He saw it was a call from Old Zhou.
Li Dong froze for a moment.
’Didn’t I ask for time off?’
’Why is Old Zhou looking for me?’
Li Dong answered the phone.
"Teacher Zhou, what’s up?"
On the other end of the line, Zhou Qifeng’s tone was a little strange.
"Li Dong, you little rascal, do you know Professor Penrose?"
Li Dong immediately recalled the Princeton professor whose eyes had a particularly fanatical gleam whenever he looked at him.
"Yes, I know him."
Li Dong answered truthfully.
"We had an academic exchange. Why?"
The other end of the line went silent for a good while.
Zhou Qifeng’s voice carried an indescribable emotion.
"That Professor Penrose of yours contacted our university’s Office of International Cooperation and Exchange."
"He said he wants to come to Yan University as a long-term visiting scholar."
"The formal application has already been sent, saying he’ll be here for six months to a year."
"But he hasn’t decided on a specific arrival date yet."
"And then he told the people at the exchange office..."
Zhou Qifeng’s tone grew even stranger.
"He asked for your phone number."
"So I’m calling to ask you, should I give him your contact information?"
Li Dong was taken aback.
’A long-term visiting scholar?’
To be honest, when he had intentionally dangled the bait for Penrose, he hadn’t held out much hope.
After all, the odds of a professor giving up the conditions at a place like Princeton to come to Yan University were minuscule.
But now, it seemed the effect was surprisingly good.
"You can, Teacher Zhou."
Li Dong replied.
"Go ahead and give him my number. It’s fine."
Zhou Qifeng fell silent again for a moment.
He seemed to have something he wanted to say, but in the end, he just let out a deep sigh.
That sigh carried a hint of the bitterness felt by someone in physics.
He really wanted to ask...
’Didn’t you say you loved physics the most?’
"Alright, I’ll have the exchange office reply to Princeton then."
Zhou Qifeng hung up abruptly.
Liu Ruochuan, who was standing nearby, had been paying close attention ever since he heard Professor Penrose’s name.
The moment Li Dong put his phone down, he immediately asked:
"What was that about?"
Li Dong briefly explained what had just happened.
After listening, Liu Ruochuan was completely dumbfounded.
"No way, you actually pulled it off?"
He stared at Li Dong.
"Penrose really applied for a long-term visiting position at Yan University?"
Li Dong nodded.
Liu Ruochuan stood there for several seconds, then suddenly exclaimed in admiration.
"You’ve got some serious skills, kid!"
"A tenured professor from Princeton, taking the initiative to come to our Yan University as a visiting scholar... if word of this gets out, the entire academic world will explode."
"In that case, Professor, once he’s here, can we let him participate in the algorithm optimization?"
Li Dong asked directly.
Although it wasn’t said outright, everyone knew deep down that Professor Penrose was coming for this very reason.
If he couldn’t participate, Penrose would likely end his visit very quickly.
Penrose’s expertise in the field of analytic number theory was at the very pinnacle of the global community.
If he could be involved in the local optimization of the dimensionality reduction algorithm, even just to help solve one or two sub-modules for convergence acceleration, it would be a massive help.
Hearing this question, Liu Ruochuan shook his head.
"Not yet."
His tone became serious.
"Don’t be impatient. There are many procedures to go through."
"For a foreign scholar to join Yan University as a visiting scholar, they first need formal approval from the Office of International Cooperation and Exchange, then registration with the academic affairs department, and then confirmation of acceptance from the academic committee."
"If it involves collaborative research in sensitive fields..."
"Like your algorithm, for example, then it will require an additional security review process."
"So, in the short term, it’s impossible to let him participate directly in the core algorithm optimization."
"However..."
Liu Ruochuan’s tone shifted, and he smiled.
"As for Professor Penrose, you don’t need to worry."
"We at Yan University have our ways."
In fact, for the past few years, Yan University had been promoting a plan to attract high-level overseas talent.
The university had specially established a working group led directly by the school’s leadership, which, in conjunction with core departments like the School of Mathematics and the School of Physics, had prepared a comprehensive support package.
This package had been polished for a long time, and the necessary procedural templates were already in place.
Everything was ready; all they needed was the final push.
The problem had always been stuck on the first step...
They couldn’t attract anyone.
So, no matter how thoroughly Yan University prepared or how generous the conditions they offered, as long as they couldn’t get past that first step, all the plans they designed were just waste paper.
But now, Li Dong had solved the first step.
He had pulled Penrose over.
As for whether they could convince him to stay, that was the university’s problem.
Li Dong nodded, putting the matter of Professor Penrose to the back of his mind for now.
The two didn’t linger and went straight back to the East Suburb Hotel.
Liu Ruochuan took Li Dong to visit the last person on their list.
Zhang Yitang.
The name Zhang Yitang carried immense weight in the contemporary world of mathematics.
His 2013 paper on a weakened version of the twin prime conjecture proved that there are infinitely many pairs of prime numbers with a gap no larger than seventy million.
This was the first substantive breakthrough on the bounded gaps between primes that humanity had achieved in the more than one hundred years since the twin prime conjecture was proposed.
That paper was published in the *Mathematical Annals* and sent the entire analytic number theory community into a frenzy.
Later, Tao Zhexuan initiated the Polymath Project, which continuously reduced that upper bound of seventy million, eventually lowering it to 246.
But the starting point for all of this was Zhang Yitang.
A little after two in the afternoon.
Li Dong and Liu Ruochuan arrived at Zhang Yitang’s room.
Professor Zhang was in his sixties, but he was still in high spirits.
"Professor Zhang." Liu Ruochuan walked forward and shook hands with Zhang Yitang.
"Professor Liu," Zhang Yitang replied with a northern accent.
Then he looked at Li Dong.
"You look even younger up close."
"Hello, Professor Zhang."
Li Dong greeted him.
After the three of them sat down,
Contrary to what Li Dong had expected, Zhang Yitang didn’t discuss any mathematical problems with him.
What Zhang Yitang talked more about was the academic environment.
He held his teacup and sighed.
"I’ve spent more than half my life abroad."
"When I was young, I thought that to do mathematics, you definitely had to go to a better environment."
He gave a wry smile.
"Only later did I realize how naive I was."
Zhang Yitang put down his teacup and looked out the window.
"You all are aware of the current international situation."
"The situation for Chinese scholars overseas is becoming increasingly delicate."
"In engineering, many core laboratories now explicitly restrict the participation of researchers of Chinese descent."
"For some projects, even if you’re a Chinese-American citizen, as long as your last name is Zhang, Li, or Wang, they’ll give you a second look during background checks."
Liu Ruochuan nodded beside him.
This was no longer news in domestic academic circles.
"Things are relatively better in mathematics."
Zhang Yitang continued.
"After all, pure mathematics doesn’t involve many sensitive technologies."
"But it’s no longer free."
He looked at Li Dong.
"Emails for academic exchanges are reviewed, you get called in for a talk after returning from international conferences, and collaborative research topics require special approval."
"Looked at individually, each of these things has its reason."
"But when you put them all together..."
Zhang Yitang sighed.
"You start to feel that you’re no longer a pure scholar. You’ve become an object to be managed."
The tea room was quiet for a moment.
Li Dong didn’t speak.
He had only ever seen these things in the news and didn’t have a deep understanding of them.
Zhang Yitang patted Li Dong’s shoulder and smiled.
"But your generation is different."
"Look at you. At nineteen, you’ve already published as the first author in a top journal, and you’ve pushed the boundary of Montgomery’s conjecture."
"You don’t need to run off anywhere to prove yourself."
"Because the best scholars in the world will take the initiative to come to you."
Zhang Yitang was right.
The times really had changed.
After visiting Professor Zhang Yitang, the trip to Shanghai was officially over.
The very next morning, Li Dong and Liu Ruochuan boarded the high-speed train back to Kyoto.
After returning to Yan University, life seemed to return to normal. He attended classes, returned to his dorm, and continued to grind away at the parts of Riemann’s Manuscript he still hadn’t fully grasped.
Except...
"Brother Dong! Can you explain this problem to me?"
Liu Qiang ran over to ask Li Dong, holding a math problem about relative tangent bundles.
Wang Hao, standing to the side, gave Liu Qiang a thumbs-up.
’You’re a true warrior!’
Sure enough, ten minutes later, Li Dong’s voice rang out.
"Did you get it?"
"I... I got it..."
Liu Qiang nodded, his eyes shining with pristine clarity.
The days flew by.
「A few days later, in the afternoon.」
Li Dong was in his dorm room, organizing the appendix for his paper.
Just then, his phone screen lit up.
It was an email.
Li Dong subconsciously opened his inbox.
From:
[email protected]
Subject: Manuscript Decision: "Proof of Montgomery’s Pair Correlation Conjecture for |α|∈[0, 4]"
"Dear Mr. Li Dong,"
"We are pleased to inform you that after a complete peer-review process, including independent evaluation by three referees and a final assessment by the editorial board, your manuscript titled..."
"has been accepted for publication in the *Mathematical Annals*."
"We would like to confirm with you (the corresponding author): do you agree to publish this manuscript in its current form?"
"Please reply to this email within fourteen business days to confirm your authorization."
"If we do not receive a reply within the specified time, we will suspend the subsequent process."

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