Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
Qin Ze glanced in from the door and realized that this classroom was not much different from the other normal rooms. Just that, all the tables and chairs were pushed to the back of the classroom, leaving only four or five tables with notebooks on them. Some students by the table looked over while the others focused on their own work.
Professor Li was in his fifties with graying temples and eyebrows shaped like the Chinese number eight. He was wearing a pair of old-fashioned, round spectacles and looked like a very stern and unfriendly old learner.
His gaze moved away from the computer and turned around to look. “Come in.”
Qin Ze nodded and walked to the rostrum.
Professor Li adjusted his spectacles and examined Qin Ze. “You’re in your third year, right? You should start going for internships in the latter part of next year.”
“Yes, so I was thinking of honing my skills earlier.” When Qin Ze finished his sentence, he suddenly felt that he was not nervous at all. According to his previous cowardly nature—after receiving the professor’s sharp examining look, he would be more careful with his words even if his legs did not turn into jelly. However, he was still very calm, so calm that it surprised him.
Professor Li nodded. “Even though your father approached me earlier, we should still go by the book and carry out the same amount of tests.
He took out a stack of A4 papers with different test questions on them from the drawer. After he picked out a few, he passed them to Qin Ze. “These are some questions from this week’s mathematical model. It’s relatively easier. Take a look at it. I’ll give you two hours; just pick any two questions and evaluate the solution. Xiao Liu, pass him the pen.”
The female student who opened the door immediately passed a pen over.
Qin Ze did not say anything else. After surveying the surroundings, he realized that there were not many seats remaining so he went to the back of the classroom and moved a table out himself. He did it ever so lightly and tried to not make too much noise.
Qin Ze wrote his solution on a rough paper and looked at the question contents from time to time. There were a few times when he was about to evaluate the solution, but he still had to redo it.
Mathematical model was a very deep subject; the question that he was solving now could not even be considered as a mathematical model; it was just a small step in a twenty-five-thousand-mile journey. Mathematical model, which was also known as mathematical modeling, was an important method of using mathematical tools to solve realistic questions.
Besides, a conventional point was to use the mathematical language and method to build a certain ‘formula’ for a phenomenon. For example, if a certain mathematician wanted to predict the weather, he could collect data and build a huge mathematical model. Then, he would use the model to predict the following day’s weather.
Of course, this was just an example. Predicting the weather in real life would be much more complicated than this. In actual fact, the weather forecast was a gigantic mathematical model.
Economic studies and mathematics could not be separated; the mathematical model was used very widely and extensively in such studies.
After solving for half an hour, Qin Ze’s forehead started sweating; and he finally found the correct way to solve it. This was all because his mathematics foundation was too weak, and he had to exhaust his brain juices to find the correct formula. If Qin Baobao were here, she would have made grunting noises twice, poked Qin Ze’s forehead, and said, “Go away! Your sister will solve this in no time.”
Everyone said that a man’s logical sense was naturally stronger, and women were more emotional. Men were better in science subjects; women, in literature subjects. However, this regular pattern was completely opposite for the Qin family’s siblings. Since young, Qin Baobao was excellent in mathematics; and her grades had never fallen below the top three. She was known as the Queen of Sciences. On the other hand, Qin Ze was better in his literature subjects; and his most outstanding achievement was attaining bronze in the National Middle School Composition Competition.
Luckily, he knew that he was not smart and did not give up on himself as he used his hard work to make up for his lack of talent. As a result, he was not stumped by two questions that could block the future of fifty percent of the finance students.
Time flew past. Under the help of his assistants, Professor Li pushed the progress of the model building and even held a small meeting from time to time. However, all of these were unrelated to Qin Ze.
After two hours, Professor Li then seemed to remember Qin Ze. He walked down the rostrum and walked to his table without speaking. Picking up his script, he saw the formula written neatly on the white paper; there was something meticulous about it that made Professor Li impressed at first sight. Looking at the rough paper, there were many corrections on it and different formulas written tightly together without a single space. Qin Ze’s mathematics was the result of Old Master’s strict teaching.
“It’s still okay!” Professor Li nodded and placed the paper back on the table before returning to the rostrum. “Everyone, pause whatever you’re doing.”
Five or six assistants raised their heads.
“Everyone, let me introduce to you our new member, Qin Ze from Class 7 in the Finance Faculty, your junior.”
Qin Ze stood up and politely said, “Everyone, please take care of me.”
There was mild applause.
Professor Li continued, “Yang Chen, these few days, bring your junior around and ensure he understands our project. I still have a lesson later; I’ll be on my way.”
A boy wearing a blue t-shirt and pale white leisure pants nodded with a face filled with smiles. “Okay, Professor.”
Professor Li left.
Before he came here, Old Master had already explained to Qin Ze in detail: it was impossible for Professor Li to do everything personally in such a gigantic mathematical model so he needed assistants. The assistant’s daily wage was two hundred for a week. After the model was finished, he could receive 1400 dollars.
Originally, Professor Li did not want to engage students from the school. The assistants that he had were all Year 4 interns going to graduate the following month. He only agreed to let Qin Ze try out because of Old Master.
After waiting for a while on the seat and seeing that the senior called Yang Chen was still buried in his own work, Qin Ze took the initiative to walk over and call ‘Senior’. Yang Chen glanced at him and casually took out a bunch of information from the drawer. Nonchalantly, he said, “Take a look at it yourself.”
Qin Ze could only take the items given and return to his seat to patiently study them. A good private company should have its own professional market analysts, and so one could tell that the company that engaged Professor Li was not of a large scale. To build a complete mathematical model, one needed a vast amount of formulas and data. Mathematics was the most logical thing in the world; every single step needed repeated deliberation. Qin Ze’s group was in charge of calculating the risks and benefits.
Other than the not-so detailed summary, the information had a bunch of legends. Qin Ze had some difficulty reading the information so he took out his phone and searched on the Internet to translate them one by one.
In the blink of an eye, it was time to eat. All the seniors in the classroom went to the canteen respectively to fill their hunger. Originally, Qin Ze wanted to bury himself in the books and painstakingly study them, but he was rushed out to eat by the senior holding the keys.
As time was limited, he casually ate some food and returned to the classroom hastily.
The classroom door was left unlocked, and it was slightly agape. When he was about to push the door and enter the room, he heard someone talking inside. “Brother Chen, what’s the newcomer’s deal? We have built this model painstakingly for a month, and there’s only a week left until submission. That fella just stepped his feet into our work and earned our credit.”
The person talking was part of Qin Ze’s team, but he did not know his name.
Yang Chen said, “Hmph, his father and Professor Li are from the same office. It’s based on connections. He just came over to broaden his views and casually earn some pocket money.”
“Our team only has a ten-thousand-dollar reward, and he’s forcefully taking more than a thousand. My god, it’s enough to pay for half a month’s worth of rent.”
“Aren’t you living in the dormitory?”
“I can still use the money to go to the gym twice.”
“Don’t worry, I have a mission today. He can’t even figure out the basics; when I allocate some other tasks to him later, he wouldn’t be able to finish them. Hehe, Professor Li would definitely be displeased. A few more times like this, he might just kick him out.”
Qin Ze’s face darkened and scolded these two scoundrels in his heart. Quietly, he went downstairs and took a walk around the building while sighing. As expected, wherever there were people, there would definitely be an underworld. This type of murder without flashing the weapon became increasingly cruel after he got into university. No, there were all sorts of fights and killings in one’s life, including primary school and middle school. Just that, they were too young then and liked to use violence to express their intentions.
Qin Ze did not like this type of infighting in the dark; he had not gotten used to it.
Ten minutes later, he went up to the classroom; and almost all the seniors had returned. The senior called ‘Xiao Liu’ smiled at him, and Qin Ze smiled back politely.
At 1:30 in the afternoon, he had a professional lesson. After the lesson, Qin Baobao rejected his roommate’s invitation to play games and buried his head in the modeling information. Even though he was not a talented person in sciences like Qin Baobao, he had something that Old Master was full of praise about: he was calm in front of everything major! Old Master personally praised him with this sentence.
At five in the evening, Professor Li came back and assigned tasks to the respective groups. Before he announced the end of today, he unexpectedly thought of Qin Ze.
“Do you understand the information on risk evaluation and benefits?”
“I was blindly figuring it out on my own, and I haven’t figured it out yet,” Qin Ze said.
Professor Li immediately knitted his eyebrows and looked at Yang Chen. “Did I not tell you to look after him?”
Yang Chen’s face was filled with innocence. “I gave him the information and told him to ask me if there was anything he did not understand. However, he didn’t approach me the entire day so I thought Qin Ze had a good foundation and could understand it on his own.”
What heck, since when did he say that?
Professor Li glanced at Qin Ze and did not say much as he announced the end of today’s work. Professor Li’s nonchalant attitude disappointed Yang Chen slightly. Only Qin Ze could vaguely guess his thoughts. Actually, the project was nearing its end, and it was true that they were lacking assistants. However, how could they invite someone incapable like Qin Ze? It was mostly because of Old Master; even Old Master had hinted that he should ask him if there was anything he did not understand.
Hence, Professor Li did not care if Qin Ze was slacking his way through; his father was pulling the rope for him behind the scenes.
Qin Ze asked Yang Chen for the resources, and he did not reject him and passed him a stack of photocopied items. By looking at the resources alone, could a mere student see flowers from them?
After ending his task, there was still time so he left a message on the chat group: “I’m free!”
Immediately, Li Liang replied, “Hurry, come! We need you to hold the front of us. Heck, I can’t lead them.”
Zhao Baliang quickly replied, “It’s me who can’t lead you all. I was battling one against three and vowed not to return until my death. Once I turned around, heck, where are my teammates? They have all returned to the sauna.”
Then, Liu Ziqiang said, “I just quietly watched you two act smart and did not say anything.”
Qin Ze’s lips curved upwards and he placed his phone back into his pocket before carrying his sling bag and running towards the Internet cafe.
It was a familiar seat with familiar beings. There was a cigarette in their mouths, and they were diagonally leaning against the couch. As they were waiting for Qin Ze, Liu Ziqiang took the time to watch the competition footage, Zhao Baliang opened a small window and watched p***, and Liu Ziqiang was playing on his phone.
Habitually, Qin Ze bit on his cigarette, turned on the computer, and squinted his eyes as he puffed.
“It’ll be summer break at the end of the month. What exactly are you busy with? Be careful of failing your subjects.” Li Liang breathed in the cigarette heavily.
“I’m earning some pocket money; I can’t let my sister provide for me all the time.” Qin Ze took out mineral water from his bag and gave everyone a bottle.
“Building models for investments is not easy. There are too many things you need to consider. How’s the first day?” Liu Ziqiang, who had better grades compared to the other two, opened the bottle and drank a mouth before smiling to ask.
“It’s okay if it’s difficult, but I met this bastard today so I’m in a bad mood.” Qin Ze spat.
“You have a story, but I don’t have alcohol. Do you want to talk about it?” Conveniently, Li Liang invited Qin Ze to join the game on the computer.
“It’s just a fool. I’ll find a chance to mess with him.” Qin Ze frowned.
“At that point, you must bring Baliang along and use his human cannon to harshly teach that fool a lesson.” Once Li Liang finished his sentence, he suddenly screamed weirdly, “Are you crazy? Why did you invite that rookie?”
Someone with the ID ‘Thin, Wild Waist’ joined the camp: it was the rookie that they had messed with that day.
Thin, Wild Waist passionately messaged in the chat: “Hooray, hooray! Legend, you’re finally online!
“Legend, you guys are voice-chatting, right? Poor me had knelt for three rounds and dropped rank.
“Legend, please bring me along and let me rise in my ranks. I’ll video call with you.”
The three beings were unwilling to deal with her; even Zhao Baliang, the one who had a lack of romance, did not bother to speak with her. These days, there were too many imposters on the Internet. It would be very disgusting if the person on the screen was a brute.
Playfully, Qin Ze replied, “Naked?”
“You’re so annoying!”
The screen darkened, and they entered the game.