Chapter 243 - 234: Coronation Edict

Chapter 243: Chapter 234: Coronation Edict

「Saturday afternoon.」

「At the south gate of Yan University.」

Li Dong called out to Wang Hao, who was tying his shoelaces.

"Let’s go, Haozi. You’re leading the way."

Wang Hao straightened up, looking momentarily baffled.

"...Lead the way to where?"

"You’re asking me?"

"I’m asking you."

The two of them stood outside the south gate, staring at each other for three seconds.

And therein lay the problem.

Ever since starting school last September, Li Dong had basically never done any real sightseeing in the Capital City.

His knowledge of the city was pretty much limited to the fact that "the small restaurants within 500 meters of the south gate are reasonably priced."

It was the same for Wang Hao.

Besides being dragged to the Forbidden City by his mom during the first few days of school, he had spent the rest of his time just like Li Dong.

If he needed to figure out which subway line to transfer to, he had to pull out his phone and look it up.

Wang Hao was the first to give in, pulling out his phone to open the map app.

"We need to buy some formal clothes... Xidan, maybe?"

"What’s Xidan?"

Wang Hao sighed.

"Xidan’s a district. It’s nearby, has a ton of malls, and you can find any kind of clothes you want."

Li Dong nodded.

"You decide."

And so, the two country bumpkins swayed along on Line 4 into the city.

Once they left the Xidan subway station, Li Dong’s entire demeanor changed.

Because he loved shopping!

Li Dong took a deep breath.

Even the dust in the air smelled sweet to him.

"This is great..."

Wang Hao glanced at him.

"Brother Dong, are you nuts?"

"What’s wrong?"

"The air is full of dust."

"You don’t get it."

Li Dong swung his arms and strode forward.

"This is the scent of real life."

Wang Hao also took a deep breath.

And then coughed for a good half a minute.

The two of them strolled aimlessly along North Xidan Avenue.

They were both in high spirits at first, since it was their first time here.

But half an hour later, Li Dong was only getting more energized, while Wang Hao trailed behind him, a dazed look on his face.

"Brother Dong."

"Hm?"

"Aren’t we here to buy clothes?"

"Huh? Oh, right, right."

Only then did Li Dong remember the real reason he had come out.

He casually pointed to a department store on the side of the road with an impressively intimidating storefront.

"This one."

Wang Hao looked up and glanced at the store’s facade.

His face stiffened.

He recognized this place.

It was the kind of place where you had to check the prices before you dared to take a sip of water.

Second floor, men’s wear section.

A sales associate greeted them with a beaming smile.

"What can I help you two with?"

Before Li Dong could speak, Wang Hao spoke up.

"My friend here needs to buy a formal outfit. It’s for a speech."

The sales associate’s eyes lit up, and she sized up Li Dong’s figure from top to bottom.

"Then you’ll want to look at suits. This way, please."

As Wang Hao passed by a price tag, he subconsciously glanced at it.

A single shirt: 3,800.

’So fucking expensive!’

In the moment he was dazed, the sales associate had already coaxed Li Dong into a fitting room.

「Five minutes later.」

With a CLICK, the door was pushed open.

Wang Hao looked up.

And froze on the spot.

Standing there was a young man with crisp shoulder lines and a clean-cut air, looking just like Ah Zu from *New Police Story*.

The sales associate clapped her hands in delight.

"Sir, this suit looks like it was tailor-made for you!"

"It’s a perfect fit!"

Wang Hao thought to himself...

’Twelve thousand.’

Li Dong stood in front of the mirror, turning left and right a couple of times.

’Hm.’

’It does look the part.’

"Alright," Li Dong nodded.

"I’ll take it off."

The sales associate: ?

Wang Hao: ?

Li Dong said matter-of-factly as he walked back into the fitting room.

"This suit is too expensive. I’d hardly ever wear it."

"Not worth the price."

The fitting room door clicked shut.

This left Wang Hao outside, enduring the sales associate’s weird look all by himself.

Wang Hao wanted to die of embarrassment.

He really couldn’t help himself.

He leaned in close to the fitting room door.

He said in a hushed voice.

"Brother Dong."

"Yeah?"

"Don’t you have over eight hundred thousand just sitting in your card?"

There was silence from the fitting room for about two seconds.

"...How do you know that?"

"You said it yourself last year in the dorm when you were drunk!"

Wang Hao gritted his teeth.

"You even said that no one in the dorm was richer than you!"

"Oh, right. And you know I was drunk."

Li Dong’s voice came from inside the room.

"So it obviously wasn’t true, then."

While Li Dong and Wang Hao were going back and forth...

...

「On the other side of the world.」

「New Jersey.」

「Newark Liberty International Airport.」

Frank Callegari walked out of the terminal exit.

He had taken off from Chicago O’Hare at four in the morning and flown for over two hours.

He was tired and hungry.

But he paid it no mind.

A car service was already waiting for him at the curb.

He gave the driver his destination: Ford Building, at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

Then he closed his eyes.

「An hour later.」

The car turned onto the Institute’s grounds in Princeton.

Frank tipped the driver and got out.

In a sense, Ford Building was the holy temple of theoretical mathematics.

Einstein had been here.

Godel, Von Neumann, Weyl, Oppenheimer... they had all been here.

And now.

The old man still sat in his north-facing office on the second floor of this very building.

At the end of the hallway.

A small card was affixed to a wooden door, bearing two handwritten lines...

Robert Langlands.

Frank smoothed down his clothes from top to bottom.

Once he was satisfied, he raised his hand and knocked three times.

An elderly voice came from inside.

"Enter."

Frank pushed the door open and went inside.

Seeing him enter, Langlands slowly raised his head.

"Frank."

Frank bowed slightly.

"Professor Langlands."

Langlands smiled.

It was a smile of gentle approval, like an elder looking upon a promising junior.

In the late 1980s, when Frank was still an undergraduate, he had attended one of Langlands’s lectures in Chicago.

During his doctoral studies, his research focused on automorphic representations within the Langlands Program.

He cited the old man over forty times in his doctoral thesis.

Over the past few decades, every time Frank had a new idea, he would mail him a letter.

And though Langlands was getting on in years, he personally replied to every single one.

"Sit."

The old man said softly.

Frank sat down in the chair opposite him.

Langlands closed the book that was open in front of him.

"You said on the phone..."

"...you had something to show me."

"Was it not something you could send directly?"

Frank nodded.

It was a matter of policy at the *Mathematical Annals*.

Before a manuscript entered the formal peer review process, it was strictly forbidden for the editor-in-chief or associate editor to privately forward the manuscript to a colleague to "take a look first."

But there was an unspoken gray area in this circle...

You could have a true authority in the field give it a once-over first.

If the authority spotted a problem at a glance, it would be sent back for the author to fix.

If the authority deemed it viable, they would then be added to the official list of peer reviewers.

That way, the entire process remained above board.

There was only one condition for this maneuver...

You had to ask the right person.

Frank took a thick stack of printouts from his briefcase.

Over seventy pages.

He placed the manuscript on Langlands’s desk with both hands.

"Professor."

"I was hoping you would take a look at this paper."

"I believe..."

He paused.

"You are the most qualified person to read it."

"And the most qualified person to pass judgment on it."

Langlands’s gaze fell to the top line of the printout.

That was the title.

A Zero-Point Criterion for the Local-Global Compatibility of Automorphic Representations of GL(n) and Its Generalization

Langlands’s hand paused for a fraction of a second.

He didn’t immediately look at the main text.

Instead, he slowly shifted his gaze down to the author line.

Li Dong (Yan University).

Arthur Penrose.

Yang Shengguo (Jiangcheng Seventh Middle School).

His gaze lingered on the name "Li Dong" for a very, very long time.

So long, in fact, that Frank thought he had drifted off.

But then Frank saw it clearly.

The old man’s eyes...

...they were red-rimmed.

Frank was suddenly struck by a sense of déjà vu.

The scene was reminiscent of...

...a young man in the Sunshine Hall at Yan University, making some kind of promise to this very same old man.

And today.

that young man...

had delivered.

Langlands did not look up again.

He turned to the first page.

He began to read, line by line.

Very slowly.

Frank also remained silent.

He quietly poured a cup of coffee from the machine in the corner and gently placed it by the old man’s hand.

Langlands paid him no mind, his eyes fixed on the paper.

After about forty minutes.

Only then did the old man pick up the cup of coffee and take a sip.

Then he returned to his reading.

Frank did not dare to disturb him.

He simply and quietly took away the cold coffee each time and replaced it with a fresh, hot cup.

The second cup.

The third cup.

The fourth cup.

The light outside the window slowly faded.

Langlands was still reading.

Frank waited for four full hours.

Finally, the last page was turned.

The old man very slowly took off his reading glasses.

His eyes closed for a few seconds.

Then opened again.

Only then did Frank see clearly.

The corners of the old man’s eyes were unmistakably moist.

"Frank."

"Yes, Professor."

"Is this paper a submission to the *Mathematical Annals*?"

"Yes, Professor."

Langlands nodded.

He was silent for a few seconds.

Then, he asked softly.

"Then..."

"Am I... one of the peer reviewers?"

Frank did not hesitate.

"You have to be."

Langlands nodded again.

After a moment, he looked up at Frank.

"May I... write a commentary for this paper?"

The moment these words were spoken.

Frank was flooded with relief.

For Langlands to be willing to write a commentary meant one thing.

It meant that this paper, in the eyes of the great man himself, was utterly flawless.

And a single comment from Langlands, in a way, held more weight than publication in the *Mathematical Annals* itself.

That was almost...

...a coronation.

Frank looked at the nonagenarian before him.

And replied softly.

"Professor."

"There is no one in this world more qualified than you to judge this paper."

The old man said no more.

He reached for the cup of long-cold coffee on the desk.

Frank stood up and silently replaced it with a hot one.

The old man smiled and nodded, as a sign of thanks.

Then he lowered his head again and glanced at the stack of papers.

His gaze was complex.

It was as if he were looking at a young man who had just stepped, one foot at a time, out of the blueprint he himself had drawn decades ago.

Just as the old man was about to close the manuscript,

Frank pulled another A4 sheet of paper from his briefcase.

And gently placed it in front of Langlands.

"Professor."

"I... would also like you to look at this."

Langlands’s gaze fell upon it.

Conjecture.

Below it.

There was no proof.

No lemmas.

Only a short statement:

For reductive algebraic groups G, H over a number field and an L-homomorphism ϕ:ᴸH→ᴸG, a necessary and sufficient condition for the cuspidal automorphic representation π_H of H and the automorphic representation π_G of G to satisfy Langlands functoriality is: that both satisfy the zero-point criterion for local-global compatibility of automorphic representations, and that the zero-point pair correlation functions of their automorphic L-functions are equal almost everywhere on ℝ.

This was a mathematical conjecture, from a young man in Huaxia!