proved was that it’s exactly divisible by any number of distinct prime numbers.

Humph, nothing more than that.

So, let’s begin.

…

An hour later.

Zhu Hongbo had finished grading papers for three classes.

First, let’s check the left side.

Li Zheng wrote hesitatingly, clearly still confused, crashing around.

Take another look at the right side.

Lin Yujing was simply staring blankly at the problem.

After writing a few lines in her notebook, there was no more progress.

Zhu Hongbo laughed.

Feeling happy?

The real mathematics?

Isn’t it exhilarating?

Zhu Hongbo got up with a smile, took his thermos and said, "Go to the restroom if you need to, drink water if you need to."

Nobody paid him any attention.

He didn’t say anything more; instead, he went out to fill his water, taking a leisurely roundabout way to chat with Tang Zhifei and then with Tao Feifei.

The conversations on both sides weren’t too different.

"Zhifei, guess what, they’ve both been tamed."

"Teacher Tao, don’t panic. They are only high school students in terms of math; I subdued them with just one problem."

"Don’t worry, I’ve got this under control."

"Let them learn that they should hold a sense of reverence towards their subjects and teachers."

"Ah, too kind, too kind, it’s merely the inherent depth of a math problem."

After putting on airs for a bit, Zhu Hongbo returned triumphantly to the entrance of the teaching research office.

He wanted to go straight in.

But on second thought, to see these two so flustered was genuinely rare.

So he secretly cracked open the door a slit and peeped through.

What he saw made his eyes bulge.

This is outrageous!

They weren’t flustered at all.

They were whispering to each other!

Actually, as soon as Zhu Hongbo had left, the conversation had already begun.

Li Zheng pretended to talk to himself first.

"Old Zhu gave us this problem... on purpose, right..."

"Um..." Lin Yujing gave a non-committal response.

After struggling for a moment, Li Zheng, with reluctance, pulled up a chair: "Shall we, perhaps, collaborate?"

"..." Lin Yujing also hesitated for a moment before nodding with an "um."

Afterward, the two of them pulled their chairs closer and closer until they were huddled together.

Murmuring non-stop.

"Right, prove the lemma first, then prove the more general proposition."

"Um... I had a clear vision for the big picture, especially the contradiction and reductio ad absurdum in the middle, but I couldn’t find the right algebraic transformations."

"Oh, I’ve got that part, look at this identity..."

"!!! Indeed a perfect fit for a good-for-nothing who’s only good at menial calculations!!!"

"Fuzz, I thought of this right off the bat, it’s the intuition of a Mathematical Brain."

"Good-for-nothing! With this out of the way, the rest of the proof is super easy... um."

"Is it now... Oh? I see! You really are a woman who’s keen on taking shortcuts."

"Good-for-nothing! I’ll pinch you!"

"Did I say anything wrong? Don’t you take shortcuts?"

"..."

"Aren’t you lazy?"

"..."

"Aren’t you a woman?"

"... Good-for-nothing! While you were bluffing, I’ve already finished the proof."

"Crap... wait for me... Let’s submit it together; let’s put our issue aside for now and present a united front."

"Um, let’s scare Zhu Zhu to death."

After deciding on their strategy, they quickly moved their chairs back to their original spots before Zhu Hongbo returned.

Of course, Zhu Hongbo witnessed the entire latter part of the process with bulging eyes.

His eyes were now bloodshot with irritation.

Wasn’t it supposed to be a competition between you two?

How did it turn into a unified front?

In that moment, Zhu Hongbo had an epiphany.

The best way to break up a fight between two... two little students.

Is to become their common enemy.

Zhu Hongbo originally intended to push the door open and go straight in.

But seeing their antics, he simply sighed, turned, and walked back down the corridor with his thermos in hand, all the way to the window.

To stand shoulder to shoulder against a common foe, driven by a shared hatred through the medium of math...

Isn’t that a great joy in itself?

As Zhu Hongbo felt moved, he also experienced a strange sourness.

After all, aside from when his wife took his paycheck... she couldn’t be bothered with math at all...

```

It’s hard to imagine that a 40-year-old man could also feel sour.

Zhu Hongbo raised his arm to check his watch, swallowing down the sour taste with effort.

There’s a limit to admiring the virtues of adults, give them another 5 minutes.

After all, even if it were 50 minutes, 500 minutes, the result would still be the same.

Impossible, this problem, they couldn’t possibly solve it.

5 minutes later, Zhu Hongbo pushed open the door of the office.

Li Zheng and Lin Yujing exchanged a quick glance, then stood up together.

"We’ve finished."

"Hmm."

"Hmph," Zhu Hongbo let out a cold laugh, unconcerned with their little trickery.

He took their answers, walked to the desk, and spread them out side by side.

He examined the two sheets of paper in parallel, line by line.

They were nearly identical.

Well...

First, prove a lemma, this step is correct, but I guess this is probably the only correct step, right?

Then there’s the assumption... they actually got it right.

Then there’s...

Wait a minute...

They could both come up with this identity??

After that, there was a turn, a transformation, a proof by contradiction...

Then, they generalized the lemma, proving a universally applicable proposition.

Ultimately, proving the existence of N.

In just one minute, Zhu Hongbo completed the grading.

No need to look a second time, the approach is clearly written.

Then, large beads of sweat began to drip down.

His face also started to tremble.

This TMD...

It makes no sense...

Behind the trembling Zhu Hongbo, Li Zheng and Lin Yujing exchanged another quick glance.

Feeling much better.

Awe, nonexistent.

After a long period of self-doubt, Zhu Hongbo stared at the two papers and asked with a trembling voice, "You... you two... tell me the truth... did you look up the answer?"

The two of them were stunned, naturally feeling somewhat guilty about this.

Li Zheng, with his head lowered, said, "To tell the truth, Teacher Zhu... I looked at Lin Yujing’s approach."

Lin Yujing also mumbled, "I used Li Zheng’s identity..."

"Apart from that?" Zhu Hongbo asked with widening eyes, increasingly trembling, "Did you look up this problem online? Have you seen it before? Have you gotten any ideas from a source other than your own?"

Both shook their heads simultaneously.

"Fuck," Zhu Hongbo cursed, collapsing into his chair, "You two... went too far..."

"It wasn’t that hard," Li Zheng scratched his head.

"It’s just an identity," Lin Yujing also thought Zhu Hongbo was overreacting.

"Fuck," Zhu Hongbo cursed again, then picked up the two sets of answers and roared, "Do you know what problem this is? An IMO real question! Only 35% of IMO participants could solve this problem!"

Both of them opened their mouths in surprise.

IMO, the International Mathematical Olympiad.

This is undoubtedly the most grand and top-level math competition.

Nice going, Zhu Hongbo!

Using such material to bully people!

Math competition is definitely on the table, but we’re still at a very basic preparation stage; now you’re throwing in real IMO problems, Old Zhu, you really have the heart to be ruthless!

However, this resentment flashed by in an instant.

Only now did they realize that Zhu Hongbo’s trembling was not from anger, but from excitement.

Being able to solve an IMO problem with very limited training was indeed cause for excitement.

But Li Zheng and Lin Yujing were far from as excited as Zhu Hongbo.

"There’s nothing to be happy about, I’m still a long way off..." Li Zheng said, clenching his fist, "I couldn’t have done it alone, more than an hour, and the main approach was a mess."

Lin Yujing also lowered her head: "I couldn’t have found that identity either, not enough time, I wouldn’t have solved it."

"This is nowhere near where we need to be," Zhu Hongbo said excitedly as he stood up and grabbed their shoulders, "I just realized, your two strengths are completely complementary, one is a strategist, and the other is a practitioner. One excels at unconventional thinking, and the other at unconventional calculation. If possible... that is, if it’s possible... you two must never part ways in the future! You must work together!"

Zhu Hongbo’s enthusiasm made them both shrink back.

After his excitement, Zhu Hongbo also realized he misspoke: "I... I mean, to collaborate on projects together, not that kind of together. Of course, that kind of together is fine too... haha... hahaha..."

"Knock, knock, knock"

The sound of knocking on the door.

Tang Zhifei and Tao Feifei suddenly appeared at the door.

"Teacher Zhu, could you come out for a chat?" Tang Zhifei beckoned.

Tao Feifei covered her face, giggling: "Hmm... really steady there... Mathematics really does have a natural depth."

```

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