Chapter 55: A Difficult Knot to Untie

Unable to solve the problem, the audience below the stage grew increasingly restless.

In contrast, however, Fang Nian appeared much more composed than the crowd. He sat in his seat, fiddling with the computer before him for quite a while without attempting to answer the question.

Seeing this, Duan Rui’s face showed a rare flash of confidence. She glanced at Fang Nian and spoke in a cool, detached manner.

“How about it, President Fang? If you can’t solve it, just move on to the next question. There’s still the charity gala afterward, let’s not waste everyone’s time.”

“YES!”

Just then, Fang Nian suddenly shouted as if he had finally solved the problem.

Everyone froze for a moment, then broke into smiles, assuming Fang Nian had cracked the question and was crying out in excitement. All eyes turned to him, expectant for his answer.

However, none of them anticipated what happened next...

“Sister Duan, did you know? Completing the four-suit mode in Spider Solitaire is actually quite tough. You not only have to know how to hold your cards, but also need a bit of luck to clear the game. It’s honestly so much fun.”

Duan Rui was stunned, and so were the spectators. Had this guy really been playing Spider Solitaire the whole time? What about the problem he was supposed to solve?

Duan Rui could no longer bear Fang Nian’s blatant disregard. She finally lost her composure and snapped in anger.

“Are you competing or not? If you’re not, get on your knees and call me grandma. I don’t have time for your games.”

Fang Nian’s smile froze for a moment. He smacked his forehead and put on a look of sudden realization.

“Oh dear, look at me, I completely forgot about this. My apologies.”

With that, Fang Nian tapped the keyboard. Instantly, a formula appeared beneath Duan Rui’s problem.

“×”

“I actually solved this a while ago. I just got so absorbed in Spider Solitaire that I forgot to type out the answer. Really, I’m sorry.”

Duan Rui stared at the answer before her, nearly fuming with rage. Never in her life had she been mocked like this—especially not in the field she excelled at. To her, this was the ultimate humiliation. All her life, when had she ever suffered such indignity?

“You...”

Although furious, Duan Rui could find no fault. The standard answer was right there, perfectly matching Fang Nian’s solution. She truly had nothing to say—he had every right to act smug.

Fang Nian looked at Duan Rui, whose face was flushed with anger, and said calmly,

“To be honest, Sister Duan, you’re actually very clever. I suppose when you designed this problem, your aim was to lure me into your trap. Most people, upon seeing it, would assume it’s a calculation problem, am I right?”

The audience nodded at these words. Indeed, anyone would have thought so.

Fang Nian smiled and continued,

“That’s exactly where Sister Duan showed her skill. The problem she gave us isn’t actually a calculation problem, but a reasoning puzzle disguised as one. To solve it, you don’t need complex calculations—just logical thinking, and you’ll get the answer easily. Isn’t that right, Sister Duan?”

Many in the audience suddenly understood, laughing at themselves for having been tricked.

But Duan Rui’s expression grew uglier by the minute. She simply could not understand how someone as shameless as Fang Nian could exist in this world.

“Enough with the nonsense—let’s move on to the second question.”

With that, she tapped the keyboard, and the next problem appeared in a three-dimensional projection.

On the screen appeared a three-wheeled vehicle loaded with goods and a deliveryman.

Duan Rui pointed to the projection and explained,

“As you can see, this is a tricycle loaded with goods. The deliveryman needs to bring these goods to a customer’s home, fifty kilometers from the company. Since the company is deep in the mountains and the road is rough, every twenty kilometers, the tires will be destroyed.”

She paused, then continued,

“But here’s the challenge: he only has five spare tires, meaning a total of eight tires. How can he deliver the goods safely to the customer’s home?”

As soon as Duan Rui finished, everyone began pondering the problem. But before they could even work through it, Fang Nian stood up and said coolly,

“Sister Duan, is this really the extent of your skill?”

Duan Rui was taken aback, unable to respond before Fang Nian had already typed out the full answer—a string of connected numbers.

“、、。”

“This question obviously uses your signature logical traps. According to your description, the tires must be changed every twenty kilometers, so eight tires wouldn’t survive three blowouts. Logically, it’s an unsolvable problem.”

“But if we change our approach, things are different. Suppose we change the tires at regular intervals along the way, so each tire is used four times. We number all eight tires and rotate them according to this sequence on the road.”

“In this way, we make maximum use of each tire, easily delivering the goods fifty kilometers to the customer’s home—perhaps even with some to spare.”

Fang Nian’s explanation was thorough and struck directly at the heart of the problem. The audience quickly understood, and some even grumbled behind his back—he solved the problem so fast, they hardly had any chance to participate, let alone enjoy the challenge.

Duan Rui had now completely lost her patience. Without another word, she brought out her final trump card: the third problem appeared.

In the three-dimensional projection, a heptagon appeared. At each vertex and on each side was a circle, making a total of fourteen. Beneath the heptagon, fourteen numbers were arranged: one through fourteen.

“This is a combination lock. You need to fill the numbers one to fourteen into these circles so that the sum of the three numbers along each side is twenty-six. Please, solve it.”

Fang Nian gazed at the problem, his brow furrowing, his expression growing darker—clearly, this time he was not as composed as with the previous two questions.

Duan Rui caught every subtle change in his expression, and the corners of her lips curled into a smile she hadn’t worn in a long time.

“Seems I was right. You’re only skilled in logical reasoning. Now I’ve changed the challenge to a numbers-based puzzle, and you can’t solve it.”

Duan Rui’s words left the audience a bit confused, but they struck home with Fang Nian. Inside, he truly felt like crying—this girl was no ordinary opponent.

She was absolutely right. All her previous questions had relied mainly on logical thought, and with his gift for logic, Fang Nian had found them easy to solve.

He’d assumed her final question would also be logic-based, but to his surprise, she’d switched strategies. This problem was clearly about numerical thinking. Although Fang Nian was decent at math, he was far from a prodigy.

At this, Fang Nian couldn’t help but sigh inwardly.

“This round is going to be a tough nut to crack.”