"Hash table mapping plus weighted sorting..." Chu Ge looked at Chen Zhuo.
"Convert all the conditional logic into key-value weights beforehand, then perform a direct set mapping. That way, the server doesn’t need to do iterative comparisons at all—it just performs a single, holistic algebraic operation!"
"Mm."
Chen Zhuo put his pen down.
"The computational load will drop by several orders of magnitude, at least. No matter how much simulated data you throw at it, it just means the matrix’s dimensions get a little bigger. The CPU won’t hit full load."
Chu Ge snatched the scratch paper from the desk as if it were a life-saving check.
Without even looking at what was written on the back, he shot to his feet.
"Dayong, keep the water warm, don’t pour it out!" Chu Ge yelled toward the corner, his voice cracking. "We’re saved tonight!"
With that, Chu Ge rushed out of Room 215 with the double-sided scratch paper in hand, not giving a backward glance.
He tore across to the room opposite, followed by the sound of Room 216’s door being kicked open.
"Lu Jia! Stop wrestling with that nested loop! Quick, come look at this Discrete Matrix Brother Zhuo drew up! Let’s refactor the logic!"
Chu Ge’s booming voice echoed from the dorm room across the hall.
Silence returned to Room 215.
Wang Dayong deftly plugged the electric kettle back into the wall socket. The water, which hadn’t completely cooled, soon began to bubble up again, and the lid started to rattle.
Chen Zhuo sat in his chair, reaching up to gently rub the back of his neck.
He’d been looking down at his book for a long time, and his shoulders were indeed feeling a bit sore.
"Xiaozhuo."
Dayong, squatting on the floor, looked up at him with a good-natured grin.
"You’re really something else. When Boss Chu came in, his face was ashen. When he left, he was all flushed with excitement."
Chen Zhuo smiled but didn’t reply.
He turned back, reopened the thick, heavy Russian-language copy of *Landau*, and his gaze settled back onto the bookmarked page.
From Room 216 across the hall, Lu Jia’s muffled but extremely rapid voice could be heard.
Then came a burst of typing, more furious and rapid than before.
A flurry of clacks, like a sudden downpour on the keyboard. The previous pauses and frustrated hesitations were gone, replaced by smooth, uninterrupted execution.
Chen Zhuo paid no mind to the commotion across the hall, not even turning his head.
He knew that once the knot in the underlying logic was untied, the rest of the implementation was just grunt work for Chu Ge, nothing he needed to worry about.
He lowered his head and continued reading a lengthy theoretical explanation of thermodynamics in the Russian book.
Whenever he came across a convoluted sentence, he would open the *Russian-Chinese Dictionary* by his side, quickly looking up a word alphabetically before immersing himself once more in the world of Landau’s mind.
Outside the window, the sky gradually darkened.
On an April evening in Huizhou, the new leaves on the old trees swayed gently in the evening wind.
The campus loudspeakers crackled to life right on schedule. A news announcer’s crisp, clear voice broadcast the daily numbers of new suspected and confirmed cases from across the country, reminding students to open their windows for ventilation and to wash their hands frequently.
During the campus lockdown, the daily routine was monotonous and somewhat oppressive.
The main gates were locked, the cafeteria menu rotated through the same few dishes, and everyone was trapped on a campus of just a few square kilometers.
But the lively warmth and the sound of typing in the dorm did much to dispel the gloom.
The water in the electric kettle reached a rolling boil. Dayong tore open two packets of pickled vegetable instant noodles, snapped the hard noodle cakes in half, and tossed them into the bubbling water.
Chen Zhuo sniffed the air.
After an afternoon of theoretical physics, his brain had been working overtime. Now, smelling the instant noodles, his stomach let out an honest, protesting growl.
"Dayong."
Chen Zhuo asked casually, his eyes still fixed on the page.
"So how many packets of noodles are we making tonight?"
Dayong grabbed a pair of clean disposable chopsticks and stirred the noodles in the kettle.
"Don’t know. Boss Chu hasn’t given the word yet."
Dayong gulped, his eyes fixed on the noodles in the kettle.
"But from the looks of it, the gig should be a success. If we get the final payment, we can surely afford an extra packet or two, right? Worst case, I can share some of mine."
Just as Dayong finished speaking.
A choked cry suddenly erupted from Room 216 across the hall.
"It’s running!"
It was Lu Jia’s voice. He was usually the quiet one, but his shout was a strangled cry filled with immense relief.
It was immediately followed by Chu Ge’s wild, almost maniacal laughter.
"Hahaha! Thirty thousand concurrent data requests, and the server didn’t even beep! Memory usage is holding steady at fifteen percent! This curve is as smooth as a flatline!"
Chu Ge was shouting over there.
"Lu Jia, save the screen recording! Send it to the client’s email right away! We’ve got this money in the bag tonight!"
Hearing the raucous celebration from across the hall, Chen Zhuo’s hand, holding his pen, paused in midair.
The corners of his mouth turned up slightly. He capped his pen and closed the Russian edition of *Landau*.
Another frantic slapping of slippers echoed from the hallway.
Chu Ge burst into Room 215, the haggard look on his face seemingly vanished. He radiated the kind of euphoric high that comes after pulling an all-nighter to finish a major project and surviving by the skin of your teeth.
He was still clutching the sheet of scratch paper Chen Zhuo had given him, covered front and back with formulas.
"Brother Zhuo!"
Chu Ge planted his hands on Chen Zhuo’s desk, panting for breath.
"Brother Zhuo, you’re a fucking genius! The moment we added your Discrete Matrix, the system ran smoother than silk! We saved the final payment!"
"As long as it’s secured, that’s what matters."
Chen Zhuo nodded, a hint of relief in his voice.
’To him, it was merely a matter of course. If the mathematical logic was correct, the result would naturally follow.’
’It was no different, in essence, from when he’d been verifying one of the master’s derivations on the back of the paper earlier.’
Chu Ge turned his head, looking at Dayong squatting by the balcony and then at the noodles, now soft, in the bubbling kettle.
"Dayong, how are the noodles coming along?"
Chu Ge waved his hand magnanimously.
"We’ve officially cracked it tonight! Once the client signs off and wires the final payment, I’m going to the campus store tomorrow to get you guys a real feast. It’s all on me! My treat!"

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