Chapter Thirty: He Cheated!

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Fifty-seven... Fifty-eight... Oh my god! He's still going! He’s still going! Several teachers had already stopped looking at the exam booklet and were now staring blankly at Qin Anyi. With each Chinese character Qin Anyi recited, they automatically added a number in their minds, as if reading with a novel reader, and their hearts pounded fiercely in sync. Zhao Guoping would raise his head to glance at Qin Anyi, then, after Qin Anyi uttered a character, lower his head to check the booklet. Finding no error, he'd look up again. The rhythm of his head movements matched Qin Anyi’s recitation perfectly, but this comical scene provoked no laughter from anyone.

Everyone's gaze was fixed on Qin Anyi; at this moment, to them, there was nothing and no one else in the world.

Seventy-six... seventy-seven... Could it be that Qin Anyi truly could recite all one thousand randomly assembled Chinese characters from memory? And all after just five short minutes?

If someone had claimed this five minutes ago, no one would have believed it—they would've thought it was utter nonsense. Yet only five minutes later, they all found themselves doubting, watching Qin Anyi’s mouth open and close with perfect rhythm, not knowing what they hoped for.

They hoped he’d make a mistake on the next word, just to prove that he was still human, still prone to errors like everyone else. And yet, they also hoped that he would flawlessly recall every one of the thousand characters—they wanted to witness a miracle.

Nine hundred ninety-eight... nine hundred ninety-nine... one thousand!

He had actually done it—recited all one thousand characters without a single mistake!

Even with the evidence before their eyes, those present still found it hard to believe. No one had imagined, before this recitation began, that it would end this way. Even Wang Yiran, who knew Qin Anyi’s abilities, had only ever believed that he might be able to memorize two or three hundred characters at most. After all, the record of memorizing two hundred and thirty-three characters was set by a super-genius with an IQ of 170. However smart Qin Anyi was, he couldn’t possibly surpass that by so much. Even Einstein, often considered the smartest human ever, had an IQ of only 187.

Yet now... such thoughts seemed almost laughable.

When Qin Anyi effortlessly finished reciting all one thousand characters, everyone fell into the deepest shock. Some teachers stared so hard at the booklet in their hands, it seemed as if they were trying to uncover some hidden trick in those meaningless characters. Others simply gaped at Qin Anyi, dumbstruck, as if hoping he would offer some reasonable explanation.

“Teacher, I’ve finished. There shouldn’t be any problem, right?” After a full ten seconds of silence, Qin Anyi realized everyone was staring at him, but no one was responding. He could only ask helplessly.

“Huh? Problem? Ah... no... no problem. It’s just... just...” Zhao Guoping shuffled the booklet in his hands, continued to stare at Qin Anyi, and stammered for a long while without knowing what to say.

“Just what?” Qin Anyi asked in puzzlement.

“It’s just... how could you possibly memorize it? This... this is unscientific!” Zhao Guoping still looked thoroughly shocked, clearly not yet recovered.

“Maybe it’s just luck. I only looked it over once and happened to remember it. I guess I just have good fortune.”

“I demand a new passage for a rematch! No... it can’t be one from this booklet! Qin Anyi must have already memorized all the passages in the booklet—using it is just helping him cheat! I demand the teachers create a new passage on the spot!” Guo Qingyuan continued to shout loudly.

“You were the one who insisted on using the booklet, and now you’re the one insisting we can’t,” Shi Le sneered again.

“Shi Le, shut up! Representing the school in competition is a grave and honorable matter! Cheating cannot be tolerated! If we let someone unqualified represent the school, it will only disgrace us and make Changqing No. 1 the laughingstock of other schools!” Guo Qingyuan roared, his face full of anger. He wasn’t usually so easily unhinged, but after two days of having all his expectations for Qin Anyi completely overturned, the psychological blow had left him irritable. Ever since childhood, Guo Qingyuan had lived surrounded by praise and indulgence, which had left his personality somewhat extreme: as long as things went his way, he remained polite and cordial, but if events ran counter to his wishes, he immediately became furious.

To put it bluntly, he was still a spoiled child, far from mature.

“Guo Qingyuan, if it were you, could you do it?” Wang Yiran suddenly cut through Guo Qingyuan’s outburst in a calm voice.

“What?” Guo Qingyuan was taken aback.

“Let’s not even mention whether you could memorize it or not. Suppose you did manage to memorize that thousand-character, utterly random passage, and then, after an hour, we ask you to recite it again—could you do it without a single mistake?” Wang Yiran’s expression remained unchanged, but there was a strong note of irony in her words.

Indeed... never mind that no one knew whether Qin Anyi had memorized this bizarre passage beforehand; even if he had, with such a random assortment of characters, retaining it in memory was nearly impossible. Forget an hour; even after ten minutes, most would have forgotten everything.

Human memory is associative—things with logical connections are easier to remember, but retaining a meaningless, patternless list is almost impossibly hard.

After Wang Yiran’s retort, several teachers who had begun to show doubt blushed faintly and nodded in agreement, but then looked at Qin Anyi with even greater astonishment. Was this guy even human?

“So what! Anyway, I refuse to accept this result. I demand a new passage! A new test!” Guo Qingyuan shouted, his face flushed with agitation.