Chapter 251 - 1: Do What You Are Good At

They would just take turns asking questions, and see if the other side could give a satisfactory answer.

Tan Mo shook her head and said, “This isn’t an exchange… This is a placement test. Both sides take turn asking questions and answering questions as if it were a competition. How is this a discussion that will help us learn more? A discussion is where one side asks something that he doesn’t know, then both sides discuss the question and propose their answers, and whether or not the answers are right, it may bring the question into a new direction. That is my understanding of an exchange and a discussion. A discussion is not like this, in which you attempt to ask obscure questions that the other side could not answer, and once they could not answer, you feel extremely proud that you are better… If the other side happens to answer your questions, you think that you’ve gotten slapped in the face…

“There’s nothing to be proud of when you are asking someone what you know and what they don’t know,” Tan Mo continued as she looked at the Tsinghua students. “If that is how you want this competition to go… Not only ’24 Histories’, you can also ask me questions on other histories: ‘Left History’, ‘Government Analysis’, ‘Important Events Since Jianyan’, ‘Record of Han’, ‘Record of Ming’, ‘Record of Gan Formalities’, ‘Economies of the Seventeen Shangs’, ‘How to Interpret History’…

“Or even informal history such as ‘Strategy of Mingji in the South’, ‘Strategy of Mingji in the North’, ‘Guo Que’, ‘The Travels of Xiao Dian’, you can ask me anything from these books as well, or more that I have not mentioned. You can ask me anything you know and attempt to test me with what you know. I can also give you some extra time to search for something obscure in the library or for you to bring a book here to read out a passage to me. If I can’t answer, then I lose!”

They were not as good as they held themselves to be, so how could they look down on the Beijing University students.

She was irritated!

Professor Zhao felt some weakness in his knees.

He knew Tan Mo well. Tan Mo never exaggerated about what she knows. She has never done that before.

But what she just said, does she actually know all of it?

Professor Zhao coughed to hide his smile, he was extremely proud of her.

You see?

That’s my student.

“So, is this how you all want to compete?” Professor Zhao asked.

The Tsinghua students hesitated.

“We don’t believe that Tan Mo has actually memorized all of that,” Yang Guangyuan said in a lowered tone. He was irritated.

“Before we also didn’t believe her, but then Tan Mo slapped us back and proved that she actually did know what she said she did,” Hao Yidan said. “Since Tan Mo said it…what if she actually knows it?”

Before, they were the ones who were eager to exchange with the history consultant of “Legend of Wei and Jin”.

They had actually wanted to exchange, to discuss, and to learn something new.

But once they heard that the history consultant was Tan Mo, they no longer had the heart to do so.

Tan Mo was also a sophomore, but she was much younger than all of them, and most of all, she was not from the History Department. What could they have to learn from her?

They didn’t want to lose face in front of that little girl.

After Hao Yidan said that, they all stood silent for a moment.

They didn’t believe it, but they didn’t dare test it.

So far, Tan Mo had followed up on everything she had said.

“She is probably exaggerating,” Qu Yuangi said. “What she just said was just the lead-up. She wants us to believe that she follows up on everything she says. Once she does that several times, when she exaggerates like she just did, then we won’t dare take to compete against her anymore.”

It’s just that Tan Mo knew her stuff way too well.

And they were afraid of losing against her.

“How about you go and try?” Luo Xiangwei asked.

“I…I…” After stammering a bit, Qu Yuangi didn’t have anything else to say.

“You don’t want to embarrass yourself, and neither do we.” Hao Yidan said in a small voice.

The Tsinghua professor sighed and said, “Okay, that’s it. Let’s end the exchange program for today.”

“Professor!” They all called out.

“What’s the point of continuing this exchange? You all can’t beat Tan Mo anyway. Also, you are all afraid already, afraid to compete with her. How will you all continue the exchange like this?” The Tsinghua professor said. “Let me ask you all. Will anyone stand out and compete with her right now?”

“Even if we dared, those books that Tan Mo mentioned… We haven’t even seen any of them except ‘Government Analysis’ and ‘Left History’. Even ‘Government Analysis’ and ‘Left History’… Most of us have just seen a small bit of those.”

“If we did as she said and brought a book here to read out loud, even if we did win that way, it would be as if we had lost. And it would be even more embarrassing if we lost. We would be reading out of the book, but she would know it by memory.” Yang Guangyuan said quietly.

Although he didn’t actually believe that Tan Mo had memorized it all.

Was she a monster?

It was hard enough to finish ’24 Histories’. It couldn’t be learned thoroughly without a decade of study…

But she had actually memorized it all.

That wasn’t a human feat!

She couldn’t possibly have had time to read all those other books.

She was only 16 years old. Even if she’d studied ’24 Histories’, did she actually start studying when she was six years old?

At six, most people couldn’t even read fluently yet, not to mention being able to read nonvernacular Chinese.

That would just be pure b*llshit.

But…Tan Mo had actually memorized it all.

No matter when she started learning it…the fact that she actually did was extremely astonishing.

The ’24 Histories’ should have taken up all her free time.

So they didn’t believe what Tan Mo had just said—that she’d memorized all of those other books.

The problem was, Tan Mo might not have memorized it, but neither had they.

And it would be an embarrassment to bring a book here from the library.

Also, what if…

What if she did actually memorize it all?

No matter what the issue was, there was a what-if…

If there is a what-if, then people will hesitate, they will worry, they will be afraid…

The Tsinghua professor said with resignation, “Then let’s end the exchange for today.”

Afterward, the Tsinghua professor turned to the Beijing faculty and said, “Let’s finish up the exchange now. It is getting late.”

Professor Zhao nodded and said, “I also think that this exchange program has changed, and it isn’t what we all hoped for it to be. I hope afterward, we can both think a bit about how to change it. If next year, the exchange is still like this, then there will no longer be a need to host this exchange. If you all want to compete, then we can just host a competition instead.”

The Tsinghua professor nodded. “You’re right. We will go back and think about it.”

The Tsinghua students left, and their heads were not held high like they had been when they’d arrived.

After they left the Beijing University campus, the Tsinghua students sat silently on the bus with stricken faces.

“What’s with that girl Tan Mo? How could she be so familiar with history?”

They were not resigned, but they could not win against her, so they were irritated.

The Tsinghua professor said in a tone of self-deprecation, “First the school of language lost, and students from the other schools laughed at them. Before coming here this time, we all promised to win against Beijing University, but look what happened again… Tan Mo beat you all.”

Was Tan Mo born to go against Tsinghua?

…

President Mu heard the news that Tan Mo had beat all the Tsinghua students, and he immediately called President Shi of Tsinghua University with a gleeful look on his face.

He jeered at President Shi again.

President Shi had nothing to say.

Since Tan Mo had been admitted into Beijing University, he had received numerous calls from President Mu. Even more than from the previous president of Beijing University…!

“What are you acting so proud about?” President Shi was irritated by President Mu’s flashy tone of voice.

“I’m proud that I made a good decision. I didn’t back off from taking a talent into our university just because I had to spend a bit of extra money. You see how you lost again? We are different that way. I literally dumped out scholarships and benefits to admit Tan Mo to Beijing University, but you didn’t.”