Lu Jia closed the hardcover notebook with a soft snap.
He adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose and turned around.
Lu Jia’s expression was serious, as serious as if he were preparing to deliver an important academic presentation.
Chen Zhuo, Chu Ge, and Wang Dayong all had their eyes fixed on him.
The form in front of Lu Jia had already been filled out.
Chu Ge had sharp eyes and craned his neck to take a look.
"Applied Mathematics?"
Chu Ge read it aloud, then scratched his head in confusion.
"Lu Jia, weren’t you always interested in number theory and higher-order partial differential equations? Why the switch to applied mathematics?"
Lu Jia didn’t answer right away.
He reached out and tapped the notebook filled with copied chat logs twice.
At the food stall a few days ago, Chen Zhuo’s words about emotional resonance and the optimal solution for behavioral logic had clearly dealt a devastating blow to Lu Jia’s worldview.
But Lu Jia was, after all, Lu Jia.
The collapse of a genius is often accompanied by another form of frenzied reconstruction.
"Partial differential equations are too simple."
Lu Jia spoke.
His voice was calm, imbued with an almost stubborn rationality.
Hearing this, Chu Ge nearly choked on his own saliva.
"Partial differential equations... simple?"
Chu Ge glanced at Chen Zhuo, then back at Lu Jia.
"Bro, if the upperclassmen in the School of Mathematics who failed their finals heard you say that, they’d throw you off this building."
Lu Jia ignored Chu Ge’s interruption.
He pushed his glasses up.
"In the realm of pure mathematics, no matter how complex the equation or how high the dimension, it has a defined boundary. As long as you’re given enough conditions, even if it takes you ten years to calculate, you’re guaranteed to find a single, unique solution."
Lu Jia paused.
His gaze went past Chu Ge, landing on the empty space outside the window.
"But in this world, there is something that has no unique solution."
Lu Jia lowered his head, looking at the notebook in his hand.
"Human emotions, human choices, human behavior."
Lu Jia’s pace of speech quickened slightly, as if he were suppressing some kind of fervor.
"I sent her a long string of Markov chain weather prediction models, and she just replied, ’Oh, thank you, you know so much.’"
Lu Jia looked up at Chen Zhuo.
"This is completely illogical."
"According to the principle of equivalent exchange of information, since I output high-density, valid information, she should have responded with a logical discussion of equal density."
"But she didn’t."
"Her feedback was fractured, completely devoid of logic."
Lu Jia took a deep breath.
"I used to think that human emotions were incalculable variables, but that night at the barbecue, Chen Zhuo said something."
Lu Jia stared at Chen Zhuo.
"The optimal solution for behavioral logic."
Lu Jia repeated those words.
"This proves that even for seemingly chaotic emotions and social behaviors, there is still an underlying, hidden logic."
Lu Jia stood up.
He paced a few steps in the dorm room.
"Human society is like a massive, disordered topological network. Every person is a node, and every conversation, every choice, is a state transition."
"Since it’s a network, and since there are state transitions, it must be possible to describe it with a mathematical model!"
Lu Jia turned and pointed at the form on the desk.
"I added a note after ’Applied Mathematics.’"
"I want to choose an interdisciplinary direction focusing on game theory and behavioral models."
A glint of obsession, akin to that of a mad scientist, shone in Lu Jia’s eyes.
"I am going to study the most complex variable in this world—people.
I believe that as long as I introduce enough parameters and establish the correct stochastic differential equations, even something like a girl’s mind, even the most complex game in human society—I can calculate its absolute expected value."
Chu Ge’s mouth hung open, and for a good while, he couldn’t close it.
Wang Dayong, on the other hand, just looked lost, clearly not understanding the necessary connection between Markov chains and a girl’s mind.
Chen Zhuo sat by the window.
He watched Lu Jia, who looked as if he was facing a formidable enemy, preparing to wage war on all of human emotion with mathematics.
Chen Zhuo couldn’t help but laugh.
His shoulders trembled slightly as he laughed.
He wasn’t laughing at Lu Jia.
’My friends,’ he thought, ’are truly incredible, each one more impressive than the last.’
Chu Ge finally snapped out of it.
He glanced at Lu Jia, then at Chen Zhuo.
"Brother Zhuo, you’ve gotta do something about him," Chu Ge said, a note of despair in his voice.
"When this guy goes on a blind date in the future, he’s probably going to send the girl an analytical report on the Nash equilibrium."
Chen Zhuo composed himself.
He looked at Lu Jia.
"It’s a good thing," Chen Zhuo said gently.
"Using mathematics to analyze chaos—that’s a path no one has ever walked."
Chen Zhuo stood up, walked over to Lu Jia, and tapped the hardcover notebook with his finger.
"But, Lu Jia, before your model is built, I suggest that the next time you chat with that senior, you should probably just ask her if she wants to get the sweet and sour pork ribs from the cafeteria. It’ll save you a lot of computational resources."
Lu Jia seriously considered Chen Zhuo’s suggestion.
Then, he nodded solemnly.
"That makes sense. Before the underlying algorithm is perfected, using empirical shortcut commands is the most efficient approach."
Chu Ge covered his face in agony.
Wang Dayong sighed along with him.
Chen Zhuo smiled and walked back to his own desk.
Now, of the four people gathered in Room 215, three had already made their decisions.
Chu Ge was going into computer science.
Dayong was going into materials.
Lu Jia was going into an interdisciplinary field of applied mathematics.
The gazes of all three of them fell, in unison, on Chen Zhuo’s desk.
On it also lay a "Youth Class Major Specialization Declaration Form."
The form was still blank; not even a name had been written on it.
"Brother Zhuo."
Chu Ge looked at Chen Zhuo.
"What about you? Where are you planning to go?"
The moment the question was asked, the air in the dorm room seemed to hang still for a moment.
Because everyone knew Chen Zhuo’s situation was different from theirs.
They were filling out a form to choose a major.
Chen was different.
"You told us before that the paper you worked on with Professor Li Jianming from the School of Mathematics was just submitted to the *Mathematical Annals*. So you’re planning on going to the math department?" Lu Jia asked, his tone lilting at the end.
"Professor Li Jianming has been walking on air these past couple of days. I heard he didn’t even fail anyone in his big lecture for the undergrads."
Wang Dayong shook his head.
"The School of Mathematics is a great choice, but there’s no way the School of Physics will let him go. Vice Director Fang was losing sleep for days over that wind tunnel data. Chen Zhuo fixed their underlying matrix and saved the entire key project. How could Dean Fang bear to let Chen Zhuo go off and do pure math?"
Chu Ge nodded in agreement.
"Exactly, Brother Zhuo."
Chu Ge looked at Chen Zhuo.
"The School of Mathematics or the School of Physics, which one are you going to choose?"
Chen Zhuo pulled out his chair and sat down again.
He glanced at the blank form on his desk.
The cicadas outside were still chirping incessantly. Sunlight slanted across his desk, illuminating the white paper.
Chen Zhuo didn’t answer right away.
He reached for a pen and twirled it between his fingers a couple of times.
"I haven’t decided yet," Chen Zhuo said lightly.
"Haven’t decided?" Chu Ge was taken aback. "The forms are due tomorrow."
"No rush."
Chen Zhuo put the pen down.
"For something like this, just writing a name on a piece of paper is useless."
He glanced at the clock on the wall.
「Three-thirty in the afternoon.」
Chen Zhuo stood up, folded the blank form, and stuffed it into his pants pocket.
"I’m heading out," Chen Zhuo said.
"Where to?" Wang Dayong asked.
"To have some tea."
Chen Zhuo walked to the door, then turned back and gave the three of them a gentle smile.
"I’m going to hear what my two dear professors have planned for me."
With that, Chen Zhuo turned and walked out of the dorm room.
Chen Zhuo walked slowly, his footsteps echoing in the empty hallway.
He wasn’t in a hurry.
Because he knew very well that he wasn’t the one who was anxious.
The anxious ones were the people who had already brewed the tea and were sitting in their offices, waiting for him.

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