Chapter 173

At that moment, the contestants outside the passage were still guessing Gong Yang's choice. Obviously, except for the audience with a god's eye view and the few teachers in the observation room, the contestants outside did not know which side the person who went in had chosen.

Next, the speed of the contestants' individual introductions began to pick up.

[Yuan Xiyuan, master's degree from ETH Zurich.]

"Wow, that's impressive, it's Einstein's alma mater!"

"Amazing..."

...

[Chai Jiazi, master's student at Columbia University, 702 raw score on the national college entrance exam, admitted to the Yuanhua School of Management at Peking University.]

In the observation room.

"Raw score?"

"I know this one, it means the score on the exam paper, a lot of outstanding students don't get bonus points from competitions or other policies, but this raw score means her actual score from the college entrance exam."

"Wow—"

Danmaku comments:

[702 is so impressive? So the one who scored over 740 at that time... should also be here to compete, right?]

[Not necessarily, didn't you hear what the other contestants said? This girl is amazing, she was admitted to the Yuanhua School of Management at Peking University back then, and is now a master's student at Columbia University. That person... can't even be compared.]

[That's right, to be honest, I've always felt that whoever it was has just been good at rote learning all these years, it seems like it's just their fans hyping themselves up.]

[I actually hope that person really comes to participate, after being crushed by all these geniuses, their fans might finally sober up a bit.]

...

The live danmaku comments were filled with sour remarks, making Ruo's fans furious. If it weren't for the management team giving strict orders in the group, they would have definitely started flaming others.

As for why they had to endure...

It was mainly because they were afraid their own fans would be provoked by the trolls into saying something outrageous.

They didn't care about being insulted themselves, but if their idol ended up being mocked by the group, that would be trouble.

Ruo's fan: ...Protecting the big orange is the priority, let's endure them for one round, wait for me!

Just wait until we find our idol, see if I don't rip your mask off! Super fierce.JPG

...

As time passed, the contestants' information was gradually displayed one by one. Aside from the trolls who just wanted to hate for the sake of hating, most netizens gained a lot of new knowledge from this program.

Here, what with master's and doctoral students, there were handfuls of them.

Famous institutions like Fudan University, Imperial College London, California Institute of Technology, Peking University, Tsinghua University, University of Science and Technology of China, China University of Political Science and Law, etc., there were bundles of students from these places. Apart from a few contestants, most of these students from prestigious universities only had about ten seconds of screen time.

Obviously, the contestants who received more screen time were naturally the more capable ones.

Originally, as one outrageously outstanding contestant after another appeared, there would occasionally be some trolls mocking Ji Ruochu, until—

[Wu Jinhui, 23 years old, undergraduate directly admitted to the Institute of Interdisciplinary Information Sciences at Tsinghua University, gold medalist in the XX International Mathematical Olympiad.]

"Wow—"

"This one is impressive! An international gold medal!"

"This is on a whole other level from the ones before, an international medal!"

Not only that, after he went on stage, the host also asked as a supplement:

"It is said that it was because of this gold medal that you were directly admitted to the Yao Class at Tsinghua."

"Yes, of course, I feel that with my own abilities, I would have been able to get into the Yao Class after the college entrance exam as well."

All the other contestants: ...

So the question is, what is the "Yao Class"?

The three guests in the observation room instinctively looked towards Old Jin.

Old Jin: ...

"The Yao Class is a class named after Academician Yao Qizhi, established for the purpose of better cultivating top innovative talents in computer science."

In other words, those who could get in were basically all geniuses. As for who Academician Yao Qizhi is... please look him up yourselves.

"As far as I know, the Yao Class no longer really recruits students based on the college entrance exam, it's all through competitions now. This is also why the other contestants started exclaiming when they heard he was a national gold medalist."

Funnily enough, at this point, there were still netizens stubbornly arguing:

[Competitions can't determine everything, right? If we're going by competitions, then I guess none of the contestants here are really qualified, huh?]

But the next second, there came an interested Old Jin, who casually gave everyone a lesson on the significance of this gold medal:

"This national gold medal and first prize are two different levels.

The national gold medal is awarded to the top few from the first prize winners of all the provinces, so anyone who can get this award must have remarkable abilities."

In short, anyone capable of winning this gold medal would naturally go on to achieve those other accomplishments.

Once this explanation came out, not only Ji Ruochu's fans, but even the guests in the observation room couldn't sit still.

"Old Jin, I wanted to ask, if the national gold medal is so impressive, then what about the international gold medal? Is it also on a different level from the national gold medal?"

The one asking was Ji Sishi, and this was also the first question she asked in this program.

"Oh? Ms. Ji has also studied competitions?" Old Jin was somewhat surprised.

"No, no, it's just that I once worked with a junior, and I heard she had won an international competition gold medal when she was a teenager, so I was a bit curious."

After saying that, Ji Sishi looked a little embarrassed, "To be honest, I'm afraid you'll laugh at me, we people in the entertainment industry don't know much about these kinds of competitions.

I think it must be very impressive, but I've seen a lot of people online mocking her, saying the young girl was just creating a persona. That child was very polite, hard-working, and her acting was decent.

Sometimes when I saw the vicious comments about her, it made me angrier than when the trolls insulted me." As soon as these words came out, netizens immediately recalled that Ji Sishi had indeed worked with a genius young girl before.

[Wahh... Sister Ji standing up for justice!]

[Sister Sishi, you really are too kind!]

[Who is it? Back then, after filming was done, she argued with the trolls all night, and with the help of fans cursing all night, they only realized afterwards that those were Ji Ruochu's anti-fans!]

...

"You're talking about..." Old Jin pondered for a moment, then suddenly mentioned a name familiar to netizens, "Ji Ruochu, that girl?"

"You know her?" The three guests were all surprised.

"I've heard my students mention her." Old Jin picked up the thermos beside him, appearing nonchalant as he steered the topic back, "Speaking solely in terms of the significance of the gold medals, the international gold medal is naturally much higher than the national one."

"Then... not just the significance of the medals?"

"Then... it's a pity."

A pity?

A pity about what?

A pity that she won a gold medal but went into entertainment?

Or a pity about something else?

Old Jin didn't finish his words, nor did he seem inclined to continue, so the others didn't probe further. Instead, they continued to focus their attention on the contestants' area.

But the fans and netizens weren't like that. In no time, topics like "Ji Ruochu", "the significance of the international gold medal", and so on were shooting up the hot search trends.

Unlike in the past, this time, it was Old Jin Li Hongwei giving the lesson on the significance of the international gold medal. From then on, no more trolls dared to mindlessly hate on this award.

But... the blind will always find a bright spot.

[What's the use of saying all that, all the contestants have almost been introduced, and I haven't seen any so-called genius girl you mentioned, she must have just been a gimmicky science assistant.]

[For your information, the requirements for being a science assistant are also being a student from a prestigious school.]

[Oh, how impressive~]

[Hahaha, you fans have been singing the praises of that medal all this time, but you didn't listen to a single word Old Jin said about Ji Ruochu being a pity. Ruo's fans are still selectively blind as ever.]

[Isn't it obvious, he was saying that Ji Ruochu joining the entertainment industry was a waste of her talents, that she's not striving for higher achievements!]

While the internet was in an uproar, the introduction of contestants was finally coming to an end, with only a handful of people yet to walk through the Gate of Glory.

"Please welcome contestant Geng Hui..."

......

[Quan Tianheng, 20 years old, world memory master, Asian Open Memory Competition overall champion, Chinese Memory Championship national champion.]

......

[Zhu Xiaoyue, 22 years old, ranked first among Chinese women in the Olympic High IQ Society, with an IQ of 180, majoring in Computer Science and Mathematics.]

A series of formidable contestants appeared, creating pressure for those who had already chosen their allegiances.

And this pressure reached its peak when the final contestant for this event made an appearance.

"Very well, next up, let's welcome our final contestant today, who has also ranked among the top in multiple aspects tested, including memory, spatial visualization, calculation, and observation. She is—"

[Volume 3: Ruo's Struggling Rise to Fame · Completed]