Li Dong sat on the sofa, staring blankly at Old Yang’s WeChat profile picture on his phone.
"Don’t embarrass me when you’re out there."
He recalled Old Yang’s words again.
Just as he was pondering, his phone suddenly vibrated.
The caller ID read: Liu Ruochuan.
’Old Liu finally remembered me,’ Li Dong thought.
Li Dong quickly answered the call.
"Hello, Professor."
Liu Ruochuan said from the other end of the line.
"Are you in your room? I came looking for you this morning, but no one was here."
Li Dong said, "I’m back now."
Liu Ruochuan: "Then wait for me a moment."
Less than two minutes later, there was a knock on the door.
Li Dong opened the door, and Liu Ruochuan walked in.
He didn’t stand on ceremony, grabbing a glass, pouring himself some water, and downing it in one go.
After he finished drinking, he looked at Li Dong.
"That paper of yours, I’ve read it."
Liu Ruochuan continued to elaborate.
"And I’m not the only one."
"Everyone in the country who works on analytic number theory, harmonic analysis, and automorphic forms—basically, anyone qualified in this field—has read it."
He sat down on the sofa and yawned.
"Professor Tian Gang pulled together an online meeting in the middle of the night yesterday, roping in all the professors from Yan University, Shuimu, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Mathematics Institute, Fudan University, and Zhejiang University who work in related fields."
"They held a group discussion about your paper."
"And the result... well, everyone unanimously agreed..."
Liu Ruochuan said, enunciating each word.
"You succeeded."
As he said this, his tone was filled with gratification.
It was a pride he himself hadn’t even consciously realized.
Strictly speaking, Liu Ruochuan hadn’t taught Li Dong a single thing about this set of work in analytic number theory.
But this was his student.
One of his soldiers from Yan University.
After listening, Li Dong nodded with perfect composure.
"I know."
Liu Ruochuan was taken aback for a moment.
’I didn’t teach him how to be such a show-off, either,’ he thought.
Then, Li Dong leaned back against the sofa and said, as if troubled by a headache.
"Professor, where were you this morning? I tried calling you, but I couldn’t get through."
"Now I don’t know which of the three top journals to publish with."
Li Dong counted on his fingers.
"Sarnak from *Inventiones Mathematicae*, Ivanits from *Acta Mathematica*, and Katz from *Annals*, who reached out through Tao Zhexuan."
"They’ve all called me."
He spread his hands.
"Begging me to publish with them."
Liu Ruochuan: "..."
’It’s confirmed. I didn’t teach him this. My show-off game is nowhere near as good as his.’
But on second thought, it seemed this wasn’t actually bragging.
Liu Ruochuan cleared his throat lightly.
"So what are your own thoughts on this?"
Li Dong thought for a moment and said.
"I haven’t decided yet. I’ll see what conditions they offer."
He paused, then added another sentence.
"If none of them are good enough, I’ll just publish in a domestic journal."
"What?"
Liu Ruochuan almost jumped out of his seat on the sofa.
"Publish in a domestic journal?"
He stared at Li Dong, momentarily at a loss for what to even complain about first.
But just as the words reached his lips, he froze again.
Because after turning it over in his mind, he surprisingly thought... ’maybe it’s not such a bad idea?’
Publishing in a domestic journal sounded inconceivable.
But thinking about it carefully, if a paper that could forcefully push the theoretical boundary of Montgomery’s Conjecture on Association from |α|
...then that journal would instantly become required reading for every analytic number theory scholar in the world.
Whether you were a tenured professor at Princeton or the head of the mathematics department at Oxford and Cambridge, you would have to obediently find and read this Huaxia mathematics journal.
Every mathematics library in the world would have to subscribe.
All subsequent research citing this paper would have to list the name of this Huaxia journal.
In terms of elevating the status and influence of Huaxia’s mathematics journals in the international academic community, this would be an epic-level boost!
Liu Ruochuan’s heart began to beat faster.
But then, he slowly shook his head.
"No."
He looked at Li Dong.
"Currently, the top domestic mathematics journal in this field is the *Beijing Mathematics Journal*, which is sponsored by our own Yan University."
"Although it has already been rated as a T1 Level domestic core journal and has a certain degree of influence within Asia..."
Liu Ruochuan sighed.
"But Li Dong, this wouldn’t be good for you."
"At least for this paper, right now, you can’t submit it to a domestic journal."
Li Dong waited quietly for him to continue.
Liu Ruochuan stood up, walked to the window, and spoke while looking outside.
"Academically, your paper is completely self-consistent. That much is clear from the reactions of the editors and reviewers from the top journals."
"Your peers in the country have also recognized your achievement."
"But recognition is one thing. In the current international academic system, the speed at which a paper’s influence spreads, as well as the authoritative endorsement effect it receives when cited by peers, is directly related to the journal it’s published in."
Liu Ruochuan turned around.
"The reason journals like *Annals* and *Inventiones Mathematicae* are among the four top journals isn’t just because the papers they publish are high-quality. More importantly, they have spent over a hundred years building an excellent reputation in the global academic community."
"If your paper is published in one of these journals, scholars who have never met you, who may never even read your original work in their entire lives, will mentally default to assuming your paper has passed the most rigorous review, just based on the journal’s name alone."
"That is the endorsement of a top-tier journal."
Liu Ruochuan’s tone grew serious.
"Li Dong, even though you’ve already published as first author in *Mathematics Computing* and given an invited talk at the International Congress of Mathematicians..."
"...you still don’t have enough of a foundation in the core circle of the international pure mathematics community."
"To put it bluntly, you haven’t yet reached the level where your name alone is enough to endorse your own papers."
"Tao Zhexuan can."
"He can post any paper on arXiv, and people all over the world will take it seriously."
"But you can’t do that yet."
"That’s why this paper must be published in a top journal."
"After your name becomes a recognized benchmark in the international academic world in the next few years, you can do whatever you want."
"At that point, forget about publishing in a domestic journal. Even if you wrote it on a bathroom wall, mathematicians from all over the world would line up to copy it."
Li Dong looked at Old Liu’s serious expression and understood in his heart that he was doing this for his own good.
"Okay."
Li Dong nodded, dismissing the idea of submitting to a domestic journal.
Seeing how readily he agreed, Liu Ruochuan visibly relaxed with a sigh of relief.
He then sat back down on the sofa and continued.
"Then the remaining question is which of these top journals to choose."
"My recommendation is to choose between *Annals* and *Inventiones Mathematicae*."
"There’s not much more to say about *Annals*."
"The paper in which Andrew Wiles proved Fermat’s Last Theorem was published in *Annals*."
"After that, for the resolution of the Poincaré Conjecture, although Perelman himself never formally published it, the subsequent systematic verification papers also received their authoritative confirmation through the *Annals* system."
Liu Ruochuan looked at Li Dong.
"So when it comes to handling papers on major conjectures like this, *Annals* has the strongest propagation efficiency and academic credibility."
"Once your paper has the *Annals* name attached to it, mathematicians all over the world will notice you immediately."
He took a sip of water from the table and continued.
"As for *Inventiones Mathematicae*, it’s the one with the purest academic tone among the four top journals."
"It judges purely based on the mathematical quality of the paper itself."
"Moreover, Professor Sarnak himself works on random matrices and the distribution of zeros of L-functions."
"The core framework of your paper has a high degree of overlap with his research area."
"If he personally serves as the reviewer, the accuracy and speed of the technical verification will be faster and more precise than with other journals."
"Choose one of these two."
Li Dong nodded thoughtfully.
Liu Ruochuan suddenly thought of something and quickly added.
"But remember one thing."
"Before you have formally rejected *Annals*, you absolutely cannot have any substantive submission contact with *Inventiones Mathematicae*."
"If you’re going through the review process with *Annals* while secretly negotiating terms with *Inventiones Mathematicae*, and someone finds out..."
"...that’s academic misconduct."
"In the circle of top international journals, actions like multiple submissions or using one offer to leverage a better one from another, once confirmed, will completely destroy your academic reputation."
"No matter how good your papers are, no reputable journal will ever accept your submissions again."
Li Dong said quickly.
"I understand, Professor."
Only then did Liu Ruochuan feel at ease.
He was afraid that Li Dong, being young, might go down the wrong path.
Having finished discussing the paper, his tone became a little more relaxed.
"We’ve heard from Huaxuan. They’ve invited us to their headquarters tomorrow to talk."
Li Dong was slightly taken aback, then nodded.
"Mm."
He had actually been wanting to have a proper talk with the people from Huaxuan for a while now.
The iterative algorithm he had would definitely be handed over to Huaxuan Technology in the end.
This wasn’t just for himself, but more for the sake of a foundational technology breakthrough for the entire Huaxia Semiconductor Industry.
On this point, Li Dong had never hesitated.
But not hesitating was one thing; the terms still had to be negotiated.
The last offer from Lin Wei—a special consultant fee of 5 million a year, plus a 100 million bonus after the algorithm was implemented—was the price for the 1.0 version of the algorithm.
Now, the algorithm had been iterated to version 2.0, and its performance had improved by who knows how many orders of magnitude.
If they still negotiated based on the original price, that wouldn’t be a negotiation. It would be charity.
Although Li Dong was willing to contribute, he wasn’t a living Bodhisattva.
Liu Ruochuan saw what Li Dong was thinking and said with a smile.
"I’ll go with you tomorrow."
The implication couldn’t have been clearer.
He naturally wouldn’t let his student get the short end of the stick with Huaxuan.
Making a contribution was fine, but the terms had to be reciprocal.
You can’t expect the horse to run without letting it eat grass, can you?
Huaxuan Technology: Not letting the horse eat grass??? A 100 million bonus and a 5 million annual salary, and that’s what you f*cking call not feeding the horse?

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