Chapter 85: The First Rule of Showing Off

Night fell, and the streetlights emitted an orange-yellow glow, making the campus feel warm and cozy.

The girl walked ahead, hands clasped behind her back, steps light and brisk, clearly in high spirits; the boy followed behind, one hand carrying a small bag and a water bottle, the other resting on his waist, expression plaintive.

These two were naturally Song Yao and Xu Qingzhou, just leaving the May Fourth Sports Field.

Seeing the guy looking so listless, Song Yao sneered, “Xu Qingzhou, are you a turtle? Walking this slow!”

“Try getting thrown over the shoulder once,” Xu Qingzhou murmured, still baffled how such a slight frame could generate such immense force.

“It’s all sand,” Song Yao snorted inwardly, thinking he deserved it for calling her chest small.

“It still hurt! You’re such a violent girl—no one will ever—” Under Song Yao’s threatening glare, Xu Qingzhou forcibly swallowed the word “want.”

Just as Xu Qingzhou was about to walk off, another young man called out: “Junior, I can take a look at it for you.”

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Professor Zhao Sheng’s project they’re working on—he currently can’t do much, since he wasn’t involved in the specific experimental process.

Xu Qingzhou nodded and said, “Yes, I originally wanted to ask about one problem.”

Xu Qingzhou was stumped by this prime number problem; all day Wednesday he’d been grinding at it, yet made zero progress.

He sighed inwardly: When I become strong one day, I’ll make you feel what it’s like to be crushed underfoot.

Xu Qingzhou: “.”

The First Rule of Showing Off: Stay Silent.

Zhai Ziqiang sat upright, his notebook already open, fully prepared for class.

Scholarships, guaranteed graduate admission, excellence evaluations—all depend on GPA.

Xu Qingzhou changed into clean clothes and headed to the self-study room with the library-borrowed book “Advanced Mathematical Theory” and his notebook.

Wednesday morning, the Modern History class—Xu Qingzhou and Xu Zhengyang got lucky and snagged seats in the last row.

“The point of exercise isn’t weight loss—it’s to strengthen your body,” Song Yao turned away, ignoring him, and walked toward the bubble tea shop. “Besides… I’m in a good mood today.”

He’d just stepped out of the shower when Wang Wei called, saying that based on his data, the newly manufactured material showed significant improvements across all metrics.

His job was to optimize the model using the new data—a task he could complete right in the lab.

“Junior, you’re here to see Professor Gu, right?” The speaker was the first-year graduate student named Meng Bin.

It’s just that his muscles are too few—when will he ever be able to “stand up” in front of Song Yao?

In the small print below, he found an interesting problem: verifying the prime gap conjecture (a=1.5, c=3) within n≤10^8, where the upper bound for adjacent prime gaps is set at 3×(log p)^1.5, with p a prime and n≤10^8.

Three days passed in a flash. Xu Qingzhou’s life was simple: visit the lab daily for new data, attend classes, study the prime gap problem. Oh, and on Thursday he went running again—and got thoroughly scolded by Song Yao, to the point where Xu Qingzhou began doubting his own capabilities.

This was the first time he’d encountered such a tough problem—it instantly ignited his competitive spirit.

Yet this frustration was quickly dispersed by the complex calculations.

After two and a half straight days of grinding, Xu Qingzhou still failed; every verification either hit a dead end or was outright invalid.

On the podium, the professor began lecturing. Xu Zhengyang was half-asleep; Kong Xian and Bo listened intently.

Meng Bin pointed to the side and said, “Professor Gu is in Room 4118 for office hours—you’ll need to go there to find him.”

“I’ve been working on it for two days and haven’t solved it, so I came to ask Professor Gu.”

“You’re Xu Qingzhou? I’ve heard about you from Junior Meng and the others—you’re impressive,” Su Kewei praised, his gaze falling on the draft paper, surprised. “A prime number problem?” As he took the paper Xu Qingzhou handed him, the young man smiled and said, “Junior, I’m Su Kewei, Professor Gu’s PhD student.”

It seemed he was doing something else.

Meng Bin glanced over too, but quickly realized the problem was difficult and abandoned it, returning to his own research.

His paper was submitted too? Seeing Xu Qingzhou staring at him, Kong Xian cleared his throat, quietly closed his phone, adjusted his glasses, pulled out notes from the last class, and thought: Close call—almost exposed myself early.

“You just ran, and now you’re drinking bubble tea? Aren’t you trying to lose weight?” Xu Qingzhou didn’t understand Song Yao’s weight-loss logic—she’d been eating only half a bowl of rice lately.

Looking at himself in the mirror, Xu Qingzhou nodded. After exercise, he truly felt different—his body felt as if all channels had been unblocked.

Xu Qingzhou returned to the dorm—it was empty. He took a shower first.

“Alright, thank you, senior.”

But upon closer inspection, he exhaled in relief.

Kong Xian was focused, but his peripheral vision suddenly noticed Xu Qingzhou seemed to be taking diligent notes too—his heart sank. Could old Xu have finally woken up and decided to chase GPA?

There’s no rush to build the mathematical model yet.

Wang Wei had called just to deliver good news; the two exchanged no more words and hung up.

Xu Qingzhou whistled, realizing Kong was going all out. Too bad—he was a fraud.

Friday—he went to Professor Gu Zhizhong’s office, but unluckily, Gu Zhizhong wasn’t there. Only the senior he’d met before, and another unfamiliar one, were inside.

Xu Qingzhou offered a congratulations.

He took a deep breath, pulled out his draft paper, and began verifying the calculations.

The class bell rang. Xu Zhengyang was already goofing off—someone unaware might think it was the nap bell. The night before, when Xu Qingzhou got up at two a.m., he’d seen this guy’s phone screen still lit up.

“Senior, hello. I’m Xu Qingzhou.”

Song Yao nodded approvingly and pointed to the bubble tea shop down the street: “I taught you a trick, so aren’t you supposed to buy me a bubble tea?”

“Alright, thanks, senior,” Xu Qingzhou smiled and pulled out his draft paper from his bag.

Typing away, glowing screen, grinning like an idiot. Xu Qingzhou wondered if this guy had hooked up with another girl and was about to suffer the pains of love.

!.

To Xu Qingzhou’s surprise, Kong Xian—who’d been grinding nonstop these past days—was now scrolling on his phone, fingers rapidly refreshing a webpage, seemingly a paper site.

Combining the recent details of old Xu’s showing-off, he’d drawn a conclusion: showing off is like farting—the louder the sound, the less damage it does; silent ones are the ones that shock everyone.

Xu Qingzhou pulled out “Advanced Mathematical Theory,” flipped through it slowly. Understanding wasn’t hard—but when he reached the section on the primitive root theorem for primes, he paused.

Politics class sharply contrasted with major courses—the last few rows became prime real estate.

“This problem… hmm, let me solve it first—shouldn’t be too hard,” Su Kewei pulled out a sheet of paper from the side and began writing, thinking: This junior really has something—this problem looks tough.

Xu Qingzhou wasn’t in a hurry; he waited patiently beside him.

“Junior, don’t worry—Senior Su’s got this, no problem,” Meng Bin smiled.

Xu Qingzhou nodded, indicating he believed it.

(End of Chapter)