Chapter 273: Chapter 116: The Dispirited Youths_3

This really is a fresh twist, adding intensity to his job!

So before the evening self-study ended, Qiao Yu was directly invited to his office.

Seeing the puzzled look on this kid’s face, Zhou Liang wasn’t sure where to start. Recently, Tian Yanzhen had been frequently recommending that paper on ArXiv to everyone.

Yes, the mathematics professors at Yanbei University, each and every one of them, had for the most part already read the paper Qiao Yu submitted to Ann. Math.

What others thought, Zhou Liang didn’t know, but after he finished reading the paper, he was truly amazed.

A sixteen-year-old student capable of writing such a paper, he couldn’t imagine where this little guy’s future achievements might peak. After all, he himself had yet to publish an article in the four top mathematical journals.

Even the recognized mathematics prodigy Schulz hadn’t achieved such a feat at sixteen.

Not to mention this guy had already started researching the Geometric Langlands Conjecture during self-study class, something Zhou Liang had clearly noticed.

Many times, he couldn’t treat Qiao Yu like an ordinary student.

For instance, when he called him to the office, other students would stand talking with him, but when Qiao Yu came in, the first thing he said was, “Qiao Yu, you’re here, have a seat. Want some tea?”

Qiao Yu shook his head and replied, “No need, Professor Zhou, why did you call me here?”

Zhou Liang thought for a moment and directly asked, “Okay, I won’t waste your study time. Let’s get straight to the point. Did you design a challenge game in the dorm? The one where you play games while solving problems?”

Qiao Yu nodded and replied honestly, “Yeah, mainly because the three guys in my dorm were unconvinced about me being the dorm leader, so I came up with a way to shut them up. But they were still not convinced and got their classmates to challenge me.

But don’t worry at all, they haven’t specifically trained to multitask like this, so they definitely can’t beat me. I designed this game so we wouldn’t embarrass Yanbei University.”

This left Professor Zhou speechless once more.

He originally wanted to suggest that Qiao Yu go easy on them, let them win a game or two to regain some confidence. Upon hearing that, he thought, never mind.

“No, Qiao Yu, I do trust you, really. After two exams, you’re the only one performing most consistently, with full scores. But have you considered this might severely crush your teammates’ confidence?

To be honest, after these two exams, those who competed with you and even those who watched you being challenged didn’t perform well in the tests. What you’re doing really dampens their enthusiasm for mathematics!”

Zhou Liang continued sincerely, “You know, the IMO is a team competition. No matter how strong you are alone, you could at most earn a full score gold medal; the key is team performance. If the best-performing students’ mentality collapses and they can’t make it to the next selection, the team performance will look bad, and that wouldn’t reflect well on you either, right?”

This time it was Qiao Yu’s turn to be surprised, and he said in astonishment, “Really? Are their stress tolerances that low? We’re just starting out!”

Zhou Liang pursed his lips, surprised at the mention of stress tolerance.

Even leaving students aside, he himself was starting to feel quite overwhelmed.

After all, being the team leader also comes with performance pressure. Even if they can’t get first place, they shouldn’t fall too far behind, right? If he led the team to their worst historical performance, he might get metaphorically ‘spat upon’ when he returns.

If nothing else works, he planned to go to the research center to have Academician Tian mediate.

Actually, he hadn’t planned on being the team leader this year; it was arranged by Academician Tian, asking him to lead one more session. Now with his student acting like this, who wouldn’t feel pressured?

“No, Qiao Yu, you have to consider that they’re all sixteen, seventeen years old, and it’s normal to have big emotional swings at this age. Truly, not everyone has a strong capacity to handle stress. Here’s the plan: we have three days until the next stage of exams, let’s think of a way to help the students get their mindset in order.”

Zhou Liang directly instructed.

Qiao Yu straightforwardly nodded and said, “Alright, I’ll follow your lead.”

Zhou Liang let out a sigh of relief and said, “Okay, first of all, this game definitely can’t continue any longer.”

Qiao Yu nodded in agreement to this request, anyway those three guys in the dorm had already calmed down.

Then Zhou Liang suddenly had an idea, and said enthusiastically, “However, come July, when we head to Australia, usually teams from each country arrive the day before the opening ceremony. Generally, there aren’t any other activities on the opening day.

This means there’s about two days for the students participating in the IMO from each country to freely interact. I can help you arrange a few friendly matches with members of other national teams, and then you can really show your stuff.”

Qiao Yu glanced at Professor Zhou, then nodded and said, “Sure, no problem.”

“Hmm, which games are you good at? You know, the popular games here might differ from those abroad. I might need to look into this as well.”

This question made Qiao Yu feel like he was interviewing for a job at a game studio, which felt like a part of his initial life plan, so perhaps life is just a strange loop? Going around in circles, one can always somehow return to their original passion?

“Uh… well… actually, as long as it’s competitive games, I’m quite good at them. For instance, CS:GO is probably played internationally, and there’s League of Legends… Even if it’s a game I’m unfamiliar with, I can get the hang of it after playing a few rounds.”