The young man with glasses was also stunned.

Everyone went silent for a few seconds.

“… Hodge conjecture?”

Yang Yongan stared at the blackboard, then at the young man like he was a lunatic.

He always thought this guy was crazy.

He heard that ever since this guy joined the mathematics center, he had been working on some esoteric stuff and hadn’t been able to produce any research results. The young man was even kicked out of his office.

Anyone else would have quit, but this guy was different. After being kicked out of his office, he brought his chair and blackboard into the courtyard and did his work here instead.

This young man didn’t feel mistreated at all. When people asked him why he didn’t leave, he just said that he liked the quietness here.

When Yang Yongan first joined the mathematics center, he thought that this guy was a secret genius. However, after some time went by, he stopped giving this guy the benefit of the doubt.

After all, this guy had been here for five years without producing any research results.

A mathematician only had ten or twenty years of golden research time. And this guy hadn’t produced any research in five years. His time was running out.

But now that he heard this guy was researching one of the Millennium Prize Problems, he was certain that this guy was crazy.

The young man wasn’t fazed as he looked at Lu Zhou and asked, “You… know what I’m researching?”

If this were a professor from the mathematics center, the young man wouldn’t be surprised.

But this was the first time Lu Zhou saw what was on the blackboard. The young man was a little surprised.

After all, branches of mathematics were wildly different from one another. If a person in the partial differential equation field wanted to research complex topology, it would be no different than letting a physicist research organic chemistry.

Not to mention, even people doing research on the Hodge conjecture wouldn’t be able to instantly recognize what was on the blackboard, because they would often have different research paths.

Furthermore, this was just an initial draft; it was barely related to the Hodge conjecture.

I guess this guy… is in the same research field as me!

The young man looked a little intrigued.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, “It’s not that difficult to see. Other than the Hodge conjecture, there are few algebraic topologies of non-singular complex algebraic clusters that produce these polynomial equations as subclusters. People outside of this field might not notice; after all, the more complex a question, the more esoteric it is.”

“Yeah…” The young man looked a little emotional as he sighed and said, “I’ve been here for five years, no one has even talked with me about my research before.”

“Maybe people know what you’re researching, but they just don’t want to talk with you.” Lu Zhou smiled and said, “Can I borrow your chalk?”

The young man handed out his chalk.

“Sure… but there’s not much space on the blackboard.”

“That’s fine…” Lu Zhou looked at Yang Yongan and said, “Professor Yang, could you please give me a blackboard…”

Yang Yongan instantly responded, “Okay! Just wait here, we have plenty of blackboards.”

He quickly found two noob researchers and dragged a blackboard next to the tree.

Lu Zhou smiled as a show of thanks and turned his attention to the empty blackboard. He went silent for a while and began writing.

[By the Lefschetz-Hyperplane theorem, i: X ^ n (d) → CP ^ (n + r) is n equivalent, thus X ^ n (d) and CP ^ n have the same n…]

…

Actually, the Hodge conjecture wasn’t Lu Zhou’s research field.

However, because of its connection with the Cauchy–Riemann equations, Lu Zhou was still familiar with the problem. Also, the young scholar’s novel application of the hyperelliptic curve analysis method gave Lu Zhou some inspiration.

Just like how Riemann’s hypothesis could form a bridge between algebra and geometry, the Hodge conjecture could bridge the gaps between topology and algebraic geometry.

Of course, he wasn’t trying to prove the Hodge conjecture.

After all, even Lu Zhou couldn’t prove a Millenium Prize Problem in such a short amount of time.

However, just like Riemann’s hypothesis, the Hodge conjecture had a lot of weak forms.

For example, for the case of H^2, the Hodge conjecture would hold!

Lu Zhou was totally focused on his calculations. In the side building nearby, sixty people who were selected for the national IMO training had just finished listening to Academician Wang Shicheng’s speech, and they were currently on a short break.

A man in a baseball cap sitting by the window was reading through his book. Suddenly, a chubby kid sitting in front of him turned around and spoke.

“Brother Li, someone is showing off in the courtyard!”

“Not interested.”

The chubby kid then said, “But he seems to be pretty nutty! I looked at the blackboard when I went to the toilet, but I couldn’t even understand the things he wrote!”

The guy in the baseball cap was a little intrigued. He put down his book and glanced outside the window.

“Let’s check it out then!”

…

More and more equations filled the blackboard.

More and more spectators stood in the courtyard.

Most of them were professors of the mathematics center that recognized Lu Zhou. Even though it was difficult for them to keep up with Lu Zhou’s calculations, they still sat there, eagerly listening and taking notes.

There were also kids who were clearly high school students. They were all members of the IMO national training team—”mathematics geniuses”—from all over the country.

These kids stood there with a fascinated look on their faces as they watched the equations appear on the blackboard.

They wanted to do the same.

Sitting under a tree and writing equations about the universe; that was going to be their future!

The man in the baseball cap was stunned, and his shoulders began trembling.

The chubby kid standing next to him spoke.

“Brother Li, are you having a seizure?”

“Jesus! He’s a god! I’ve seen him somewhere before…”

“Sure not, this is his first time at Yan University.”

“No, no, I remember him, let me think…”

After giving his speech, Academician Wang Shicheng went to his office to drink some tea. He then slowly walked to the courtyard with the intention to greet Academician Lu at the entrance. Little did he know, Academician Lu was already here, writing equations on the blackboard.

Wang Shicheng frowned; he walked up and tried to look at the blackboard.

His pupils dilated the second he saw the blackboard.

The Hodge conjecture.

Even though this wasn’t his research area, for a veteran mathematics scholar like him, he could easily recognize what he was looking at.

He also noticed the “weirdo” standing next to Lu Zhou; the man who had been researching the Hodge conjecture for more than ten years—Chen Yang!

An hour went by.

The shadow of the tree slowly moved as the sun traveled across the sky.

Everyone remained perfectly silent.

That was until someone sighed and exclaimed.

“Hodge conjecture holds true for H^2… Amazing.”

Yang Yongan was spooked by the voice. When he turned around, he saw that Academician Wang Shicheng was standing right behind him.

“Oh, academician!”

“Shh, be quiet, don’t disturb him.” Wang Shicheng pointed toward the blackboard and said, “He’s almost finished.”

Yang Yongan quietly spoke.

“So you’re saying he proved a weak form?”

“No, he’s not the one that proved it.” Wang Shicheng shook his head and said, “If I recall correctly, this was proven by Lefschetz in the 1920s.”

He paused for a second and spoke.

“However, even though this isn’t a completely new result, he used a completely different method than Lefschetz!

“No one has ever solved the weak form Hodge conjecture like this.”

Yang Yongan was shocked.

An entirely different method!

He proved a weak form of a world-class problem just like this?!

In just an hour or two?!

So this is…

Academician Lu’s true strength?

He was becoming more and more surprised.

“No wonder he’s the top scholar of his generation…” Wang Shicheng sighed and said, “His strength in differential equations, complex analysis, and topology is unparalleled.”

But he’s not working in our mathematics center…

What a shame…

“Amazing… Classifying all manifolds for a given homotopy by using the hyperelliptic curve analysis…”

The young man’s voice was trembling as Lu Zhou finished writing.

He wasn’t just shocked.

He was also ecstatic!

“I’m Chen Yang, mathematics… associate professor.

“Who are you?”

He actually introduced himself to me?

For a “crazy” person, he’s quite polite.

Lu Zhou smiled and put down the half-used chalk.

“Jinling mathematics department.

“Lu Zhou.”