The Genius Who Kept His Edge Hidden

Chen Yan of Yunxi County No. 1 High School is known throughout the school as a "lopsided genius": 271 points in science subjects, among the best in the province, but less than 110 combined in Chinese and English. He scored 519 on the college entrance exam, six points below the cutoff for a bachelor's degree, and could only get into a vocational college. No one knows that on the thirty-seventh day of summer vacation, this nineteen-year-old invented a garment that lets light pass around the human body. On August 10, thirty-two hostages were taken in a robbery at the Yunxi County Rural Commercial Bank. The four armed robbers never figured out what had knocked them down one by one before they died. Three weeks later, in Room 3019 of Building Six at Tsinghua University, specially appointed professor Chen Yan stands at the lectern. Among the students below is incoming freshman Su Wan.