Chapter 48

Easy days go quickly, and before Li Lan had noticed there were three days until she was due at camp. Being in two squads, and doing the arithmetic on the assembly notices, she worked out that she'd have no time to come home for the next two months, and went to ask Jiao Wenfu for leave while training hadn't started. The monthly exam finished tomorrow and the holiday began after that, but she couldn't wait; she'd have to go early.

She knocked and pushed the door open, and found several teachers including him mid-conversation. He wasn't surprised to see her, and hearing what she wanted, smiled. "I was wondering the other day when you'd come. You've left it late."

Leave slip written, he said with some regret, "You'll be a second-year by the time you're next back at school. Pity you can't skip straight to the second year — you could have gone to Peking University in September."

An outsider might have taken that for bluster; the teachers at Yu No. 1 all knew what he meant, because over the winter holiday Li Lan had signed an agreement with Peking University and needed only to finish high school to enrol.

In fact the day the maths competition finished there had been a scramble at the venue, and as first place Li Lan was unquestionably its principal object — except that both universities had offered a recommendation into their mathematics departments, and while she didn't dislike maths, she had no intention of specialising in it, so she declined.

Once she'd produced equally dazzling results in two more subjects, both admissions offices said outright that she could read whatever she liked, provided she signed with them first, and enrol without the entrance exam once school was over.

So his remark was easy enough to follow: had she taken the school-leaving qualification exams, she could skip to the second year now and go up in September, two full years earlier than an ordinary student. Unfortunately those exams are held every December, and last December she had been away at a competition, so the next opportunity was this coming one.

Li Lan was less sorry about it than he was. If not September, then next year; she could wait a year.

---

After two days at home being waited on hand and foot, restored to full strength and watched off by her parents, she set out for the maths training base in Beijing.

By long-standing practice the first round ran from the thirtieth of March to mid-May, six weeks, with a formal examination every fortnight; three rounds of examination would reduce fifty students to five for the national team and eight for the Asian team.

The second round — the pre-competition camp — would be held in the fortnight before the international competition itself.

How the others got through it Li Lan couldn't say. She knew that the day after the maths squad's final exam she left for the biology base in Zhejiang.

This year's biology camp opened after the May holiday and ran to mid-June, likewise three rounds of examination to select thirteen students. Because of the maths squad's last exam she arrived two days late — mercifully without missing the first one.

Life in a squad was exactly as she'd predicted: stricter and never looser. Never mind internet cafés; the phone she'd brought was confiscated on her first day.

Then, morning to night, lectures, preparation, revision, problems and examinations, and English on top of it. Papers came in Chinese translation, but to guard against misreading — never mind memorising every question in English — the key vocabulary had to be known exactly.

Every examination sent a group home, and by the last round the original fifty were thirteen, with the national and Asian teams to be separated immediately afterwards. Worth noting: at the last examination in both maths and biology, every candidate in the room besides Li Lan came from a strong competition province.

When the first biology round ended on the tenth of June, Li Lan was formally a member of both the maths and biology national teams — the only student in her year to compete in two international events. On the strength of which the competition forums had built a tower of a thread about her.

Updates on Li Lan's record

Bulletin: biology camp over, she's on the national team. Photo attached.

I bow down. Missed the first three days and still flattened the rest of us.

Bow down +1. Henan has produced a whole crop of dark horses this year.

Bow down +2. People are genuinely not the same. She was streets ahead of everyone in the maths squad — the strong-province people had nothing to say for themselves. Let's see them look down on the weak provinces after this.

Honestly, I want to know her brain capacity. One subject exhausted me and she did two.

Hence the title.

The pre-competition camp began on the first of July and ran to the day before the international mathematical olympiad, and on the fourteenth, camp over, the five team members and two supervising teachers flew to this year's venue: England.

Meanwhile the forum's live thread was keeping pace.

Day one. The team must have arrived by now — any predictions?

Nothing to predict, surely. We're always among the strongest in maths. Though: she had better come first.

Reserve squad member here. She was as consistent as ever at the pre-competition camp. It's safe.

Ooh, we have an actual squad member.

Opening ceremony, teams entering. Photo 1. Photo 2.

---

Ten o'clock at night on the fifteenth of July, in Beiguan, Chen Ying sat at the computer watching a page load slowly and being driven to distraction. "This wretched connection won't even open a photograph."

Li Quan was equally cross. "Their service is still no good. I'm changing it tomorrow. Can't even open a photograph."

Li Jingyu, practising with a tissue beside them, was unbothered. "It's always like this at this hour. Everybody's online, so it's slow."

Ever since he'd stumbled on that forum it had become his parents' daily appointment, and neither of them could sleep peacefully until they'd read through the posts praising Li Lan with a smile on their faces. Since the international competition began they'd followed the live thread, and in a short space of time Chen Ying's forum account had reached level five and she had learned how to reply.

Today was the first day, and between the time difference and the technical difficulty she'd only managed a brief conversation with Li Lan — saying more risked adding pressure — so reading the thread was the consolation, and now the photographs wouldn't load, which was why the pair of them were beside themselves.

After nearly five minutes it finished, and although the resolution was poor, you could see the Chinese team on the platform clearly enough, with Li Lan, the only girl, at the centre. Chen Ying downloaded it, enlarged it, inspected her daughter from head to foot, and said with satisfaction, "My Lanlan is a good-looking girl."

Downloading photographs was another skill acquired for the forum's sake.

Li Quan, wearing the identical parental lens, nodded proudly. "In a few days we'll print these and put them on the wall. Then anybody who comes in can see Lanlan abroad."

Li Jingyu had nothing to say, and would have liked to bring them to their senses: there's English on the backdrop, but it's indoors. Who can tell from indoors whether it's this country or another?

He didn't dare. Say one word against Li Lan now and you got the full black looks from both of them. He was a coward.

---

Six days later, having eaten and intending to play a game, he opened his bookmarks out of habit and found new replies from a few minutes earlier.

Live: international mathematics competition

Exams over, results in. I am extremely excited.

First. Get on with it.

China takes the overall championship, and she didn't drop a single mark. Astonishing.

Astonishing.

Astonishing +1.

This year's paper was hard, by the way. A lot of teams came out looking miserable — and the truly maddening part is how slow the organisers were. Four days to mark the papers. We do it in two.

Shame she left straight after the exam for the biology competition, so she missed the prize ceremony.

He read it twice to confirm his eyes were working, then went to the door and shouted down at his mother, who was doing stock. "Mum, Li Lan's results are out."

Chen Ying, going through goods with Li Quan and a notebook, put it down and went up to the computer with him, and the pair of them read the thread and couldn't stop grinning.

Back on the index page there was now a live thread for the international biology competition as well, which she bookmarked and followed with practised efficiency before going back down to work — remembering to instruct her son on the way. "Your father and I are working. Don't forget to save the photographs from the biology opening ceremony, we'll look at them when we come up."

Li Jingyu, who had been about to play a game, said, "Right."

At much the same moment, having come out of that opening ceremony, Li Lan learned the result from a teammate and was not especially surprised. Beyond confidence, the main reason was that China being strong in the event, training problems are pitched harder than the competition itself; having dropped nothing at camp, she wasn't going to permit herself to drop anything in the competition.

The biology supervisor had the news too, and knowing where she'd come from, clapped her shoulder. "Good timing, out before your exam. You can answer tomorrow's paper with an easy mind."

She smiled and nodded, and went into the examination in even better spirits.