Rongcheng, High-tech Industrial Park.
In the manager’s office of the Dongyang Hardware Processing Factory, Li Qin sat alone at her desk, a stack of invoices spread out before her.
Ever since Li Yang had gone to Huaxuan Technology for a technical training program for their core supply chain companies, every single matter at the factory, big or small, had fallen onto her shoulders.
She had to monitor production schedules, chase down client payments, and approve leave requests from the workers...
And with the New Year just around the corner, final payments to suppliers, tax filings, and year-end inventory checks were all piling up at once.
As the "CFO" who had started out as a supermarket stocker, she had been forced to become an all-rounder.
"This final payment from Chengfu Precision for last month... it matches."
Li Qin made a checkmark in the ledger.
Outside the window, the sky had already darkened. The workers had all gone home, leaving her alone in the office.
’That Li Yang... I wonder when he’ll be back...’
Li Qin muttered to herself and went back to checking the next entry.
Just as she was examining a purchase payment with a mismatched amount, the phone on her desk suddenly rang.
Li Qin glanced at the caller ID.
It was Li Yang.
’What’s he calling for now? I haven’t even finished the accounts...’
She answered the phone but didn’t get a chance to speak.
"Sis! Quick, turn on the news!"
Li Yang’s voice was filled with excitement.
Li Qin frowned.
"What news? I haven’t finished the accounts over here..."
"Forget the accounts! Xiaodong’s on TV! CTV! Quick, look!"
Li Qin froze for a moment, then immediately grabbed the remote and turned on the small television in the corner of the office.
An image quickly appeared on the television screen.
Li Dong was sitting in front of the camera, face-to-face with the female CTV reporter.
"...Actually, I think the atmosphere for learning is very important."
"If you surround yourself with exceptional people, you’ll naturally become exceptional too."
Li Qin stared blankly at the screen.
’Xiaodong’s on TV? And it’s CTV?’
Then she watched Li Dong on the television, looking so confident, like a completely different person from before.
Li Yang was still shouting on the other end of the line.
"Sis! Did you see it? It’s CTV! Xiaodong’s on CTV!"
"I see it..." Li Qin wiped the corner of her eye, her voice choked with emotion.
Meanwhile, at Rongcheng Seventh Middle School.
In the classroom of Class 3, Year 2, evening self-study hadn’t started yet. Su Wan turned on the classroom television.
"Everyone, watch this..."
Then she glanced at Qiao Fan, who was sitting among the students.
On the screen, Li Dong was facing the camera, saying his final line.
"I will win the Fields Medal before I’m thirty, and you... will all surpass me!"
The classroom fell silent.
Beneath his desk, Qiao Fan’s right hand slowly clenched into a fist.
He certainly knew what the Fields Medal was.
It was the highest honor in the world of mathematics, awarded only once every four years to mathematicians under the age of forty.
And Li Dong had just said he would win it before he turned thirty.
The students in the classroom began to buzz with discussion.
"That upperclassman is so cocky..."
"Win the Fields Medal before thirty? Isn’t he just bragging?"
"What do you know? His paper was published in the *Mathematical Annals*. He’s earned the right to be confident."
Qiao Fan didn’t join the discussion.
But the fire in his eyes burned brighter and brighter.
From the Huaxuan Cup to the Qiu Prize, he had been bested by this person twice.
Each time, he told himself he had to catch up.
And now, Li Dong already stood at such a great height.
’Senior Li Dong,’ Qiao Fan thought to himself.
’You said we would surpass you.’
’And I definitely will.’
He picked up his pen again, opened the heavily annotated Riemann geometry textbook in front of him, and dove back into his studies.
After the first round of reports from official media outlets aired, all the major social media platforms instantly blew up.
[SHOCKING! 19-Year-Old College Freshman Vows to Win Fields Medal Before 30! Youthful Spirit or an Astronomical Gamble?]
["You Will All Surpass Me!" A Single Sentence from a Yan University Genius Shatters the Internet’s Composure]
[He Rejected Offers from Princeton and MIT, All Because He "Couldn’t Get Used to Foreign Food"? The Truth Will Make You Cry]
[Someone Else’s Freshman Year vs. My Freshman Year: I’m Literally Kneeling After Watching This]
These social media headlines were each more sensational than the last, and the comment sections were absolutely boiling over.
[I bow to the god of studying. His freshman year is already aimed at the Fields Medal, while my freshman year is spent debating whether to skip my 8 AM class tomorrow.]
[His freshman year, he’s conquering a world-class conjecture. My freshman year, I’m conquering the cafeteria lady’s defenses, begging her for an extra scoop of braised pork.]
[The Pride of Huaxia! News like this gets my blood pumping! When the youth are strong, the nation is strong!]
[Win the Fields Medal before 30? I believe him! When a guy like that says something, it just hits different!]
Of course, there were also some comments that were a bit... off-topic.
[Why go for the Fields Medal? Why not go for a Nobel? Isn’t the Nobel Prize more prestigious?]
[Bro, there’s no Nobel Prize in Mathematics...]
[Right, Nobel’s girlfriend ran off with a mathematician back in the day, so he intentionally left out a prize for math (sarcasm intended)]
[The post above is a joke, don’t take it seriously. The real reason is that Nobel considered mathematics a theoretical tool, not an independent discipline. (jk, author is just covering his bases)]
But amidst the overwhelming praise and pride, some "rational and objective" voices also emerged.
[It’s always ’breakthrough this,’ ’world-leading that,’ ’subverting some field.’ What’s the point of all this hype? Isn’t our high-tech industry still being throttled by foreign countries? Have we built our own lithography machines? Have we achieved chip independence?]
[Exactly. Academics are always talking about how amazing they are, but what are the results? Has technology changed our lives? Aren’t the core chips in our phones still made by other countries?]
Although these types of comments didn’t get many likes, each one had dozens of replies arguing against it.
But Li Dong had no idea that the internet was in an uproar.
The meeting ended around nine o’clock at night.
As Li Dong walked out of the administration building, he pulled out his phone and took a look.
Over a dozen missed calls.
He scrolled through them. Most were from unknown numbers, and he couldn’t be bothered to call each one back.
But there was one call he had to return.
"Hello, Mom."
The moment the call connected, Li Qin’s voice came through.
"Xiaodong! Mom saw you on TV!"
"Yeah, it was just an interview," Li Dong said with a smile.
"So that thing you mentioned... the Mont-something-or-other? What exactly is that?"
Li Dong chuckled.
Montgomery’s Conjecture on Association—that name was indeed a bit of a tongue-twister for his mom.
"Mom, don’t worry about it. Just know that it’s something really impressive. The kind of thing that gets you on CTV, okay?"
Li Qin hummed in agreement on the other end.
"That’s true. If it can get you on CTV, it must be a big deal."
She paused, her tone softening.
"Well, you keep up the good work... By the way, when are you coming back for the New Year?"
"Your uncle’s training over at Huaxuan and probably won’t make it back either. It’s no fun for me to be at the factory all by myself. If you came back, at least the two of us could liven things up a bit."
Li Dong thought for a moment, a bitter feeling welling up inside him.
But he really couldn’t get away.
For the next three months, he needed to work closely with Huaxuan Technology’s technical team on the engineering and deployment of the algorithm.
But he couldn’t tell his mom any of this.
"Mom, I probably won’t be back for the New Year this year. I still have some things to take care of here at school."
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
"All right, then."
Li Qin’s voice was calm, but Li Dong could hear the disappointment in it.
"Then you take care of yourself at school. Let Mom know if you’re short on money."
"I know."
"I’m hanging up then."
"Okay."
After hanging up, Li Dong stood on the steps in front of the administration building, feeling like something was off.
The words Lin Wei had said at the meeting today echoed in his mind.
"Three months."
Three months...
Three months!
Li Dong suddenly jolted and froze on the spot.
The terms of his contract with National Power Equipment stated that the special consultant position came with an annual salary of ten million.
Based on the evaluation of the first-generation algorithm, the engineering and implementation would have taken about a year and a half.
For a year-and-a-half project cycle, he could have collected at least two years of consulting fees, which would be twenty million.
But now?
His heaven-defying version 2.1 algorithm had cut the implementation period down to just three months.
One year’s consulting fee was ten million.
In other words...
He had just lost ten million for nothing!
’Son of a bitch...’
Li Dong squatted down on the steps, his hands clutching his head.
’Why did I have to optimize the algorithm so damn well!’
’Wouldn’t it have been better to just stick with version 1.0 and iterate slowly? Wouldn’t an extra year’s pay have been nice?’
In the distance, Liu Ruochuan was just walking out of the building. Seeing Li Dong squatting on the steps with a look of utter despair, he couldn’t help but frown.
"Li Dong? What’s wrong?"
Li Dong looked up, his face numb.
"Professor, I’ve suddenly realized that sometimes, being too exceptional isn’t entirely a good thing."
Liu Ruochuan: "..."

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