Chapter 353 - 293: I’m Just Voicing It for Him

Chapter 353: Chapter 293: I’m Just Voicing It for Him

When Li Dong returned to his dorm room, Wang Hao wasn’t there.

"Where’s Haozi?"

Li Dong tossed his bag onto his desk and turned to ask his other two roommates.

Liu Qiang and Chen Nan glanced at each other, their expressions a little strange.

Chen Nan spoke first.

"He said he wasn’t feeling well this afternoon and went to see a doctor."

"Hasn’t been back since,"

Liu Qiang added.

"I just called him."

"Haozi said he’s pulling an all-nighter for a training session at Gu God’s place."

Hearing this, Li Dong felt a tightness in his chest. ’Looks like my own training plan will have to be put on hold.’

He sighed and said,

"All right, then."

With that, he went back to his own bottom bunk.

He pulled out his chair and opened his laptop.

The screen lit up, and Xiaohai was still bouncing around in the little world it had carved out for itself in the bottom-right corner.

The progress bar above its head was still at [0.01].

Li Dong ignored it for the time being. Instead, he closed his eyes and entered the Memory Palace.

This time, he was heading for the SNN section.

He had a pile of questions about Xiaohai that he wanted to ask Gao Wen.

But Gao Wen hadn’t returned to the capital yet.

Li Dong thought, ’Maybe I should go look through the "Neuromorphic Computing" section of the palace first and see if I can find a few more ideas.’

He walked over, passing by the wooden table in the center of the palace.

He subconsciously glanced at the table.

The notebook was still sitting there.

Symmetry and the Laws of Nature—G?ttingen Private Discussion Notes.

The progress bar below the cover was still at [99%].

[Estimated time remaining: ∞].

Li Dong: "..."

Logically speaking, it had been a long time since he’d last discovered it was stuck.

’Hasn’t Klein made any progress at all?’

The question resurfaced in Li Dong’s mind.

Just then, his phone, sitting on his desk, vibrated.

Li Dong exited the Memory Palace and checked his phone.

Someone had sent a message in the [Cyan Dragon Study Group].

[Felix Klein]: @University Research, Your Excellency.

I have not spent much time in my study recently.

The blueprint Your Excellency sent, I brought it to John’s bedside a few days ago.

He liked it even more than I had imagined.

He leaned against his pillow and had me describe the outline of that great edifice to him, layer by layer.

I started from GL? and spoke of everything, all the way to the conjecture you wrote on the final page.

After listening, he smiled and told me that it was a mountain for the young to climb.

He also said that in this lifetime, he owes more to the young people than to any of his peers.

The messages paused there for a moment before continuing.

[Felix Klein]: John’s health has taken a turn for the worse recently.

The doctor detected a rather unpleasant murmur in his chest.

He, on the other hand, acts as if nothing is wrong. A few days ago, he even sat up in bed to discuss the regulations for the medal with me, saying we should review it again according to Your Excellency’s "under forty" suggestion.

He’s afraid he’s in a race against time he can’t win.

Your Excellency, for the time being, I have set aside the work on my draft paper.

I had originally started writing with the intention of presenting the finished diagram to him at his sickbed on the day the edifice was complete.

To let him see with his own eyes the destination that the young people he so protected were about to reach.

Now, I am starting to panic.

John cannot afford to wait.

So lately, I have preferred to sit by his bed and recite Your Excellency’s blueprint to him, section by section.

Even if I cannot reach the top.

[Klein]: At least in this lifetime, he will have heard the outline of that great edifice with his own ears.

Li Dong finished reading the passage and didn’t move for a long time.

The John that Klein spoke of was Fields.

That line from Klein just now, "The doctor detected a rather unpleasant murmur in his chest."

Li Dong knew it was a precursor to heart failure.

That was why Klein had put down his pen and gone to his old friend’s bedside to tell him about the Langlands Program.

Li Dong sighed, unsure how to reply.

He glanced at the group mission again.

[Have John Charles Fields witness the first Fields Medal award ceremony with his own eyes.]

[Time remaining: 2 years, 4 months, 12 days, 17:08:43]

The red numbers ticked down relentlessly.

Li Dong turned off the screen again.

’I have to go check on Teacher Wu’s team tomorrow.’

’If Teacher Wu’s project can get off the ground sooner...’

’I wonder if it can solve Fields’s problem.’

Just then, Li Dong’s phone rang again.

It was a call from Academician E Weinan.

"Teacher E."

"Ah, Li Dong."

"Are you busy?"

"Not at all, Teacher."

Li Dong temporarily pushed aside his worries and asked,

"What’s up?"

E Weinan asked in a slightly strange tone,

"Oh, it’s like this."

"After your comment was published, it caused quite a stir, didn’t it?"

"You publicly rejected the offer from Inverse Problems."

"The other two, Numerical Mathematics and SIAM Journal on Numerical Analysis."

"They’ve privately sent over their invitations to contribute."

"The kind signed by the editors-in-chief themselves."

Li Dong: "Mm."

"The letters were all passed along by old acquaintances here at our School of Mathematics."

"They gave me a heads-up and wanted to ask what your thoughts were."

E Weinan spoke very slowly.

He actually had a whole speech prepared that he was about to launch into.

’That kid Li Dong probably rejected the manuscript because he was still angry that Inverse Problems wasn’t decisive enough with their retraction.’

’Young people... so proud and impulsive.’

He had even mentally rehearsed how he was going to persuade the boy.

’See, those other two journals weren’t as stubborn and foolish as Inverse Problems with their public invitation.’

’They approached you privately, following proper etiquette.’

’There’s no need to take your anger out on them...’

He hadn’t yet had a chance to say any of this rehearsed speech aloud.