Hi everyone! We are thrilled to invite you to The 3rd Universal Cup, Stage 38: Guangzhou, taking place on May 24th, 2025.

The contest is based on the Finals of the CCPC (China Collegiate Programming Contest), which was held on May 11th, 2025. This is my third time to be a judge on the CCPC Finals, and probably my last experience of my judging experience in high school.

This contest is prepared by Gellyfish, JohnVictor, EvenImage, Kevin114514, Kubic, Lynkcat, Milmon, ODT, zhoukangyang, Qingyu.

Although the style of problems differs a lot, the difficulty of this problem set is close to the ICPC World Finals or Regional Semifinals (NERC Finals or Asia EC Finals). We believe the problems will be engaging for participants of all levels while still providing a challenge for the strongest teams.

Past Similar Events based on the CCPC Finals

• The 2nd Universal Cup. Stage 28: Chengdu (Based on CCPC Finals 2023)
• The 1st Universal Cup. Stage 17: Guangzhou (Based on CCPC Finals 2022)
• XXI Open Cup named after E.V. Pankratiev, Grand Prix of Beijing (Based on CCPC Finals 2020)
• XX Open Cup named after E.V. Pankratiev, Grand Prix of Beijing (Based on CCPC Finals 2019)

We are looking forward to your participation!

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Finally, as a personal note, this contest marks the final appearance of our team Rainow, originally composed of jiangly, Qingyu, and skip2004 (CF and UCup).

Rainow was born during the ICPC World Finals in Luxor, and I was expected to join Peking University as an undergraduate in Fall 2024. However, due to certain frustrating policies and internal issues at CCF, I ultimately lost the opportunity to enroll as part of the national training team. As a result, Rainow was left incomplete, competing as a two-person team in all official ICPC/CCPC contests. This sub-team won the ICPC Regionals and the Asia East Continent Finals, but chose to forgo their spot at the World Finals. In this contest, I return once more as a judge, and am dramatically reunited with my teammates, who appear as contestants.

I’d like to express my deepest gratitude to my two teammates, as well as to the ICPC coaches from Peking University—Qinjian Zhang and Guojie Luo. Their unwavering support over the past year gave me the strength to stand up against the unfairness I faced. While I ultimately couldn’t overcome the senseless bureaucracy and return to Peking University, I’m proud of the journey we shared and confident that our friendship will endure far beyond competitions. I've shared more of the story—without any spoilers about the problem set—in Chinese on Zhihu, and I'll publish an English version on my personal blog after the contest.