Then, Zhou Qifeng scrolled through the PDF from beginning to end once more.
He stopped halfway through.
He opened his email and composed a new message.
Recipient: Gao Yuanlin.
Attachment: One PDF file.
Click send.
Then he immediately called Gao Yuanlin.
The call connected quickly.
The other end of the line seemed to be in a noisy place, like a dinner party.
"Hey, Old Zhou, what’s up?"
Zhou Qifeng didn’t trade his usual banter with his old friend.
"Old Gao."
"I don’t know how to tell you this."
"I just emailed you the problem that Li Dong solved."
The person on the other end was clearly taken aback for a moment.
"Huh?"
"What problem?"
Gao Yuanlin had clearly had a few drinks and didn’t immediately catch on.
"Oh, you mean *that* one."
The background noise on Gao Yuanlin’s end subsided a little, as if he had deliberately stepped away from the crowd.
"Tell me the details. What was his thought process like?"
Zhou Qifeng said, word by word,
"He solved the problem."
The other end of the line went silent.
A few seconds later, Gao Yuanlin’s hushed voice came through.
"How long did it take him?"
Zhou Qifeng said, "Less than three days."
"Impossible."
The word slipped out of Gao Yuanlin’s mouth.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in Li Dong.
Quite the opposite. He had complete faith in Li Dong’s abilities, even if the kid was still messing around in the deep pit that was mathematics.
But he didn’t believe the Li Dong of *today* could solve this problem.
Because the amount of prerequisite knowledge the problem required was just too absurd.
And Li Dong had only just started going on a rampage in the field of mathematics.
The workload from math alone was enough to pin a genius to their desk, unable to move. How could he possibly have time to chew through four branches of physics?
"Old Gao."
Zhou Qifeng said.
"Go take a look at the email I sent you first. Don’t be so quick to judge."
The other end of the line went silent for another two seconds.
"Alright, I’m heading back now."
After hanging up the phone, back in the private room of the dinner party, Gao Yuanlin raised his wine glass and, with a cheerful smile, addressed the business executives who were discussing major special projects with him.
"My apologies, everyone. A family emergency has come up, so I have to leave first. Please, enjoy the rest of your meal."
The executives tactfully stood up to see him off...
At a dinner party of this level, everyone knew it was just an excuse.
But they wouldn’t ask for the real reason. That was basic courtesy.
「Ten p.m. sharp.」
「Yan University, Dorm 404.」
Li Dong was looking at the email Penrose had sent yesterday when his phone suddenly vibrated.
It was a call from Gao Wen.
"Hello, Teacher Gao."
"Li Dong, are you free tomorrow evening?"
Li Dong was confused.
"Tomorrow? ...I don’t have any plans for tomorrow evening. Is something the matter, Teacher Gao?"
Gao Wen chuckled.
"Come with me to a closed-door meeting."
Li Dong was even more baffled.
He knew a little about closed-door meetings.
In academic and industry circles, these "closed-door meetings" usually referred to small, semi-formal gatherings.
Attendance was small, the social circle was fixed, and everyone would get together behind closed doors in a private setting to discuss things that weren’t convenient to talk about in public.
Sometimes they were about academic direction, other times about aligning industry goals, and sometimes they were simply for people from different circles to get to know each other and build connections.
You wouldn’t normally see these meetings in the news, but almost every shift in the wind within these circles could be traced back to such an occasion.
"Teacher Gao, I’m just a freshman undergrad. Attending a meeting like this... isn’t that a bit inappropriate?"
On the other end of the line, Gao Wen let out a soft "hey."
"For this matter, there’s no one more suitable than you."
"This meeting is mainly about AI, and everyone wants to meet you."
Li Dong’s heart skipped a beat.
AI?
An image instantly flashed through his mind...
Newton, in his workshop in London, using a programming language he invented himself, speaking to a tin baby replicated from seven thousand anatomical diagrams:
"Call me Master."
Then, Li Dong silently banished the image from his mind.
Gao Wen continued.
"Domestically, since the end of last year, several major companies have been fighting tooth and nail. Everyone’s chasing after GPT-3.5, but there’s no consensus in the industry about which path to take, what choices to make, or where to focus their efforts."
"At the meeting tomorrow night, several of the industry’s major players will be there."
"At your current level, you’re more than qualified to attend. If they have any questions for you, feel free to just chat with them."
Li Dong was silent for a moment.
’To be honest, I really do want to see what a scene like that is like,’ he thought.
"Then... okay, Teacher Gao, I’ll go."
Gao Wen laughed on the other end.
"Tomorrow, six p.m., at the Zhongguan Village Shangri-La."
"Dress nicely."
"Got it."
After hanging up, Li Dong laced his hands behind his head and stared at his dorm room ceiling.
AI.
He let out a long breath.
Closing his eyes, his mind filled with the two completely different technological paths...
One was the path this era was currently on.
Relying on massive parameters, corpora, and computing power to make language comprehension emerge naturally from statistical patterns.
The other was Newton’s path, so bizarre it was ridiculous: to physically replicate, bit by bit, the neural connection structure of a biological brain.
The destination for both paths was the same, but the approaches were completely different.
Thinking of this, he shook his head. ’Why am I even thinking about this stuff?’
’I’m just going to check out the scene.’
「The next morning.」
When Li Dong woke up, Wang Hao was already stuffing things into his bag.
"Haozi, you heading out on a long trip?"
Wang Hao spoke as he stuffed a pair of socks into his bag.
"Heading over to Shuimu."
"For our national competition team, an upperclassman found a supervising professor from Shuimu to help train us. We have to spend the next few days getting in sync with his side."
Li Dong nodded.
"When’s the national competition?"
Only then did Wang Hao turn his head and shoot him a reproachful glance.
"September."
"If things start early for us, we’ll have to begin closed-door intensive training at the beginning of August."
"There’s still half a year left. I have to push myself harder."
"Well, keep up the hard work," Li Dong said with a smile.
"Yeah."
Wang Hao shouldered his bag and left the dorm.
Just then, Li Dong suddenly remembered something.
If Wang Hao hadn’t suddenly mentioned Shuimu, he might have forgotten all about it.
On the day of the seminar, Qiu Chengtong had told him to bring Old Yang to Shuimu when he had time.
At the time, he hadn’t thought much of it, assuming Qiu Chengtong just wanted to see him.
But thinking it over now...
’If Qiu Chengtong wanted to see me, he could have just asked me to come alone. Why did he specifically mention bringing Old Yang along?’
’So, the one Qiu Chengtong is interested in isn’t actually me.’
’It’s Old Yang.’
Qiu Chengtong, the big brother of the Chinese mathematics world, held one of the world’s top mathematics research centers in his hands.
He spent his years scouting for promising talent among Chinese mathematicians worldwide. With his eye for potential, once he set his sights on someone, the rest of that person’s life was basically set on a completely new track.
’If he really has taken a liking to Old Yang...’
’Then for Old Yang, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity he might never encounter again.’
But Li Dong couldn’t make this kind of decision for Old Yang.
The core of the matter wasn’t "how big the opportunity is," but "whether Old Yang wants it."
He thought for a moment, then opened WeChat and sent Old Yang a voice message.
"Teacher Yang, I have something to ask you."
"Mr. Qiu asked me to bring you to Shuimu, and I’ve been thinking it over... I think he might have an interest in you."
"Think it over for yourself. Do you want to go? No rush to answer, take your time."
Not long after he sent the message, Old Yang sent a voice message back.
"Ah, Li Dong... I’ve actually thought about this."
"I’m well aware of Qiu Chengtong’s caliber, of course."
"But right now, my mind is completely filled with the project we’re working on."
"I don’t have the mental energy to think about anything else."
"So, for this matter... I want to wait until after the project is finished to talk about it."
After listening, Li Dong sent another voice message.
"Okay, we’ll talk about it later then."
Then he paused and added another sentence...
"Even if you miss this opportunity, you’ve still got me."

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