Chapter 218 - 210: Above the River of Stars, This Youth

Chapter 218: Chapter 210: Above the River of Stars, This Youth

The discussion continued for another two hours.

Finally, Li Dong finalized the technical tasks for the three workstreams for the coming two weeks.

It was already dark when the three of them stood up.

A blast of cold wind hit them as they walked out of Building 35, and Old Yang shivered.

"Li Dong."

Li Dong looked back.

"Hm?"

Old Yang looked at him, hesitating for a long moment. He seemed to want to say more, but in the end, he only managed one sentence.

"At the library... I want to review the research on the Breuil-Mézard conjecture again next week."

Li Dong was taken aback for a moment, then he smiled.

That was Old Yang’s way of telling him that he hadn’t kept up with the project and was going to push himself to catch up.

"Okay." Li Dong only said a single word.

Old Yang nodded, then turned and left.

Li Dong stood there and watched him for a couple of seconds.

He suddenly had a realization about the nearly 40-year-old high school math teacher.

As he had spent the last few weeks desperately poring over papers in the Yan University Library, he likely wasn’t just studying to catch up. He was also reclaiming, piece by piece, whatever it was that Jiang Yubai had stolen from him fifteen years ago.

...

The following days proceeded in an orderly fashion.

During this time, the academic column of the Guangming Daily published a full-page feature article.

[A Youth Among the Stars—A Profile of Li Dong, Yan University’s Nineteen-Year-Old Prodigy]

The article opened with just two lines:

When Riemann wrote down his conjecture one hundred and sixty years ago, he did not live to see an answer.

This winter, a nineteen-year-old youth from Huaxia has taken a step forward in his place.

...

The latter half of that day’s CTV Broadcast dedicated a full two minutes to a special feature on Li Dong.

The segment opened with an exterior shot of Sunshine Hall before cutting inside, recounting how a nineteen-year-old had calmly answered thirteen consecutive questions during the seminar.

"A new star is rising on the map of Huaxian mathematics."

Two minutes wasn’t a long time.

But on the Broadcast, two minutes was an extraordinary honor.

After watching it, the high school kids’ eyes were all shining...

"I’m going to go to college! I’m going to get into Yan University, and then I can be as brilliant as Li Dong!"

That was their reaction.

University students who watched it, however, generally just scoffed.

"Heh."

"Going to college makes you as brilliant as Li Dong?"

"News to me."

Of course, the public’s reaction wasn’t entirely positive.

A number of accounts began to stir the pot, using a typical tactic...

"We’re not saying Li Dong isn’t great, we just want to be a bit more objective."

"Look at Terence Tao. He won a gold medal at the International Mathematical Olympiad at thirteen, became a professor at twenty-four, and won the Fields Medal at thirty-one. He never missed a beat."

"And what about Li Dong?"

"He’s nineteen now, and he still hasn’t won a single international award."

"Compared to Terence Tao, Li Dong is still too green."

On the surface, this argument looked very "objective."

But any insider could see at a glance that it was a fallacious comparison.

The Fields Medal is awarded every four years. The next one is in 2026, and it’s only 2023 now.

This was like comparing a student who hadn’t even taken the test yet to a graduate who’d already gotten a perfect score, and then concluding that the student was inferior.

Of course, Li Dong was completely unaware of this sort of chatter.

After all, he couldn’t even be bothered to check his email, let alone read this stuff.

...

「That night, in Dorm Room 404.」

Li Dong was curled up in his chair, phone in hand.

He wasn’t exactly "studying."

Instead, he was lurking in the Cyan Dragon Study Group chat.

The group chat had been a little different lately.

First, there was his own avatar frame.

It had gained a thin border around it.

He tried tapping it.

No response.

A long press didn’t do anything either.

There was no explanation in the group settings or under the Group Leader’s exclusive permissions.

’Did it just grow in over time?’

’Is it an experience bar?’

After watching it for a moment, Li Dong decided not to dwell on it.

’Whatever the mechanism is, the fact that it’s growing has to be a good thing.’

Just as he was about to put his phone away, someone spoke in the chat.

[James Joule]: @AcademicInProgress.

’Joule hasn’t said anything in a long time,’ Li Dong thought. ’I wonder what he’s been up to.’

[James Joule]: How has your nephew been lately? Is that study method of mine working for him?

Li Dong paused.

’He’d just used his ’nephew’ as an excuse to ask Riemann a question a few days ago. Joule clearly missed it.’

’So it’s true... these masters can’t see the chat history.’

But since one of the masters had asked, Li Dong knew he had to reply politely.

[AcademicInProgress]: Thank you for asking, Mr. Joule. The boy has been living in the library using your method. He even dares to present his own ideas to his teachers now.

Just as Li Dong was about to try and build more of a rapport with Joule, someone cut into their conversation.

[Isaac Newton]: Stop discussing such mediocre individuals. It’s a waste of time.

Li Dong: "..."

Joule: "..."

’Seriously, Newton?’

’Dude.’

’That comment...’

Before he could reply, Newton’s second message appeared.

[Isaac Newton]: Mortals should know their place. There is no need to touch the domain of the gods.

Reading that, the corner of Li Dong’s mouth twitched.

’What kind of edgy teenage nonsense was that?’

Then Newton’s third message followed immediately.

[Isaac Newton]: Changing the world is what people like us should be doing. For instance, right now...

[Isaac Newton]: That big machine Von Neumann was talking about... I’ve built it.

[Isaac Newton]: But it isn’t very obedient.

[Isaac Newton]: I am in the process of taming it.

Seeing this, Li Dong suddenly remembered something.

The messages Newton had been posting in the group from time to time a while back.

[Hello, World.]

At the time, Li Dong had no idea what it meant.

But looking back on it now...

Hello, world.

This...

’Isn’t this fucking...’

’...the first line of code almost everyone writes in their entire life?’

It’s on the first page of every programming tutorial, the very first program a beginner ever gets to run successfully. It’s always this line:

print("Hello, World")

printf("Hello, World\n")

System.out.println("Hello, World")

So Newton hadn’t been going crazy these past few days.

He was writing code?

A seventeenth-century Newton, in a parallel universe where he’d already kicked off the Industrial Revolution, had just built the first general-purpose computer from scratch...

And now, in his London workshop, he was personally inventing a programming language to communicate with that very machine?

Li Dong stared at his phone, too stunned to speak.

’Lord Niu, are you really trying to catch up to my world’s timeline?’

[AcademicInProgress]: Sir Newton, how are you taming it?

[Isaac Newton]: I command it in a language it can understand, like a divine oracle.

[AcademicInProgress]: Have you named this language, then?

[Isaac Newton]: I am not yet proficient. We can speak of it once I am.

[AcademicInProgress]: Then please be sure to tell me its name when you do.

[Isaac Newton]: Of course.

[Isaac Newton]: However, the great machine finally deigned to speak back to me today.

[Isaac Newton]: It calls me Master.

Li Dong: ???!!!