Distinguished Alumnus awards.
They were all laid out on the desk in the principal’s office.
Liu Ruochuan gave him a call.
"Kid, you got ten minutes to come down here?"
"We just need to take a picture."
Li Dong closed the book in his hands, *Carleman Estimate and Its Application in Hyperbolic Inverse Problems*.
Then he headed to the principal’s office.
Principal Gong Qi smilingly stuffed a stack of certificates into his hands.
The photographer’s camera shutter clicked three times.
"Alright, Li Dong, you can go back now. Remember to post this on your socials."
Li Dong bowed to Principal Gong.
He turned and went back to the library.
He didn’t even open the degree certificate to take a look.
As was customary, the university issued an official announcement about his honorary doctorate.
Someone at Shuimu also forwarded it to an internal group chat, and the chat exploded.
Li Dong himself was completely unaware.
All he knew was that he had reached Chapter seven of his *Carleman Estimate* book today.
Summer vacation arrived.
Li Dong didn’t return to Sichuan and Chongqing.
He called Li Qin and told her he wouldn’t be able to come back for summer vacation this year.
On the other end of the line, Li Qin wasn’t surprised. After all, she knew Li Dong was very busy now. He’d even been on CCTV—what was there to worry about?
So, she just reminded Li Dong to remember to eat his meals and didn’t say much else.
During summer vacation, Li Dong would often run over to Academician E Weinan’s office whenever he was free.
Academician E Weinan was at Yan University for the summer instead of Princeton, so he happened to be at the School of Mathematics.
Li Dong knocked on his door every day or two.
"Professor, regarding the optimal constant selection for the Carleman Estimate in hyperbolic inverse problems, do you have any empirical methods?"
"Professor, for the Γ-convergence of the Gikhmanov iteration with cyclic weights, what kind of topology should be used as a reference?"
"Professor, regarding the pseudoinverse construction of ill-posed operators, has there been any new approach from Princeton recently?"
At first, Academician E Weinan was a little surprised.
But after a few more visits, E Weinan began to understand.
’This kid seems to be catching up on applied mathematics, and comprehensively at that.’
This made him very happy. Whenever Li Dong asked a question, he wished he could tell him everything he knew.
After all, if the kid managed to make some major breakthrough in applied mathematics, he could proudly say, ’I taught him that!’
Time quickly flew by to mid-July.
「Jiangcheng.」
On the street just outside Jiangcheng Seventh Middle School.
At the fruit stall across from the school gate, a middle-aged woman in her forties sat behind the stand, bagging a sack of apples while chatting with the lady boss of the braised-snack stall next door.
Just then, an electric scooter with a green postal service license plate stopped in front of the fruit stall.
The young man riding it took off his helmet.
In his hand was a kraft paper envelope with gold foil lettering.
He held it up toward the person behind the stall.
"Excuse me..."
"Is this student Misha’s home?"
The woman froze for a second, then, as if realizing what it was, quickly said,
"Yes, yes, yes!"
"Misha is my daughter."
The postal worker smiled and handed over the kraft paper envelope.
"This is your daughter’s—"
"Acceptance letter."
Migo, who had been cracking sunflower seeds on the side, heard this and immediately bounded up to the postal worker to take the acceptance letter.
He fumbled to turn it over.
A line of golden characters was printed on the front of the envelope.
[Jinling University].
Migo immediately jumped for joy on the spot.
"Ho—ly shit!"
"Jinling University!"
"Sis!"
"Sis, sis, sis, sis, sis!"
"Your acceptance letter is here!"
"Jinling University!"
His mom froze for a moment.
Then she let out a cry of "Aiya!"
She frantically set aside the bag of apples.
Then she shouted toward the small room behind the stall, the one with the plastic beaded curtain.
"Xiaxia!"
"Xiaxia, come out for a second!"
The curtain was pushed aside.
A girl walked out from the inner room.
She looked to be about eighteen or nineteen.
Her hair wasn’t cut particularly short, but it was a bit shorter than when Li Dong had last seen her at the gate of Seventh Middle School a year ago.
She was wearing a white T-shirt and a plain pair of black jeans.
Misha walked through the curtain and took the kraft paper envelope from Migo’s hands.
She glanced at the line of text on the front.
[Jinling University].
She didn’t open it.
She just tucked the envelope under her arm.
She gave the postal worker a nod.
"Mm."
"Thank you."
The postal worker smiled, got on his scooter, and left.
Beside her, Migo was as gleeful as a 220-pound handsome dog, circling Misha.
"Sis! Jinling University! It’s Jinling!"
"Jinling is a 985 university!"
"Retaking the exam this time was totally worth it!"
Misha didn’t look at him.
She slowly tightened her grip on the envelope under her arm.
She raised her head.
She glanced at the blinding sunlight across the street.
Her lips moved slightly.
Her voice was so quiet she could barely hear it herself.
"I will catch up to you."
「Meanwhile.」
「Capital City.」
Third floor of the Yan University Library.
On Li Dong’s desk lay an open copy of *Spectral Method for Nonstandard Eigenvalue Problems*.
It was open to the third-to-last page of Chapter six.
A passage at the bottom of the page described a very obscure little technique...
In an iteration with cyclic weights, if a certain order derivative of the weight exhibits a specific form of discontinuity near the boundary condition...
Then...
The iteration is no longer guaranteed to converge to the global minimum.
It will get trapped in a "seemingly very stable" local stagnation point.
This local stagnation point...
The residual decreases with every downward step.
The phase constraints are met with every downward step.
Every step appears to be moving downward.
But it isn’t moving downward at all.
It’s just stuck right there.

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