Awakening Elementary School System in University
Chapter 4: Shen Yan’s Choice

Chapter 4: Chapter 4: Shen Yan’s Choice

Looking at the last message from Shen Yan, Chen Lin felt a massive headache coming on.

’Get a room at a hotel near the school and wait for me?’

’Is she trying to discuss a problem, or is this some kind of setup?’

’Although he was well aware of his own good looks, it surely wasn’t enough to make a genius campus beauty he’d known for less than a day go to such lengths, right?’

’Could it be the charm bonus from "Little Love Saint"?’

’Probably not. The reward description said it only takes effect face-to-face.’

Chen Lin rubbed his temples.

Still, he could understand why Shen Yan was anxious.

The deadline for that math modeling competition was in about 30 hours.

’Oh, whatever. I’ll just think of it as a value-added service for a delivery customer.’

With that, he stopped hesitating. He decisively opened WeChat and found the contact saved as "Back Street Bar - Brother Wang."

Chen Lin: [Brother Wang, sorry, something urgent came up tonight. I can’t make it. Could you find someone to cover my shift?]

Brother Wang: [What’s wrong, Chen? Is everything okay at home?]

Chen Lin: [No, it’s something at school. My advisor needed me for something last minute.]

Brother Wang: [Alright, you take care of your business. I’ll see if Fei is free.]

After sorting things out with the bar, Chen Lin reopened his chat with Shen Yan. Carrying the large snack box, he turned and headed back toward the school.

Chen Lin: [I canceled my plans for tonight. I’m heading back to school now. Let’s meet in the same study room.]

He sent the message, and less than a minute later, a reply from Shen Yan arrived.

Shen Yan: [Okay, I’ll be waiting for you in the study room.]

...

Ten minutes later, in a brightly lit study room in the mathematics department building.

When Chen Lin pushed the door open, Shen Yan was the only one in the spacious room.

She seemed to have been waiting for a while. Her laptop was open in front of her, and a small blackboard was covered in dense calculations.

Hearing the door open, Shen Yan shot her head up, her eyes instantly brightening.

"You’re here!" There was a hint of suppressed excitement in her voice.

"Yeah," Chen Lin grunted, casually dropping the large snack box onto the corner of an empty desk with a THUD.

Shen Yan’s gaze fell on the box, and she froze for two seconds.

Her face instantly flushed red, and she quickly looked down.

"Chen... th-this is too much. You didn’t have to bring me food..."

Her voice was as faint as a mosquito’s hum, a complete departure from the confident, all-powerful academic goddess she had been during the day.

Chen Lin almost choked on his own saliva.

’For you??’

’What are you thinking? I worked my ass off for this!’

’What in the world are you blushing about?!’

’Oh, right. I have the "Little Love Saint" aura. Never mind then.’

Chen Lin was screaming internally, but on the outside, he was calm and collected. "Ahem, it was on my way. Now, let’s get down to business. What’s the problem? We’re in a hurry."

"Right!" Shen Yan snapped back into work mode in a second. She spun her laptop around with a THWACK and jabbed a finger at a tangled mess of curves on the screen. "Following your previous line of thought, we corrected the algorithm for the asymptomatic transmission coefficient, and the model’s goodness of fit for historical data improved significantly. But... when we ran a 30-day stress projection, three new anomalous peaks appeared, which makes no logical sense."

Chen Lin leaned in for a closer look.

Several colored lines were tangled together like a ball of yarn. The red line, representing the number of infections, suddenly shot up into three steep peaks at one point.

The "Little Mathematician" ability activated. He glanced through the PDF Shen Yan gave him, and in an instant, he’d seen everything—down to her team’s underwear... ah, no, their underlying optimization methods.

"Forget about these three peaks," Chen Lin said with a wave of his hand. "It’s a minor issue."

"A minor issue?!" Shen Yan’s eyes nearly popped out of her head. This was a fatal flaw they had only discovered after ages of work.

"That’s right." Chen Lin confirmed with confidence. "Your model’s optimization scheme... well, you started off on the wrong foot. It’s like a leaky bucket. You plug one hole, and the water just starts pouring out of another. You solve this problem, and a new one will pop right up."

His voice wasn’t loud, but every word landed like a heavy hammer blow on Shen Yan’s heart.

She stood frozen, staring blankly at the screen.

’We were on the wrong path from the very beginning?’

’So all those days and sleepless nights they’d spent... were all for nothing?’

If anyone else had dared to say that, Shen Yan would have slammed the table and started arguing on the spot.

But the one who said it was Chen Lin.

A literature student who had solved their problem with a single glance.

For some reason, deep down, she didn’t feel a single shred of doubt.

"Then what should we do?" Shen Yan’s voice was a little hoarse, her eyes holding a trace of confusion and helplessness.

Chen Lin looked at her and offered a choice. "Two options. First, I help you solve the current problem. You guys hurry up and polish the report. With what you have now, winning a national award shouldn’t be a problem. Second, we scrap your entire current optimization scheme, and I give you a brand-new one. Not only will it solve all the problems perfectly, but in theory, the model could be put into practical use as a finished product. The risk, however, is that the competition deadline is in about 30 hours, right? You might not finish in time."

After speaking, he leaned back in his chair, calmly awaiting her decision.

Shen Yan didn’t hesitate for a second.

She looked up almost instinctively, her gaze burning as she stared at Chen Lin, and said decisively, "I choose the second option!"

To a true academic purist, a perfect truth was far more attractive than a decent award.

"Alright." Chen Lin wasn’t surprised by her answer.

He pulled over a chair, sat down, picked up a pen, and on a clean sheet of scratch paper, began to write and explain the new approach to Shen Yan from the very beginning.

"The traditional SEIR model is based on linear thinking, but virus propagation is non-linear, especially in modern society. Transportation, social networks, quarantine policies... every variable is an independent chaotic system. So, we can’t use addition; we have to use multiplication. We need to introduce a multi-dimensional coupled dynamic Bayesian network..."

Chen Lin’s voice echoed in the quiet study room.

Just like earlier in the day, he was simply voicing the ideas that flowed effortlessly from his mind.

He had full confidence in his "Little Mathematician" ability; the solution he was providing now should be the optimal one.

If anything, he was more worried that Shen Yan wouldn’t be able to keep up, so he deliberately slowed his pace from time to time to give her a chance to think and digest the information.

Time ticked by, second by second.

Shen Yan was completely immersed. She would sometimes furrow her brow in concentration, then a moment of understanding would flash across her face, the light in her eyes growing brighter and brighter.

Although she couldn’t understand everything completely, she could clearly sense that the approach Chen Lin was proposing was far superior to their original one.

It was concise and elegant!

An unknown amount of time passed. When Chen Lin drew the last symbol and put down his pen, he realized the world outside the window was completely dark.

He glanced at his phone: 9:30 PM.

"...And that’s the gist of it. With your skills, you should be able to fill in the rest of the details yourself." Chen Lin stood up and stretched his stiff neck.

"I—"

Shen Yan opened her mouth, wanting to say so much, but in the end, it all came down to the simplest of words:

"Thank you."

"No problem. Hope you guys do well in the competition." Chen Lin waved his hand dismissively. All he wanted now was to get back to his dorm and sleep.

With that, he picked up his snacks and turned toward the door, leaving cleanly and without a moment’s hesitation.

Shen Yan stared blankly as his back disappeared through the doorway, then looked down at the sheet of scratch paper covered in equations.

She pressed her lips together, turned back to her seat, and began to program the new model based on the framework Chen Lin had provided.