Over the next few days, Li Dong and Clara went over the project schedule.
For a collaboration of this scale, aligning their workflow from the start was essential.
Who would deliver what first, whose work depended on whose, and who would be a bottleneck for whom—if they didn’t sort these things out at the beginning, there would be trouble later.
According to Clara, it would take her about a week to get the two datasets.
Li Dong was already mentally prepared for this.
After all, whether it was the SDO/HMI high-cadence Doppler intermediate products or the Hinode/SOT Level-2 vector magnetograms, you couldn’t just scrape them from a public interface with a routine query.
To get the amount of data he needed, you had to pull some strings.
A week was already very fast.
Li Dong typed a line and sent it.
Li Dong: No problem. Just getting it is great.
After sending that, he worried it might put too much pressure on Clara, so he typed another line.
Li Dong: It’s okay if it’s a few days late. Take your time.
The other side paused for a few seconds.
Clara: Then you still have to pay me for the time before I get it.
Li Dong: ...
Li Dong stared at the screen, speechless for a long moment.
He had just been trying to show some consideration as her boss.
But with one sentence, she had put him right back in his place.
’Consideration from the boss, huh?’
’How many Swiss Francs per week is a boss’s consideration worth?’
Li Dong mentally deleted his previous "It’s okay if it’s a few days late" and typed a new line.
Li Dong: Of course the time before you get it counts.
Li Dong: As long as you’re working, I’m paying.
She sent back a sticker of a Shiba Inu making a heart shape with its paws.
Clara: You’re so sensible.
Li Dong: ...
’How on earth did this girl graduate from under Bruner?’
He’d thought that solar physicists were like mathematicians, that they’d scoff at the mention of money.
But Clara’s reaction showed she was even more money-grubbing than he was.
...
Meanwhile, on Chang Jin’s end...
Li Dong didn’t just let him wait around.
According to the plan in Li Dong’s head, the phase restoration for the five independent baselines was supposed to follow the main SDO/HMI pipeline for a cross-baseline consistency check.
The full-disk vector magnetograms from the Huairou Solar Observatory, the Purple Platform’s own daily sunspot longitude tables, the low-frequency envelopes of the in-orbit proton flux from the SEMs on Fengyun-2 and Fengyun-3, the geomagnetic H-component data from the Meridian Project laid out along the longitudes, and on top of all that, the archived INTERBALL Magnetometer Tapes that had to be dug up from the Russian Side’s IKI.
The access points for all five of these domestic data streams were in Chang Jin’s hands; he could make a few calls that very afternoon to get the ball rolling with the various institutes.
There was no need to wait for Clara’s two main data streams to come in. The preliminary work—band-pass filter design, Hilbert phase extraction, and zero-longitude offset calibration for each baseline—could all have their frameworks set up now.
Li Dong broke these tasks down into a list and sent it to Chang Jin.
Chang Jin was very efficient. He put a team together the very next day and got started.
...
But when it came to the original archived extended magnetic classifications for beta-gamma and higher active regions from the NOAA SWPC, there really wasn’t much Chang Jin could do.
After all, Li Dong himself wasn’t in the solar physics field, so he could only rely on Chang Jin for this.
...
「Three days later.」
Li Dong was in his dorm room, poring over the preprint of Clara’s paper on low-latitude circulation phase reconstruction, when the phone in his pocket vibrated.
It was a call from Chang Jin.
Li Dong quickly answered.
"Hello, Director Chang."
There were no pleasantries from the other end.
"Li Dong, we can get the data."
Li Dong froze for a second.
"Huh? That quickly?"
Li Dong quickly closed arXiv and asked.
"So when can I get my hands on it?"
The other end of the line went silent for a second or two.
"You have to go get the data yourself."
Li Dong didn’t mind.
"No problem. Where?"
Chang Jin paused before saying slowly,
"At the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research."
"Professor Richter wants to talk to you before deciding whether to give you the dataset."
Li Dong’s grip on his phone tightened slightly.
’Richter.’
’The old German who had spent the better part of a week tearing his precursor warning paper to shreds on arXiv.’
Li Dong was about to say something, but Chang Jin had already started explaining.
"Actually, we could get it through other channels."
"We could go through the International Cooperation Bureau of the Chinese Academy of Sciences for diplomatic approval, or we could ask the G?ttingen Branch of the Max Planck Institute to provide a mirror copy from their shared data pool via the European Space Agency’s SOHO project."
"But all of those would take several months."
"Professor Richter’s way is the fastest."
The line went quiet for a moment.
"If you decide to go, you should report it to your university first."
"I understand."
"Director Chang, thank you for all your trouble."
"It was nothing."
The call ended.
The dorm room fell silent.
Outside the window, the streetlights were just beginning to turn on, one by one.
Li Dong tossed his phone onto the desk and leaned back in his chair, silent for a while.
’To go, or not to go.’
In truth, he had his answer in that very second.
He had to go.
The time window was only seventeen months.
He couldn’t afford to waste time.
And to be honest...
...he was interested in Richter himself.
Li Dong had gone back and mulled over Richter’s public comments several times—the part about "statistically beautiful, methodologically clean, but a disappointment."
He hadn’t liked hearing those words.
But they weren’t entirely wrong.
So it wasn’t an attack, but an admonishment from an old man who had spent his entire life in solar physics to a young man who had popped up from a mathematics department without even finishing his Ph.D.
He also wanted to meet this old professor in person.
Even if it was just to sit across a table, have a cup of coffee, and listen to what else he had to say.
The man stood at the pinnacle of the solar physics field.
What was there to hesitate about when he had a chance to learn from a master?
「The next day, in the principal’s office.」
Principal Gong was reviewing a document.
Hearing a knock, he looked up.
"Come in."
Li Dong entered and explained the situation to Principal Gong from beginning to end.
He was going to Germany, to the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, to retrieve an archived dataset from the NOAA SWPC, but Richter wanted to meet with him first.
Principal Gong leaned back in his chair, listening intently.
After hearing him out, he didn’t give an immediate answer.
After a long moment, he finally spoke slowly.
"Regarding this matter, I’ll give you a response tomorrow."
"Alright."
Walking out of the principal’s office, Li Dong was a little confused.
’Isn’t it just asking for leave to go to Germany?’
’Could the principal actually reject it?’
But he didn’t overthink it, just assuming it was a matter of procedure.
「The next day.」
Li Dong was called to the principal’s office again.
When he pushed the door open, he was taken aback.
There were two more people in the office.
Two men in suits, standing with very formal posture.
The moment Li Dong entered the room, both of them glanced at him almost simultaneously, then looked away just as quickly.
Principal Gong stood up from behind his desk with a wide smile.
"Li Dong, you’re here."
"About your request yesterday to take leave for Germany—the university has approved it."
"However, the university is worried you might be unfamiliar with the place and the people, so we’re sending two ’lifestyle teachers’ to go with you."
"Let me introduce you."
Principal Gong gestured with his finger.
"This is Teacher Zhang."
"And this is Teacher Wu."
The two teachers nodded at Li Dong with perfect synchrony.
The slightly taller one of the two spoke up.
"Student Li Dong, you can just call me Old Zhang."
His voice wasn’t loud, but it was full of power.
The other man also nodded but didn’t speak.
His fingers were too thick to have been holding chalk all year round.
Li Dong politely nodded to both of them.
"Hello, Teacher Zhang. Hello, Teacher Wu."
On the surface, Li Dong smiled as usual.
But his eyes flickered over their suits, which looked ready to burst at the seams.
’Dammit, lifestyle teachers? These are fucking gym teachers.’

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