Chapter 577

Wang Yikun was clearly too lazy to waste words on Shen Ci. In his view, someone like Shen Ci—who lacked ability, lacked ambition, and clearly treated the school team and this competition as a joke—was simply not qualified to sit with them to solve problems.

They had already been working on this set of problems on the table for an hour; Shen Ci would surely not even understand them if she sat down.

Then let's not waste each other's time.

"Captain..."

At this moment, Hu Xiaoxia couldn't bear it and took the initiative to speak up. She looked at Wang Yikun, clearly very nervous inside, but still mustered the courage to speak for Shen Ci: "Isn't the difficulty of these three sets of papers a bit too high? When we did them, each set took nearly two hours. Now, asking classmate Shen Ci to finish all three at once—not to mention whether there's enough time, the mental exhaustion would surely be overloaded..."

Seeing someone dare to jump out and speak for her at a time like this, Shen Ci couldn't help but turn her head to look at this girl.

Hu Xiaoxia wore her hair in a short, ear-length bob and wore thick glasses. She didn't dare look Wang Yikun in the eye while speaking, but she felt it was unfair to Shen Ci, so she endured her nervousness to say it.

As the vice-chairman of the student union, Wang Yikun had always been one to have the final say. Rarely did anyone dare to refute his decisions to his face, especially Hu Xiaoxia, the most inconspicuous person on the team.

His face darkened, and he retorted in a scolding tone: "Then should we just let her slow down the progress of the entire team? Are we supposed to wait three days for her to figure out these three sets of problems?"

Hu Xiaoxia felt that no matter what, they shouldn't force Shen Ci to finish these three sets of problems on the spot. At the very least, they should let her participate in today's problem-solving session. As for the three sets of problems missed earlier, they could completely let Shen Ci take them back to finish on her own time and hand them in tomorrow.

Instead of using this opportunity to make a scene and deliberately make things difficult for Shen Ci, attempting to kick her off the school team by using a failing grade.

Others could also see Wang Yikun's intentions toward Shen Ci; it was just that no one dared to say it.

Just as Hu Xiaoxia wanted to speak for Shen Ci again, Shen Ci took the initiative to reach out and take the three sets of problems, then gently patted Hu Xiaoxia on the shoulder: "It's okay, I'll be fine once I'm done."

Shen Ci didn't say anything more, took the papers, got up, and walked to the corner at the very back of the classroom to sit down.

Hu Xiaoxia looked at her with some worry. At this moment, her dissatisfaction with Wang Yikun as captain reached its peak. Perhaps because they were both girls, she could empathize more; in her view, Wang Yikun's actions as captain were no different from "bullying."

Sun Yue and Wang Li, the two boys, didn't dare to speak. Of course, they also wanted to play the hero, but facing Wang Yikun's "hegemony," they both knew that biting the bullet would just be like throwing an egg against a rock; it wouldn't have any meaning.

"Stop looking, let's continue." Wang Yikun spoke immediately, pulling everyone's focus back.

He glanced at Shen Ci, and seeing her expression of indifference, he couldn't help but sneer inwardly. They all knew how difficult those three sets of problems were, but if one had enough ability, barely passing wasn't particularly hard to achieve.

But he clearly didn't believe Shen Ci had such ability, and was just waiting for her to finish so he could take these papers and apply to have her replaced.

He did not allow a slacker in his team.

And he even less allowed his spotlight to be stolen by such a slacker.

Thus, a very jarring scene formed in the classroom: Wang Yikun and the other three teammates were solving problems, while Shen Ci was alone in the corner, head buried in her work.

Just as Hu Xiaoxia thought, this scene was full of a "sense of bullying," as if Shen Ci had been isolated by them.

Especially since the group needed to communicate while solving problems, Shen Ci would definitely be disturbed by them.

Hu Xiaoxia looked at Shen Ci with some worry, but was reminded by Wang Yikun tapping the table with his pen: "Focus your attention. If you look at her again, go sit with her."

Hu Xiaoxia pursed her lips and didn't dare to look toward Shen Ci again, only hoping she could try her best to get a few more questions right and not be caught by Wang Yikun for failing.

Little did they know, from the moment Shen Ci sat down to answer the questions, she had completely and automatically blocked out the sounds of the outside world. Focusing her attention was something she had always been good at.

Time slowly passed. About an hour later, Wang Yikun and the others had entered a stage of deep immersion, currently breaking down and analyzing a high-difficulty problem type.

"Problem types like this are considered relatively difficult even in official competitions. Because they are novel problem types, you must read the problem statement several times to avoid overlooking details."

"Now, everyone read the problem statement five times."

After Wang Yikun finished speaking, the few fell silent, carefully reading the problem statement before them.

Just as everyone was concentrating, three sets of papers and a stack of scratch paper were suddenly thrown in front of Wang Yikun.

Shen Ci imitated Wang Yikun's action of throwing the papers at her earlier and unceremoniously tossed the finished papers in front of him.

The group was startled, looked up in surprise, and their gazes fell one after another onto Shen Ci.

"Shen Ci, you..." Hu Xiaoxia spoke in confusion, but didn't know what to say for a moment.

Wang Yikun, however, had a stern brow, looking at Shen Ci and asking: "Have you given up on yourself?"

He knew the difficulty of these sets of problems. Even if one focused completely and settled their heart to solve them, it would take at least several hours. So, seeing Shen Ci finish in this amount of time, he subconsciously felt that these problems must have exceeded Shen Ci's ability, and she only chose to give up because she couldn't do them at all.

Sun Yue and Wang Li thought the same.

Sun Yue felt it was a great pity; in this way, Shen Ci, such a great beauty, would be kicked off the school team...

"I'll save you some face. Go tell Teacher Zhuang yourself that you voluntarily withdraw from the school team." Wang Yikun threw the papers and scratch paper Shen Ci had tossed over to the side, not even glancing at them: "If I'm the one to bring it up, I'm afraid I won't have anything good to say."

The others were all silent.

Even if Hu Xiaoxia felt it was unfair to Shen Ci, if Shen Ci wanted to give up herself, then there was nothing she could do no matter what she said.

As a result, Shen Ci looked at Wang Yikun's self-righteous face and suddenly sneered.

This sound was neither loud nor soft, but it fell clearly into the ears of the few.

Wang Yikun looked up, his face ugly as he asked: "What are you laughing at?"

Hu Xiaoxia, Sun Yue, and Wang Li also showed shock, thinking to themselves: Shen Ci can still laugh at a time like this?

Even if she was dissatisfied, she shouldn't sneer; Wang Yikun was, after all, the vice-chairman of the student union!

But Shen Ci not only didn't restrain herself, the corners of her mouth even blatantly hooked into a mocking arc, and she said in a disdainful tone: "You still need to waste three days to solve problems of this difficulty? If this is the only level you have, I think this school team should just disband. No wonder Teacher Zhuang said that the University of Science and Technology never gets good rankings in the Olympiad."