The Princeton summer had a sweltering heat, filtered through the leaves of the trees.
Inside the red-brick building of the Advanced Research Institute, the air conditioning was cranked high.
The hallway was so quiet you could hear your own footsteps.
Pierre sat in the leather chair in his office. He was sixty-five, his graying hair meticulously groomed. On his desk sat a cup of warm black tea, no sugar, no milk.
As a Fields Medal recipient from decades ago and now a senior editor for the *Mathematical Annals*, he’d felt for some years that he wasn’t contributing much to the advancement of mathematics anymore. So, he had decided to focus his remaining energy on the journal. His main job now was to review the manuscripts others sent in.
But after reading so many, it had become rather dull.
A stack of manuscripts for initial review, just brought over from the editorial department, sat on his desk.
Pierre reached out and picked up the one on top.
He glanced at the introduction, flipped to the middle to scan the derivation, then shook his head and placed the manuscript in the rejection pile to his right.
’Too by-the-book.’ It was pandering and overly cautious, as if terrified that a single step in the derivation might offend the reviewer. Even if the logic was sound, a manuscript like this was just another brick in the wall of mathematics. It had no spark.
He took a sip of his tea and picked up the second manuscript.
It was a thick envelope, affixed with an international stamp.
The return address was printed in a line of English letters.
Hua Country Science and Technology University.
Pierre had heard of the school; it was one of the better universities in Hua Country.
He picked up a letter opener, slit the envelope, and pulled out a thick stack of A4 paper.
Forty pages in total.
The paper was ordinary, but the typesetting was neat and orderly.
Pierre habitually flipped to the first page.
His eyes fell on the abstract and introduction.
The office suddenly grew quieter, the only sound the soft WHOOSH of the air conditioner vent.
Pierre’s gaze froze on three short lines.
The first line pointed out the inevitable collapse of continuity in infinite-dimensional networks.
The second stated the philosophical paradox of local chaos and global conservation in discrete topological spaces.
The third, the absolute dominance of algebraic invariants over geometric divergence.
Not a single mathematical symbol.
Not a single polite phrase like "this paper attempts to explore," "we believe," or "it may have the following significance."
Just those three sentences.
Like three stones, cold and hard, smashed onto the page.
Pierre set down his teacup.
He leaned forward slightly.
He had been an editor for the *Mathematical Annals* for so many years and had seen countless manuscripts from geniuses, but he had never seen anyone dare to write an abstract like this.
This wasn’t an abstract at all.
It was like a declaration of war on the entire school of traditional analysis.
Such arrogance.
The corners of Pierre’s mouth twitched into a smile.
’Interesting.’
He leaned back in his chair, his gaze shifting down to the author attribution block.
First Author: Zhuo Chen.
Second Author: Tao Wu.
Corresponding Author: Jianming Li.
Pierre raised an eyebrow.
The first author proposed such an audacious theoretical framework, yet gave the position of corresponding author to someone named Li.
In academia, being the corresponding author meant being responsible for communicating with the editorial department and dealing with all the tricky questions posed by reviewers. It was a thankless job.
"Dropping a bomb and leaving someone else to clean up the mess."
Pierre muttered to himself.
He turned the page and began to read the main text.
For the next half hour, Pierre didn’t move an inch.
The black tea beside him had gone completely cold.
His gaze darted through the dense derivations, and the further he read, the deeper the smile in his eyes became.
The derivations in the first few pages were conventional. It was clear the writer had a solid grasp of the fundamentals, but lacked a certain spark.
Until he reached the third Chapter.
The Boundary Between Continuous and Discrete Domains.
Pierre’s expression changed.
It was a homology group mapping.
The method was absolutely savage.
It was like confronting a silk ribbon tied in a dead knot. A normal person would try to untie it bit by bit. This person, however, had taken out a rusty iron saw, sawed off the knot along with the surrounding ribbon, and then brutally twisted the remaining ends together with coarse iron wire.
Brutish, but effective.
It was seamless and logically self-consistent.
’Completely unorthodox.’
Pierre shook his head and closed the manuscript.
He placed the manuscript in the exact center of his desk and patted it twice gently.
’If this paper gets published, those old-timers in the analysis school are probably going to curse up a storm in their offices.’
Pierre stood up, picking up the cold teacup.
He decided to go to the lounge to make a fresh cup of tea and find someone to talk to. This manuscript was more stimulating than any tea.
He walked out of his office and down the hall.
The faculty lounge at the Advanced Research Institute was at the end of the corridor.
Pushing the door open, he saw several fabric sofa sets, with a row of automatic coffee machines and snack cabinets lining the wall.
Delian was sitting in a single armchair by the window, holding a copy of *Physical Review Letters*. A half-empty cup of black coffee sat on the coffee table in front of him.
Usually, when the two of them ran into each other, they loved to bicker a bit.
Pierre went to the hot water dispenser, made himself another cup of black tea, and sat down across from Delian.
"Delian, you look like you’re stuck on some string theory hypothesis and can’t get out."
Pierre said casually, taking a sip of his tea.
Delian looked up from his journal and tossed it onto the coffee table.
"Don’t even mention string theory."
Delian rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"I’d rather spend the whole day calculating fluid dynamics. What about you? Received any Fields Medal-worthy manuscripts today?"

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