Seeing his exasperated look, Zu An laughed: "Actually, it's easy to judge our arithmetic skills. I'll give you 20 questions. Whether you cheat or guess, as long as you can get 20 right, fine, even if you can get half right, I'll pack my things and get out of school immediately; otherwise, you get out, how about that?"
He knew perfectly well that the other party, being both an official appointed by the imperial court and a teacher hired by the academy, would never allow him to leave the academy because of that bet. But what if he couldn't even solve a single student's problem? No matter how thick-skinned he was, he probably wouldn't have the face to stay here any longer.
Yang Wei was taken aback. The other party's confident expression made him feel uneasy, especially considering how easily the other party had answered 20 difficult questions. He was quite anxious.
Shang Liuyu, standing to the side, parted her red lips slightly and asked, "Teacher Yang, are you perhaps afraid to agree?"
"How could that be!" Yang Wei immediately straightened up. "Bring it on, let alone 20, even 200 is no problem."
Despite his boastful claims, he didn't change the other party's conditions. He worried that there would be a few questions he couldn't answer out of 20. However, if he got 10 right, the guy could leave. He was the top arithmetic expert in Brightmoon City, and countless sums of money in the Ministry of Revenue had passed through his hands. Could a child's questions be any more difficult than the problems he actually encountered? Getting 10 right was definitely no problem!
Seeing his reaction, Zuan roughly guessed his thoughts and couldn't help but smile slightly, "Let me show you the fear of being dominated by mathematics!"
He didn't give me any problems involving partial differential equations, analytic geometry, or conic sections. If he did, not only would Yang Wei not understand them, but probably no one in the world would either. He would just think I was deliberately making things difficult for him.
I'm going to create a problem that anyone can understand, but is actually very difficult to solve. I've got it!
He quickly wrote down 20 problems and handed them over with a simple, honest smile: "You are an expert in arithmetic, so these problems should be no problem for you."
Yang Wei was taken aback, not expecting him to be so humble all of a sudden. He was a little unaccustomed to it for a moment and snorted, "Of course, how difficult could a question from a young upstart like you be?"
He took the paper and looked at it. The first question read:
Two numbers between 1 and 20 are given to each other. The first person tells the sum of the numbers, and the second person tells the product of the numbers. The first person says they don't know the numbers, and the second person also says they don't know. Then the first person says they know, and the second person says they know too.
What are these two numbers?
Judging from the questions Yang Wei set before, there is a concept of multiplication in this world, so Zu'an is not afraid of setting questions that are beyond the syllabus.
When Yang Wei saw the first question, he blinked subconsciously. What was this? He had never seen a question like this before.
What... what are these conditions? How do I even begin with a problem like this?
When Yang Wei first saw the question, he thought it was very simple. However, when he looked at it again, he broke out in a cold sweat because he had no idea how to do it, despite all his knowledge.
Not only him, but the other students who were watching also started discussing it. Where had they ever seen such a novel question before? They thought about it for a long time but still had no clue.
"Quiet down, all of you!" Yang Wei was already annoyed and had hoped to get some inspiration from the students' discussion, but they were all talking nonsense and were not helpful at all.
The students stuck out their tongues, thinking to themselves, "You can't do it yourself, so why are you taking it out on us?"
Hearing their grumbling, Yang Wei's face turned as black as charcoal. Suddenly, a brilliant idea struck him. There were only 20 numbers in total. He could try them one by one and figure it out eventually. That guy must have guessed it using the same method.
With this in mind, he calmed down and began various calculations.
The students around him, seeing him writing furiously on the paper, couldn't help but admire him: "A teacher is indeed a teacher; he figured out what to do so quickly."
Only Zu An sat leisurely on the stool, crossing his legs, drinking tea that Wei Suo had brought out from who-knows-where, while admiring Shang Liuyu's graceful figure not far away. It has to be said, this woman is truly beautiful.
Shang Liuyu's attention was originally on the question. Although she was a foreign language teacher, she also knew a little about arithmetic. She could do many of the questions Yang Wei had given her before, but Zu An's question was too strange. She couldn't figure out how to answer it no matter how hard she thought about it.
He glanced at Zu An instinctively, only to find him staring at him intently. He couldn't help but chuckle; this little guy was really bold and quite extraordinary.
Unlike the relaxed exchange of glances between Zu'an and Shang Liuyu, Yang Wei's back was already soaked with cold sweat. He used the method of exhaustive calculation, which was fine at first, but he became more and more confused as he calculated, always feeling that something was wrong here or there.
He swallowed hard and glanced at Zu An subconsciously. Seeing the other's ambiguous smile, he suddenly had a thought. This guy must have deliberately put the hardest question first to trick me. Humph, I almost fell for his trick!
He decided to look at the later questions first, and then tackle this most difficult one last.
The second question reads:
You are now facing three doors. Only one of them leads to a treasure; the others are empty. After you choose a door, someone opens one of the remaining two doors for you. The door is empty. At this point, the person asks you: Do you want to change your choice and choose the other remaining door? To maximize your chances of obtaining the treasure, will you change your choice or not? Please explain your reasoning.
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