Everyone looked at each of the twenty-nine contestants. There were well-known ones like Guo Huai, Murong Weiwei, Tang Xi, Su Ye, You Youyou and unknown ones like Qi An, Pang Xin, Li Gu, etc.

The most surprising character of the day was not Guo Huai, but Nangong Lingmo, a mysterious character who had never been to cla.s.s since day one.

“Is that girl Nangong Lingmo? Why is she so young? Is she really a high school student?” the girl beside Lin Xiao asked.

“The one from Nangong family is hidden so deep here…” Li Ao said softly.

“So what if she’s from Nangong family? It doesn’t make a difference here at Knowledge Champions.h.i.+p,” Ah Q said softly.

“Let’s look at the questions here… Li Xunyu is indeed extraordinary,” the headmaster of Seventh High said.

After around thirty minutes, Lin Xiao noticed the sweat on Qiao Mu’s forehead. “Qiao Mu, are you still confident to defeat these contestants?” she asked, smiling.

“Wucheng Subhigh must’ve set the question bank themselves… The students wouldn’t be able to answer them correctly otherwise. Those questions are much harder than even the official compet.i.tion. Something’s fishy here,” Qiao Mu said softly. After looking at all the questions shown on screen, he noticed that he could not answer more than twenty percent of them.

“They don’t have a question bank. Every question is set by the brightest minds in the country,” the headmaster of Ninth High, Cao Xinglong, said. “Old Man Li really wants to get first in the compet.i.tion once again.”

“Cao, let’s sit down and talk after the qualifiers end. You don’t want to see us being humiliated by Li twice in a row, right?” the headmaster of Suns.h.i.+ne High asked, squinting.

Cao Xinglong lightly nodded his head. After a short while, Seventh High, Ninth High and a few other high schools had formed an alliance to go against Wucheng Subhigh. Since they had a common enemy, they were naturally each other’s allies.

The screen behind the stage showed the questions that appeared on the twenty-eight computers. In the first round of qualifiers, getting one question wrong would result in a ten-second penalty. The first twenty contestants to finish answering one hundred randomized questions first would proceed to the next round.

Beep! The red light in front of Nangong Lingmo lit up first, meaning this ordinary young girl was the first to complete a hundred questions.

After around one minute, the light in front of Murong Weiwei glowed, followed by Qian Duoduo’s shortly after.

“d.a.m.n! It seems like Brother Huai is really just here to have fun. Why is he still typing? He doesn’t seem to be answering questions. Why is he typing so fast?” Qian Duoduo muttered as he looked at Guo Huai.

“What is Brother Huai doing? Nine of us are done already. Why isn’t he done yet?” Murong Weiwei said softly, raising her brows.

“Xi, Naughty Boy will be disqualified in the first round. The ten thousand yuan you bet on him is going to evaporate,” Su Ye said. She was the ninth one to complete while Tang Xi was the seventh.

“Fourth Brother, you must get ready to count the cash. Guo Huai is still doing the questions. Hahah! Twenty-two are done already. I don’t think he can even pa.s.s the first round,” Jia Benben said and laughed.

“Second Brother, it’s not only me who’s counting the cash. We brothers are all getting the cash in,” Qin Yulong said and smiled. The gambling entry had a total amount of 1.3 billion yuan. If Guo Huai could not even pa.s.s the first round, this money will all belong to the four brothers.

After around five minutes, twenty-eight lights were all up while Guo Huai was still busy typing on the keyboard.

A female student who was the helper of the event coughed and asked, “Ahem, ahem. Guo Huai, are you not done yet?”

“There are too many questions!” Guo Huai shouted as he continued typing.

“H-headmaster Li… Can you come up for a while? There’s some issue with Guo Huai’s laptop,” the student said loudly at Li Xunyu who had fallen asleep.

“What? What’s wrong with his laptop? He’ll be disqualified if he can’t answer. Quickly proceed to the second round, there’s nothing wrong with his laptop,” Li Xunyu shouted, annoyed.

“Four Eyes, as you can see, your idol can’t even go through the first round. I bet he can get only half the questions right at most,” a youngster said as he looked at Four Eyes. “Your ten thousand is going to sink in the sea.”

Lin Shuang could not stand it anymore and walked up the stage. “What’s this kid dong? He wouldn’t take this much time even if he skipped the hundred questions if they’re too difficult,” she said.

Lin Shuang looked at Guo Huai’s screen and got astonished. “Headmaster Li, please come up. There’s really a problem with his computer.”

“Teacher Lin, you can’t help Guo Huai even if he’s from your cla.s.s. This is the official qualifiers, no one is allowed to go through the backdoor,” Lin Xunyu said as he slowly walked up the stage.

Li Xunyu looked at Guo Huai’s screen for less than a second and shouted, “Jia Yuntao! Get your a.s.s over here!”

“Leader Jia, I think the headmaster is summoning you,” a worker said softly at Jia Yuntao who was deeply asleep.

“The headmaster? Why would he look for me?” Jia Yuntao asked nervously. The moment he heard the word “headmaster”, he quickly ran up the stage anxiously.

“Jia Yuntao, is this how you get things done?” Li Xunyu said as he stared at Jia Yuntao.

“Oh… The automatic stop function isn’t installed on this computer,” Jia Yuntao said softly. He was so embarra.s.sed that he wanted to hide in a hole.

“If the qualifier this time is messed up, you can get a resignation letter ready and send it to my office,” Li Xunyu said before walking down the stage.

“Old Man Li, what’s going on? The first round has ended already. Let’s announce the results,” Cao Xinglong said rudely.

After around ten minutes, the result of each partic.i.p.ant was ready. “I’ll now announce the people who will be proceeding to the next round. Li Gu from Cla.s.s Seven: 24m 13s. Qin Feng from Cla.s.s Eleven: 23m 59s. w.a.n.g Yuan from Cla.s.s Nine: 23m 5s. Su Ye from Cla.s.s Six: 18m 11s. You Youyou from Cla.s.s Nine: 18m 6s. Tang Xi from Cla.s.s Six: 17m 45s. Qian Duoduo from Cla.s.s One: 15m 37s. Murong Weiwei from Cla.s.s One: 15m 10s. Nangong Lingmo from Cla.s.s Sixteen: 14m 1s,” Jia Yuntao quickly announced the names of nineteen people.

“Since the first twenty have been announced, let’s start the next round,” Cao Xinglong said loudly.

“Cao, he only said nineteen names. Look at the screen, there’s one left,” the headmaster of Suns.h.i.+ne High said.

“The first place of the first round… belongs to Guo Huai from Cla.s.s One: 9m 4s,” Jia Yuntao said, ignoring the noise below the stage. He asked the eight students who lost to leave the stage and gave Guo Huai a real seat this time.