「The second day of the conference.」
A little before nine, the main auditorium was already more than half full.
Li Dong chose a seat near the back. With two empty rows between him and the next person, he could hear clearly without drawing attention.
This morning was for academic reports.
The people in the auditorium weren’t as excited as yesterday. Those who had no real interest had already left; most of the remaining attendees were there to actually learn something.
The first person to take the stage was Lei Zhen from Fudan University.
Li Dong had just shaken hands with this professor yesterday. Seeing him again today, Lei Zhen’s smile was completely gone, replaced by the serious demeanor of a researcher the moment he stepped on stage.
He was speaking on the construction of weak solutions for the 3D incompressible Navier-Stokes equations in a certain critical regularity space.
Halfway through, he wrote a priori estimates on the projection screen. The tool he used was a set of commutator estimates that had only emerged on the international scene in the last two years.
Li Dong’s mind had been wandering, but at this point, he suddenly sat up straight.
’These estimates...’
Someone in his own research group was working on the deformation of Galois representations over a certain class of local rings, and they were stuck precisely at a point where a commutator term refused to converge.
Although PDE and number theory were far from adjacent fields, this kind of similarity in tools was sometimes no coincidence.
Li Dong made a mental note of it.
’I’ll have to get the group to look into Lei Zhen’s approach when I get back.’
The next person on stage was Zhang Zhifei from Yan University, who spoke about new developments in the long-time asymptotic behavior of the Boltzmann equation.
After that was Zhu Xiaohua, speaking on the existence of K?hler-Einstein metrics on a certain class of Fano manifolds.
Li Dong listened to these two talks very attentively as well, but he didn’t take notes like he did during Lei Zhen’s presentation.
As the morning progressed, the more he listened, the more he felt that a conference of this scale was no place for casual sightseeing.
Every person who took the stage presented their proudest achievements for all to see.
If you sat in the audience and didn’t absorb anything, that was your own fault.
As Li Dong closed his notebook, the final talk of the morning was also drawing to a close.
He raised his hand and glanced at his watch.
’About time.’
Fu Chen and Gu Ming’s plane should have landed by now.
「The afternoon of the conference’s second day.」
Li Dong was waiting in the coffee area on the hotel’s first floor when they arrived.
Neither Fu Chen nor Gu Ming had any luggage.
"East God," Fu Chen said first. Gu Ming greeted him as well.
Li Dong didn’t waste any time with pleasantries.
"Come on. There are a few people I want you to meet."
Upon entering the venue, Li Dong immediately spotted Tian Gang and Liu Ruochuan, along with several other teachers from Yan University.
Li Dong led the two over and greeted them one by one.
"Teacher Tian, Teacher Liu."
"These are two members of my research group: Fu Chen, a first-year grad student, and Gu Ming, a third-year undergrad."
The teachers from Yan University sized them up with interest, then smiled and exchanged a few pleasantries.
One of the speakers who had just left the stage that morning casually asked Fu Chen what field he was working in.
Fu Chen was a little nervous, but he answered clearly enough.
Li Dong stood by without interjecting, simply watching.
When it came to Tian Gang and Liu Ruochuan, it should have been a matter of a few polite words before moving on.
But Li Dong added something more.
"Oh, right. The two of them also have a paper."
"Compositio just sent the acceptance notice two days ago."
"Fu Chen is the first author, and Gu Ming is the second."
Tian Gang was holding a cup of coffee. When he heard this, his hand paused.
The smile on Liu Ruochuan’s face also faded slightly.
He turned his head to look at Gu Ming.
"Yours?"
Gu Ming only just realized that he hadn’t told his professor about getting a paper published. He answered guiltily.
"...Yeah."
Liu Ruochuan cursed inwardly. ’Is Li Dong trying to poach my student?’
He genuinely hadn’t known about this.
The student had been busy working with Li Dong lately, and he’d also won a gold medal in the national mathematical modeling competition. Plus, Liu Ruochuan himself was preoccupied with matters concerning his academician candidacy, so he hadn’t asked too many questions.
But for a journal of Compositio’s caliber... to have his student as second author without so much as a heads-up beforehand... ’Does this kid think he’s latched onto a big shot?’
’Believe it or not, I’ll take down you and your big shot both!’
Liu Ruochuan shot Li Dong a vicious glare. Li Dong pretended not to see it and even started humming a little tune.
And while Tian Gang was also listed as part of the research group, he was even busier than Liu Ruochuan and naturally hadn’t paid attention. Only now did he take a good, hard look at Fu Chen.
"A first-year grad student, a third-year undergrad."
He smiled, then turned to Li Dong.
"This research group of yours, it would do well to put down roots at Yan University."
Tian Gang might be a controversial figure, but his affection for Yan University was undeniably genuine.
Everyone in academia knew that even now, Tian Gang still personally led a discussion seminar every semester.
When he had just returned to the country in the nineties, he started a "Special Mathematics Lecture" series at Yan University.
During that period, he didn’t even rest for summer or winter break, returning each time to teach the students.
That old, un-air-conditioned classroom later sent out an entire generation of scholars.
Xu Chenyang, Liu Ruochuan, Yun Zhiwei, Zhu Xinwen, Zhang Wei, Yuan Xinyi...
Academia later dubbed them the "Golden Generation of Yan University Mathematics."
So, when Tian Gang looked at Fu Chen and Gu Ming, his expression was naturally a little different.
’These two kids in Li Dong’s research group... Gu Ming is Liu Ruochuan’s student, that’s a given.’
’But this Xiaofu next to him...’
"Xiaofu," Tian Gang began, "who is your advisor?"
Fu Chen was a little nervous.
"It’s... It’s Professor Wang Zhigang."
Tian Gang nodded.
The thought he just had was instantly extinguished.
He knew Wang Zhigang.
He had no earth-shattering academic achievements, but when it came to mentoring students, he was famously steady within the Yan University mathematics department.
He was patient, willing to spend the time, and could go through proofs line by line with his students.
’And what about me, Tian Gang?’
’How many business trips had he taken this year alone? If he really took this kid on, he might not be able to free up much time for him.’
’Rather than that, it would be better to let him continue studying under Wang Zhigang.’
Thinking this, Tian Gang gently patted Fu Chen on the shoulder.
"Study well with your teacher."
"And keep learning from Li Dong."
Fu Chen nodded quickly.
"Yes, Academician Tian."
At the side, Liu Ruochuan had already pulled Gu Ming aside, and the two of them—teacher and student—began to talk in hushed voices.
"This paper of yours, when did you submit it?"
Gu Ming obediently recounted the whole story.
The general topic, when he submitted it, how many revisions he’d made, and when he received the acceptance notice.
After listening, Liu Ruochuan nodded, not blaming him.
He just paused for a few seconds before leaving him with a few words—
The paper was accepted, so don’t get arrogant. You need to think carefully about what to do next. And keep working hard with Li Dong; that kid’s a bit of a freak.
Gu Ming acknowledged each point, especially the last one, with which he deeply agreed.
’East God really is different. Though he couldn’t say exactly how.’
’But every time he finished discussing a problem with East God, the feeling of a fog being lifted in his mind was crystal clear.’
’It was as if his thinking even sped up a little.’
Time passed as the older generation encouraged the new.
「Huaxia Mathematical Society Annual Conference, the afternoon of the third day.」
The main auditorium was more crowded than it had been at any other point in the last three days.
For no other reason than this: twenty years old, a Chen Shengshen Prize winner, an outstanding talent.
Everyone wanted to see what kind of spectacular academic report Li Dong could possibly deliver.
The back of the auditorium was packed with people standing, and a few students were even sitting on the steps in the aisles.
Two o’clock sharp.
Li Dong stood up from the second row, holding his laptop.
But as he walked toward the speaker’s platform, two others about his age followed behind him.
"Is this a joint report?"
"I don’t think so. It wasn’t written on the conference schedule."
"Those two behind him, teaching assistants?"
The murmurs didn’t stop.
Li Dong walked behind the lectern, set down his laptop, and took the microphone.
"Before we officially begin, I’d like to introduce two people."
He glanced back over his shoulder.
"These are two members of my research group."
"Fu Chen, a first-year grad student."
"And Gu Ming, a third-year undergrad."
Li Dong paused.
"We recently produced some interesting results on the local side of the Langlands Program."
"Today’s report will be presented by the two of them."
The auditorium was silent for about two seconds.
Then, the room erupted in chatter.
"A first-year grad student? A third-year undergrad?"
"Letting an undergraduate present at a conference of this caliber?"
"This is how the Chen Shengshen Prize winner’s report is going to be?"
All sorts of comments could be heard, but no one interrupted aloud. After all, this was Li Dong’s presentation slot.
Li Dong himself, however, was perfectly composed.
He handed the microphone to Fu Chen behind him, pushed the laptop toward the center of the lectern, and then took half a step back to sit in a chair at the side of the stage.
Down in the audience, Luo Yu’s face went pale, then flushed.
He had prepared a lot for today.
He had carefully studied Li Dong’s publicly known research directions and specifically picked out a few points he considered the most difficult, planning to hit him with them during the Q&A session after the talk.
And now look.
A first-year grad student and a third-year undergrad were on stage.
He didn’t even know these two students.
If he asked the questions he’d prepared, they were too advanced for the students to understand, which would just make him look like he was picking on a couple of juniors.
Luo Yu ground his back teeth.
’This kid... he’s really got some luck.’
’He managed to escape this ordeal today.’
As he thought this, the malice in Luo Yu’s heart slowly turned into schadenfreude.
’Go on, present whatever you want.’
’A first-year grad student and a third-year undergrad on a stage like this... it’ll only be interesting if they crash and burn.’
Onstage.
When Fu Chen took the microphone, his hands were cold.
He turned his head and glanced at Gu Ming.
Gu Ming looked back at him.
Neither of them spoke, but they both knew the other was nervous.
Gu Ming took a USB drive from his pocket and plugged it into the laptop.
The projector flashed.
Written on the screen was—[Anomalous Residues of Cyclic L-Factors and Their Survival Correspondence with the Local Dimension of Deformation Rings]

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