Chapter 338 - 288: Got You

Chapter 338: Chapter 288: Got You

The next morning.

Li Dong once again pushed open the door to the North Building of the School of Chemistry.

The lab was even more deserted than yesterday.

Guo Han’s workstation was empty.

After leaving yesterday, Guo Han had sent an email to Wu Kai saying they’d successfully interviewed with a supervisor in another group and would be transitioning over there for now.

Shen Ying’s workstation was also half-empty.

One of the monitors from her dual-screen setup was gone.

She hadn’t officially left the group, but anyone with a discerning eye could tell it was a sign she was on her way out.

When Wu Kai saw Li Dong arrive again, he still managed to force a smile.

"Ah, Li Dong."

"This group of ours... probably won’t last much longer."

"I’ve applied for an extension."

"I want to try some other paths, or maybe pivot to a new direction."

He paused, then added another sentence.

"As for you... you should just focus on your own things."

"You don’t need to come anymore."

Wu Kai genuinely didn’t want to drag Li Dong down with him.

Li Dong looked at the forced smile on Wu Kai’s face.

He shook his head.

"Teacher Wu."

"Give me three months."

Wu Kai was stunned for a moment.

Li Dong continued.

"There’s a problem with this paper from Engelhardt’s group."

"In fact, everything they’ve published before has problems."

"I haven’t found the exact problem yet."

"But my gut tells me..."

"It’s there."

The few remaining students in the room, including Su Yanqing and Zhang Yan, subconsciously looked up.

Wu Kai was stunned as well.

A month ago, he might have doubted Li Dong, but ever since Li Dong had actually found the physical pathway, he’d stopped having such thoughts.

Wu Kai looked at him intently.

"Are you sure?"

Li Dong shook his head.

"I’m not sure yet."

"But give me three months."

Wu Kai was silent for a moment before looking up at Li Dong.

"Alright."

"To be honest, Old Lu and I wanted to give it another try too."

"Before their patent is granted and before that Nature paper is officially published."

"We both still want to give it another shot."

Li Dong nodded at him.

"Teacher Wu."

"You keep going."

"Trust me."

Those two words, "Trust me."

Hearing them, Wu Kai felt a sudden surge of confidence, though he wasn’t sure why.

He nodded.

"Alright."

"I don’t want to give up just like this either."

Li Dong left the School of Chemistry, but this time, he didn’t head back to his dorm.

He went straight into the library.

Inside the library, when people saw it was Li Dong, they started whispering among themselves.

"East God is here again."

"How many dozens of books is it this time?"

"I wonder what record he’s going to break now."

But today, Li Dong disappointed them.

Li Dong didn’t grab books by the dozens.

He just slowly took a single book down from a shelf.

Then he found a seat by the window and sat down.

He opened it.

And started reading from the first page.

The whispers started up again in the library.

"Huh?"

"Why did East God only grab one book today?"

"And it looks like he isn’t reading that fast anymore."

"Am I seeing things?"

They couldn’t see what was really happening.

Li Dong’s method this time was different from before.

Previously, he would cram entire books into his Memory Palace.

But this time, he needed to devour not just a few books, but an entire field.

The entire field of applied mathematics.

Inverse problems, the calculus of variations, spectral methods, numerical linear algebra, iterative regularization of ill-posed problems, Gamma-convergence of energy functionals, Carleman estimates for parabolic inverse problems, Backus-Gilbert theory, the Mumford-Shah functional, spectral clustering, low-dimensional representation with matrix rank constraints...

Anything even remotely related to the applied mathematics direction Wu Kai’s research group was working on.

Li Dong planned to devour it all.

Useful or not.

He would devour everything.

So his method had changed.

He would take out a book and open it.

When he came across something he didn’t understand, he no longer just stuffed it directly into his Memory Palace like before.

Instead, he would find a related preparatory text from a nearby shelf.

And tackle both books at once.

One book on his left, one on his right.

Whenever he got stuck on one, he’d turn to the other for clarification, only for a new point of confusion to pop up in that one halfway through...

So he’d grab another, laying three books open on the table at once.

A student at the next table shot him a strange look.

They had actually used this method of "reading two books at once" themselves.

As graduate students, they always kept a reference book or two on hand when reading specialized texts.

So it wasn’t all that surprising.

But what East God was doing... was a bit bizarre.

Two books, then three...

After half an hour, there were four books on his table.

After an hour, there were five.

"...Good heavens."

"What kind of new study method is this from East God?"

"I’ve never seen anyone cross-reference ten books at once!"

Li Dong couldn’t hear their chatter.

He had to be fast.

He had told Wu Kai he’d need three months, which meant he absolutely had to find the problem with that paper within that time!

...

The days slowly trickled by.

At one point, Gao Wen returned to Yan University from Peng City and invited Li Dong out for a meal.

Over the phone, Li Dong told him to ask again some other time.

Gao Wen was stunned for a few seconds on the other end of the line, then finally laughed and said, "Alright."

Gao Wen truly understood the young man.

Once he was "in the zone," forget a meal—even if the sky were falling, you’d have to wait for him to emerge on his own.

Gao Wen hung up and stood alone at the entrance to Yan University for a while.

He sighed.

Then he turned and walked onto campus.

He had to go find Liu Ruochuan to discuss matters regarding Peng City, and then he would head back to Peng City himself to oversee the project.

...

「At the end of June.」

Yan University’s undergraduate commencement ceremony.

The university ran Li Dong through the official process according to the original "Special Talent Development Plan."

A bachelor’s diploma, a degree certificate, and an honorary doctorate certificate.