Chapter 267 Challenge
HTV notified Yue Ning to go to the Hong Kong University's Cai Yunheng Gymnasium. Yue Ning was impressed by Cai Zhiyuan, who really knew how to create a topic. For such an event, they had to choose to hold it in the gymnasium inside the Hong Kong University.
When Yue Ning arrived at the entrance of the gymnasium, reporters were already waiting there. They surrounded her and asked, "Are you nervous?"
"It's OK!" Yue Ning said with a smile, "I've taken the exam many times."
Yue Ning entered the gymnasium, and his eyes widened even more. In the middle of the huge gymnasium, there were six blackboards in a row. Next to each blackboard was a desk with measuring tools and chalk on it.
There are twelve desks and chairs in front and behind the blackboard, and a nameplate of the participating organization is placed on each desk.
Yue Ning asked HTV's Shen Wenqi: "So today I will be the only one answering questions live, right?"
"This venue can indeed accommodate so many blackboards, but we can't mobilize so many filming equipment, and it's impossible to disperse the filming. Besides, the audience mainly wants to see you answer the questions." Shen Wenqi pointed to the group of people who had already taken their seats behind Yue Ning and said, "The group behind you is the invigilator and the examiner. A group of two is responsible for correcting the answers on a blackboard. In front are the members of the organization who are competing with you."
Yue Ning was arranged to stand in front of the first blackboard. He heard a voice coming from the radio: "The competition is about to begin. Math contestants, please take your seats. Now let me introduce the contestants. The first one is Yue Ning from Baohua Building."
Yue Ning turned around and bowed to the audience.
"The second one is Mr. Zhou Chengan from Minxue Self-Study School..."
All the participating institutions want to become famous, so the names of all the institutions need to be reported during the announcement phase. There are a total of twenty-three institutions, half of which are responsible for setting questions and half of which take the exam. Among them, there are eleven institutions participating in the mathematics group.
The teacher behind Yue Ning walked forward and pulled back the cloth covering the blackboard. The teacher who wrote the questions was very considerate. Half of the blackboard was filled with test questions, and the other half was left blank for her to make a draft.
Another teacher began to distribute the test papers.
"The test is about to begin. Please keep absolutely quiet," the host said. "Begin."
Yue Ning picked up the chalk and started answering questions. At first, it was a basic question, and she quickly wrote down the formula in the draft area.
She quickly finished answering the questions on the first blackboard and moved to the second blackboard. The chalk moved smoothly across the blackboard. She first calculated the first-order derivative to determine the critical point, and then used the second-order derivative to determine the concavity of the function.
She continued answering, and when she stood in front of the fourth blackboard, the chalk suddenly stopped on the blackboard for a few seconds. This question required using the vector method to prove that the midlines of the tetrahedrons are at the same point. The question itself was not difficult, but in recent years' entrance examinations of the University of Hong Kong, this type of question accounted for a small proportion. Yue Ning quickly drew a spatial rectangular coordinate system in the draft area, determined the coordinates of the four vertices, and began to derive the linear relationship between the midline vectors.
Except for a brief pause for this question, she hardly stopped after that and answered all the questions on the blackboard in one breath.
There were slight whispers coming from the audience, and the host on the radio reminded: "Please remain absolutely quiet. There are still 48 minutes until the end of the exam."
The auditorium fell silent instantly, but the audience in front of the TV, especially the teachers from several English middle schools, found it difficult to remain calm.
Although the questions on the blackboard were within the scope of the exam, the question setter was intended to stump the opponent and the difficulty was much higher than the regular entrance examination. How could Yue Ning finish answering them so easily?
On the TV screen, Yue Ning checked the answers from beginning to end and then put down the chalk.
She turned to the invigilator and bowed, "I'll hand in my paper."
Those candidates who were still nervously answering the questions couldn't help but wonder: Are they taking the same set of questions as Yue Ning?
Yue Ning walked out of the gymnasium and was surrounded by reporters again: "Ning Ning, are the test questions today very easy?"
Yue Ning nodded and smiled: "Mathematics is my strong point, and today's test questions are indeed not difficult for me."
She knew that these questions were difficult enough for most candidates.
But no matter how difficult it was, this was the early 1980s, and there were only more than 12,000 candidates taking the exam in Hong Kong, of which more than 4,000 were self-study students. It was nowhere near as difficult as the college entrance examination she had taken in Guangdong City in her previous life.
Even though she has been away from school for many years and has been through a different life, and her knowledge seems to have been forgotten, her brain is still the same. Her father thinks she has the talent to become a top chef, while Uncle Mo thinks she is still young and can be guided to become a technology worker. The two have different visions for her future, but they have one thing in common: they must let her study hard.
After arriving in Hong Kong and coming into contact with the teaching materials, she only needed to adapt to the test-taking routines here.
After the interview with the reporter, there was still some time before the English test at 1 pm, so Yue Ning simply took a walk around the school.
She walked past the red brick teaching building, walked down the steps to the outside of the school, and walked west along the street. When she turned the corner, a faint smell of burnt food suddenly wafted through the air. She turned into a narrow alley and followed the aroma.
There was a wooden sign tilted on the iron roof in front, with the words "Saigon Pho" written in red paint on it.
There are two aluminum pots under the shed: the one on the left is clear and clean soup, and a middle-aged man is stirring the large aluminum pot on the right with a long-handled wooden spoon. The beef bone soup in the pot is bubbling, which is the source of the aroma.
There were four wooden tables outside the shed, three of which were already occupied by diners, but only one table had two uncles sitting at it. Yue Ning walked over and asked, "Can we share a table?"
An uncle said cheerfully: "Sit down!"
After Yue Ning sat down, a woman in a slanted-collared shirt asked, "Would you like to eat rice noodles?"
"Give me a bowl of pho." Yue Ning said.
"OK."
Yue Ning was somewhat surprised that the boss lady spoke very authentic Cantonese, so he asked: "Boss lady, aren't you Vietnamese?"
The lady boss immediately replied, "Our ancestors were originally from Shanwei. Grandpa's generation went to Saigon. Last year, my family sold all our belongings and fled here."
"I see." Yue Ning looked towards the corner and saw two little girls lowering their heads to do their homework.
The uncle next to him took over the conversation: "Many Vietnamese who escaped are from Guangdong and Fujian! We Chinese are all over Southeast Asia."
"Yes!" Yue Ning nodded with a smile, remembering that Grandpa Qiao and his uncle went to Hanoi, Vietnam to organize transportation after the fall of Guangzhou during the War of Resistance Against Japan. There must have been quite a few people who went there to support the war like them and later stayed there, right?
Another uncle at the same table sighed and said: "It would be fine if only the Chinese came to Hong Kong, but now the Vietnamese are also flocking in. The British are so generous to others!"
"On the one hand, they said they wanted to restrict mainlanders from coming to Hong Kong and abolish the 'resistance policy', but on the other hand, they accepted Vietnamese refugees. The British did not care about the city's carrying capacity at all and let everyone in, regardless of whether they were Chinese or Vietnamese."
"Last year, they kept clamoring about the mainland not caring about the border, saying that more and more mainlanders were pouring into Hong Kong, and they also clamored to cancel the resistance policy. But then they turned around and signed the International Convention Relating to the Treatment of Vietnamese Refugees in Geneva, listing Hong Kong as the first port of call for Vietnamese refugees. The TV only hyped up the problems caused by mainland immigrants, why didn't they report on the Vietnamese refugee problem?" Another uncle said angrily, "It's the British who are trying to gain fame for themselves, but let Hong Kong bear the consequences! Now that the problem has erupted, they are avoiding the main issue and using the issue of mainland immigrants to divert attention."
After that, the uncle did not forget to explain to the boss: "I am not saying that you should not come. We are all Chinese. Saigon is not safe. It is reasonable for you to come here."
"I understand." The boss did not argue. He just grabbed a handful of fresh rice noodles and put them into a colander. He stirred them up and down in the boiling water to ensure that each piece of rice noodle was heated evenly.
He picked up the colander and shook it gently twice, drained the water and poured it into a large bowl. He then took out the extremely thinly sliced beef from the ingredient bowl and spread them on the rice noodles one by one. He then grabbed a handful of bean sprouts and a few leaves of fresh basil from the bamboo basket.
A spoonful of boiling hot and delicious beef bone soup is poured on the rice noodles. In an instant, the beef slices turn from red to brown under the impact of the hot soup.
The proprietress brought beef rice noodles to the table. Yue Ning picked up the translucent rice noodles with chopsticks and blew to cool the hot soup in the spoon. The rice noodles looked light, but the charred onions, lemongrass and basil leaves gave them a unique flavor. She bit off a piece of half-cooked beef, the meat was tender and chewy, and then she sipped the noodles, the soup was delicious.
While eating, the uncle in blue shirt accidentally knocked his spoon into the bowl, and soup splashed onto Yue Ning's hand. The uncle hurriedly said, "I'm sorry!"
Yue Ning waved his hands quickly: "It's okay."
"The British have implemented policies that show how they regard Hong Kong as their own place. They abolished the resistance policy and rushed to accept us as refugees. It's obvious that they treat us as a garbage dump!" The uncle wiped his mouth and said, "I really hope to return to the motherland as soon as possible. Even if we are poor, it is better than being treated like a fish in the water."
The grey-shirted uncle opposite sighed, "Return? Look, the people in the mainland may not even have enough to eat, how can they support Hong Kong?"
"Hong Kong's five million Chinese don't need to be supported by the mainland, as long as they don't suffer this kind of humiliation!" The blue-shirted uncle sneered and pointed his chopsticks at the faded Hong Kong British government posters on the wall. "Look, they talk about the rule of law and fairness every day, letting Vietnamese refugees in without any hindrance, and repatriating mainlanders who swim over. Is there any fairness in that? In 1967, the Hong Kong British government sent in the British Army to suppress the Chinese, and then those people went to London to receive medals!"
As Yue Ning was eating rice noodles, he recalled that when he came to Hong Kong in his previous life, his good friend once pointed at the night view of Victoria Harbour and exclaimed: "In the 1980s, even the sea breeze smelled of gold."
In his words, he complained about the mainland delaying the development of Hong Kong and missed the British. Hong Kong in this era was indeed brilliant in the written records, and his rebuttal at that time seemed pale and powerless.
At this moment, the sunlight leaking through the iron shed was scattered on the simple wooden table. Yue Ning finished eating the rice noodles and wiped his mouth. In those beautified memories, people only remember the "Ning Banquet" that cost tens of thousands of yuan, but forgot that there were coal stoves under the iron sheds in the port city.
She stood up and asked, "How much?"
"Three mosquitoes."
The price was really cheap, Yue Ning took out some money from her bag and handed it to the proprietress.
She glanced at the two little girls, one of whom asked timidly, "Are you Ningning?"
"yes!"
The boss who had been quietly making rice noodles said, "You have to study hard like Sister Ningning, so that you can become capable people in the future, do you understand?"
Yue Ning looked at the sign, turned it over and found that the back was relatively flat, so he asked: "Do you have any more paint? I'll help you write a new sign!"
The boss was pleasantly surprised and said, "I'll go buy it and be right back!"
He ran over to get a can of paint and a brush. Yue Ning looked up and asked, "What's your name?"
"Li Youcai." The boss took down the old wooden sign.
"Can I write 'Youcai Saigon Pho'?" Yue Ning asked.
The boss nodded repeatedly: "Thank you, thank you so much!"
After Yue Ning finished writing the sign, the proprietress held the money she had just collected and said hesitantly, "Ningning, this money..."
"Take it. It's not easy to run a small business. I hope you can keep the quality you have today and make this brand famous." Yue Ning said with a smile, "Life will get better."
On the way to the gymnasium, Yue Ning found that the entrance was once again surrounded by reporters: "Ningning, do you know how many points you got in the math test?"
Yue Ning lowered his head and smiled: "It should be all correct, right?"
"Wow! It's really our Ningning. She knew she could get full marks!"
"And the second place only scored 79 points!"
Yue Ning then realized that there were many fans: "It's so hot, why are you all here?"
"I'm here to encourage you! You should get full marks this afternoon too!"
By noon, the test scores were announced, the TV station broadcast the results live, and fans rushed to celebrate.
"Ningning, you must get full marks in the exam this afternoon!" someone in the crowd shouted.
Yue Ning shook his head and smiled: "Don't have too high expectations, it's unlikely! My English is really not that good."
When Yue Ning walked into the examination room, Shen Wenqi hurried over and said, "Ningning, where have you been? Mr. Cai came to see you for lunch at noon, but he couldn't find you."
"I found a delicious Vietnamese pho stall and went to have a bowl of Saigon pho." Yue Ning knew that the camera was facing him, so he took the opportunity to say.
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