From child prodigy to chief scientist

Under the influence of the flow state, Xu Xiao wrote very quickly, her fingers tapping incessantly on the keyboard.

With Xu Xiao's current energy level, he can probably maintain a state of flow for about two hours.

When he feels a little tired, he only needs to stop and rest for a while, and he can quickly regain his efficient work state.

This state of focus allowed Xu Xiao to immerse herself in her work, essentially blurring the passage of time.

On the training camp side, as the exams continued, Pan Hong and Ge Xijie also handed in their papers ahead of schedule.

Seeing that the remaining students were answering the questions seriously, Fei Ran simply started grading the papers ahead of schedule.

Unsurprisingly, Xu Xiao got full marks on all three questions without making a single mistake.

Pan Hong and Ge Xijie also received full marks, without any mistakes due to submitting their papers early.

"These kids... they're really something."

This exam was at the standard IMO difficulty level, and getting a perfect score was by no means an easy task.

Looking back at previous IMOs, there are usually no more than ten students who can get a perfect score each year.

However, they were still able to get full marks even though they submitted their papers well in advance, which was something Fei Ran had not expected.

It seems that the questions in the upcoming practice tests need to be made more difficult.

After dinner, the students returned to the training room one after another.

But as evening class was about to begin, Fei Ran suddenly noticed that Xu Xiao had not appeared.

Ever since Xu Xiao handed in her paper early, she's been completely out of control.

Realizing that something might be wrong, Fei Ran quickly asked the other students for advice.

Do you know where Xu Xiao is right now?

Upon hearing this, the students looked at each other blankly and shook their heads, indicating that they did not know.

Even Xu Xiao's three roommates hadn't seen her or eaten with her.

Hearing the team members' answers, Fei Ran became even more worried.

The national math competition team has only been training for three days, and one of its members has already gone missing?

This team member is Xu Xiao, the most talented member of the team, the youngest CMO in history to get a perfect score, and is considered by many to be a future world-class mathematician.

In his anxiety, Fei Ran hurriedly shouted to his teammates:

"Everyone, split up and search! Especially the dorms, cafeteria, library—places he might go! At least two people together, don't go alone again. If you can't find him within an hour, come back!"

Upon receiving Fei Ran's order, the team members dared not hesitate and immediately sprang into action.

Ge Xijie also seemed very worried, and was even the first to run back to his dormitory.

Ge Xijie had previously fantasized that if Xu Xiao hadn't been there, he might have been the best player on the team.

But when Xu Xiao is in real danger, Ge Xijie subconsciously hopes that it is just a false alarm and does not want such a prodigy to actually get into trouble.

To everyone's disappointment, they couldn't find Xu Xiao anywhere, whether in the dormitory, the cafeteria, or the library.

Unable to find Xu Xiao, Fei Ran didn't care about anything else and tried to inquire about her from everyone he met.

"Have you seen a boy who looks like a primary school student, and is about 1.5 meters tall...?"

Such a search method is naturally unlikely to be successful, as the vast Tsinghua University has nearly 100,000 students, more than the population of most towns.

Everyone who was asked said they had never seen Xu Xiao.

This made Fei Ran even more worried. If Xu Xiao was still on campus, it would be fine, but if she left the school without permission or was kidnapped by bad people, then it would be really hard to find her.

Just as Fei Ran was wondering whether he should call the police immediately, a man who looked like a college student walked towards him.

"I think I saw that child you mentioned this afternoon."

"Oh? Really? Where did you see it?"

Fei Ran, as if grasping at a lifeline, immediately pressed for more information.

"He was in the computer room of the IT building, but I'm not sure if you're talking about him. I saw him this afternoon, but I don't know if he's still there..."

Among the many college students, Xu Xiao, who looked like an elementary school student, was quite eye-catching, which is why he had a certain impression of Xu Xiao.

Before the student could finish speaking, Fei Ran hurriedly ran towards the information building.

He ran up to the information building, panting, and went into the computer room, where he indeed found Xu Xiao.

At this moment, Xu Xiao was engrossed in rapidly typing on the keyboard, seemingly doing nothing in particular.

Having finally located Xu Xiao, Fei Ran no longer needed to worry about his safety, and his tense nerves immediately relaxed.

But then, Fei Ran's anger surged up again.

Judging from the way Xu Xiao is typing on the keyboard, it looks like she's secretly playing a game on the computer.

Although the computers in the computer lab don't normally have games installed, it's not difficult to download them online yourself.

Children of this age are often very playful. Fei Ran was furious that Xu Xiao had missed his evening class because of playing games and that so many people had to worry about him.

Even though Xu Xiao just got a perfect score on his exam, Fei Ran still had to give him a good talking-to.

However, when Fei Ran came up behind Xu Xiao, he was somewhat surprised to find that things did not match his guess.

At this moment, there is no game on the computer screen, but a Word document.

To be more precise, Xu Xiao appeared to be writing a thesis at that moment.

Although such a scene sounds very unreal, the eyes don't lie.

Upon closer inspection, Xu Xiao's paper writing style is even quite professional.

Both the LaTeX typesetting system and the MathType formula editor used by Xu Xiao conform to the most mainstream and standard mathematical paper writing norms today.

This instantly calmed Fei Ran's anger, making him realize that he had actually misunderstood Xu Xiao.

Meanwhile, Xu Xiao was still engrossed in writing her thesis and had no idea that Fei Ran had arrived.

Under the influence of the flow state, Xu Xiao's vision automatically blocked out unimportant people and objects around him, as if the world consisted only of him and the computer in front of him.

About a minute later, Fei Ran patted Xu Xiao on the shoulder.

Under Fei Ran's touch, Xu Xiao finally broke free from the flow state.

Xu Xiao subconsciously turned around and was surprised to see Fei Ran behind her.

"Professor Fei... what brings you here?"

Fei Ran was amused by Xu Xiao's reaction and could only point to the clock on the wall.