It was already evening in the Capital City.
Outside the south gate of Yan University, a Didi dropped two people off on the side of the road.
Li Dong and Wang Hao got out of the car, empty-handed.
Wang Hao stood there, staring at his friend who, despite his sharp shoulder lines and clean-cut vibe, hadn’t bought a single piece of clothing.
He had to hand it to him.
They started shopping at two in the afternoon.
And shopped until eight at night.
They went into store after store.
Tried on piece after piece of clothing.
Wang Hao did a rough calculation. The clothes Li Dong had tried on today were worth at least a hundred thousand yuan.
And the result?
He didn’t buy a single thing.
"Brother Dong."
Wang Hao finally couldn’t hold it in any longer.
"What exactly was the point of this whole afternoon?"
Li Dong strolled leisurely toward the dorm building, his hands clasped behind his back.
"I just couldn’t find anything suitable."
"Suitable?"
"Suitable my ass!"
"That Armani jacket looked like it was grown on you. The sales lady was about to cry, you know that?"
"And you said it wasn’t suitable?"
"And that Brioni one? When you put it on, I almost admitted you were more handsome than me."
"You said that wasn’t suitable either?"
"Then tell me what *is* suitable!"
Li Dong clicked his tongue.
"Haozi."
"You don’t understand."
Wang Hao: ...
There it was again.
He had already heard "You don’t understand" for the eighth time today.
Li Dong, hands still behind his back, spoke with profound gravity.
"That Armani jacket was pretty good."
"But it didn’t complement my face."
"Huh?"
"The Brioni was also pretty good."
"But it overshadowed my aura."
"Huh??"
"Haozi, no matter how expensive clothes are, if they don’t make me look handsome when I wear them, they’re worthless."
"You need to mull over this principle."
Wang Hao stood rooted to the spot.
He opened his mouth.
But no sound came out.
’Okay, so you say it’s expensive,’
’he could understand that.’
’A 38,000-yuan suit is indeed expensive.’
’But saying "it didn’t complement my face"?’
’Oh.’
’He couldn’t understand that at all.’
’What does that have to do with the clothes?’
’Shouldn’t he be checking his own character model?’
Wang Hao took a deep breath.
"Brother Dong."
"So if you’re not buying anything, what are you going to wear when you give the speech as the upperclassman representative at next semester’s opening ceremony?"
Li Dong waved his hand dismissively.
"I am buying something."
"Why wouldn’t I?"
Li Dong pulled out his phone and opened Taobao.
He typed four words into the search bar.
"Men’s suit, for speech."
His time trying on clothes at Armani hadn’t been for nothing.
He already had his measurements down: shoulder width, sleeve length, pant cuff, and waist size.
As for the rest...
He just needed to find a similar cut, decent fabric, and a color that wasn’t a mistake.
"Brother Dong."
Wang Hao felt his scalp tingle.
"You’re not actually going to..."
"Yep."
Li Dong didn’t even look up.
"Buy it online."
Wang Hao felt his world collapsing.
"Online! Buying! A suit!"
"What’s wrong with that?"
"You’re giving a speech at the opening ceremony!"
"You’re representing Yuanpei College!"
"You’re representing the face of Yan University’s upperclassmen!"
"And you’re telling me you’re going to buy a suit online??"
Li Dong’s eyes were glued to the screen, his head still down.
"I represent this face of mine."
"Everything else is a minor detail."
Wang Hao: ...
He was utterly defeated.
「Half an hour later.」
In the dorm room, Li Dong sat on the bottom bunk, his phone screen open to his shopping cart.
One suit jacket: 699.
One pair of dress pants: 349.
One dress shirt: 259.
One tie: 89.
One pair of leather shoes: 499.
Total: 1,895.
Li Dong satisfyingly tapped "Place Order Now."
Wang Hao stood beside him, completely dumbfounded.
"Less than two thousand."
Li Dong locked his phone and let out a sigh of pure enjoyment.
"Quick and cheap."
"Brother Dong."
Wang Hao’s voice trembled slightly.
"You have over eight hundred thousand in your bank account."
"I already told you, that was just drunk talk!"
Li Dong looked at him with an expression of pure sincerity.
Wang Hao was silent for a few seconds.
Then, he calmly climbed up to the top bunk.
He wasn’t speaking to him anymore.
「The next morning.」
In Liu Ruochuan’s office on the fourth floor of the Yan University School of Mathematics, Liu Ruochuan brewed a cup of tea, holding a set of lecture notes printed out by a student.
But his attention wasn’t on it at all.
He was still thinking about what Tian Gang had said to him yesterday.
"Ruochuan."
"After Li Dong’s paper is published in the *Mathematical Annals*."
"You should invite some people—our colleagues—to come discuss it."
"See if there are any... opportunities for collaboration."
Liu Ruochuan wasn’t some greenhorn.
He understood what Tian Gang meant, of course.
Tian Gang wanted Li Dong to poach some more people.
He sighed.
’It’s not that easy.’
’Does he think everyone is a Penrose, ready to see Li Dong as the reincarnation of Riemann?’
Just as he was lost in thought...
There was a knock on his office door.
"Come in."
The door opened.
Professor Wang from the School of Mathematics entered.
Professor Wang was nearly sixty this year, his back slightly stooped.
His early research focus was on automorphic forms.
Automorphic forms are a rather convoluted topic, but to put it simply, they are one of the two legs of the Langlands Program.
One leg is Galois representation, extending from the number theory side.
The other leg is automorphic forms, extending from the harmonic analysis side.
Professor Wang had spent decades coiled around this particular leg.
"Dean Liu."
Professor Wang stood at the door and greeted him with a cheerful smile.
"Busy?"
Liu Ruochuan looked up and smiled.
"Oh, Old Wang, come in."
"It’s nothing, just thinking about some random stuff."
Professor Wang came in and sat down in the chair opposite him.
Liu Ruochuan poured him a glass of water.
"So, Old Wang, what’s on your mind?"
Professor Wang waved his hand.
"Ah, it’s about that matter I mentioned to you last time."
"It’s just... I’d like to have a chat with Li Dong."
As a senior professor at the Yan University School of Mathematics, Professor Wang could have easily gone to find Li Dong himself.
But Professor Wang knew the proper etiquette.
He knew that Li Dong was an incredible treasure to both Tian Gang and him, Liu Ruochuan.
It was better to notify them first before seeking out Li Dong.
Liu Ruochuan put down his teacup.
"Your research project, how far have you gotten?"
Professor Wang’s eyes lit up.
"We’re actually just one final step away."
"Ever since that day at Sunshine Hall, our research group has been following the recursion-filtration embedding that Li Dong and Teacher Yang wrote on stage, and we’ve been working on it for another two months."
"For the case where the ramification index e_v=3, we’ve basically worked through the core parts."
"All that’s left is the final estimation of the cross-level coupling."
As he spoke, his face glowed with excitement.
"In less than half a year, our group will be able to provide a complete proof for the local-global compatibility from GL2 to GL3."
Hearing this, Liu Ruochuan’s expression turned a bit strange.
Professor Wang didn’t notice and continued.
"I came to find you now because I wanted to say..."
"Could Li Dong spare an hour or two to talk with us?"
"His understanding of that recursion-filtration embedding is definitely deeper than ours."
"If he could just give us a pointer on that final step, we could probably cut these next six months down to three."
Liu Ruochuan: "..."
He looked at Professor Wang’s face, full of anticipation.
He thought for a moment, choosing his words carefully.
"Old Wang."
"About that project of yours..."
"I think you should probably pause it for now and just... wait."

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