"Hello, Li Dong."
"I’m Cheng Duo, a third-year PhD student under Teacher Su."
"I also help run the engineering side of this project."
Li Dong quickly extended his hand.
"Hello, Brother Cheng."
The others introduced themselves as well.
The other male student was Lu Heng.
The two female students were Shen Ying and Guo Han.
Li Dong silently memorized their names.
After greeting them, Li Dong noticed someone was missing.
He remembered Su Yanqing mentioning that another professor was also officially part of the project team.
He didn’t see him.
It seemed Wu Kai noticed what he was looking for.
He spoke up.
"Li Dong, this is everyone who is here today."
"There’s one other professor who was supposed to be here today."
"He’s at the large-scale scientific facility over in Huairou, rushing to finish calibrating a set of experimental data on light spots. The earliest he’ll be back is in a few days."
"It’s data for the High Energy Light Source’s public trial run for the latter half of this year. It’s crucial, so he has to be there in person."
Li Dong nodded.
He already had a general idea from the files he’d read the day before.
This professor’s name was Lu Mingyuan.
He and Wu Kai had been partners for many years.
Unlike Wu Kai, who focused on chemical synthesis, Lu Mingyuan specialized in surface physics and single-molecule spectroscopy.
Simply put...
Wu Kai’s group provided the "samples," while Lu Mingyuan’s team provided the "tools to observe them."
Lu Mingyuan’s group was leading the work on the SX-STM tip for this project.
Furthermore, Lu Mingyuan collaborated very closely with the Yan University School of Physics and the Beijing High Energy Institute.
He was essentially the one who helped coordinate access to the few domestic beamlines capable of SX-STM.
Li Dong had read a few of Lu Mingyuan’s earlier review articles from the files on the USB drive.
The writing style was dense, but his logic was crystal clear.
Just from his writing, Li Dong already felt a degree of respect for the professor.
He didn’t ask any more questions, just gave Wu Kai a simple "Mm."
"I understand, Teacher Wu."
"We can talk more when Teacher Lu gets back."
Wu Kai nodded.
"Good."
He glanced around at everyone in the room and said.
"There are just a few main things for today."
"We need to divide up the work and finish inspecting the new batch of equipment that just arrived."
"Then, we need to coordinate our roles. This isn’t a one-person job. We need to clearly define who’s responsible for which instrument and who’s handling which part of the workflow today."
"And finally..."
He glanced at Li Dong.
"This student, Li Dong, is from Yuanpei."
"He’s new to a lot of the work we do in this group."
"Xiaosu, Yan’Er, I need you two to be diligent in showing him the ropes with the basic procedures at the beginning."
Su Yanqing and Zhang Yan both nodded.
Li Dong also quickly spoke up.
"Thank you, Teacher Wu. I look forward to learning from all of you."
"No need to be so formal."
Zhang Yan smiled and waved her hand dismissively.
"East God, that’s way too formal."
The atmosphere in the room instantly relaxed a lot.
Just when everyone thought the introductory remarks were over and it was time to get down to business...
Li Dong suddenly spoke up.
"Teacher Wu."
Wu Kai glanced at him.
"Hm, what is it?"
Li Dong didn’t beat around the bush.
His purpose for coming this time was very clear.
It was to cash in on Mendeleev and Madam Curie.
So he had to voice his intuition; if they were truly on the wrong path, it would just waste his time.
He chose his words carefully and then spoke his mind.
"Teacher Wu, I looked at the file that Sister Yan gave me."
"Especially the ’Current Bottlenecks’ section."
"What we’re currently stuck on are mainly two mathematical problems, right?"
The room instantly fell silent.
The PhD students all looked at Li Dong, puzzled.
They all knew Li Dong had joined the group specifically to solve the math problems, so they were curious to hear what he had to say.
Wu Kai nodded and said.
"That’s right."
"Those two mathematical problems are exactly what we’re stuck on."
"After you get familiar with the fundamentals by working with the team, that will be your main task."
He paused for a moment.
"Most research groups in the country are stuck on these two problems right now."
"That includes Director Wang Shen and Academician Xie Yi’s teams over in Hecheng."
"They got started on this earlier than we did, but they’ve also hit these two walls."
"A while ago, they poached Mateo Levan from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)."
"You’ve heard of Levan, right?"
Li Dong nodded.
’I haven’t just heard of him; I’ve met him and we’ve talked before.’
"Yes."
"Applied mathematics, European Mathematical Society Prize winner, and an invited speaker at last year’s ICM."
Wu Kai continued.
"Hecheng brought him in precisely to break through these two walls from the mathematical side."
"If they succeed, the entire field will pivot in that direction."
"As for our side..."
Wu Kai suddenly smiled.
"We’re one-up on them, because we have you."
He said it matter-of-factly.
The PhD students in the room all laughed, thinking he had a point.
’Could Levan really be on the same level as East God?’
’Their fields might be different, but in terms of standing, Li Dong is at least a tier above Levan.’
Li Dong was stunned.
’I really wasn’t trying to show off.’
However, this wasn’t the time for posturing.
Li Dong looked at Wu Kai and said seriously.
"Teacher Wu."
"I have a feeling... something isn’t right."
The moment he said that, the smiles on the faces of the others in the room froze.
The PhD students exchanged glances.
The first to react was Cheng Duo.
He blurted out, "Huh?"
"East God, what do you mean, ’not right’?"

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