Chapter 60

Pu Changqu still remembers this incident.

In the two years after that competition, he kept paying attention to Gu Lu.

Naturally, we also know the fact that Gu Lu has received perfect scores from IMO for three consecutive years.

It wasn't until Gu Lu entered college that Pu Changqu had no way to learn about Gu Lu's activities, so he buried his feelings for Gu Lu deep in his heart.

However, there is always a photo of Gu Lu posted in Park Changqu's bedroom.

It was the first time Gu Lu participated in IMO, holding the trophy and standing on the podium with his teammates, smiling brightly.

The photo appeared in newspapers at the time.

Park Changqu specially cut out Gu Lu's image and pasted it in the most conspicuous place in his bedroom to alert himself at all times.

This incident even made Park Changqu's parents worry about whether their son had awakened some strange attributes.

Gu Lu's appearance has been deeply etched in Pu Changqu's mind.

He thought that he would never have any interaction with Gu Lu again in this life.

But when Gu Lu pushed the door open and walked into the conference room, Pu Changqu recognized him at first sight. It was Gu Lu whom he had been thinking about for six years.

And, just like himself, he is also the leader of the national team.

Pu Changqu realized that the opportunity he had been waiting for to defeat Gu Lu had finally arrived.

This time, he will definitely make Gu Lu feel the despair and unwillingness he felt back then!

…………

"Unexpectedly, Gu Lu, you are now the leader of the Chinese team." Park Changqu chuckled, "And I happen to be the leader of the Korean team."

Gu Lu glanced at Pu Changqu lightly, "So, what do you want to express?"

"It's nothing." Park Changqu leaned back in his chair, "just a little emotional. Time has changed. Six years have passed, and both of us have changed from former national team members to leaders of the national team. But what remains unchanged is that we

Still a competitor."

"Team Leader Gu, are you interested in making a bet with me? Just bet on the rankings of our two countries in the team competition this time." Park Changqu said casually.

But his eyes were full of anticipation and nervousness, and he couldn't hide his thoughts.

In his heart, Pu Changqu was extremely looking forward to Gu Lu agreeing to this bet.

However, Gu Lu just smiled and shook his head, and simply replied, "Not interested."

Pu Changqu: "..."

"Idle time is idle. Why don't Team Leader Gu come here to have some fun? I'm a little gambler. If you really don't have any money, I'll pay for you!"

Pu Changqu now looked very much like those old bustards in ancient brothels.

While saying to Gu Lu, "Master, come and have fun," he also helped Gu Lu pay for whoring.

Park Changqu was indeed anxious.

If Gu Lu had not bet with him, even if he won in the end, the sense of accomplishment would definitely not be that high.

Pu Changqu was about to reason with Gu Luxiao and move him emotionally, but at this time, the door of the conference room was pushed open.

A man in his fifties with a big beard and a suit walked in and sat at the head of the conference table.

Andre Pisco, from the International Mathematical Union.

He is the chairman of the current IMO topic selection committee. In addition, he also serves as the general coordinator of IMO scores, which is a position similar to the leader of the Chinese marking team.

It can be said that he is the boss with the greatest authority at this IMO.

As soon as Andre came in, the entire noisy conference room fell silent instantly.

Andre looked around the conference room and coughed lightly, "Since everyone is here, let's start right away."

The schedule is very tight.

There will be an exam at one o'clock in the afternoon.

After the topic selection committee determines the topic, it must also seize the time to determine all the problem-solving methods and scoring standards, and then translate the test questions into several languages ​​such as English, German, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and French.

Chairman Andre waved to the assistant behind him.

The assistant opened the briefcase and took out a stack of A4 papers with questions printed on them.

Since there is still one day of exam tomorrow, only half of the total question bank was used in today's topic selection meeting.

That is, there are 5 questions each in plane geometry, algebra, elementary number theory, and combinatorial mathematics, for a total of 20 questions.

The assistant gave each person a stack of A4 paper with 20 questions printed on it.

In order to keep the questions confidential and avoid leaking the questions, coaches from various countries have never been exposed to these topics before.

Chairman Andre raised his wrist and looked at the time, "It is now eight forty-one. You have thirty minutes to review the questions."

Thirty minutes are for the team leaders from each country to have a preliminary understanding of these 20 sets of test questions.

Be clear about the difficulty level of each question, as well as the direction and focus of the question examination.

Gu Lu spent about ten minutes reading the twenty questions and calculating them in his mind. He had a simple idea of ​​the IMO test questions this time.

There are 20 questions, most of which are ordinary IMO level questions, no different from previous years.

But there are two exceptions.

One geometry question and one number theory question.

I don’t know which country submitted the geometry question, but it looked like it was not worth scoring.

If you don't know the concepts of Menelauss' theorem and affine transformation group, you will definitely be completely confused when you see this question.

As for using high school knowledge to answer the question, Gu Lu estimated that it would be impossible to solve this question without more than a hundred formulas.

As for the number thesis question, it is a proof question.

It's just that what this number theory problem proves is not a certain theorem or a variant of a certain theorem, but a conjecture that has not yet been proven.

Although it is just a small conjecture that does not even have a name, and the solution does not require advanced and complicated university knowledge, it is still too unrealistic for a group of high school students to do this.

Half an hour later, Chairman Andre knocked on the table and said, "Everyone, please stop."

He looked at the crowd and said, "Let's do the first round of screening first."

The purpose of the first round of screening is to eliminate a group of questions that are obviously unrealistic.

Then the second round of screening is to determine the final test questions through voting.

Chairman Andre raised his eyes and glanced at everyone, "Let's talk about the five algebraic questions first, and everyone can express their opinions."

The leader of the American team was a tall white man. He was the first to speak, "The first question in algebra is actually a generalized variant of Maher's problem. It is recommended to eliminate it!"

Greek team leader: “Second.”

Danish team leader: "Second."

More than half of the people agreed, and Andrei directly decided to remove the first algebra question from the pre-selected list.

Next, another Australian team leader said that the three-variable inequality question in the third algebra question was very similar to the competition question that the United States had just used to select the national team, and suggested that it be eliminated.

The American team leader quickly acknowledged this, so this question was directly put on the alternative list.

What followed was a long confrontation.

Before coming here, every coach has learned in advance about the competition questions used to select national teams in various countries, so if there are questions similar to those done by a certain country, they will be eliminated directly.

There are also test questions with similar questions on the Internet, which have also been proposed by the team leaders from various countries and have been eliminated one after another.

In the end, there were twenty questions, and only the last nine were selected.

…………

ps: The early bird gets food.
Chapter completed!