Chapter 377 - 201: Looking for Someone

Chapter 377: Chapter 201: Looking for Someone

Eight in the morning.

The Keda Mathematics Building was gradually coming to life. The sounds of students and teachers greeting each other occasionally echoed in the hallways.

Li Jianming sat at his desk, the twenty-two-page manuscript lying on top of it.

He pulled open the drawer on his right, rummaged around for a moment, and took out a pair of scissors.

He pulled out the most crucial page from the manuscript and spread it flat on his desk.

The blades of the scissors opened, aiming for the partial differential equations at the top of the page—the ones with the clear characteristics of fluid physics.

SNIP.

The paper was cut, and a long, thin strip fell beside his hand.

Li Jianming turned the page, brought the scissors down again, and cut off the last few lines of formulas—the ones that reached the final conclusion of a complete algebraic cycle closure.

What remained was only the middle section: the most abrupt, most unreasonable part of the process—the truncation of the Discrete Matrix.

But that wasn’t enough.

Li Jianming knew all too well how sharp the eyes of his old colleagues in the country were.

Chen Zhuo’s handwriting had a very particular fluency, and his derivation style was bold and sweeping. If he sent the original, there was a good chance someone would follow the breadcrumbs and trace it back to the Mathematical Annals.

He pulled an old Hero-brand fountain pen from the pen holder and unscrewed the cap.

Taking a blank sheet of stationery, Li Jianming lowered his head and began to recopy the truncated manuscript, character by character.

He deliberately slowed down, using his own blocky, rigid handwriting—honed by decades of writing on blackboards—to cover up Chen Zhuo’s derivation.

When copying the two transitional steps in the middle, Li Jianming paused slightly and added two common interference terms from classical algebra.

These two terms didn’t affect the final result, but they could disguise the derivation’s school of thought, making it look more like a traditional old scholar’s dead-end pursuit.

After he finished the last line, the ink slowly dried on the page.

Li Jianming took the paper, stood up, and walked out of his office.

He crossed the hall to the department’s confidential documents office.

The clerk in the office was mopping the floor. Seeing Li Jianming enter, he quickly greeted him.

"Professor Li, good morning."

"I need to send a few faxes."

Li Jianming nodded.

He walked over to the old-fashioned fax machine and fed the sheet of stationery into the paper intake.

He pulled a small notebook from his pocket, and following the number inside, dialed the first long-distance area code.

Accompanied by the harsh dial tone and scanning noise of the fax machine, the truncated manuscript was sent to three different locations.

After it was sent, Li Jianming retrieved the original, folded it twice, tucked it into his pocket, and returned to his office.

He left the door ajar, sat down in his chair, and brewed himself a large mug of strong tea.

The tea leaves tumbled in the boiling water.

「Ten-fifteen in the morning.」

The landline on his desk rang.

The ringing sounded jarring in the quiet office.

Li Jianming put down the book in his hand and picked up the receiver.

"Hello."

"Li, what the hell are you playing at, sending me a fax first thing in the morning?"

A voice, aged but full of vigor, came from the other end of the line.

This was Academician Zhao from the Chinese Academy of Sciences School of Mathematics, a titan in the field of classical algebraic geometry. He and Li Jianming had known each other for decades. Both had dedicated their lives to academia and valued rigor and discipline in mathematics above all else.

"I’m not playing at anything."

Li Jianming leaned back in his chair.

"I just happened upon an idea and got stuck. Thought I’d let you take a look."

The sound of a heavy slam on a table came from the other end.

"Take a look? I can’t believe what I’m looking at!"

Academician Zhao’s tone was clearly furious; you could even hear his ragged breathing from the agitation.

"Li, you and I both come from pure mathematics. The continuity of complex manifolds is a fundamental principle! This fragment you sent me... to forcibly close an integral, it completely abandons continuity and just hacks at it with a Discrete Matrix?"

Academician Zhao’s voice grew louder, spilling out of the earpiece.

"It’s like taking a rusty cleaver to a topological space! It’s too crude! Too ugly! Our work is supposed to be elegant, letting things fall into place naturally. What is this? This is madness! Whoever came up with this has a completely warped foundation in mathematics!"

Li Jianming held the receiver, listening to his old friend’s tirade with a blank expression.

"Zhao, don’t worry about whether it’s ugly or not. Just tell me, can this logic hold up within your academy’s system of classical mathematics?" Li Jianming asked.

"Hold up? Bullshit!"

Academician Zhao shot back without hesitation.

"It’s heresy from the ground up! I’m telling you, Li, whoever wrote this needs to pull back from the brink, now! If they continue down this path, it’s a dead end. Not even a god could save them!"

CLICK.

He had hung up.

The busy signal buzzed from the earpiece.

Li Jianming slowly placed the receiver back on its cradle.

He picked up his tea mug and took a large gulp of the strong, slightly bitter tea.

He wasn’t discouraged. Instead, a cold smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

’Old Zhao represents the most orthodox group in the country. The harsher his scolding, the more it proves that Chen Zhuo’s ’cut’ has sliced right into a blind spot of classical mathematics. The older generation’s thinking has ossified; they can’t comprehend this kind of high-dimensional breakthrough.’

Li Jianming’s stubborn, protective instinct was fully roused. He refused to accept it. If the classical school couldn’t understand it, then surely someone with a more flexible mind could.

「Twelve-thirty in the afternoon.」

The students in the hallways had gone to the cafeteria for lunch, leaving the entire building empty.

The landline rang for a second time.

Li Jianming answered the phone.

"Teacher Li, are you on your lunch break?"

The voice on the other end belonged to a middle-aged man. He spoke quickly, his words laced with an unconcealable excitement.