When Li Dong returned to his dorm room after the interview, his roommates were already back from class.
The three of them were a bit surprised to see him walk in.
Wang Hao was the first to speak.
"Brother Dong, are you done with that biology project?"
Li Dong nodded.
"Yeah, it’s done."
"I actually got back this morning."
Liu Qiang took off his headphones and asked, puzzled.
"Then why are you only getting back now?"
"The university had an interview they wanted me to do."
Li Dong said casually.
The three of them in the dorm room looked at each other, nonplussed.
It always felt like Li Dong’s university experience was on a completely different track from theirs.
Their daily routine was attending class, doing homework, reading papers, and preparing for quizzes.
Meanwhile, Li Dong’s routine always seemed to be "working on a project," "going to see a professor," or "having some kind of program."
And now, "doing an interview..." was added to the list.
Wang Hao asked offhandedly.
"Which TV station was it?"
"CTV."
Li Dong pulled a bottle of water from his locker, twisted it open, and took a sip.
And then all three of them froze.
The room fell silent for a full three seconds.
Wang Hao stammered.
"Brother Dong... your paper for the *Mathematical Annals*... it’s already been published?"
Everyone in the dorm knew that Li Dong had submitted a paper to the *Mathematical Annals*.
But knowing was one thing; it’s not like they were going to subscribe to a journal like the *Annals of Mathematics*.
The school library had it, sure, but they were so busy with classes and writing their own papers that they had no time to go look for it.
But now that CTV was involved, it could only be about that.
Li Dong said.
"Yeah, I didn’t expect it to be published so quickly either."
Just then, Chen Nan shuffled over hesitantly.
"Brother Dong... um... could you give me an autograph?"
"Yeah, yeah!" Liu Qiang chimed in. "Sign one for me, too! I have a feeling you’re going to be a big deal someday!"
Wang Hao, however, looked at these two shameless guys with disdain, cursing inwardly.
’Bootlickers.’
Then he quietly took the scrap papers where Li Dong had jotted down some derivations and notes while explaining Advanced Algebra to him and tucked them into the very back of his drawer.
"What’s there to sign?" Li Dong gave each of them a light kick. "Get lost!"
The group broke into laughter, then started clamoring again.
"Brother Dong, treat us to a meal!" Liu Qiang slung an arm around Li Dong’s shoulder.
"Exactly! You’ve been on CTV, so what’s wrong with treating your roommates to a meal?"
Chen Nan chimed in as well.
Wang Hao was already up and changing his clothes.
Li Dong was generous enough, waving his hand grandly.
"Let’s go!"
「Ten minutes later, at Nongyuan Cafeteria.」
The three of them stood with their trays, staring speechlessly at the braised pork set meals and seaweed egg drop soup before them.
"Brother Dong." Wang Hao put down his chopsticks, a look of bitter resentment on his face.
"A guy who’s been on CTV is treating us to the cafeteria?"
Li Dong picked up a piece of braised pork and popped it into his mouth.
"Don’t be ungrateful!"
Then he explained.
"I’ll treat you next time. I have things to do tomorrow."
The three of them didn’t know how to respond.
As university students, people usually said, "I have class tomorrow."
But Li Dong was different.
"I have things to do tomorrow."
’Why are you already acting like a working adult?’
Amidst the boisterous banter, they finished their meal and returned to the dorm, each getting busy with their own things.
Li Dong lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
For the past few days, he had been repeatedly reviewing the parts of the manuscript fragment he hadn’t fully grasped, especially concerning the deep connection between automorphic forms and the Zeta function.
He had a vague feeling that the dimensionality reduction algorithm still had room for optimization, and he had indeed started to figure out a path forward.
But if he were to iterate on the algorithm, it wouldn’t be a simple matter of optimizing a few lines of code.
It would likely be a project that would take years to advance.
But that was a matter for the future.
Li Dong didn’t dwell on it and just went to sleep.
「The next morning, Li Dong was up early.」
He had an appointment to meet Lin Wei from Huaxuan Technology today.
Following the message Liu Ruochuan had sent him the day before, he headed to Conference Room 1 on the fourth floor of the Yan University administration building.
This conference room was not normally open to the public. It was only used when the university was hosting important visitors or holding high-level, confidential academic conferences.
There were even dedicated security personnel at the door checking IDs.
When Li Dong walked in, almost everyone was already there.
The long conference table was packed with people. A massive projection screen covering an entire wall was pulled down, and the screens of several laptops were glowing.
Liu Ruochuan sat on one side of the conference table, with Gao Wen beside him.
Besides them, there were several other people Li Dong had never met but whose names were legendary...
Academician E Weinan from the Computational Mathematics department of Yan University’s School of Mathematical Sciences, an internationally recognized leading figure in the fields of applied mathematics and computational science.
Academician Yao Qizhi from Shuimu University’s Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences, a titan in theoretical computer science and modern algorithm theory, and also the only ethnic Chinese scholar to have ever won the Turing Award.
In addition, there was researcher Sun Ningsheng from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Computing Technology, who specialized in high-performance computing architecture and numerical simulation.
Every single one of them was a titan in their respective field.
On Huaxuan Technology’s side, Lin Wei had brought several key technical staff from the lithography R&D center. A thick stack of technical documents sat in front of each of them.
And sitting among them all was a middle-aged man who didn’t quite seem to fit the academic mold.
He was dressed in a sharp suit, with a calm and composed demeanor.
Before the meeting began, the man slowly stood up and introduced himself.
"Good morning, esteemed professors. I am Zhao Fangming, Vice President of the Advanced Process and Chip Strategy Planning Department at Hua Wei Technologies Co., Ltd."
"I have been assigned by the group to represent Hua Wei in this technical demonstration."
Hua Wei.
In the landscape of Huaxia’s semiconductor industry, the relationship between Hua Wei and National Power Equipment was well-known to insiders.
HiSilicon, a subsidiary of Hua Wei, was the nation’s largest chip design company. And the most critical link in the process from chip design to manufacturing is lithography.
National Power Equipment Group was the only company in Huaxia capable of independently developing high-end lithography equipment, and its subsidiary, Huaxuan Technology, was responsible for precision optical path calibration and micro-displacement measurement and control.
Hua Wei designed the chips, and National Power manufactured the equipment. The two were the most crucial upstream and downstream pieces of the puzzle in the Huaxia Semiconductor Industry chain.
Ever since the United States of America began sanctioning Hua Wei with the full power of the state...
National Power Equipment had been constantly trying to find a way to break through the blockade. And the long-standing computational bottleneck in fluid-thermal coupling for immersion lithography was precisely the final lock holding back the entire industry chain.
Now, the key was in the hands of a nineteen-year-old freshman.
Seeing Li Dong enter, Liu Ruochuan waved him over.
"Li Dong, come, have a seat."
He pointed to the empty seat to his right.
The seat was right next to Liu Ruochuan and Gao Wen, directly facing Lin Wei and Zhao Fangming.
In a meeting of this caliber, this seat’s location had meaning.
It signified that the core topic of today’s meeting was Li Dong himself.
Li Dong didn’t overthink it and simply walked over and sat down.
As soon as he sat down, Liu Ruochuan began to speak.
"Li Dong, please explain to everyone what level of computational power your current algorithm can actually achieve."

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