Kyoto Metro, Line 4.
Qin Fei leaned back in his seat. He had made a special trip to the Buddha Fragrance Pavilion today.
Based on his grades at the Beijing Institute of Technology and his review progress, getting into graduate school was already a sure thing.
But he was a bit superstitious. This trip was purely to fulfill a vow he’d made, and while he was at it, to ask the Bodhisattva to bless his graduation project and ensure it went smoothly.
The train began to slow, and an announcement for the next stop played over the speakers.
"Next stop: Yan University East Gate Station..."
The doors slid open slowly.
Qin Fei looked up, casually glancing at the crowd of people getting on. One figure among them looked very familiar.
"Huh?"
Qin Fei waved at the young man who was looking for a seat.
"Hey! Li Dong!"
Hearing his name, Li Dong turned to look.
A flash of awkwardness crossed his face when he saw it was Qin Fei.
Ever since they’d added each other on WeChat on the high-speed train, this upperclassman had sent him quite a few messages.
Most of them were indirect inquiries about algorithmic matters.
How could Li Dong possibly tell him anything? So, he had simply resorted to replying with his thoughts.
Who would have thought that just a few days into the new semester, he’d run into the man himself on the subway!
But Li Dong was, after all, a formidable character who had won a million-yuan prize, met an academician, and beaten Er Niu in a peeing contest. His mental fortitude was top-notch.
He walked over very naturally and sat down next to Qin Fei.
"Well, well, Brother Qin! What a coincidence!" Li Dong said with a hollow laugh.
"The sun actually came out on a clear day, haha..."
Qin Fei watched him awkwardly try to change the subject, understanding the situation perfectly.
’We’re both in tech. Who doesn’t get it?’
The guy didn’t want to leak the secrets of his core algorithm; it was perfectly normal for him not to reply on WeChat.
And Qin Fei wasn’t some socially inept person; he naturally wouldn’t call him out on it.
"It is a coincidence," Qin Fei said with a smile.
"Where are you headed?"
"Oh, I’m making a trip to Zhongguan Village."
"Zhongguan Village?"
The moment Qin Fei heard the name, he perked up.
In Kyoto, especially for a bunch of computer science students like them, Zhongguan Village was all too familiar.
Buying parts, building PCs, hunting for second-hand servers—who hadn’t spent a few days hanging around there?
"What are you going to Zhongguan Village for? Building a computer?" Qin Fei asked.
Li Dong nodded. "Yeah, I’m buying a computer to run some computing power tests."
Qin Fei was a warm-hearted guy, and besides, he and Li Dong were both from the Sichuan and Chongqing region.
"Buying a computer? That place is full of sharks, preying on clueless newcomers!" Qin Fei said.
"As it happens, I’m free today. Let me go with you! I know my way around there."
’I’ve already done my homework. How could I possibly get ripped off by a few shop owners in a computer mall?’ Li Dong thought.
But then an image of his Lenovo laptop, which wouldn’t even turn on anymore, flashed through his mind...
"Alright, I’ll have to trouble you then." He couldn’t refuse such a kind offer.
Qin Fei was happy to hear Li Dong agree.
Just then, a detail suddenly clicked in his mind.
’Wait a minute!’
’Which station did Li Dong just get on at? Yan University East Gate Station?!’
"Are you..." Qin Fei asked tentatively.
"Do you study at Yan University?"
"Yeah, I go to Yan University," Li Dong admitted calmly.
’Could it be the latest low-level algorithm architecture from the Yan University School of Information Science and Technology, led by some academician?’
Qin Fei’s mind raced with speculation.
But he knew his place and understood that he shouldn’t pry into potentially confidential matters.
’Since I can’t ask about the core secrets of the algorithm, asking about its progress should be fine, right?’
"So... that program of yours for verifying the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann zeta function, how far has it gotten?"
Li Dong didn’t hide anything and answered frankly.
"I borrowed a computer in the school’s general-purpose computer lab for the past couple of days. It’s probably reached about ten billion by now."
Hearing this, Qin Fei subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief.
’Ten billion.’
Although the number sounded large, in the field of high-performance computing, it was still a relatively normal figure that conformed to human common sense.
After all, using a commercial desktop from a university computer lab to reach the ten-billion mark would generally take about a month or so.
So he asked one more casual question, intending to wrap up the topic completely.
"Does the computer lab at Yan University stay powered on at night? How could you run it for so long?"
Li Dong sighed.
"They close. They cut the power at 9:30. I only got to run it for a little over three hours yesterday before they kicked me out."
The moment the words left his mouth,
the smile on Qin Fei’s face froze. He stared blankly at Li Dong.
HISS—
Qin Fei took a sharp, Riemann-infused breath.
"How... how long?!"
Qin Fei’s voice was trembling.
"A little over three hours. What’s wrong?"
Li Dong had only started cramming computer science in the last month or so of his senior year of high school. While he knew some common knowledge, he wasn’t really clear on what this time frame for this magnitude of non-trivial zero verification actually represented.
"You used a regular commercial desktop in the school lab, ran it for a little over three hours... and calculated ten billion non-trivial zeros?" Qin Fei felt his entire worldview collapsing.
To make sure he understood how he was about to die, he confirmed once more.
"This ten billion... was it estimated using interval jumping, or... was it brute-forced from zero, without skipping a single one?"
Li Dong stated as if it were obvious.
"Of course it was without skipping a single one."
"I was mainly trying to verify whether the memory allocation of my multipoint evaluation grid algorithm would have any issues, so I had to run a full verification from zero."
Qin Fei was completely numb.
’Three hours! Full verification! Ten billion!’
’How is that possible?’
If he didn’t know Li Dong was a Yan University student, he would have pointed at him and yelled, "You crank!"
But now, all he could do was weep silently in his heart.
’Comparing yourself to others is a recipe for death.’
Qin Fei took several deep breaths before managing to piece his shattered academic pride back together.
He finally understood why Li Dong was going to buy a computer.
"So, you’re going to Zhongguan Village today to buy a computer just so you can go back to your dorm and keep running this project, right?" Qin Fei asked.
Li Dong nodded. "Yeah, the time limits in the computer lab are too strict. It’s really inconvenient."
"Then what about that laptop you were using on the high-speed train?" Qin Fei asked subconsciously.
Li Dong’s eyes darted away as he lied without batting an eye.
"Oh, that one... I accidentally lost it a couple of days ago."
Qin Fei: "..."
’Lost it, my ass!’
’Your piece-of-junk computer won’t even turn on now, will it?’
But Qin Fei couldn’t be bothered to expose his lie. He was now completely stunned by the terrifying efficiency of "ten billion in three hours."
His tone now carried a trace of reverence for an academic titan.
"Titan, forgive my presumption, but after you finish verifying this algorithm, are you planning to publish?"
"Yes," Li Dong nodded.
’This is what I’m planning to use to get prize money and academic credits, of course I’m going to publish it.’
At that moment, it also occurred to Li Dong that he wasn’t very familiar with the top journals in the computer science field, so he humbly asked for advice.
"If I were to write up this algorithm as a paper, which journal do you think would be the most suitable? I’m not familiar with the top journals in computer science."
Qin Fei pondered for a moment.
"To be honest, the core of your achievement is a fundamental mathematical breakthrough in calculating Riemann’s zeros. You could submit to a top pure computer science journal, but it most likely wouldn’t pass the initial review. They accept innovations in computer science itself, not case studies of implementing mathematical formulas with computers."
"Currently, all the milestone achievements in this field internationally have been published in mathematics journals."
"Including the one set by the team of French mathematician Xavier Gourdon in 2004."
"Ten to the power of thirteen non-trivial zeros."
"That was also a purely mathematical achievement."
Qin Fei looked at Li Dong.
"So, if your algorithm can crush the OS algorithm in terms of time complexity, even if you don’t break the world record, you’re a shoo-in for this field’s top journal, *Mathematics of Computation*."
"If you can actually break the 10^13 record, you can submit to the top number theory journal, *Acta Arithmetica*, no problem. And if you can also clearly write out the theoretical breakthrough of your underlying mathematical framework, you’d even have a shot at getting into a global top-tier mathematics journal like the *Annals of Mathematics*."
"Falling back, even if you only did a basic algorithmic optimization, domestic journals like the *Journal of Mathematics* or *Computational Mathematics* would be perfectly suitable."
After hearing Qin Fei’s explanation, Li Dong had a good idea of the landscape.
’As expected, mathematics, I still love you more.’
’As for whether I can break the world record of 10 to the 13th power?’
’Well, let me ask you this: can you manually calculate 1,104 non-trivial zeros in a few months?’
’What a joke.’
’This dimensional reduction algorithm of Riemann’s is, in terms of its fundamental mathematical logic, an absolute curb-stomp on all current mainstream algorithms!’
Soon, they arrived at "Zhongguan Village Station."
The two of them got up and walked out of the subway station.
Zhongguan Village in 2023 was no longer the bustling electronics market of its heyday, but it remained a core hub for domestic hardware brands. Many flagship stores for high-end workstations and custom parts were clustered here.
As soon as they entered, Li Dong announced with bravado that he was planning to build a large tower server specifically for running high-intensity data calculations.
When Qin Fei heard this, he quickly stopped him.
"Dude! Are you crazy?!"
"You want to run long-term, high-load tasks in your dorm room? The noise from a tower server will make your roommates murder you. Besides, if the dorm power goes out, your run stops. You’re better off choosing a mobile workstation with a battery and better noise control, which also gives you portability."
As an insider, Qin Fei immediately gave the most professional advice.
"I suggest you get the Dell Precision 7780."
"The processor is an i9-13950HX... Its specs are more than enough."
Li Dong was the type of person who listened to advice.
"Alright! That’s the one!"
"Boss, I’ll pay by card!"
When the salesperson announced the price of "thirty-five thousand, eight hundred yuan," Li Dong didn’t even blink. He took out his bank card and paid the full amount with a BEEP.
Watching from the side, Qin Fei couldn’t help but gulp.
Once everything was settled, the two said their goodbyes at the entrance of the electronics mall.
Qin Fei watched Li Dong disappear into the crowd.
"This kid... he’s going to shock the world!"
Qin Fei declared to himself with chuuni flair.
However.
The next second,
Qin Fei suddenly froze.
"Wait..."
"My fucking graduation project..."
The thesis topic he had chosen for his fourth-year graduation paper and his grad school entrance interview was precisely the local multi-threaded parallel optimization based on the OS algorithm!
If Li Dong’s brand-new FFT acceleration framework—a completely new achievement that fundamentally reconstructed the zero calculation logic from the mathematical level and directly crushed the current industry-standard OS algorithm—was published...
...then the fruit of his labor, which he had painstakingly researched for over half a year and planned to use for his graduation thesis...
...wouldn’t it instantly become a pile of historically interesting but academically worthless trash?
"FUUUUUUCK!!!"

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