Chapter 317 - 280: Wow—So Much to Eat

Chapter 317: Chapter 280: Wow—So Much to Eat

Then it wouldn’t just be Fu Chen’s, but Li Dong and Fu Chen’s.

What hung in the balance was an entire graduate student’s future.

Li Dong didn’t need another publication to his name.

But Fu Chen did.

Just as Li Dong was staring at the question mark, Fu Chen, who was in front of the whiteboard, finally noticed Li Dong standing behind him.

He turned around.

"East God."

He gave a helpless smile.

"I’ve been stuck here for days."

He pointed to the question mark.

"To push this one step further, I have to find the specific form of this operator."

"I’ve tried three methods myself, but none of them are naturally compatible with the cyclic symmetry of the preceding section."

He paused, then said with some embarrassment.

"East God, could you... offer some guidance?"

Li Dong looked at him and shook his head.

"Senior Brother Fu."

"I don’t know either."

"I haven’t really touched upon this area of research."

After hearing this, Fu Chen sighed.

"Even East God doesn’t know..."

"God knows how long I’ll be stuck here."

He muttered to himself and turned, about to throw himself back at the whiteboard to try another derivation.

Li Dong stopped him.

"Senior Brother Fu."

Fu Chen turned back.

Li Dong smiled.

"This problem is quite interesting."

"I really don’t have any ideas off the top of my head."

"But..."

He paused for a moment.

"I think there’s someone who might have an idea."

Fu Chen asked subconsciously.

"Who?"

Li Dong said two words.

"Gu Ming."

"Gu Ming?"

Fu Chen frowned.

He knew Gu Ming, of course.

The top student among the School of Mathematics undergrads, after all.

But he still had his doubts.

"East God."

"Gu Ming hasn’t been exposed to this topic, has he?"

"He’s still working on Putnam-related problems."

"My section is on the p-adic Langlands and deformation rings..."

"I’m afraid he won’t be able to help."

Li Dong smiled.

"Senior Brother Fu, don’t underestimate that kid."

"He has a real spark."

Fu Chen still didn’t quite understand what Li Dong meant.

But since East God had said so, he just nodded.

"Alright."

"East God, I’ll give Gu Ming a call tonight then."

Li Dong nodded.

"Okay then, I’ll let you get back to it."

He turned and walked toward the door.

Penrose followed behind him, and they left the seminar room together.

...

The two of them walked slowly down the corridor of the School of Mathematics building.

When they reached the stairwell, Penrose suddenly spoke.

"Dong."

Li Dong turned his head.

"Hm?"

"That line of yours just now, ’I don’t know either.’"

"It was good."

Li Dong was taken aback for a moment.

’He wasn’t sure what Penrose was getting at.’

But he didn’t try to explain.

He just smiled.

"Yeah."

"It was good."

The two of them went downstairs.

The weather outside was quite nice.

The warm sun shone down on the ginkgo-lined path in front of the School of Mathematics.

As they walked, Penrose seemed to suddenly think of something.

He started to laugh.

"Dong."

"You have no idea."

"Lately, I’ve been feeling so motivated every single day."

Li Dong glanced at the old professor, whose cheeks were slightly flushed.

"Yeah, I can tell."

Penrose continued.

"The atmosphere you have here is truly wonderful."

"Back when I was at Princeton, at Oxford, at Cambridge..."

"I never felt anything like this."

He raised his hand and made a gesture.

"Here, when someone gets stuck on their part of the work, they come over to bounce ideas off each other. After that, they go their separate ways again."

"Then when they get a new inspiration, they come back."

"A couple of days later, you all gather to bounce ideas around again."

"This is such a free way to do research."

Hearing this, Li Dong had to suppress a laugh. ’Professor Penrose has probably misunderstood. It’s not that this kind of academic atmosphere doesn’t exist, but right now, it only exists within my own research group. As for the other groups at Yan University, or other groups in the country, I could find a whole host of faults with them myself.’

Still, he couldn’t be bothered to correct Penrose. ’After all, the man is in high spirits. Might as well let him stay that way.’

The two walked a few more steps.

Penrose seemed to have recovered from his wave of emotion. He slowed his pace and turned to look at Li Dong.

"Dong."

"Let me tell you."

"With the momentum your group has right now..."

"I think..."

He paused.

"You won’t need a hundred years."

"You won’t even need ten."

"You all will be able to bring the Langlands Program to completion."

Hearing this, Li Dong was stunned for a moment.

He laughed.

"Professor Penrose."

"Even I wouldn’t dare say something like that."

"You’re really bold for saying it."

Penrose didn’t smile. He looked at Li Dong with a serious expression.

"Dong."

"Because..."

"You yourself don’t even know how exceptional you are."

Li Dong opened his mouth, but couldn’t squeeze out a single word for a long time.

He silently exclaimed in his heart.

’Old Peng. Your emotional intelligence is so damn high.’

...

「That evening.」

School of Mathematics, Graduate Dormitory, Room 306.

Fu Chen sat at his desk, a pile of scratch paper he had brought back from the seminar room spread out before him.

He sat in his chair for a while.

Then he took out his phone, found Gu Ming in his contacts, and made the call.

The call connected after just two rings.

"Hello?"

The voice on the other end wasn’t loud.

"Senior Brother Fu?"

There was a hint of confusion in Gu Ming’s voice.

Although they were both in Li Dong’s research group, the two of them were responsible for completely different areas.

They didn’t usually have much contact.

Fu Chen cleared his throat.

"Gu Ming, sorry to bother you."

"Here’s the thing."

"I’m working on something right now, and I’m pretty stuck."

"I was hoping you could help me brainstorm a bit, see if we can push it forward."

"Are you free tomorrow? I was thinking we could meet up and talk it over."