New Jersey, Princeton University.
It was afternoon in an office at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Professor Arthur Penrose took off his reading glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, which was sore and tired.
As one of the world’s leading experts in analytic number theory and a tenured professor at Princeton, he had spent the last few days pouring nearly all his energy into the paper published in *Mathematics Computing*.
"It’s absolutely marvelous..."
Every time he reviewed the algorithmic derivation by that undergraduate from Huaxia Yan University, Penrose couldn’t help but sigh in admiration.
Chebyshev interpolation, non-linear FFT grid expansion, iterative splitting identities... These tools, which had previously existed on separate mathematical islands, had been kneaded together with almost artistic skill by the undergraduate named Li Dong.
Sometimes, as he looked at the algorithm, a certain feeling would come over him.
’This is the algorithm of a god...’
A few days ago, during a media interview, Penrose had expressed his opinion without reservation.
"This god-tier dimensional reduction algorithm—if it’s only used to calculate the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann Zeta function, it would be a colossal waste! Its breakthrough in fundamental logic could completely reshape the cornerstones of high-dimensional matrix operations and modern cryptography!"
As a result, this statement was taken out of context by certain online media outlets and twisted into: "Princeton Expert Claims Li Dong’s Algorithm Has No Practical Significance."
If Penrose understood Chinese, he would have probably been angry enough to send a cease and desist letter to those clickbait accounts.
"If this year’s Salem Prize isn’t awarded to Li Dong..."
"Then I will definitely submit a formal written objection to the award oversight committee!"
KNOCK KNOCK.
Suddenly, there was a knock on his office door.
Penrose frowned. When he was doing research, he hated being interrupted more than anything.
His students were well aware of this rule; they had never been so discourteous before.
"Come in."
The door was pushed open, and one of his female doctoral students, a blonde with blue eyes, walked in, not even bothering to close the door behind her.
"Professor! You... you have to see the email I just sent you!"
Penrose’s frown deepened, but instead of scolding his student, he opened his work email.
Inside was a link to arXiv.
Penrose clicked the link.
When he saw the English title on the webpage, the seasoned Princeton heavyweight froze instantly in his leather chair.
*A Computational Dataset of the Non-trivial Zeros of the Riemann ζ-Function (for t up to the order of 10^23)*!
"Ten to the twenty-third power?"
Penrose gasped, his voice trembling.
He quickly scanned the paper...
No algorithm!
A flash of disappointment crossed Penrose’s eyes, but it was immediately replaced by a fervent excitement.
’Ten to the twenty-third power... Even with his previous algorithm, current supercomputers couldn’t possibly reach that order of magnitude!’
’The only possibility is that he’s iterated the algorithm again!’
He then clicked the link to the supplementary data file at the bottom of the paper.
Penrose immediately selected three random non-trivial zero values from the extremely high-order range of 10^23 within the massive dataset.
He then opened Mathematica and plugged the imaginary parts, the t-values with over twenty significant digits, directly into the Hardy Z-function for reverse verification.
As long as the evaluation of the Hardy Z-function at these points strictly crossed zero, it would prove that the zeros were real!
A few seconds later, three floating-point results, all extremely close to absolute zero, popped up on the screen.
All correct!
There was no mathematical or logical fabrication whatsoever!
Penrose slumped back in his chair, feeling as if all the strength had been drained from his body.
But a fanatical smile spread across his face.
"What a monster..."
He turned his head to look at his female student, who was still standing dumbfounded in front of his desk.
"Sarah, what time is it in Huaxia right now?"
"Professor, it should be around two or three in the morning there."
"Good. Help me contact Princeton’s inter-university exchange office. Have them send a formal letter to Huaxia Yan University first thing tomorrow morning."
Penrose’s eyes burned with intensity.
"I’m going to Huaxia! I must meet this Li Dong in person!"
On the other side of the planet, in Huaxia’s capital, Kyoto.
In a high-end residential complex, the night was deep.
Zhou Shenzhi sat in front of the computer in his study, the ashtray beside him already overflowing with cigarette butts.
CLICK.
The study door was gently pushed open, and his wife, dressed in pajamas, walked in carrying a glass of warm milk.
"Honey, it’s already three in the morning. You should get some rest. You have a class tomorrow," his wife urged, her voice filled with concern.
"Mm, just leave it there. I’ll go to sleep in a bit," Zhou Shenzhi replied casually.
His wife sighed and left the study.
How could Zhou Shenzhi possibly sleep now?
His research group had pushed the supercomputer nodes at Capital University to their physical bandwidth limits, but the verification order for the non-trivial zeros was still hopelessly stuck at 10^17, unable to advance another inch!
His teacher, Jiang Yubai, had told him long ago.
"Xiaozhou, that algorithm Li Dong published in *Mathematics Computing*... he’s definitely holding something back."
"He’s held back a key part related to the topological isomorphic convergence of the high-order remainder terms."
During this time, Zhou Shenzhi had been working like a man possessed, trying to unearth the hidden optimization patch Li Dong had concealed.
Although his teacher never rushed him, Zhou Shenzhi knew that his teacher’s grand unified project on the Langlands Program required zero data of a much higher order of magnitude for support.
He didn’t want to make his teacher wait any longer!
’What exactly are you hiding?’
’A shift in the integration path? Or a non-linear approximation of the saddle-point method?’
Zhou Shenzhi stared at the dense C++ code and functional analysis formulas on the screen, his hair a mess from running his hands through it in frustration.
「The next morning.」
Yan University, men’s dorm room 404.
BZZZ BZZZ BZZZ.
Li Dong was jolted awake by his phone.
He groggily fumbled for his phone and looked at the screen.
[Liu Ruochuan].
"Hello, Teacher Liu..."
Li Dong answered the call.
"Just ’Teacher’!" came Liu Ruochuan’s voice from the other end.
"...Teacher, what is it? It’s the crack of dawn."
Liu Ruochuan was clearly excited on the other end of the line.
"What else could it be? You little rascal, what did you do last night?"
Li Dong, now halfway awake, remembered the preprint he had casually submitted to arXiv before bed last night.
"Heh heh..." Li Dong let out a dry laugh.
"Don’t you ’heh heh’ me!"
Liu Ruochuan said testily.
"Come clean. When did you reach the 10 to the 23rd power order of magnitude?"
"Uh... it’s been a few days, I guess," Li Dong answered truthfully.
"Can you push it any higher?" Liu Ruochuan’s voice was a little hoarse.
"Can’t," Li Dong sighed. "I’ve hit the hardware’s physical limit. The supercomputer nodes’ memory bandwidth and I/O throughput can’t handle such a massive instantaneous data dump."
"You..." Liu Ruochuan was at a complete loss for words to describe how he was feeling.
"Do you have any idea how big of a storm you’ve caused? The entire international mathematics community has been in an uproar all morning!"
Li Dong couldn’t be bothered to know.
"Isn’t it a good thing that it’s causing a storm, Teacher?"
Li Dong said, leaning against his headboard.
"Aren’t there people online saying that calculating all these zeros has no practical significance? Aren’t there others being sarcastic, claiming they could get the same results with the old algorithms on current hardware?"
"Since they’re so full of talk, let’s see them run the old algorithm to 10 to the 23rd power."
On the other end of the line, Liu Ruochuan was taken aback.
In Liu Ruochuan’s memory, Li Dong had always been easygoing; he rarely saw this sharp, competitive side of him.
"Hahaha..."
"Attaboy! That’s the spirit! If an academic doesn’t have a sharp edge, what kind of young person are they!"
Liu Ruochuan then got to the point.
"Alright, no more idle chat. There are two main things I called you about."
"First, you’ve heard of Professor Arthur Penrose from Princeton University, right?"
Li Dong nodded. "Yeah, the big shot in analytic number theory."
He also knew that a video by Old Yao and Xiaowei had taken the professor’s words out of context to stir up drama.
"Professor Penrose has formally contacted us through Princeton. He wants to fly to Huaxia to meet you in person."
"I was wondering if you had the time?"
Li Dong thought for a moment.
Although he very much wanted to talk and exchange academic ideas with a giant standing at the apex of the human mathematical pyramid...
...his most crucial task right now was to push the error boundary of Montgomery’s Conjecture on Association, as that was the only way to increase his group authority.
"Teacher, regarding Professor Penrose... could you please politely decline for me?"
"Once I’m done with the project I’m currently working on, I’ll visit him at Princeton if I get the chance."
Liu Ruochuan wasn’t surprised. Geniuses, after all, have to follow their own research rhythm.
"Alright, I’ll have the department reply. As for the second thing..."
"Huaxuan Technology called me last night."
"They want to renegotiate with you."
"Renegotiate?" Li Dong asked, puzzled.
"Yes." Liu Ruochuan laid out the analysis for him clearly.
"Your previous algorithm—Huaxuan evaluated it and determined that if it could be successfully implemented, it would indeed significantly reduce the latency of their fluid-thermal coupling calculations."
"But now, you’ve iterated the algorithm to a whole new level."
"Although those engineers at Huaxuan can’t get their hands on your core code, they understand that this new, unpublished algorithm you have can definitely accelerate the implementation process of their lithography machine systems by several-fold!"
Liu Ruochuan smiled.
"So, Huaxuan wants to have another chat with you."
After listening, Li Dong understood the situation.
Huaxuan Technology didn’t just represent a single company; it represented the pinnacle of the Huaxia Semiconductor Industry.
Both logically and emotionally, as long as it was within his power, this was a favor he definitely had to grant.
But... he really didn’t have time to get sidetracked with engineering adaptations right now!
"Teacher, could you please talk to them for me?"
"Anyway, I’m going to Shanghai for the ICCM next month, right? We can all talk in person then."
"Alright, I’ll pass that on. I’m hanging up now. Don’t be too hasty; some things can’t be rushed."
"Okay, Teacher."
The call ended.
Li Dong rolled out of bed and went back to wrestling with Montgomery’s Conjecture on Association.

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