Shanghai, International Convention Center.
The air conditioning in the convention hall was cranked up, so much so that it sent a chill down your spine.
On stage, a professor from a well-known Chinese university was giving a presentation.
He wore a slightly oversized black suit and clutched a laser pointer, its red dot trembling faintly on the massive screen.
"...Based on the smooth properties of the aforementioned complex manifold, we adopted a conservative boundary approximation strategy when handling this homology class."
The professor’s English was tinged with a heavy accent. His pace was slow, enunciating each word carefully, as if afraid his foreign colleagues in the audience wouldn’t understand.
The audience was silent.
A dozen or so top scholars of various ethnicities sat in the front rows, followed by a dense crowd of Chinese professors, researchers, and sponsor representatives wearing badges.
Every time the professor on stage advanced to a new slide filled with equations, a faint, unified chorus of scribbling pens and tapping keyboards rose from the audience.
Pierre sat in the center of the front row.
On the table before him sat a bottle of mineral water with only a single sip taken, and a gold-embossed place card bearing his name.
The man on stage continued his presentation.
"By introducing this continuous homeomorphic mapping, we successfully avoided divergence at the Singularity..."
Pierre stared at the mapping formula on the screen.
Smooth.
Continuous.
Safe.
Airtight.
This was the preferred method of derivation in mainstream topology.
It was like embroidering on a fine piece of cloth—every stitch perfectly placed, never once crossing the line.
Whenever a knot was encountered, it was carefully circumvented, with layer upon layer of auxiliary theorems used to paper over the cracks.
Pierre leaned back, his back pressing against the leather chair.
He slipped his right hand into the inner pocket of his suit jacket.
His fingertips brushed against a few folded A4 pages, their edges already starting to fray from being reviewed repeatedly over the past few days.
It was the manuscript he had brought all the way from Princeton.
The manuscript written by C. Zhuo.
Pierre’s fingers gently rubbed the paper through the fabric of his suit.
The homology group mapping from the third Chapter of the manuscript automatically surfaced in his mind.
No smoothness, no continuity, and certainly no bullshit conservative approximation strategy.
It was a fault line hammered into existence directly with a Discrete Matrix.
Savage, crude, and unreasonable, yet within the abyss of logic, it was self-consistent.
That was heavy industry, bold and sweeping.
What was being presented on stage now was meticulous handicraft.
Pierre’s brow slowly furrowed.
He pulled his hand from his pocket and glanced at the Patek Philippe on his wrist.
Ten forty in the morning.
There were still twenty minutes left of this presentation.
Three more in the afternoon.
Tomorrow held a full day of roundtable discussions and a sponsor’s banquet.
He turned his head and glanced at the red banners hanging on either side of the hall, printed with the names of some tech park and some real estate group.
During the opening ceremony earlier, a few pot-bellied businessmen had run over, insisting on taking a photo with him. The camera flashes had made his eyes ache.
On stage, the professor reached his conclusion, his voice unconsciously rising in pitch.
"Therefore, we have completely proven this hypothesis within the continuous domain."
The moment he finished, the room erupted in enthusiastic applause.
A scholar from the United Kingdom sitting next to Pierre joined the applause, leaning over to whisper to him.
"A very solid derivation, wouldn’t you say?"
Pierre didn’t respond.
He didn’t clap.
Amid the applause, he placed his hands on the edge of the table and stood up.
The British scholar beside him froze, looking up at him in astonishment.
His abrupt movement caused the applause to falter and become sparse.
Many eyes from the back turned to the front row.
Pierre ignored all the stares.
He simply started walking, leaving his seat and striding down the aisle between the front row and the stage, heading for a side exit.
"Professor Pierre?"
A member of the Chinese organizing committee standing by the aisle quickly approached, a nervous smile on his face, and asked in halting English.
"Do you need the restroom, sir? This way, please..."
Pierre didn’t even glance at him. Without breaking his stride, he walked right past the man, pushed open the heavy, soundproof door, and entered the backstage corridor.
The corridor was dimly lit and covered with a thick carpet.
"Mr. Pierre!"
His assistant, Arthur, who had been waiting outside the door, was startled to see his boss emerge so suddenly. He quickly snapped his schedule book shut and hurried over.
"Did the presentation end early?" Arthur asked.
"No."
Pierre undid the buttons of his suit jacket as he walked.
"Was the air conditioning too strong? Should I get you a coat?"
Arthur followed closely behind, a bad feeling welling up inside him as he watched his boss’s grim expression.
"Arthur."
Pierre suddenly stopped.
Arthur nearly bumped into him and quickly halted.
"Where is my train ticket to Huizhou?"
Pierre asked, staring at him.
"In the inner compartment of your black briefcase," Arthur replied. "It’s for Saturday morning."
"Get it."
Pierre held out his hand.
Arthur froze.
"Sir, it’s only Tuesday. The conference still has three full days..."
"Change the ticket."
Pierre cut him off. His voice wasn’t loud, but it held an undeniable tone of command.
"Change it to today. For the next available train. Immediately."
Arthur’s mind went blank.
He had been Pierre’s assistant for three years and knew his boss had a peculiar temperament, but he had never seen him storm out of a major international conference like this before.

Comments

Loading...