Luo Yu was at a loss for words.
He could feel that the way people were looking at him had changed.
The associate professor from the University of Science and Technology of China sitting diagonally in front of him, who had just turned to give him a nod earlier, had now scooted his chair half a space forward. His brows were knitted tightly as he listened to the two students on stage wrap up.
That deep frown wasn’t directed at the two students.
It was for him—the one who had just been publicly refuted by them.
Luo Yu grit his back teeth.
He thought back to what he had told Li Dong the other night—that his participation would accelerate the completion of the Langlands Program. The more he thought about it now, the more his face burned with shame.
He took a long, hard look at Fu Chen and Gu Ming on the stage.
Compositio
He himself, following his own advisor, only had one paper as a third author.
But these two were about to be published in Compositio as second and first authors next month.
Just as Luo Yu was stewing in his embarrassment, a soft cough came from the front row, before the main stage.
Tian Gang stood up.
He smiled toward the stage.
As a senior figure in academia, known for being upright, magnanimous, and fair, he never formed cliques or played politics.
Naturally, he couldn’t just stand by and watch Luo Yu, who had tried to give Fu Chen and Gu Ming a hard time, be humiliated. So he stepped in to "smooth things over."
"You two are very impressive."
"So young, yet you know how to apply your knowledge flexibly. Not rigid at all."
"It seems the academic atmosphere at Yan University is quite good."
On the last sentence, he deliberately stressed the two words "Yan University."
Several old professors in the front row gave him strange looks.
Luo Yu’s expression turned even uglier when he heard this.
’Apply your knowledge flexibly.’
’Not rigid at all.’
’Is he saying that I, Luo Yu, don’t know how to apply my knowledge? That I’m rigid?’
The presentation ended after Fu Chen and Gu Ming dropped that bombshell.
No one else in the hall raised their hand.
Instead, a murmur of discussion slowly began to rise.
"Those two kids... are incredible."
"If Li Dong opens up another spot, he could probably train a few more like them."
Amidst the chatter, not a single person looked back at Luo Yu.
Instead, many turned to look at Li Dong, who was seated on the main stage.
Their eyes were filled with eagerness.
The closing reception for the Huaxia Mathematical Society’s annual academic conference was held in the second-floor banquet hall of the same building.
Li Dong hadn’t planned on staying long.
He never had any patience for this kind of social obligation.
But today was, after all, Gu Ming and Fu Chen’s first time presenting at such an event, and they had been singled out by Tian Gang. He figured he should at least see them through the dinner and help fend off any unwanted attention.
Unexpectedly, at the dinner, the one who needed fending for was Li Dong himself.
The first person to approach with a glass was an associate researcher from the Chinese Academy of Sciences Mathematics Institute.
His research focused on Galois representation deformation rings, the same general field as Luo Yu, but he was seven or eight years older.
He smiled very politely.
"Teacher Li, today’s presentation was magnificent."
Li Dong raised his glass in return.
"It was mainly Fu Chen and Gu Ming."
"The two kids did speak well," the associate researcher first agreed with Li Dong, then placed his glass on the table.
"I also have two students whose research area is actually quite related to your line of work."
Li Dong let out a soft "Oh."
"I was just wondering..." The associate researcher chose his words carefully. "If you could open up another spot on your team, my two students could come and help out."
Li Dong didn’t respond. He understood what the man was getting at—he wanted to place his students with him.
Although Li Dong appreciated a teacher who looked out for his students, he couldn’t agree without knowing more about them.
So, Li Dong simply said,
"This is something I’ll need to discuss with Professor Wang Zhigang from my team."
It was a polite refusal, and the other party understood.
The associate researcher didn’t insist, picking up his glass and retreating.
But the line of people behind him remained.
The second was a specially-appointed professor from Zhongshan University who worked on automorphic representations. He had returned from the United States two years ago.
The third was an associate professor from Zhejiang University with the surname Zhu, specializing in local root numbers.
The fourth...
Each person who came over had a different opening line.
Luo Yu was watching from a short distance away when a professor from Capital University patted him on the shoulder.
"Luo Yu, let’s go. Stop watching. Capital University and him aren’t a good match."
Luo Yu nodded and left with the professor, his face calm as he walked away.
「At the same time, in the Capital City.」
In an office at the Huaxia Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Hou Jian sat behind his desk, holding a document, his brow furrowed imperceptibly.
He had been in the president’s chair for over five years, and this was the first time he had ever read a document so meticulously.
On the other side of the desk, Chang Jin was also seated.
Hou Jian put down the document.
"Old Chang, has this report been verified?"
Chang Jin nodded.
"It has."
He singled out a few pages from the report.
"Regarding the eleven events from the Wukong Satellite, Li Dong’s warning dispatch described them in great detail."
"The energy range is concentrated between 0.5 and 4.6 TeV, with a mean spectral index γ of 2.89, fluctuating by 0.13."
"The amplitude has shown a systematic increase over the past six years. The slope of the log-linear fit is 0.34, plus or minus 0.09, annually."
Listening to Chang Jin, Hou Jian glanced at the main peak window period in the report.
"Eighteen months, plus or minus one week."
Hou Jian pinched the bridge of his nose.
"What do the experts think of this precision claim?"
Chang Jin had anticipated this question.
"Chen Heng’s stance is rather cautious."
"His general opinion is that he doesn’t object to the precursor hypothesis itself. He’s seen the data from the Wukong Satellite’s high-energy arm over the past two years himself and confirms there are indeed some ’Illusion Peaks’ that remain unexplained."
"He acknowledges the methodological approach of Li Dong using Gikhmanov’s criterion in reverse to scan for these ’Illusion Peaks’."
"However, he feels that a significance of 2.8σ is still a long way from the five-sigma threshold for discovery in the particle physics community."
"He believes it’s inappropriate to make a determination about the nature of an event, especially one on the scale of a Carrington Level event, with this level of significance."
Hou Jian nodded, and Chang Jin continued.
"Then there’s Gao Jiawei’s opinion."
Hearing this name, Hou Jian paid closer attention.
Gao Jiawei was a leading figure in the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Strategic Priority Program on Space Science. He was known for being blunt and outspoken.
"What did he say?"
"He’s in direct opposition," Chang Jin said in a steady tone.
"He says Li Dong’s dispatch is not rigorous."
"This methodological leap of applying a criterion in reverse should not be used to support any major judgment until it has been independently verified by a second team."
"Furthermore, he personally holds strong doubts about whether this interdisciplinary patchwork—applying Gamov’s quantum tunneling decay framework to the Sun’s magnetic potential well, and then using a deep learning model with an attention mechanism to reverse-engineer the decay constant—is even valid."
Reaching this point, Chang Jin gave a helpless smile.
"He also said that we can’t lower our standards on this matter just because Li Dong’s name is attached to it."
After listening, Hou Jian slowly closed the document in his hands.
After a long moment, he finally spoke.
"I have a general understanding of the domestic reaction."
"What about the international response?"
Hou Jian wasn’t asking because he was waiting for foreign countries to speak up before setting a tone domestically.
It was because of the unique nature of the matter itself.
Pillars of the state like "critical infrastructure" were never something one party could decide to change behind closed doors.
Orbital collision avoidance for low-orbit satellites, surge protection for transoceanic fiber-optic cable repeater stations, bias blocking of neutral points in ultra-high-voltage power grids... Once you start on any of these massive projects, multinational cooperation is almost always unavoidable.
The underlying framework of modern society has long been woven into a vast web. The power grid of North America cannot be completely physically isolated from Asia’s. No single entity can reinforce the Eurasian submarine cables on its own. As for civil aviation’s radio navigation systems, they absolutely require joint promotion by the International Civil Aviation Organization.
Even if they wanted to get a head start and build up their own defensive barriers, if other countries didn’t take synchronous action, this defense system would only turn them into an isolated island in a sea of ruins when disaster truly struck.
Therefore, for this matter, the domestic response and the international reaction had to be considered together as a whole.
Hearing Hou Jian ask about the international reaction, Chang Jin sighed.
At that moment, on the astro-ph section of arXiv.
arXiv, which had quieted down after Richter’s comments on Clara’s precursor warning some time ago, was now in an uproar again over another warning dispatch.
The title of this warning was: [Preliminary Evidence for Carrington-Class Extreme Solar Particle Event Precursor Signals in DAMPE High-Energy Arm Data]
Translated into Chinese, it read: [Preliminary Evidence of Suspected Carrington Level Extreme Solar Particle Event Precursor Signals in Wukong Satellite High-Energy Arm Data]
Author: Li Dong

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