Chapter 895 - 897: Is This Bullying the Ancients?_1
The woman speaking was Shi Qingning, the youngest daughter of Shi Yingcai, the commander of the Xijiang Main Camp. While the scale of the Xijiang Main Camp was not as large as the Northwest Main Camp, it was the main force against enemies in the Southwest region. Due to this relationship, Shi Qingning felt some dissatisfaction towards Bai Ruozhu.
Shi Qingning, being the youngest child of Shi Yingcai, was especially cherished, and she had a rather haughty manner. In Jiangnan, she was known as a little tyrant, and even Xu Panrui and her peers dared not provoke her easily.
It was precisely because she saw how outstanding Bai Ruozhu was that she wanted to find some trouble for Bai. By chance, she had recently reviewed some materials in the Luoshu River Chart and discovered such a problem. She had even discussed it with her brothers and sisters, but none of them could figure it out. She was feeling rather smug at the thought of challenging Bai Ruozhu, but to her surprise, after she finished speaking, she saw a slight smile on Bai Ruozhu’s lips.
"How is this difficult? I already know the answer, and I know that the sum of every three numbers is fifteen!" Bai Ruozhu said loudly.
The spectator seats erupted in astonishment, and upon hearing Shi Qingning’s problem, everyone began to ponder. They felt it was indeed challenging. Not only did the sums have to match for the three horizontal rows and three vertical columns, but also for both diagonals—meaning eight sets of numbers in total had to yield the same result. Was that even possible?
What surprised them even more was that Bai Ruozhu already had the answer.
"What? How could you solve it so quickly?" Shi Qingning asked in disbelief. Had it been before, she might have laughed at Bai Ruozhu for boasting, but having seen Bai Ruozhu solve so many problems correctly, in her heart she dared not underestimate her. That was why she came up with a problem from the Luoshu River Chart right from the start.
Bai Ruozhu smiled, turned to a servant beside her, and said, "Please help me move the table and paper money over here, and I’ll write it out for everyone to see."
The servant assisting the organizing committee at the Testing ground hurriedly moved a table to Bai Ruozhu and also spread out the paper for her, pressing it down with paperweights.
At this moment, the spectators were very quiet, all staring at Bai Ruozhu, eager to see if she really knew the answer.
Bai Ruozhu picked up a pen and drew a large nine-square grid on the paper, then wrote down nine numbers in Chinese characters. She almost instinctively wrote the Arabic numerals, which could have made her look like she was drawing Ghost-Drawn Talisman.
"There, see if the sum isn’t fifteen for all," Bai Ruozhu said as she took the paper and hung it on a rack fixed beside the table.
Many in the audience stood up to get a clearer view, carefully adding the numbers together to find a row or column that didn’t total fifteen, but the outcome disappointed them.
When Bai Ruozhu saw that Shi Qingning was calculating earnestly and even subconsciously bending her fingers, she almost laughed out loud, thinking to herself, was this Miss really going to tally arithmetic on her fingers to test her?
But was she taking advantage of people from ancient times by doing this?
At the judges’ seating, some had already recorded the answer, and the judges were issuing words of admiration, saying the problem was well-set, and the answer was even better.
"It really is correct. How could you calculate so quickly?" Shi Qingning’s tone was much better now, not as aggressive as before, merely looking at Bai Ruozhu with curiosity.
Bai Ruozhu just smiled at her and said, "I’ve solved this problem before, so I guess I took a bit of a shortcut."
Shi Qingning paused for a moment, but quickly started smiling and said, "Being able to solve it is a skill in itself. Not everyone can know the problems from the Luoshu River Chart."
This time, it was Bai Ruozhu’s turn to be stunned. She had only encountered this problem in Mathematical Olympiad when she was in primary school, and the same nine-square grid could be filled with another set of numbers while following the same rules. She just didn’t know that this problem was rare in Danliang Country and that it was from the Luoshu River Chart.
She simply chose not to speak, her face still wearing a faint smile, appearing somewhat inscrutable.
"However, just this won’t make me admit defeat. Neither of us is skilled at arithmetic, so I’ll have our family accountant propose another question for you," Shi Qingning said.
"Alright," Bai Ruozhu saw a middle-aged man already seated beside Shi Qingning and realized that she had summoned him in advance following her previous offer to let the audience pose questions to challenge her.
The Shi Family’s accountant stood up, bowed respectfully to Bai Ruozhu, and said, "Miss Bai, I will present the question now."
Bai Ruozhu, seeing his respectful demeanor, returned the bow and said, "Please do."
"The day before yesterday, the residence purchased four carts of fruits and two carts of vegetables for a total of twenty-six taels of silver. Yesterday, the residence bought the same amount of fruits and three carts of vegetables for a total of fourteen taels of silver. How much does one cart of fruits cost, and how much for one cart of vegetables?"
Shi Qingning was delighted and gave the accountant a thumbs-up, with a wink to convey that it was a challenging question.
Bai Ruozhu was somewhat interested—it was finally an elementary two-variable linear equation. She quickly jotted down some figures on a piece of paper and soon came up with the answer.
"One cart of fruits costs five taels of silver, and one cart of vegetables costs three taels of silver," Bai Ruozhu announced loudly.
The accountant’s face changed, "I didn’t expect Miss Bai to solve it so quickly. I am not skilled enough to challenge you."
The crowd verified Bai Ruozhu’s answer, and indeed it was correct; however, to solve it so quickly without an answer was no easy feat.
Shi Qingning didn’t blame the accountant. After asking him to sit down, she said to Bai Ruozhu, "Alright, I, Shi Qingning, am convinced. I believe it is truly your own skill and there was no cheating involved."
Bai Ruozhu smiled at her, thinking that although the young lady was somewhat arrogant and overbearing, she was also straightforward and sincere, not someone to be disliked.
When it became quiet again, some other people stood up to ask questions—some were unconvinced and wanted to stump Bai Ruozhu, while others simply wanted to show off and ask a more difficult question to gain some face. They envied the participants in the competition because they never had the chance to make a name for themselves.
Bai Ruozhu answered each question until a man stood up and asked a three-variable equation, probably inspired by the Shi Family’s accountant and intent on posing an even more difficult challenge.
"I went to buy the Four Treasures of the Study. Two writing brushes, one inkstone, and four reams of paper cost thirty-eight taels of silver, while the same one inkstone, one writing brush, and two reams of paper cost eighteen taels of silver. How much does each of these items cost?"
Bai Ruozhu laughed upon hearing this, not even writing anything on her paper, and said, "Brother, there’s a mistake in your question."
The man’s face darkened slightly, and he said somewhat upset, "Where is the mistake? You think it’s too difficult and you can’t answer, so now you say there’s a mistake?"
Bai Ruozhu smiled and shook her head, "Did you have specific prices in mind when you posed the question? You can only be precise if you know the costs. I think you just blurted out a price, didn’t you?"
The man’s secret was hit upon by Bai Ruozhu, causing his face to flush slightly, but he stretched his neck out defiantly, "Then where did I go wrong, tell me? Just because you can’t calculate an extra item, it means my question is incorrect?"
----
Mouka realized that the Chapter posted at 8 o’clock in the morning had far fewer readers, so the update time has been changed to 9 o’clock. Let’s observe it for now~