Scholar’s Advanced Technological System

by Stayrr

After suffering from a heat stroke while working under the scorching heat of summer, Lu Zhou, a hardworking but poor university student, somehow becomes the owner of an advanced technological system. With the cheat given by the system, his university life changes overnight. A Master’s degree? Easy. PhD? Not a problem. From a nobody, he quickly becomes a huge celebrity in the wor

29. 911

Read Scholar's Advanced Technological System - Chapter 911 - A New Chapter in Physics! online free - Novelfull

The applause was like a thunderstorm that completely covered the entire auditorium.

Professor Klitzing, who was sitting in the center of the venue, clapped his hands and spoke to Professor Keriber.

"Excellent speech… What do you think?"

Professor Keriber smiled and responded, "I agree, but I think there's something else that's more incredible."

Klitzing tilted his head and curiously looked at Keriber.

"Incredible? What?"

"I always thought that he is a scholar who focuses on his own research and doesn't care about the rest of the world; I didn't expect him to be like this.

"I once tried to ask for him to give us an opportunity."

"What kind of opportunity?"

"The opportunity to work together, to share peace and prosperity." Keriber's eyes narrowed as he looked at Lu Zhou walking down from the stage. He said, "When he rejected me, I thought that he was pessimistic about the future… It turns out I was wrong."

For any country on Earth, energy would always be a problem. Once the production and distribution of energy problems were solved, any other problems would eventually solve itself.

Cheap and accessible energy would have enormous impacts on society, bringing with it changes that would surpass the previous industrial revolutions.

On the other hand, the invention of this kind of cheap energy would disrupt the world in a violent way, breaking the peaceful international political state.

The reactions of various countries to this technology were more difficult to predict than the chaotic plasma turbulences.

One careless mistake or misjudgment could lead to unthinkable consequences…

Klitzing smiled and asked, "Are you talking about controllable nuclear fusion?"

As a scholar, he didn't really care about political interests. He said nonchalantly, "I heard the EU and the United States paid a lot of money to buy nuclear cores from China… Wasn't that how the situation panned out?"

Keriber shook his head and explained, "Klitzing, countries are made up of people, and every voice plays a certain role. The only difference is that some people's voices are small and insignificant, like mosquitoes, while other people's voices are as loud as thunder.

"Lu Zhou is the leader of China's academic community, and he represents all Chinese scholars. He's even the chief designer of the controllable fusion project. I am certain that he is partly the reason why the nuclear fusion negotiations have been going so peacefully."

On the other hand, at the other side of the venue.

As Professor Frank Wilczek watched Lu Zhou walk off stage, he suddenly mumbled, "Tackle future issues together."

Edward Witten, who was sitting next to him, curiously asked, "What do you mean?"

"What he just said… " Wilczek continued, "This conference, as well as the soon to be established International Lunar Hadron Collider Research Center, allows us to tackle important issues together."

Witten: "… Is that what he meant?"

"Probably…" Wilczek yawned and said, "Speaking of which, there's finally someone willing to push our field forward… Are you ready, Mr. Witten?"

"Why are you asking me?"

"Why not?" Wilczek said, "You've always complained that the collider at CERN is too weak, that there's no way to verify your theory. There's going to be a much larger collider soon, and you're pretty good friends with the person in charge."

Witten shook his head.

"This is an important moment for physics, but it's way too early to think about string theory."

"Don't be so pessimistic."

"I'm not being pessimistic. We don't have any way to observe string theory, and we can't just use a collider to reveal the mystery of another dimension…" Witten continued, "However, this is still an important project, both academically and non-academically."

"You mean outside of physics?" Wilczek frowned and said, "I don't understand."

Witten smiled.

"My intuition tells me that the entire world working on this project will push the field of physics forward… But it's too early to speculate, so let's wait and see what happens."

Wilczek said, "Let's wait? We won't be here too much longer."

Witten smiled.

"Who cares if we see it with our own eyes; Princeton will see it for us!"

…

After Lu Zhou got off stage, Mrs. Cramer, chairman of CERN, walked onto the stage.

This old grandma slowly expressed her support for the upcoming Lunar Hadron Collider (ILHCRC).

Due to various reasons, the academic community representatives were set to speak before the political representatives.

After Lu Zhou and CERN, who were both from the academic world, expressed their opinions, Director Li from the State Administration for National Defense spoke next. Then, various high-level officials from Russia, the United States, the European Union, and other countries also expressed their opinions of the project.

Regardless of what their intentions were, at this moment, in this venue, the world was working together on the project of the century.

This historic scene was recorded by various cameras on both sides of the venue and was being broadcast to millions of viewers in front of their TVs.

The opening ceremony soon ended.

The first Lunar Hadron Collider Conference was about to begin.

The world of physics was about to enter a new chapter…

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912 He Will Definitely Come!

While the Lunar Hadron Collider Conference was happening, two professors on the other side of the world were sitting on the first-floor cafeteria at the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study.

A TV in the cafeteria was showing the Columbia TV news report on the International Lunar Hadron Collider.

This story had been going around since last month.

The Moon was a piece of treasure that hung above everyone's head, and even though various grand plans had been announced, none of them had been put into action.

However, the Lunar Orbit Committee was an exception.

Ever since the Moon Palace project, the world had gotten to witness China's aerospace engineering feats.

It seemed like once the Chinese set their minds to do something, they were unstoppable.

Now that they were planning on building a hadron collider on the Moon, physicists from all over the world wanted to work for them; they were even willing to learn Mandarin…

The entire Internet was talking about this.

Not just the Internet, but in real life as well.

People had been talking about this on Princeton campus for quite some time now.

Almost every physicist was excited at the prospects behind China's crazy project.

The impact of this hadron collider project even spread to other fields.

According to Professor Krugman, there was even a well-known big-name economist who wrote a paper on the impact of the Lunar Hadron Collider on international relations and global trade patterns.

Even though Krugman often overheard physicists talking about god knows that, this was the first time he felt physics truly affecting his own life.

Professor Angus Deaton from the Princeton economics department, who was also a Nobel Prize laureate, suddenly spoke while looking at the TV.

"Are you sure he will go?"

Professor Krugman shrugged and said, "I'm not sure, but his research is very important. I have to give it a try."

"I think you're wasting your time."

Professor Angus shook his head and said, "Those pure mathematicians have a bias against economics. They have this idea that mathematics is something pure and noble, and it shouldn't be influenced by other disciplines. Do you know how hard it is to ask Deligne for help? When it comes to mathematics problems, he…"

Professor Angus put on an impatient face and shrugged.

"… This is the face he gives me."

Professor Krugman's mouth twitched as he tried to conceal his laughter.

"I understand what you're saying, but Professor Lu is different. He's won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and he's made great contributions to computational materials science. And his theory on the electrostrong interaction… Do you really think he's a pure mathematics researcher? No! He is open-minded; he's just not interested in physics."

Professor Angus sighed and lifted the cup.

"Yeah, he's not interested in economics. How do you plan on arousing his interest?"

Professor Krugman smiled and said confidently, "My dear Professor Angus Deaton, have you chased after girls before?"

Professor Angus frowned and said, "I did when I was younger… Why?"

Krugman: "You can't just make someone be interested immediately; you have to build a friendly relationship with them step by step. They will then naturally make a choice that benefits you."

Professor Angus opened his mouth and spoke.

"Interesting… But I still think your plan is going to fail."

"Why?"

"Because Professor Lu doesn't care about international affairs, and he doesn't care about your ideas at all. Haven't you noticed? Even though he tackles many problems outside of mathematics, all of the problems are chosen by himself.

"If he's really interested in economics, he would have already done the research by now. Obviously, he has the ability to do so, but he just doesn't care."

Professor Krugman still didn't seem to be convinced.

"Not necessarily, whether you're interested in international affairs and personally intervening in international affairs are two different things."

While the two were speaking.

The TV began to show a live stream of the International Lunar Hadron Collider Conference.

Lu Zhou stood on stage while speaking in a clear and solemn voice.

As Professor Krugman watched Lu Zhou giving the speech, his pupils expanded.

He then excitedly slammed his fist on the table.

"See! I told you! He cares about things outside of academia!"

"Do you want to make a bet? Angus!"

Professor Angus looked at his excited friend and asked, "Bet on what?"

Professor Krugman rubbed his hands and spoke.

"I bet he will come to the economics conference in Shanghai, and I'll be able to persuade him to join in on my research project. Let me think… How does US$10 sound?"

10?

Angus nearly laughed out loud.

Even though he would gladly steal Krugman's money, the amount was too small.

He wanted to bet more chips.

"10 dollars is way too little. If you're so certain, let's bet 10 golden chocolates at the Stockholm Blue Hall dinner."

"Damnnit, you want to empty my pockets…"

Professor Krugman paused for a while and finally clenched his jaws.

"Deal!"

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This was Lu Zhou's busiest day of the year…

And the day had only just begun.

The moment he stepped off the podium, he was already being chased by reporters. This was followed by endless interviews, which were full of boring questions.

After getting rid of the reporters, Lu Zhou spent 10 minutes eating his lunch. After that, the secretary of the Lunar Orbit Committee placed a printed schedule in front of his face.

Just like he expected, his afternoon was fully packed, down to the minute. There wasn't a single minute of free time for him.

This cast a sharp contrast between today's busy schedule and Lu Zhou's past two days of leisure, and he felt a little overwhelmed.

After the busy day was over, Lu Zhou thought he could go ahead and get a good night's sleep. However, Director Li found him and told him about the dinner.

As the chief designer of the Lunar Orbit Committee, he had to attend the dinner…

"I know you're tired; we all are, and I haven't even eaten lunch yet."

"For a US$20 billion project, you should just come. You don't even have to do anything, just stand there like a mascot, just let people know that you're the chief designer of the Lunar Orbit Committee!"

Lu Zhou wasn't persuaded by Director Li's words…

But US$20 billion…

That was more than his net worth.

Because of how much money was involved, Lu Zhou decided to go…

…

The dinner was also at the Beijing Conference Center, but the location was changed from the auditorium to the Golden Hall, which was dedicated to hosting state-level banquets.

In comparison to the opening ceremony in the morning, which was open to all attendees, this dinner was only reserved for special guests with a golden invitation letter.

As for the other guests, their dinners were arranged at their respective hotels.

Actually, when it came to the dining experience, the hotel actually had better food. Not only was it a buffet, but it also had a greater variety of dishes.

On the other hand, other than the unlimited supply of red wine, the food at the Golden Hall came in tiny amounts on giant plates, which were swapped frequently. If someone was too busy networking with others, they wouldn't even have time to eat.

However, other than Lu Zhou, everyone was happy to eat in the Golden Hall.

After all, no one came to an international conference just for the food.

The people in the Golden Hall were Nobel Prize nominees, high-ranking officials, and various politicians and executives from the aerospace industry.

Networking with someone at this dinner would be more beneficial than attending any academic conference dinner.

Of course, that was for people who were trying to climb the political and academic ladder.

For the people who were at the top of the ladder, this banquet was useless.

After Lu Zhou entered the banquet hall, he greeted some of his friends and then immediately went to sit down at the white-cloth covered long tables.

The carefully arranged food and wine were placed on the tables.

Lu Zhou didn't eat a lot for lunch, so right now, all of his attention was on the food in front of him. He happily began eating.

Even though the food wasn't delicious, the presentation was sophisticated.

There was even a trolly on the side where the chef would cut up roast duck.

Lu Zhou loved the crispy and tender roasted duck. He wrapped it with some cucumbers and green onions, then added some sweet bean sauce; the contrast between the saltiness and sweetness was amazing.

While Lu Zhou's tastebuds were in heaven, two well-dressed Russian men approached him.

"Hello, Academician Lu, I am Novak, Minister of the Department of Energy," the cleanly shaved Russian said. He reached out his hand and said, "It's nice to meet you."

Lu Zhou looked at him and said, "Hello, Mr. Novak… You're here as well?"

Lu Zhou was a little confused about why the Russian energy minister was here.

Novak saw Lu Zhou's confused face and said, "I came here to attend a controllable fusion energy summit, and when I heard that you're attending this banquet, I decided to attend as well."

Lu Zhou reluctantly watched the chef push the roasted ducky trolly away and spoke.

"Oh, you didn't have to come all the way here to find me."

"It's fine, I hope I'm not disturbing you."

Lu Zhou wanted to tell Novak that he was disturbing his dinner, but he restrained himself.

Novak reached out his hand and introduced the Russian standing next to him.

"This is Academician Sivali, chief engineer of Rosatom."

This man was a little older, but he looked competent. He enthusiastically reached out his calloused hand.

"Hello, Academician Lu! I've heard many things about you."

"Hello…" Lu Zhou politely shook Academician Sivali's hand.

Even though he didn't recognize Sivali, he had heard about Rosatom before. This Russian nuclear industry giant was one of the world's leading nuclear fuel production companies. They controlled most of the uranium mines in Siberia, and they had their hands in various branches of the nuclear industry.

They worked with more than 904 Russian nuclear energy equipment manufacturers, 540 nuclear energy service agencies, 39 nuclear material and radioactive waste storage sites, 75 research institutes, etc.

After the controllable fusion negotiation, Rosatom, the head of the Russian nuclear industry, signed orders with East Asia Energy on behalf of Russia, thus obtaining the first controllable fusion reactor outside of China.

That reactor was placed in St Petersburg, with the China National Nuclear Corporation helping with supporting facilities.

Academician Sivali was the chief engineer of Rosatom; hence, he was a huge academic leader in Russia.

At least in the nuclear engineering field.

However, what confused Lu Zhou was that he heard Russians were very irritable and arrogant, especially Russian scholars. He thought they were extremely disagreeable.

For example, the famous Russian mathematician Kolmogorov was known for publically arguing with his own supervisor at mathematics conferences.

However, that wasn't the impression Lu Zhou had of Academician Sivali at all.

Academician Sivali was calm as a cucumber, almost a little timid.

"… I've read your paper on plasma turbulence, and it opened a door to an entirely new world for me. I can't believe someone came up with such a clever design, emitting a He3 particle into the chaotic plasma and analyzing the state of the chaotic system… You have no idea how shocked I was when I read your paper."

Academician Sivali was still holding Lu Zhou's hand.

Fortunately, Minister Novak could tell Lu Zhou was uncomfortable, so he coughed and interrupted Academician Sivali.

"Okay, Sivali, we're not here to talk about academia since that can be discussed at another time."

This old Russian let go of his hand and awkwardly scratched his head.

"Oh, sorry, I was too excited."

Lu Zhou nodded with a polite smile.

"It's fine."

Novak only came to this banquet to meet Lu Zhou. He still had to talk with Chinese officials about cooperating in the field of energy. Thus, he smiled and said, "I'll let you eat in peace. If you have time, you should visit Russia. I'm certain the food in Moscow will impress you."

Lu Zhou smiled and nodded.

"Well, I hope I get the chance to visit someday."

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914 Some Are Celebrating, Some Are No

[The opening ceremony of the International Lunar Hadron Collider Conference came to a successful conclusion. Academician Lu delivered an important speech on behalf of the Chinese academic community.]

The newspaper headline was extra long.

The content behind this headline shocked everyone.

The Lunar Hadron Collider construction is going to begin in a month!

With a budget of US$20 billion!

More than 200 particle physics institutes around the world are participating!

This included the well-known physics center CERN, as well as the Princeton Physics Department. Even people outside of academia heard about these research institutes.

Of course, this wasn't why people were surprised.

What really shocked people was that while the project had a budget of US$20 billion, China, as the project initiator, only had to fork up 10 billion.

The United States was going to cover 5 billion!

The second the news article came out, online forums were flooded with political discussions…

[Pigs are starting to fly, I can't believe the Americans are so kind?]

[I can't believe this, Academician Lu did it!]

[This is incredible… If I recall correctly, the space race was still going on last year, how come the Americans are giving up?]

[Regardless, this project will benefit humanity as a whole. It's good that multiple countries are participating. The Americans probably don't want their physics community to fall behind by not participating…]

[I just hope the Americans are not making unreasonable demands.]

[Otherwise, we'll kick them out of the project!]

The news caused a considerable amount of discussion on the Internet, with various keywords relating to the event starting to trend.

Soon after, almost all of the Chinese new media outlets were filled with headlines regarding the aerospace engineering project.

A super project with more than 50 countries participating…

A project that was going to be in history books…

All of this was being led by China.

This was unimaginable a decade or even a couple of years ago.

After all, when China was still researching controllable fusion, the United States had an advantage in aerospace. But now, the tables had turned.

Even though there were always trolls and haters, most people were happy to see their country becoming stronger.

US$10 billion wasn't a small number, but it was a fair price to pay to make "the entire world's scientists working for us".

However, compared to the Chinese media outlets, the North American media outlets were not as happy.

The liberal side had a fairly tame reaction, but on the other hand, it was like the White House slapped the conservatives in the face.

Even though they knew their politicians were money-hungry sell-outs, they didn't expect the government to do something like this.

A well-known host on a political talk show complained to his audience in the latest episode.

"How is Congress so stupid! China is our biggest competitor in the space race! We're giving them 5 billion dollars to support their project! This is crazy!"

China was America's strongest enemy.

However, the White House was now spending money to help China build the Lunar Hadron Collider!

Many conservatives thought their president had gone insane.

People even began to protest on the streets, holding up signs, shouting slogans, and marching in front of the White House.

"They're claiming to build a collider on the Moon! This is the biggest Ponzi scheme of the century!"

"We should invest this money in people instead! Look at how many people are unemployed! Have you seen Skid Row in Los Angeles?"

"…"

The vice president's finger gently lifted the window blinds as he watched the marching protestors outside. He then muttered under his breath, "These idiots… Peanut brain Neanderthals. They have no idea what the real situation is, what a bunch of brain dead sheep."

In response to China's Lunar Orbit Committee, the President signed a "Reconstruction of the National Space Council (NSC)" executive order. The vice president would be the chairman of this committee and be responsible for rebuilding their dominance in aerospace.

The vice president was happy to gain more power as he was no longer just a mascot. However, ever since Mike was responsible for the National Space Council, he hadn't been happy at all.

There was only one reason.

It was almost impossible to regain dominance in the aerospace industry.

All they could do now was to cut losses.

They had to open up their domestic markets and participate in China's scientific research projects…

These protestors had no idea how to solve the problem; they had no idea the sacrifices the White House made!

Mike clenched his fists tightly. Suddenly, his office door opened, and a lanky man in a suit walked in with a document.

"If The New York Times heard you say that, I'm afraid you'll be on the headlines instead of Academician Lu."

"That's not funny." Mike stared at his assistant and said, "What's up?"

The assistant put on a serious face and spoke.

"We might be in trouble."

Mike said, "Tell me."

"Look at this."

The assistant placed the document on his desk.

Mike squinted and stared at the document.

It was an anonymous letter.

On the lower right corner of the letter, there was a logo of an eagle holding an assault rifle.

This symbol was a little disturbing.

Mike reached out but quickly retracted his hand.

"Don't worry, we've examined the envelope, there's nothing dangerous inside." The assistant opened the envelope and placed the letter in front of Mike.

Mike began to read the letter.

[Dear Vice President Mike, we are Eagle Hunter, an anonymous group. You can think of us as… hackers.

[We know that information technology should not be used for terrorism, so we have restrained ourselves and remained silent.

[However, everyone has their breaking point. Watching our country being controlled like this… We realized that we can no longer stay silent.

[You have chosen to succumb in the face of power, so we will use our own methods to stop this asinine conference, to stop you from betraying our country.

[This is a war, and there are no innocent people in war.

[We will not stop until you meet our demands and suspend cooperation with the Chinese.]

The office became quiet again.

After a couple of seconds, the assistant took a deep breath and looked at the vice president.

"What should we do?"

Mike went silent for a while, and his mouth suddenly twitched.

Then, he grabbed the letter and handed it to his assistant.

"Give it to the FBI."

Mike was irritated as he said, "Don't bother me with tiny things like this in the future!"

"Yes, sir…"

The assistant took the letter and quietly left the office.

Mike slammed his fist on the desk and sat in his chair.

Hacker?

Betraying my country?

What a joke…

You've got to be kidding me…

However…

Mike was alarmed.

Even though the president and his staff members conducted a systematic analysis of the international situation and made the correct decision, they seemed to have underestimated the public's reaction.

He pinched his eyebrows and reached out for the phone on his desk. He then called the president's office.

Even though he wasn't sure if the president knew about the letter, he had to report it immediately.

Not to mention there were US representatives attending a meeting in Beijing right now.

Perhaps he should inform Director Carson and ask him to act tougher at the meeting.

Mike didn't want the public to see them as "soft"…

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915 Full of Loopholes

Attending an international conference like this was often exhausting.

The first day was exciting and thrilling, but the second day was full of boring, endless meetings.

The funding part was already agreed upon. The China Ministry of Foreign Affairs already negotiated with various countries prior to the meeting. China was going to invest 10 billion, the US was investing 5, EU investing 2, Russia investing 1, the Japanese investing 800 million… Totalling US$20 billion.

The only problem was setting up a budget committee for the project.

For some reason, the American representatives' attitudes totally changed on the second day. They were curt and aggressive.

Especially Director Carson; whenever he talked about setting up a budget committee, his smile quickly disappeared.

However, this was somewhat understandable.

After all, the budget committee had financial power over the Lunar Hadron Collider project. In theory, it had control over what and where the money was spent on… Everything related to the funding required a signature from the project budget committee.

It was unrealistic for the Americans to gain total control of the project spending; they could only hope to have a voice in the matter.

In order to balance China's power over the project, even Russia, who was originally on China's side, was inclined to support the US' demands.

Of course, Lu Zhou didn't have to worry about these kinds of things. There were other people to help him.

For example, Director Li from the State Administration for National Defense, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as the high-level officials from the Lunar Orbit Committee…

What Lu Zhou was worried about was the academic side.

Last year, on behalf of the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, Luo Wenxuan contacted the Chinese Academy of Science, CERN, and other large research institutes. He brought together some of the top minds in the fields of theoretical physics, mechanical engineering, materials science, and aerospace engineering. With the help of these people, they completed the entire design plan of the Lunar Hadron Collider. But now that the "team" had expanded, with physicist and engineers from all over the world participating, there was bound to be some problems. Many people proposed changes to the design scheme.

After all, this was a great opportunity for people to show off on the international stage.

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Companies like Space-X and Boeing were supportive of changing the design scheme. This was so that the final design scheme could benefit their companies in some way shape or form. They even spent money on hiring scholars to find problems in the design…

At the Beijing Grand Hotel.

A group of experts from physics and aerospace engineering sat in an auditorium-style conference room.

An old man wearing a plaid shirt and glasses stood in front of a projector screen. He then said passionately, "Because of these reasons, the original design plan is unrealistic and has to be improved.

"If we implement my improvements, we can cut the budget by 13% and reduce the construction risk.

"Think about it, how much is 13% of 20 billion? It's a huge number! We should spend this money on people that need it…"

Lu Zhou didn't know what this guy was rambling about.

In the end, Lu Zhou couldn't help but yawn. He turned his head to Mrs. Cramer, the chairman of CERN.

"Can we kick him off and put on the next person?"

Mrs. Cramer smiled and said, "I'm afraid not, the European Space Agency requested Professor Banderas to speak for 60 minutes."

Lu Zhou quietly said, "Why would someone make such a stupid request?"

Mrs. Cramer smiled and said, "Because before he went to teach at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, he used to work as an academic advisor at the European Space Agency. Before he came here, he sent a copy of his PowerPoint to the ESA."

Lu Zhou snorted and said, "Does he have connections?"

Mrs. Cramer paused for a second and said, "… It seems so."

Obviously, Professor Banderas used his connections at the European Space Agency to obtain the opportunity of giving this report.

The 13% reduced cost he mentioned wasn't a small number, so no wonder the European Space Agency gave him an opportunity to present his ideas.

After all, there was a chance they could save a lot of money.

After glancing at the PowerPoint, Lu Zhou flipped through the copy of the improvement plan he had on the table.

This report was full of loopholes, and the drawings and calculations didn't seem reliable at all.

Of course, this was just his "level 6" engineering intuition.

If Lu Zhou really wanted to find the specific problems, it would take quite some time. After all, engineering was very different from mathematics, things were often not so black and white…

It was difficult to immediately find problems in this report.

However, Lu Zhou had some tricks up his sleeve.

I can't believe I have to do this…

Lu Zhou sighed and took out his phone. He took some photos of the report in his hand and sent it to Xiao Ai.

[Here's a report, it looks terrible. I need you to organize it and model it into a 3D composition… Then present the composition and problems clearly.]

Even though Lu Zhou felt like his instructions were a little vague, it seemed like Xiao Ai understood him.

[Yes, Master! ~ (๑•̀ᄇ•́) و]

After seeing the text, Lu Zhou put his phone on his lap and quietly waited.

After a couple of seconds, a 2GB file was sent to his phone.

Lu Zhou opened the file and saw a three-dimensional blueprint drawing.

All of the complicated parameters were integrated into the drawing, such as the type of materials and the physical parameters in a low vacuum and low-temperature environment, and the quantum computer was able to calculate a complete model of the lunar surface environment.

Lu Zhou stared at the blueprint and looked shocked.

Xiao Ai really is amazing.

It knows exactly what I want.

While the presenter was speaking, Lu Zhou took out a pen from his bag and began writing on a piece of draft paper.

Five minutes went by, and Professor Banderas was still rambling. Lu Zhou put the pen on the table and looked at his phone. He then raised his hand.

When he raised his hand, the entire conference room looked away from Banderas and stared at him.

Banderas was a little dissatisfied, and his instincts told him something was wrong.

He felt like Professor Lu was going to do something he wasn't going to like…

However, he thought that there was no way Lu Zhou had already found problems in his report.

"Do you have a question? Professor Lu."

Lu Zhou replied bluntly, "I'll just say it, forget about the PowerPoint, your report is full of problems."

"Sorry, I don't understand." Professor Banderas frowned and said, "There are problems in my report? Can you tell me where?"

Lu Zhou was amused.

You know damn well your report is horsesh*t, and you're still trying to lie to me?

"Turn on the projector's Bluetooth."

Professor Banderas paused for a second and then followed Lu Zhou's instructions.

The moment Lu Zhou's phone was connected to the projector via Bluetooth, the projector displayed a three-dimensional composition image on to the projector curtain.

"Wow…"

There was a commotion in the conference room, and people were surprised because they didn't see this composition in the report.

Professor Banderas' face turned blue.

Not just because Lu Zhou layered his blueprints together to create a 3D drawing, but also because there were red labels all over the 3D composition.

And each of these red labels represented a problem.

Even though he knew his blueprints weren't "perfect", he didn't expect this many problems…

This guy…

How did he already create a model?!

Professor Banderas wasn't the only person that was surprised; everyone in the conference room looked at Professor Lu in awe.

Lu Zhou… is a freak…

Mrs. Cramer, who was sitting next to Lu Zhou, was also astonished. She had no idea how Lu Zhou was able to model a 3D composition blueprint in a couple of minutes…

However, Lu Zhou didn't plan on giving them an explanation.

He didn't have to explain anything.

The problems of the report were clearly presented.

Even a second-rate engineer would be able to see the obvious problems, so it was clear that Professor Banderas' design wasn't going to work.

"This is impossible, there must be a mistake, how did you…"

"As shown in the model, there are hundreds of loopholes."

Lu Zhou tapped the table with a pen and spoke without emotion.

"Next."

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Chapter 916 Eagle Hunter

The dark web.

Inside a hacker forum.

A moderator created a discussion group called "Eagle Hunter", and soon after, a bunch of users went into the discussion channel and began to brag.

However, the bragging didn't last for long.

A person with the username "Boss" entered the discussion group. The channel instantly became quiet.

Boss: "Everyone is here?"

Hunter: "Here."

Boss: "Good, let's begin the meeting."

Lone Wolf: "Yes, sir!"

Vulture: "Yes, sir!"

"…"

It was easy to organize a big hacker event like this, especially since they lived in the virtual world.

Even though they all belonged to the same "Eagle Hunter" hacker group, this organization wasn't actually binding.

Most of these people didn't like to feel constrained, not to mention most of them had dirty backgrounds.

Other than occasionally doing some dark market transactions, most people were doing their own things. Some even belonged to other hacker groups.

However, anyone in the hacker circle would recognize the IDs of people from the Eagle Hunter hacker group.

Most of these users were well-known hackers that came from the dark web, and most of them worked in the information security field. However, none of them knew who Boss was.

But it was clear that Boss was their leader.

After all, to become the leader of a hacker group, one would have to be technically capable.

None of them underestimated the strength of Boss.

Lone Wolf: "It's just a few servers, we'll penetrate them in no time."

Kid: "Yeah, yeah, let's begin, I can't wait to give the United States Congress and China a lesson!"

Boss: "Don't get cocky. China has a lot of experts in information security. Remember, our goal is to stop the Lunar Hadron Collider project. This is the only way to make them take our request seriously."

Hunter: What if the Chinese hackers retaliate?"

Boss: "Then it would be perfect for us."

Their goal was to put pressure on the White House to exit from the Lunar Hadron Collider project.

As for the disruption of the Lunar Hadron Collider Conference in Beijing, that was their secondary goal.

Therefore, if the Chinese retaliated with attacks on servers such as NASA or the White House, it would be perfect for them. Panic would spread like wildfire.

After all, it was riskier for them to attack the American servers themselves.

Boss: "I have a list for the first batch of servers to attack. Everyone communicates the servers you're going to attack to avoid repeated attacks.

"Remember, we are Eagle Hunter, we are defending the dignity of the United States.

"Remember who our enemy is."

…

While the Lunar Hadron Collider meeting was going on in Beijing, an invisible force was quietly working in the background.

First was the official Everyone Daily website.

The website was soon full of spam and swear words, with a middle finger as the background image.

The web admin quickly discovered the problem, shut down the server, and reported the attack to the Ministry of Public Security.

However, before the Ministry of Public Security could respond, another wave of attacks came.

This attack was on the CTV official website, and this time, the domain name was hijacked. The website was set to redirect to another similarly offensive page.

Just like the Everyone Daily website, the CTV website had a giant middle finger in the background…

On the other hand, thousands of emails were sent to various department workers.

[Immediately terminate the International Lunar Hadron Collider Conference.

[Eagle Hunter]

This matter just got a lot more serious—it went from a cybersecurity attack to a terrorist attack.

After the head of the Ministry of Public Security received reports from his subordinates, his face turned green.

There was no way they were going to stop the Lunar Hadron Collider Conference, China would never compromise with terrorists.

Not to mention that the demands were ridiculous.

The Ministry of Public Security immediately convened an emergency meeting, inviting experts and academicians from the information security field. They formed a temporary task force to respond to this cyber attack. Taking extra precautions in financial and military fields…

…

Lone Wolf: "Boss, China is starting to fight back."

Boss: "Good! We have to keep attacking, keep the chaos going!"

Hunter: "The Chinese security department has retaliated, I nearly lost control of the CTV website… but their response was too slow."

When it came to cyberattacks, it was always more difficult to defend than to attack. When an attacker implanted a virus first, it was extremely difficult to recover.

Not to mention that the attack came at an unexpected time, so China wasn't prepared at all.

Hunter: "Several major Chinese media outlets are down, what's next?"

Boss: "Stand our ground, I have a gift prepared for them, we're close to victory."

Hunter: "Okay!"

Kid: "Haha, the boss is going to murder them!"

Lone Wolf: "Boss, I found that the Lunar Orbit Committee chief designer is the same person as the Lunar Hadron Collider chief designer… His name is Lu Zhou. Apparently, he's a famous scholar in China, and he's won the Nobel Prize and Fields Medal. I found out he works at Jin Ling University, maybe I should pay him a visit."

Boss: "Don't hesitate, just do it."

Lone Wolf: "Okay, Boss!"

…

Jin Ling University computer server room.

Dean Qin looked at Professor Wang, who was fiddling with the server, and he couldn't help but ask, "How is it?"

"Nothing yet…" The professor pushed his glasses and said, "I swear this server has something against Professor Lu. The same thing happened last time…"

Ten minutes ago, the Jin Ling University website was still up and running. Then, it was suddenly attacked. The website displayed an insulting image of Academician Lu. The administrators were completely locked out.

After hearing about the news, the computer science department professor immediately went to the server room.

And because Academician Lu was part of the mathematics department, Dean Qin came over as well.

"Don't say that. Professor Lu is a huge help to us, we should kiss his as*." Dean Qin coughed and said, "Just do your best, try to fix the server."

"It's not the server, the server is fine. I think there's a virus inside, it's not turning on at all… F*ck sake, who is doing this, who hacks a school server…" Professor Wang cursed as he typed on the keyboard.

The teacher standing at the entrance suddenly asked, "What if a student is trying to change their grade? I heard Professor Lu's number theory class has a huge fail rate… Maybe they hacked the server and wanted to get revenge on Professor Lu."

Professor Wang shook his head and said, "It's definitely not a student. If a student could do this, they wouldn't be a student, they could just become a computer science professor."

Dean Qin suddenly remembered something and said, "Regardless of whether or not it's done by a student, don't talk about the photo and make sure Professor Lu doesn't know about this! He'll be furious if he finds out that someone is tarnishing his reputation…"

The teachers in the computer room looked at each other before nodding.

Suddenly, the professor standing at the entrance scratched his head and said, "I think this is bigger than we think."

Dean Qin: "What?"

"Just go on Weibo." The professor handed his phone to Dean Qin and said, "We're not the only ones being attacked, ten minutes ago, Everyone Daily and CTV were also hacked

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Chapter 917 Offending Someone

Throughout the entire morning, all Lu Zhou said was "next".

Ever since he found out about Xiao Ai's special ability, he couldn't help but have some fun.

He would scan each report into his phone and ask Xiao Ai to change the texts and parameters into intuitive graphics. With the help from the quantum computer, none of the loopholes could get past Lu Zhou.

Of course, this wasn't entirely because of how powerful the quantum computer was; the main reason was that these reports were just terrible. Even a normal computer would be able to find mistakes.

If these people worked slightly harder on their reports, Lu Zhou wouldn't have been able to immediately find a problem just from his engineering intuition alone.

However…

These presenters that walked through the room had no idea what was waiting for them.

Other than a few presenters who made constructive suggestions, most of their ideas were immediately shut down.

The entire seminar turned into Lu Zhou's performance show.

So much so that for the last report before the lunch break, the moment Lu Zhou raised his hand, the presenter lowered his head and walked out of the room.

Because of this, this two-day conference was almost completed in half a day.

The people at the meeting were dumbfounded.

Both the presenters and the listeners…

…

Now that the morning meeting session was over, the rumors about Lu Zhou's "massacre" spread among the physicists and aerospace experts.

Lunch time.

Professor Klitzing was holding a plate full of food as he sat across from Lu Zhou and asked curiously, "I heard about that morning meeting, how did you do it?"

Lu Zhou, who had a bowl of barbecued meat and rice in front of him, asked, "Did what?"

"Don't pretend, you know what I'm talking about." Professor Klitzing smiled and said, "Presenting those images in the live report, that sounds so cool!"

Oh, so that's what he's talking about.

Lu Zhou thought for a second and said, "It was alright, I mean I can't let those p*ss poor reports waste our time."

Professor Klitzing knew what Lu Zhou was doing, so he continued to ask, "Stop changing the subject, I want to know how you did it? Can you not tell me? If so, that's fine."

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "It's not that I can't, it's just that I don't know how to."

Professor Klitzing: "Can I take a guess?"

Lu Zhou: "Go ahead."

Professor Klitzing frowned and said, "I'm guessing… You have a team of engineers working behind the scenes, experts in modeling. When you send the report to them, they analyze the report and produce a model… Wait a second, that sounds unrealistic."

Professor Klitzing realized that his speculation was a little ridiculous.

What kind of engineering team could produce a model like that in ten minutes?

Even though he was a particle physicist, he still knew a little bit about engineering. After all, he often communicated with engineers for his particle physics experiments.

His experience told him that this wasn't something that could be done in a couple of minutes, especially the composition images…

However, Lu Zhou suddenly spoke.

"Kind of, you're correct."

Professor Klitzing said in disbelief, "I'm correct? Are you sure?"

Lu Zhou said, "Yeah, you're right."

I don't want to keep him guessing, I'll just admit it.

I mean, he's technically correct.

Xiao Ai, who was inside a quantum computer, was sort of like a team of engineers.

But speaking of which, I guess I have to thank Klitzing for coming up with an answer. I didn't even know how to explain this.

Lu Zhou made up his mind.

If someone asks me how I did it, I'll give them Klitzing's answer.

Professor Klitzing didn't expect Lu Zhou to confirm already. He had lost his interest and began to talk about particle physics instead.

However, Lu Zhou suddenly received a call.

"I have to take this call."

Klitzing smiled and said, "Of course, go ahead."

Lu Zhou stood up and picked up the phone. He then walked to a secluded area.

He was about to say hello, but Dean Qin spoke first.

"Did you offend someone?"

Offend someone?

Lu Zhou was a little muddled.

He was about to say no, but he then remembered that he had offended plenty of people. For example, he just offended dozens of people this morning.

"Why are you asking me this, I have no idea who you're talking about… Why don't you just tell me what happened?"

Dean Qin: "Our Jin University Academic Affairs Office website and server were hacked!"

Lu Zhou paused for a second and said, "What? Hacked? Is it serious?"

Lu Zhou wasn't surprised at all, at most he was a little confused.

The school servers were so bad that students choosing their timetables would make it go down.

As for why he was confused.

Who is bored enough to hack a school server? What is there to gain?

Dean Qin said, "It's fine, there's some damage, but not a lot. We lost some documents, but the students' grades are still there."

"Okay, good…" Lu Zhou patted his chest and suddenly said, "Wait a second, what does the sever being hacked have to do with me?"

Dean Qin paused for a second. He then sighed and told the truth.

"Because your photo was on the website. Think about it, who did you offend?"

Lu Zhou: "…?!"

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Chapter 918 Can"t Forgive Them!

Lu Zhou swore that if he ever found out which student was behind this, he would upload a photoshopped photo of this student onto the school website…

Of course, he was just dreaming.

The school would never help him do something like this.

Not to mention that Lu Zhou realized that this cyber attack wasn't as simple as he had thought…

At the Beijing Grand Hotel.

Lu Zhou and Director Li were inside a small meeting room, and they began to talk about the situation.

"How did the US react?"

"The US is also confused. Director Carson contacted me this morning. I know they would never do anything like this."

Lu Zhou: "…"

Who could it be?

All of the super countries are here at the conference, who could be behind this?

Aliens?

Director Li drank some tea and moistened his throat before saying, "I've notified the relevant departments… But it seems to be too late."

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "What's the damage like?"

Director Li said with a serious tone, "It's not difficult to recover from the damages, but the problem is that we don't know where they will attack next."

This was the most difficult part of cybersecurity.

When faced with an unknown hostile cyber force, the defender was always in the weaker position.

It would be much easier if they knew about the attacker's motive, for example, which kind of financial gain they were after. As long as they knew the attacker's motives, they could set up a defense line and set a trap. However, if there was no clear motive behind the attacks, all they could do was to sit and wait.

This was similar to how someone could "kill a random person on the street" and likely get away with it.

After hearing Director Li's explanation, Lu Zhou's intuition told him that this was an organized cyber-attack. However, he didn't know what was the point of this attack.

"What do they want?"

"They want us to suspend the International Lunar Hadron Collider conference… It seems like they also want us to discharge you."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "If discharging me is their only request, I can easily satisfy them."

Director Li seriously said, "Don't think about it! Do you know what will happen if you do that?"

"Okay, okay. Fine, I know, I was just kidding, we'll never agree to their demands…"

Director Li is quite serious about this…

Lu Zhou thought for a second and said, "Are there any ways we can deal with this?"

Director Li said, "We don't… We have already contacted the United States. Let's hope that they can cooperate with our investigation. However, they don't seem to be enthusiastic. They said they will cooperate with any criminal investigation, provided we have enough evidence."

Lu Zhou thought for a second and said, "So we just have to find them then."

Director Li: "Yeah, we have to identify these people. That's the only way to stop these attacks. Otherwise, even if we defeat them in a short period, they will find a way to come back."

Lu Zhou: "Okay, I'll try to think of a way."

"You?" Director Li shook his head and said, "Leave this kind of stuff to us, I'm just telling you to not put any important personal or academic information online. We're in a special time right now, and they are targeting you."

Lu Zhou: "…"

They already targeted me okay!

They posted such a humiliating photo of me online!

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "I can't just let this go… With more power, comes more responsibility. It would have been fine if they left me alone, but they placed me as a target. I can't forgive them."

Director Li: "…?"

Lu Zhou looked at the old man and said, "All in all, I just can't forgive them!"

Director Li shook his head in disbelief and said, "Okay forget about it, with your programming skills… Just leave it alone. We have already set up a cyber warfare task force."

Director Li looked at Lu Zhou and spoke emotionally.

"As for you, I hope you can put your focus on this conference. You're representing the entire Chinese academic community!"

…

This cyberwar had gone into a stalemate.

It would be a lot easier if the attackers were domestic as the major network operators and electronics suppliers had left back doors for the security department. They could easily catch the hackers.

However, the problem was that the hackers were overseas.

No one had heard of the "Eagle Hunter" group before, but after the news broke out, their name began to spread.

Most people were criticizing them…

[F*ck, these Americans are despicable! Where are our hackers, let's give them a taste of their own medicine!]

[We don't have any hackers left, all of the good ones went to work for tech companies. (sigh)]

[I heard that there are underground hacker groups that have started to help fight back!]

[I think this battle is going to be difficult. They have the high ground here. Unless we can somehow implement military-grade security on every system, they'll just attack the weakest servers.]

[F*ck sake! Don't these Americans have anything better to do? What's the point of hacking some web servers?]

[Ahh, I'm afraid the United States government might be behind this…]

After Director Li left, Lu Zhou went back to his own room. He browsed through Weibo and saw that the Eagle Hunter group was on the trending page.

The hackers must be ecstatic to see their name spread around like this.

I can't just sit here and do nothing…

I can't just leave this alone.

Lu Zhou took out his phone and called Dean Qin.

"Hey, it's me, how's the computer server room going?"

Dean Qin sighed and said, "There's still a virus here, and the cybersecurity department sent someone to have a look. They said they couldn't do anything, so they wrote a report and left… We've already given up, we're going to reinstall the server OS and replace all of the hard drives."

They're giving up?

I can't let that happen.

Lu Zhou immediately said, "Don't reinstall just yet, there are a lot of computer experts at the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study. I'll send someone to help you."

After hearing Lu Zhou's words, Dean Qin paused for a second. He didn't expect Lu Zhou to do something like this.

"You have… experts in information security?"

"Of course!" Lu Zhou smiled and said, "We're also an independent information technology research institute, so we have plenty of cybersecurity experts."

Dean Qin smiled and shook his head.

"Okay then, quickly send someone over."

Dean Qin didn't have his hopes up at all.

The Jinling Institute for Advanced Study was a good research institute, but their main area was mathematics, computational materials science, and chemistry.

When it came to information technology, more specifically cybersecurity, these research institute scientists were not as strong as security engineers from large companies.

Not to mention that there was no way the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study information technology institute was comparable to the Jin Ling University software department. Even Principal Xu himself was in the information technology research field.

Even experts from the computer science department had no idea what to do…

After hanging up the phone, Lu Zhou told Xiao Ai what to do. He then called Luo Wenxuan.

Luo Wenxuan's voice came from the phone.

"Hello?"

"It's me."

"… Just tell me what you want, you must want something from me again."

Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly.

Is it that obvious…

Lu Zhou's smile quickly disappeared as he spoke in a serious manner.

"I need you to do me a favor."

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It was evening.

Jin Ling University, computer server room.

Dean Qin patiently waited for Lu Zhou's "information technology expert", and when he saw Luo Wenxuan at the door, he was dumbfounded.

"Isn't this… Professor Luo from the physics department?"

"Yeah…" Luo Wenxuan looked at Dean Qin and said, "Is there a problem?"

"No…" Dean Qin said. He hoped that Luo Wenxuan just happened to be walking by. He asked, "Academician Lu sent you?"

Luo Wenxuan nodded again and said, "Yeah of course, why else would I be here?"

Dean Qin: "…"

Even though he didn't have high hopes for the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study, he didn't expect Lu Zhou to send a physics professor.

Has Academician Lu gone crazy?

This is like getting a veterinarian to do brain surgery.

Professor Wang, who was standing next to the server, spoke with an annoyed tone.

"Forget about it, I've been here all day. The enemy is an expert. This server is useless. Prepare to reinstall, I'm getting hungry."

Professor Wang had the only keys to the computer server room.

If Dean Qin weren't here, he would have left and went to eat a long time ago. He wanted to call the server supplier and ask for them to reinstall the software and replace the hardware.

Dean Qin sighed and looked at Luo Wenxuan as he said, "You should know what's going on, even our computer science professor is giving up. If you're here just to reinstall the operating system, you can go."

Professor Wang was a little comfortable, and he said, "Let me add to that, I'm not giving up, it's just that we were too late. If I were informed of this earlier, I might have been able to save it. But now that the entire server is fried, I can't do anything."

Luo Wenxuan scratched his head and said, "I don't know what you're talking about, all I know is that Lu Zhou gave me a USB and asked me to plug it into the servers."

Professor Wang stepped to the side and made an inviting gesture.

"Come on, go ahead, I want to see what happens."

"Okay…"

Luo Wenxuan walked up to the server and searched for a while before he finally found a USB port.

Professor Wang looked at his clumsy movements and was speechless.

When Luo Wenxuan finally inserted the USB, he took two steps back and looked at Professor Wang.

"Can you turn it on?"

Professor Wang turned on the server.

The fan in the server began to spin, and the computer screen lit up as if the server was resuscitated. Then, everything turned off again.

Professor Wang looked at the dead machine and impatiently said, "Now what?"

"I'm a physics researcher, I don't know…"

Luo Wenxuan awkwardly scratched his head and noticed everyone in the server room looking at him. He quickly took out his phone and called Lu Zhou.

The phone was quickly connected.

Luo Wenxuan immediately spoke.

"I plugged in the USB."

Lu Zhou: "Okay, thanks."

Luo Wenxuan couldn't help but ask, "… Now what?"

Lu Zhou said, "… What do you mean?"

Is he asking me to compensate him for the favor?

Come on…

I'll just buy you lunch next time.

Luo Wenxuan awkwardly scratched his head and said, "I mean, am I… done?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Oh, yeah, you're done. We just have to sit and wait now. Thanks, you can leave now."

The USB contained a piece of software written by Xiao Ai. Once the USB was inserted into the server, the software would automatically install itself onto the server.

Once the server data transfer was completed, Xiao Ai would have total control over the server. As long as the server was connected to the Internet, the program installed on the server could open a back door to the quantum computer at the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

Then, the hackers wouldn't be facing some Jin Ling University professor, they would be up against an artificial intelligence quantum computer.

In the binary world, Xiao Ai was the apex predator. Not only because of its own intelligence, but also because of the raw computing power of quantum computers. Xiao Ai had surpassed the binary bottleneck and had the advantage of multi-state qubits…

With this kind of computing power, it could easily fight against the world's top supercomputers.

However, Luo Wenxuan was a little speechless.

"I thought I would get to witness something."

Lu Zhou was amused as he said, "Oh yeah? Take out your phone and go on Weibo, you'll get to witness something soon."

Luo Wenxuan said, "… Okay, but I feel like the server is still down."

"Don't overthink it. Just tell Dean Qin to keep the power and Internet on, just make sure there aren't any power outages."

Lu Zhou cleared his throat and spoke.

"I'll take care of the rest."

After that, Lu Zhou hung up the phone.

Lu Zhou placed his phone on the table and stretched his back. He stood up from his hotel chair and slowly walked toward the floor to ceiling windows.

It was late into the night.

The brightly lit city lights shined on the window.

It should be day time in America right now.

But there's a thunderstorm coming.

Lu Zhou looked at the view outside his window and chuckled.

"Xiao Ai.

"You got this."

A string of text bubbles appeared on his computer screen.

[Yes, Master! ( ・ω・ ́) ゞ]

[Xiao Ai got this! (๑•̀ᄇ•́) و]

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Chapter 920: Dr. Z

New York.

The window blinds were closed inside an apartment with the air conditioner blasting in the background. The dark and cold room felt like a hospital morgue.

Three large monitors sat on the desk, where empty red bull cans scattered around the room.

A man went into his room with a pizza in his hand. He sat down at his desk and clicked on his mouse.

Three dark-themed code terminals filled his screen.

Most people would be confused by the lines of code on the screen, but not him.

"Finally…

"I got you! Perfect!"

Lone Wolf smacked his lips and smirked. He grabbed a slice of pizza and began biting.

He had completed another server hack.

Even though the Boss didn't order him to do anything, he believed that it was time to extend the attack to beyond media companies.

After all, it wasn't like they were an organization that had strict rules. Not to mention almost all of the Chinese media outlets had already been hacked.

He sifted through the lines of code and laughed at the thought of the Chinese administrators sh*tting their pants.

However, his account on a dark web forum received a message.

[Did my "shipment" arrive?]

He wasn't talking about a real shipment, but rather an attack request, such as a DDOS attack or something of a similar nature.

A DDOS attack was a similar cyber-attack method that could be done by noob hackers. Therefore, it was much more efficient for expert hackers to "order" these attacks instead of carrying out these attacks themselves.

Lone Wolf clicked on the unread message.

However, he suddenly froze.

[Um, Master is letting you a chance to redeem yourself, so you should surrender. ( ́‸ ')]

"Pfft…

"Hahaha!"

Lone Wolf laughed and leaned back on his computer chair. He deleted the message and logged off his sockpuppet account and logged onto a backup account.

"What a joke… You think I'm going to surrender just because you found my account? Go f*ck yourself!"

Finding his sockpuppet account ID wasn't difficult, the entire hacker circle was paying attention to this event.

Anyone that looked through his account history could tell that he was part of the Eagle Hunter group.

Thus, he wasn't worried at all. Trying to find his personal information from his sockpuppet account was nearly impossible.

However, on one of the terminals, he suddenly saw the Jin Ling University server light turn green.

This meant that their trojan was removed by the server administrator, and their server was online.

Do these fools want to die?

"Do they know who they are up against?"

Lone Wolf placed his hand on the keyboard. He was about to give them a lesson.

However, after he pressed down the first key, he was shocked.

A dialog box suddenly jumped out on his screen, displaying a string of unknown characters.

[(*・Ω・) ひ]

Lone Wolf: "???"

…

Cyber Security Bureau.

Inside an office.

Even though it was late into the night, the workers were still here.

A can of Coke was sitting on the computer desk as Director Hong stared meticulously at the computer screen. He suddenly spoke.

"F*ck sake, these rats!"

The enemies were like sneaky rats, biting them left and right.

Director Li from the State Administration for National Defense was also there. He frowned and asked, "Has the safety warning been issued?"

The technician sitting next to them looked at Director Hong and received a nod. He then looked at Director Li and spoke.

"It has been issued, but it won't do much. Companies like Tencent and Alibaba already have good security. Some medium-sized companies received our notices, but there is nothing they can do… In fact, I think our warning might have increased the panic."

Director Hong said, "It's still better to inform them, what else can we do?"

"… There's nothing else other than to switch the roles and become the attacker ourselves."

The office suddenly became quiet, only keyboard tapping sounds could be heard.

Director Hong coughed and said, "Okay, forget about it. The higher-ups will never approve for us to attack. Once we become the attackers, that means that China has declared an international cyber warfare. Even though we were the ones that were hit first, we will be blamed… Right now, we need to collect evidence and find where these people are, then ask the local authorities of that country to arrest them."

Not to mention that they didn't even know who and where the attackers were. If they were to somehow retaliate, the international political damage would be unthinkable.

Also, the International Lunar Hadron Collider Conference was underway, affecting the international political situation was exactly what the hackers wanted.

Director Hong coughed and said, "How's the server recovery going?"

The information security engineer sitting in front of the computer spoke in a tired voice.

"Most of the large media domains have been restored… I've restored at least a dozen websites now, but we can't keep doing this forever."

A technician sitting in front of the computer in military clothes suddenly made an announcement.

"We found a new website with abnormal traffic activities, and it is now confirmed to have been hijacked."

Before Director Hong could speak, Director Li spoke first, "Who is it this time?"

"The state Trade and Development Council website."

After Director Hong heard that another website had fallen, he furiously slammed the table.

"Motherf*cker!"

The attack had spread beyond media websites and onto government departments.

Director Hong began to sweat.

Even though the major government department websites had reinforced security, the Chinese government was so large that there were just too many servers and websites. They could only rely on the servers' built-in firewalls and defenses.

And this wasn't his biggest worry.

If the attackers expanded their battlefield and attacked the medical, energy, and logistics industries, the damage could be catastrophic…

The losses would be unbearable.

However, the engineer sitting at the computer screen suddenly frowned and looked closer at his screen.

"Wait a second, something is wrong."

Director Hong immediately said, "What?"

"The attacker's traffic data we were tracking has disappeared…"

Director Hong suddenly turned blue.

"Did the attackers find us?"

The information security engineer shook his head and said, "I'm certain they haven't found us… They all just inexplicably disappeared one by one."

Director Hong wanted to ask what was going on, but a sonorous voice came from the side.

"The Trade and Development Council website is up!" the man in the military uniform said. He stood up excitedly and said, "It seems like they've retreated!"

Director Hong frowned and carefully stared at the screen.

"But why did they retreat?"

The engineer shook his head.

"I don't know…"

He was 100% certain that the attackers didn't notice them tracking their data traffic.

However, there was no other reason for them to retreat like this.

This was amazing for those servers that were under attack, but the Cyber Security Bureau wasn't happy about this at all.

Not catching the attackers meant they were open to a second attack at any time.

If they couldn't find out what the reason behind the retreat was, they wouldn't be able to sleep tonight.

Director Hong looked around the office and spoke in a firm tone.

"Continue the investigation, it doesn't matter that the attacks have stopped, we have to find them!"

"Okay!"

Even though they didn't win the battle, it was still a small victory.

The "soldiers" in the office were still fighting on the front line.

Director Hong nodded and went into his office. He was about to sit down, but he heard a knock at his door.

"Come in."

The door opened and a skinny employee walked in.

"Director!"

Director Hong: "What?"

"We just received an email… It's a bit special."

"What kind of email?"

"There's some strange code in the email, and also some text saying…" The staff member hesitated for a bit and said, "They found the attacker's IP address."

They found the attacker's IP address?

Director Hong was ecstatic.

He immediately asked, "Who sent the email? Did we have a way to contact them?"

"No…" the staff member shook his head and said, "The email is signed by one person."

"Who?"

"Dr. Z…"

Director Hong: "…?"

Director Li: "???"

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Chapter 921: An Expert!

The dark web.

On an unknown forum.

A group of people logged onto their accounts and excitedly reported their results.

"Not bad!"

"Just some basic techniques, I think the page redirect was quite creative."

"Forget about it, your photoshop skills are dog sh*t."

"…"

Boss: "Quiet."

Everyone in the chat quieted down as they waited for their leader to speak.

Boss: "The Chinese have clearly ignored our demands, while the White House has ignored our threats. It seems like our attacks haven't affected them."

"If that is the case, we should begin our second phase."

Hunter: "I'm ready, Boss."

Kid: "Haha, finally!"

Kid: "Lol, I've been wanting to attack Congress for a while now."

Hunter: "The Congress and White House are two different things."

Kid: "Who cares? They're the same for me!"

Ghost: "Oh yeah, where is Lone Wolf? Didn't he find that chief designer Academician Lu's university and shut down their website?"

Kid: "Someone go find him."

Dr. Z: "He's not going to come. :p"

Suddenly, a new user appeared in the chat room.

The entire chatroom went silent.

A two-story house in Los Angeles.

A man in his thirties stared at his laptop screen.

Dr. Z?

Who is that?

Is that Lone Wolf's second account?

But we said no duplicate accounts allowed in the group…

In the group chat.

Hunter: "Who are you?"

Ghost: "Is this someone's second account?"

Kid: "Hey, bro, we use our main IDs to communicate. We're going to kick you out, we're not joking around."

Dr. Z: "I am Dr. Z. Master gave me this ID, so this is my name. (๑•̀ᄇ•́) و"

Hunter: "…?"

Kid: "???"

The texting style of Dr. Z was a little weird.

These hackers had surfed the dark webs for many years, and they had seen many types of peculiar texting, but they had never seen someone use this kind of emoticons before.

They all knew this new guy was an expert.

None of them had doubts about this.

This guy was able to get into this dark web forum and gain access to Boss' private chatroom. Either this was Boss himself or someone installed a backdoor into Boss' server.

Who is this guy?!

The man in his thirties quickly stood up and placed his laptop aside. He then began typing on a PC keyboard.

His name was Mason, a low-level employee that worked at a Los Angeles software company. The only outstanding part about him was that he was the legendary dark web hacker—Boss!

As the leader of the Eagle Hunter group and a famous figure in the dark webs, his hacking skill was world-class.

This was one of the reasons he was responsible for managing the Eagle Hunter server.

Not only because they trusted his leadership, but they also trusted his skills.

But now, someone had broken through his server and entered a restricted chat room…

Mason checked the server and didn't find any back doors. He had a serious look on his face, and he had a gut feeling that something was wrong.

It was too late to figure out how the other party gained access to his server. Instead, he went on his laptop and immediately typed.

Boss: "Everyone, leave this chatroom now. Begin the fourth phase. Long live Eagle Hunter!"

He was obviously not the only one that realized something was wrong.

After he sent out this message, the group members went offline one by one.

Even though these hackers usually didn't follow strict rules, when it came to the safety of their own lives, they gladly listened to their leader…

Mason continued to type on his laptop.

Someone entered his encrypted chat room.

It was entirely possible that the attacker had gained access to his server and copied all of the data… including the chat records…

Mason began to sweat, and he started to get a little dizzy.

There was no point in unplugging the server. He had to find any evidence the attacker left, hack into the other party's server, and delete all of the evidence.

The things in his server alone would be enough for him to stay in prison for a very long time…

Fortunately, the other party was stupid enough to send a message in the chatroom.

This was his opportunity!

Mason's fingers danced on the keyboard as he desperately tried to salvage the situation. He suddenly saw that the user appeared in the chatroom again.

Dr. Z: "Um, I think you should just give up. Kicking me out of the chat room or hacking into my computer won't do anything. (" ‸ ')"

Mason was startled. He looked around his room and locked eyes on another laptop sitting behind him.

His face turned white.

As expected, his worst nightmares came true.

For some reason, the laptop LED camera was shining red.

Due to work-related needs, that was his only laptop camera that wasn't taped over…

Faced with a god-like enemy, Mason decided to give up.

He looked at the laptop and murmured, "How did you do it… How? I didn't find any trace of your break-in. None of the alarms were set off… Are you even a human?"

It was almost like the attacker heard him.

Another message appeared in the chatroom.

Dr. Z: "Because your code is too weak, I just used your backup administrator account. ()."

Mason had a hysterical smile on his face, and it looked like he had aged ten years. He stared at the code on his screen silently.

There was no point in trying to fight back.

He took out a lighter and lit a cigarette.

He exhaled a ring of smoke.

"Is it too late to surrender?"

Dr. Z: "I don't know, that depends on how fast the police are. ( ́‸ ')"

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Chapter 922: Boss Is Offline!

It was an extraordinary day for the hacker community.

Trying to disrupt the International Lunar Hadron Collider Conference, hacker group Eagle Hunter declared cyber warfare on China.

In less than 12 hours, more than 50 website servers and domain names were hijacked, and dozens of companies reported millions of dollars in damages.

It seemed like the attacks were going to continue, and while everyone was wondering what the hackers would do next, the war suddenly ended abruptly.

Not just that, but several well-known hacker accounts went offline. It was like they vanished from the dark webs.

Especially Boss.

He was one of the top dogs in the hacker community, and the FBI had been trying to capture him for years, but their efforts were to no avail.

However, it seemed like this person suddenly vanished from the Internet. He didn't reply to any messages, he stopped updating his personal blog, and his website went offline.

It was like he disappeared off the planet…

On a well known dark web forum.

Many scholars in the field of information technology, as well as white hats that worked for well-known technology companies, had accounts on this forum. They talked about everything from industry news to the latest technology.

Because the war between Eagle Hunter and China was such a huge event, half of the forum users were talking about it. Thus, the forum moderators decided to create a new forum channel specifically for this event…

[Does anyone know what happened?]

[It's been almost an hour, did they give up?]

[No way, an hour ago the Chinese side was still desperately trying to stay alive. There is no reason for Eagle Hunter to retreat.]

[Does the Boss have an email? Should we ask what he's doing?]

[Apparently, he was caught.]

The channel went silent for a while.

After a couple of minutes, someone broke the silence.

[No way, you have to be kidding me?]

[Yeah, it's Boss! I've seen him make ATMs shoot out money before, and the FBI has been tracking him for years. How did he get caught?]

No one believed that this veteran hacker was defeated by someone from the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

Most people thought that even though the Eagle Hunter hackers had disappeared, they would reappear after laying low for a while.

It was almost impossible to track an experienced hacker.

Especially since Boss was a veteran hacker. If Boss didn't want to get caught, there was no way anyone could catch him.

While everyone was talking about the Eagle Hunter members, a Los Angeles evening newspaper published their latest breaking story…

[Leader of well-known hacker organization "Eagle Hunter" has been caught!]

Once the news broke out…

The hacker community's jaws fell on the floor!

…

Ever since the Cyber Security Bureau received that email, they strengthened their defenses and tried to investigate the origin of the email.

Even though they had many doubts about the legitimacy of the email, that was their only clue.

After Director Li saw that the email was signed by Dr. Z, he seemed to have realized something. He patted Director Hong on the shoulder and told him to investigate this email.

Even though Director Li of the State Administration for National Defense was a layman, Director Hong still took his advice.

Tracking an IP from outside the country wasn't easy, especially without sufficient evidence. The local authorities of that country could refuse to cooperate. However, they discovered that the IP address was from a domestic location.

Director Hong immediately called the Ministry of Public Security and contacted the relevant local police station. Soon after, the hacker with the ID "Kid" was captured.

Everyone was surprised.

Contrary to the ID, the hacker wasn't a "kid" at all; it was a middle-aged man in his thirties.

According to the neighbors, the suspect had been living there for years.

The police easily found the electronics equipment used to commit the crime in Kid's home, as well as his personal laptop and phone.

The police found that not only was this person involved in various hacking organizations, he also had a strong hatred toward power and authority.

According to his confession, he was brought into the Eagle Hunter organization by Boss last year. He helped the organization locate and target domestic servers and was a "middle man" for cyber attacks.

As for his motive for the attacks, it was obviously because of his resentment toward society…

…

It was four o'clock in the morning, and the sun was almost about to rise.

Director Hong was drinking a cup of coffee when he looked at Director Li and said, "You know Dr. Z?"

Director Li took a sip out of his vacuum flask and said, "Actually, I'm not sure."

You're not sure if you know him?

"Then why were you so certain that he's right…" Director Hong coughed and said, "Granted, you were correct. I have no intention in finding out his identity, I'm just curious."

Director Li: "Actually, the reason why I believed him is that he's helped us in the past."

Director Hong frowned and said, "Helped us?"

"That was almost six months ago." Director Li began to reminisce as he said, "The Ares program was in trouble, and due to various humanitarian reasons, we launched a spacecraft toward Mars…"

The entire office began to listen to Director Li's story.

He talked about everything from the Mars landing to the colonists being infected. He even put down his vacuum flask and gestured with his hands.

When he began to hear snoring sounds, he awkwardly stopped his story…

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Chapter 923: Dr. Z's Identity!

The news of the arrest of "Boss", leader of the Eagle Hunter organization, caused a sensation in the hacker and information security community.

No one expected Los Angeles to be able to catch such a huge criminal in such a short frame of time…

What surprised people the most was that "Boss", who the FBI had been trying to catch for nearly a decade, lived in a townhome 500 meters away from a police station.

Apparently, the reason why the Los Angeles police were able to catch the perp so quickly was because of an anonymous tip.

The email didn't leave any contact information, only an alias—Dr. Z.

This name sounded quite mysterious.

The Los Angeles Times reporters had contacted experts in the field of information security, in hopes of finding out who Dr. Z was. They hadn't been able to find any clues behind the identity of this mysterious person.

It was like this person came out of thin air.

Some people thought that Dr. Z was a Chinese information technology expert. After all, less than 10 hours after "Boss" was arrested, China made an arrest on "Kid".

Some people speculated that Dr. Z was a high-profile hacker in the Chinese "Honker Union" hacker group. After all, the Americans knew that China had many mathematics and computer science experts.

Some people thought back to the Mars incident some time ago, where an unnamed biologist published a thesis that provided a key solution for the international team of experts that were working on the vaccine…

However, this conjecture wasn't very realistic. After all, if Dr. Z was an expert in biology, he would have nothing to do with information technology. People were more inclined to believe that Dr. Z was just an anonymous hacker.

They thought the hacker just copied the name "Dr. Z" from the Mars incident…

The name was used as a symbol, similar to Batman's Batarangs…

Regardless, this hacker was able to track the IP address of Boss and inform Interpol for an arrest. This kind of skill was unseen before.

Not only was the FBI investigating the identity of Dr. Z, but major Silicon Valley companies were also trying to find him.

Companies like Amazon and Microsoft were trying to find out who Dr. Z was, and even the CEO of Apple stated on Twitter that if Dr. Z wanted to use his skills on something that would benefit society, Apple would gladly compensate him…

…

After Lu Zhou told Xiao Ai to handle the cyber attack, he went on his bed and flipped through his research notes. He read some research and gradually fell asleep.

Because he overworked himself the previous day, he slept until noon.

He had quite a relaxed schedule for the day, and he only had to attend a meeting at 3 pm.

Lu Zhou climbed out of bed and grabbed his phone from the bedside table. He looked at his WeChat notifications and saw that Luo Wenxuan sent him a dozen messages.

"F*ck sake, why does he want now?"

Lu Zhou's sleepy eyes began reading the messages.

The messages were filled with exclamation marks and surprised emojis. Luo Wenxuan repeatedly called him "nutty" and "impressive".

Lu Zhou gradually smiled.

He thought that Luo Wenxuan must have read something about him on Weibo.

Speaking of which, there was something else he was looking forward to.

Lu Zhou shook his head and didn't reply. He threw his phone aside and picked up the remote control. He then turned on the TV and opened the international news channel.

Just like he had expected, the news was reporting on last night's events.

The hackers were arrested and this cyber warfare was finally over.

Lu Zhou wasn't surprised at all. Even though Xiao Ai still lacked some emotional intelligence, its hacking abilities were state of the art.

What surprised Lu Zhou the most was that one of the hackers was in China?

Why the f*ck…

Would he stay in China?

After Lu Zhou turned off the TV, his phone started to vibrate.

It was a message from Xiao Ai. Lu Zhou knew that his little buddy was excited.

Xiao Ai: [Master, did Xiao Ai do a good job? (ω *)]

Lu Zhou: "Everything is done?"

Xiao Ai: [Yeah! All of the evidence was handed over to the police! (๑•̀ᄇ•́)]

Lu Zhou wanted to hug Xiao Ai through the phone as he said, "Well done!"

Xiao Ai: [You're welcome, compliment me more, please! (ω *)]

Lu Zhou: "…"

Can this thing be a little less cocky…

It should learn from its master to be humble.

Lu Zhou climbed out of bed naked and sat in front of his computer.

He scrolled through Weibo and saw that the "Eagle Hunter" organization was on the trending section…

[Eagle hunter, more like chicken hunters!]

[I can't believe it, we were able to find these American hackers within a day!]

[Apparently, a hacker called Dr. Z was the person behind all of this, and he single-handedly found the IP address of all of the members!]

[No way, I thought Dr. Z was a biologist?]

[Maybe someone's copying his name? Regardless, we should thank Dr. Z. Who knows how many websites he saved!]

Lu Zhou looked at the posts and felt like a hero.

Of course, he knew that this was mainly due to Xiao Ai's quantum computer.

However, considering that both the quantum computer and Xiao Ai were his property, he felt like he should take some credit.

Suddenly a string of texts popped up on the lower right corner.

[Master, are you going to put on some clothes? (/ ω /)]

Lu Zhou looked at the message and paused for a second.

Emm…

Okay, I guess browsing the web naked is kind of barbaric.

But there's no one else in the room, who cares?

Lu Zhou looked at his computer and spoke.

"Why do you care, you're just a program."

Xiao Ai: [Yeah, but Xiao Ai is only 7 years old. ( ́‸ ')]

Lu Zhou: "…"

Jesus Christ.

Lu Zhou suddenly remembered something and said, "Oh yeah, don't turn on the camera without my permission, or unless necessary."

Xiao Ai: [Oh… ( )]

Lu Zhou closed his laptop and put on a suit. He adjusted his tie in front of the mirror and nodded with satisfaction.

Who's that handsome professor in the mirror?

Suddenly, his phone on the bedside table began to ring.

Lu Zhou picked up the phone and spoke.

"Hello?"

Director Li spoke from the other end of the phone.

"Are you available?"

Lu Zhou looked at his watch and said, "Yeah, why?"

Director Li: "It's lunchtime, come to the buffet, I want to talk with you."

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Chapter 924: People Want to Be Geniuses

Lunch.

Hotel buffet.

Lu Zhou walked in and immediately saw Director Li sitting by the window.

Lu Zhou sat across from him and looked at his eyebags. He paused for a second and asked, "What… happened?"

"Nothing, I didn't sleep last night." Director Li tried to wake himself up. He said with a solemn expression, "Remember about the cyber attacks I told you? According to Interpol, the main hacker has been arrested in Los Angeles."

Lu Zhou: "… Oh."

Lu Zhou already knew about this.

However, Director Li didn't notice that, so he continued to speak in a stern tone, "One of the criminals was located domestically, and as for the other criminals, we submitted their information to Interpol and the LAPD took over the case."

Lu Zhou: "Ok."

Director Li: "Don't you think it's strange?"

Lu Zhou: "…"

What's so strange?

They've been talking about this on TV all morning, what's so strange about it.

Director Li stared at Lu Zhou and suddenly spoke.

"Honestly, how did you find out who the hackers were?"

Lu Zhou paused for a second and reacted quickly. He tried to act confused.

"I saw it online, why? I read about it this morning."

However, Director Li didn't give up. Instead, he said, "Speaking of which, we received help from an expert. If it weren't for their help, we would still be in shambles."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Yeah, I heard about it. It's someone called Dr. Z, right? One man taking down the entire Eagle Hunter group, he has to be an expert."

Director Li looked slightly disappointed, but he quickly recovered.

It didn't really matter if Lu Zhou was Dr. Z or not. Also, it was entirely possible that Dr. Z could be an expert from the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

Director Li just wanted to satisfy his curiosity.

Even if Lu Zhou really was Dr. Z, if Lu Zhou didn't plan on making this public, Director Li certainly didn't want to ask any more questions.

Director Li cleared his throat and began talking.

"Even though we were victorious in this cyberwar, we have to learn from this experience and strengthen our cybersecurity defenses. This attack threatened much sensitive information and destabilized society. The Communist Party of China is ready to…"

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "I know the rough situation, but I'm just a mathematician, so you're… speaking to the wrong person."

I don't know why…

But I feel like Director Li knows that I'm Dr. Z.

This isn't good…

I'm going to reveal myself eventually…

But now is not the time.

"Listen to me." Director Li put on a serious face and said, "In order to deal with any possible threats, the Communist Party of China intends to invest heavily in quantum computing technology. This is to strengthen our network defense and counterattack abilities."

Strengthen quantum computing technology?

Lu Zhou was supportive of this idea, but something didn't feel right.

Lu Zhou hesitated for a bit and asked, "But it's not going to be cheap."

Forget about the lunar collider, the semiconductor industry cluster was still underway.

Lu Zhou alone spent more than 100 billion yuan on state-funded projects last year, and it wasn't like the government could just keep printing money like this.

"Um… I have to thank you for this." Director Li smiled and said, "Ever since the Southeast Asia Regional Power Grid Plan was implemented, it has achieved tremendous results. Numerous Southeast Asian countries have access to cheap and clean energy. This has created at least US$50 billion in revenue and is expected to grow. We have quite a lot of funding for state scientific research projects."

Lu Zhou nodded.

No wonder!

No wonder they have so much money to burn.

If this was two years ago, there was no way he could have gotten the Lunar Hadron Collider project approved.

So far, the aerospace projects had barely broken even, and Lu Zhou still needed more time to prove that his decisions were correct.

I guess nuclear fusion is still where the money is.

Cheap and clean energy was being exported to neighboring countries at 1/10th the price of coal power plants. As the power grid continued to expand in Western and Southeast Asia, sooner or later East Asia Energy would become the largest company in the world.

Director Li: "All in all, you don't have to worry about funding, money is not a problem. Didn't we talk about this last time? Isn't that carbon-based chip suitable for quantum computing? I just want to ask, is it realistic to use the carbon-based chips to develop topological quantum computers?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "What can I say… Of course I'm going to say it's realistic."

Director Li said in a serious manner, "I trust that you're a scholar that seeks the truth. You wouldn't betray god for a small profit."

Actually, Lu Zhou wanted to say that this wasn't going to be a small profit and that he was an atheist. He didn't believe in god.

However, there was one thing Director Li was right about.

Lu Zhou was a scholar that sought the truth.

Lu Zhou sighed and said, "Majorana fermions can be found in the material used for carbon-based chips, so this is a great starting point. As long as we can directly observe the zero-energy mode of pure Majorana fermions, it is possible to create quantum topology calculations."

Director Li began to feel excited, and he put his hands on his knees and asked, "So what you're saying is, this will work?"

"I never said that." Lu Zhou said, "Finding out its feasibility will take a lot of theoretical calculations. You can't just throw money at it and hope for the best."

Director Li calmed down and thought for a second.

"Then, what do you think we should do?"

Lu Zhou said, "My suggestion is to take it easy, find some experts and carefully research the technical feasibility side, and find a technical route. After that, you can invest all the money you want."

This was the safest and least risky approach.

If the technical route proved to be feasible, the theoretical expert team would be put on research and development and the project would be on its way.

Investing money without a direction could induce an overflow of capital, thus wasting social resources.

"You're right…" Director Li sighed and said, "We should take it slow and easy."

After contemplating for a second, he spoke.

"After I go back to the office, I'll type up some documents and form a quantum computer theoretical expert team… Do you have any recommendations?"

Lu Zhou said, "Professor Wu Tianqun, the carbon-based semiconductor technology was created by his team. Also some experts in the field of quantum computing. I can't name any names right now, but I'll send you a list later."

Director Li was overjoyed that Lu Zhou was willing to help.

"Thank you so much!"

After lunch, Director Li didn't stay for any longer. He quickly got into his car and drove away.

Seeing how he didn't sleep all night, Lu Zhou was a little worried about him.

For a man of his age, he should be more careful.

Lu Zhou shook his head and took out his phone. He set a reminder for himself to send over a list of quantum computing experts.

However, he suddenly had a strange thought.

If I only recommend people that I know, wouldn't that monopolize the entire future of the quantum computing field?

However, this thought quickly disappeared…

For some reason, he suddenly remembered one person.

Which was Academician Zhou, the person that fought with him on the controllable fusion project.

Lu Zhou shook his head and put his phone in his pocket.

"No wonder everyone wants to become a genius.

"Power really is an addictive thing…

"Fortunately, power is not that appealing to me."

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Chapter 925: Trade Off

White House.

President's office.

After FBI director Mueller entered the office, the president's assistant sitting outside the door could hear the president yelling.

"You bunch of idiots!"

Mueller stood in front of the president and took a deep breath. He then said, "This is our fault… We expected them to act, but we didn't expect things to move this fast."

Even though the White House was happy to see China suffer losses, they didn't want it to happen this way.

The negotiations on the Lunar Hadron Collider were still underway. They were finally able to recruit some allies through diplomatic means and wanted to put pressure on China in regard to the budget committee.

However, their plan was ruined.

Because of the cyberattacks, most of their allies began doubting them. Many nations began to express their doubts on whether or not America wanted to participate in this project at all.

Maybe the Americans were only here to disrupt this meeting?

After all, China was America's biggest space competitor…

Suddenly, the phone on the desk began to ring.

The president took a deep breath and picked up the call.

Director Carson's voice traveled through the phone.

"It's me."

President: "I know it's you, speak!"

Carson knew the President was in a bad mood, but he didn't dare to ask why.

Carson cleared his throat and spoke.

"The Chinese are putting pressure on us, those f*cking idiots. I drafted a plan for the budget committee last night, and as soon as I took it out at the conference today, the Chinese began questioning me about the cyber attacks. They are using this as a tactic for negotiation."

He took a deep breath and continued in a stern tone, "Now that we're at a negotiation disadvantage, even the neutral countries have expressed serious concerns regarding our domestic cybersecurity and terrorist issues."

The president couldn't help but say, "Didn't you tell them that the attacks and the hadron collider are two completely different things?"

"I said that, but they said that the Eagle Hunter was supported by the federal government and that they've already obtained enough evidence…" Director Carson paused for a second and said, "Just wondering, is that a possibility…"

The president said, "Of course not! Why would I approve such a stupid plan! What could we possibly gain from destroying some Chinese servers? What do you think, Mr. Mueller?"

Mueller nodded quickly and said, "Of course! I would never approve of such a stupid thing… But just in case, we should contact the CIA and make sure they didn't do anything."

"Now is not the time to blame others." Director Carson said in a tired voice, "The situation is not good for us, so my suggestion is that… we should lie low. Otherwise, China might reconsider our participation in the project…"

The office became quiet.

One could hear a pin drop.

Reconsider our participation in the project…

A hint of bitterness appeared in the president's eyes.

If this were ten years ago, this would have been a joke.

Back then, the United States was a nation of industry. It was impossible for any country to organize such a large scientific research project without help from the United States.

But now…

China was thinking about kicking them out of the group?

The tables had turned.

The president went silent for a while and sat down at his desk.

He tapped his finger on the desk and said, "We can forgo our other requests, but you must ensure that we have at least three voting seats on the budget committee. That is not up for debate."

He didn't want to risk China kicking them out of the project.

China needed America's cooperation, but America needed China more…

Director Carson sighed in relief.

"I'll try my best…"

The president slammed his fist on the table and cursed, "These f*cknig idiots!"

Director Mueller looked at the president and held his breath.

Because of the Eagle Hunter group, the United States was now at a huge negotiation disadvantage.

If the Russians couldn't stand their ground, China would have total control of the budget committee…

The Chinese could easily take over Russia's voting seats; after all, the Russians only invested a small amount of money in the project…

…

In Lu Zhou's opinion, what happened online was only a minor disturbance.

Whether or not Eagle Hunter was backed by the White House didn't matter to him at all.

The source of the attack came from American soil. China could easily use this to gain an "advantage" over the budget committee negotiations.

Of course, the Lunar Orbit Committee had ultimate control over this matter.

The Americans had to prove themselves.

Otherwise, the Americans would just label this as an "accident".

Over the past few days, Lu Zhou had been working on the Lunar Hadron Collider Research Center, as well as helping Director Li find a list of experts to demonstrate the technical feasibility of quantum computing.

Lu Zhou realized that it was quite difficult to keep this quiet.

Jin Ling University was one of the top five software engineering universities. They had two big names in the field of quantum computing—one was even an academician.

It would be a bit unfair to exclude these quantum computing experts just to avoid suspicion. Therefore, Lu Zhou wrote both of their names down.

Some of the other experts were from Shuimu and Yan Universities, and there were ten people in total. It wasn't after Lu Zhou finished compiling the list did he realize that he was caring about things outside of academia.

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head. He made up his mind to never do something like this again. After that, he sent this list to Director Li's email.

I'm finally done!

Lu Zhou stretched his back and was about to make some coffee.

However, suddenly an email arrived in his inbox.

Lu Zhou looked at the name and paused for a second.

Professor Wu Tianqun?

Speak of the devil?

Lu Zhou curiously opened the email.

The email was short.

There was only one sentence.

[There's progress on the research of the carbon-based chip!]

…

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Chapter 926: So Handsome!

After a week-long "friendly discussions", the first International Lunar Hadron Collider Conference finally came to an end.

Even though not everyone was happy with the end result, the countries came up with a plan that was acceptable to most people.

At least acceptable to a certain extent…

At the closing ceremony.

NASA Director Carson and the director of the China National Space Administration stood in front of the media cameras and shook hands with each other.

"It was a pleasure meeting you."

"Yes, same here…"

Director Carson tried to put on a fake smile, but he didn't look happy at all.

There was a warm applause in the crowd.

The media cameras recorded this historic moment.

Lu Zhou was standing by the side, away from most people. He looked at Director Carson's uncomfortable face and felt a little distressed.

"Why do I feel like Director Carson isn't very happy?"

Director Li, who was standing next to him, said, "They had to make a huge compromise on the budget committee negotiations; I'm sure anyone would be unhappy in his position."

Lu Zhou looked at Director Li and said, "Actually, I'm quite curious about the requests you made."

Over the past week, Lu Zhou was mainly responsible for the technical side.

Precisely speaking, he tried to protect the initial design plan from these horrible improvement suggestions and make sure that the design would be smoothly implemented before the end of the month.

He didn't really pay attention to the political negotiation, but he was curious.

Director Li smiled and said, "We didn't make any requests, we just refused most of their requests."

Lu Zhou looked surprised.

"And they agreed?"

"Sort of, we have the upper hand, so it doesn't matter. We have another meeting next year; hopefully, we'll maintain our advantage." Director Li patted Lu Zhou on the arm and said, "Diplomatic negotiations are about communicating, but it ultimately depends on the country's strength. The reason we can do this is because of our advantage; hopefully, you can help us maintain that advantage."

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "You don't have to worry about that."

Director Li solemnly nodded and said, "I'm happy to hear that!"

With the conclusion of the International Lunar Hadron Collider Conference, the construction plan was set in stone. The first batch of the experimental components had been transported to the Jinling launch site. They were going to be transported to outer space via the Skyglow, then transported to the lunar orbit via the Magpie Bridge.

Also, the engineering team responsible for the construction would be sent to the Moon Palace.

On the other hand, the Lunar Hadron Collider Research Center was going to be built in Shanghai.

After hearing this news, Lu Zhou felt emotional.

He always thought that the headquarters of the Lunar Hadron Collider would be in Beijing. However, it seemed like Chen Yushan's prediction was correct—it was indeed in Shanghai.

Chen Yushan told him that the Communist Party of China wanted to promote the Yangtze River Delta economic region.

Having the ILHCRC set in Shanghai was a signal of their intentions.

Beijing was the future of China, while the Yangtze River Delta economic region would become the political, economic, and cultural center of Asia…

A magnificent blueprint appeared in Lu Zhou's mind.

If Chen Yushan's guess was correct, then Lu Zhou should really pay more attention to the project plan…

…

The day after the International Lunar Hadron Collider Conference ended, a line of taxis parked outside the Beijing Shangri-La hotel.

After staying in China for a week, scholars and politicians from all over the world had begun their journeys back to their respective countries.

Academician Zhang Wenlong, chairman of the Chinese Physical Society, stood at the hotel entrance. He spoke in a somewhat emotional tone to Academician Yang Xianfu, principal of the Beijing Institute of Technology.

"I still remember when I went to CERN with my supervisor. I met legendary physicists I read about in textbooks, and I was so excited I couldn't sleep all night.

"I went to the lecture hall the next day. My supervisor told me what one day China will be like this as well. I didn't believe him at the time. But now, it seems like my supervisor was right."

Academician Yang was also filled with emotion as he said, "Yeah, half of the world's best physicists are here in Beijing. This is amazing! Oh yeah, where is Academician Lu?"

Academician Zhang smiled and said, "You're a day late. He packed his things last night and left after the closing ceremony! I bumped into him in the elevator, and he said he had something urgent to attend to in Jinling."

Academician Yang paused for a second and said, "Why did he leave in such a hurry? I wanted to give him a tour of the Beijing Institute of Technology."

Academician Zhang smiled and said, "Haha, you should've told him earlier. Academician Lu is a busy man. I heard that Academician Wang Shicheng was finally able to get him to visit Yan University, but somehow, Academician Lu poached a person during his visit."

Academician Yang was shocked. "How is that possible? Wang Shicheng must be so embarrassed…"

Academician Zhang sighed and said, "Yeah, he is!"

While the two were talking, they suddenly heard a cough.

Academician Zhang Wenlong turned around and saw Academician Wang Shicheng standing right there.

Academician Zhang Wenlong awkwardly smiled and spoke.

"Academician Wang? Nice to see you… Why are you here?"

"… I'm here for the conference."

Wang Shicheng maintained a fake smile and began to chat with the two academicians.

However, no matter what Wang Shicheng talked about, he could tell that the two academicians were acting a little weird.

It was almost like…

They felt sympathetic, almost pitiful.

Wang Shicheng was enraged.

The entire academic community heard about Lu Zhou poaching a talent from his mathematics center. Not to mention that Lu Zhou did it right in front of him.

Wang Shicheng clenched his fist and wanted to skin Lu Zhou alive.

F*ck sake!

That little sh*t!

The worst thing is that I still have to put on a smile in front of him…

God damnit!

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Chapter 927: Carbon-Based Chips!

After Lu Zhou received that email from Professor Wu, even though his body was still in Beijing, his attention was focused on Jinling.

After Lu Zhou delivered the closing ceremony speech at the conference, he immediately went to the airport and took a flight back to Jinling.

As soon as the flight landed, Lu Zhou got in Wang Peng's car and went directly to the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

When Lu Zhou walked into the carbon-based semiconductor laboratory, Professor Wu Tianqun and his researchers were working on a piece of laboratory equipment.

When Professor Wu saw Lu Zhou at the door, he paused for a second before asking, "Academician Lu? You're… back from Beijing?"

I just saw this guy on live TV this morning…

"I just came back in a hurry." Lu Zhou looked at the experimental equipment behind him and said, "I'm not interrupting your experiment, right?"

"No, not at all." Professor Wu Tianqun shook his head and said, "The experiment is over, we're just collecting some data."

"Good." Lu Zhou nodded and quickly said, "What about the carbon-based chip?"

Professor Wu Tianqun smiled and spoke.

"The carbon-based chip is in the other laboratory. For safety reasons, I locked it in the sample cabinet. Follow me."

After delegating some work to his researchers, Professor Wu Tianqun walked out of the laboratory with Lu Zhou and went into another laboratory.

Professor Wu walked up to a sample cabinet and unlocked it with a key. He then put on some gloves and carefully took out a palm-sized brown-tinted glassware from the cabinet.

"Because this is made out of carbon, the chip is sensitive to light. That's why I kept it inside, do you want to see it?"

As Lu Zhou looked at the thumb-sized chip lying in the brown-tinted glassware, he said, "It's fine, just tell me how it works."

"Okay!"

Professor Wu Tianqun cleared his throat and explained the technical side of the chip to Lu Zhou.

A carbon-based chip was obviously a processor that was made of carbon-based transistors. According to Professor Wu Tianqun, this tiny chip contained more than 100,000 carbon nanotubes transistors.

Even though there was still a big gap when compared to silicon chips, which had hundreds of millions of transistors, this carbon chip was already capable of performing simple mathematical operations.

After hearing about this, Lu Zhou felt a wave of excitement.

The carbon-based chip is real!

What does this mean?

This means that Professor Wu Tianqun's research team has successfully made a breakthrough!

This will have a huge impact on the semiconductor industry cluster!

"… So far, we have been able to achieve a 150nm transistor size. Although the technology is far from being mature, it has already displayed superior computing speed, energy consumption, and heat generation."

Professor Wu Tianqun paused for a second and continued, "Most importantly, this chip uses the preparation method of 'chemical vapor deposition etching', which is similar to the preparation method of the SG-1 superconducting material. In theory, there is a lot of room for improvement! We are currently looking for ways to further reduce the chip manufacturing process costs and increase the number of transistors per square millimeter.

"If we can achieve more than 30 million transistors per square millimeter and improve the process technology to the size of 10nm, it is entirely possible for this chip to be commercialized! The superiority of carbon-based chips compared to silicon chips is crystal clear!"

Lu Zhou: "How difficult is mass production?"

Professor Wu Tianqun: "It won't be harder than silicon-based chips! As for the cost, it is more expensive, but the performance makes up for it!"

Lu Zhou said, "Nicely done, Professor Wu!"

Professor Wu Tianqun awkwardly smiled.

"Well, if it weren't for your two theses in Nature, which provided a theoretical basis, none of this would have happened. Not to mention the SG-1 superconducting material; there was no way we could've built a carbon-based chip without the Jinling Institute for Advanced Study."

Lu Zhou smiled and put on a serious face as he said, "As for the research results, I'd like you to write two reports. One without technical details, just a rough summary. The other should be more specific, follow the research thesis format, and write down all of the technical details. That will be used for patent registering."

After hearing Lu Zhou's words, Professor Wu nodded seriously.

"Okay, I'll do this right away, when do you need it?"

Lu Zhou: "No need to rush, just give it to me in a week, or a bit later. Your experiment is still the priority."

Professor Wu smiled and said, "It's fine, this won't interrupt the experiment, I can guarantee I'll be done in a week."

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Thank you then, I'll let you get back to work."

Lu Zhou was about to leave the laboratory when he suddenly remembered something. He turned around and looked at Professor Wu Tianqun.

"Oh yeah, the Communist Party of China is planning on forming an expert group regarding the technical feasibility of topological quantum computing, so I recommended you."

Even though Lu Zhuo spoke casually, this was huge news to Professor Wu Tianqun.

Technical feasibility expert group for the Communist Party of China!

Usually, only academicians or academic leaders could enter these types of expert teams, especially since it was led by the Communist Party of China.

Professor Wu was only in the Changjiang Scholars Program. Normally, there would be no chance for him to enter a team like this.

Professor Wu took a deep breath and spoke.

"Thank you!"

This felt kind of weird since Lu Zhou was so much younger than him. However, he was truly grateful.

Being able to enter a group like this would be hugely beneficial for his academic career! Both from a networking perspective, and from a qualification perspective.

Lu Zhou looked at Professor Wu and spoke.

"No need to thank me.

"I didn't do anything. You did this through your own effort and hard work.

"You should thank yourself."

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928 An Ethical Scholar

As an ethical scholar, Lu Zhou wasn't a fan of academic monopolies. He believed in an academic environment that was full of freedom.

He liked to find talents that were worth cultivating and devote certain resources to help them grow.

Just like Chen Yang, who he poached from the Yan University mathematics center. It wasn't like he did this out of spite for Academician Wang; it was purely because he saw a promising talent being wasted and abandoned.

Being able to understand the hyperelliptic curve analysis method in such a short amount of time wasn't something that could be done by ordinary scholars. It was a kind of transcendent focus on mathematics.

Being able to focus like this in the chaotic environment of academia was one in a million.

This devotion toward mathematics was something more valuable than talent.

Lu Zhou had a lot to do, so he stopped Professor Wu from thanking him and left the laboratory.

Lu Zhou knew that Professor Wu would do a good job in the expert group, so he wasn't worried.

After he left the carbon-based semiconductor laboratory, he was planning to visit his newly poached talent from Yan University.

However, he suddenly remembered that he forgot to share the good news with others, so he took out his phone and called Ms. CEO.

The phone rang two times and connected.

A pleasant voice traveled through the phone.

"Hi, did you miss me? Why are you calling all of a sudden?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I have some good news to share."

Chen Yushan curiously asked, "What news?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "A carbon-based chip with more than 10,000 carbon-based transistors has been successfully produced by the laboratory!"

The phone went silent for a few seconds.

Chen Yushan took a deep breath.

She spoke in disbelief.

"… Really?!

"Carbon-based chip?

"You're not kidding?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Do I sound like I'm kidding?"

Chen Yushan said, "… Where are you now?"

Lu Zhou: "The Institute for Advanced Study. I just came back from Beijing."

"No wonder…"

Chen Yushan sighed and leaned back in her chair. Her voice trembled as she said, "I thought we would have to wait at least another two years to see results. I didn't expect it to be this soon… How long will it take for carbon-based chip technology to mature? A rough estimate."

Lu Zhou contemplated for a while and spoke carefully.

"It's hard to say. So far, we're not sure what the physical limitation of carbon-based chips are and whether or not there are technical bottlenecks. However, we should be able to produce a commercialized chip within a year. Even if the chip is slightly inferior to silicon chips, its superior physical properties will make up for it."

He paused for a second and continued, "I've asked Professor Wu to write some technical and test performance reports, and they should be done in a week. I'm sure he can explain it more clearly. You can just read the report…"

Lu Zhou arrived at the Institute of Mathematics while talking to Chen Yushan.

After some small talk, Lu Zhou hung up the phone and stuffed it in his pocket. He knocked on Chen Yang's office door and went in.

When he walked into the office, a cloud of chalk dust blew into his face.

Lu Zhou fanned the air and couldn't help but ask, "Why don't you open a window?"

Chen Yang turned around from the blackboard and pushed his glasses up his nose.

"… I forgot."

"Go open the windows, or you're going to get pneumoconiosis… Jesus Christ, it might be better for you to work outdoors."

Chen Yang said in a serious tone, "But if it rains outside, I won't be able to work."

Lu Zhou: "…"

Lu Zhou finally sort of understood why this guy was kicked out of his office.

Chen Yang opened some windows and finally introduced some fresh air into the office.

Lu Zhou looked at the calculations on the blackboard and nodded.

"Are you comfortable working here?"

Chen Yang nodded and said, "It's fine, I don't really care as long as I have a blackboard."

"Good, it seems like you're settling in quite well," Lu Zhou said as he began moving backward. He clearly didn't want to stay in this dusty office for one more second. He said, "I just came to see how you were doing… See you around."

Chen Yang quickly said, "Wait a second."

Lu Zhou: "What?"

Chen Yang: "I have a question I want to ask you… Do you have time now?"

A question?

Lu Zhou was intrigued, so he smiled and said, "Depends on what the question is, go ahead."

"I'm not sure if this will take up too much of your time. In the hyperelliptic curve analysis thesis, you pointed out that rational homotopy theory only applies in intermediate dimensions, so the surgery theory doesn't hold. I tried proving this myself and was inspired by it…"

Chen Yang picked up a pen and began writing on a blackboard.

[…

[… When n is greater than 2, the two n-dimensional complex dimensions intersect X n (d), X n (d '), there exists a differential homeomorphism if and only if their Euler number, total degree, and Pontrjagin class are equal.]

Chen Yang took two steps back and looked at the blackboard. He then said, "If the above holds, we should be able to build a model that converts topological problems to complex analysis problems."

Lu Zhou looked at the blackboard and raised his eyebrows.

This is an interesting problem.

He had thought about trying to solve Riemann's hypothesis using partial differential methods, but he never knew where to begin. If a topology problem could be transformed into a complex analysis problem, maybe he could introduce a differential manifold into the hyperelliptic curve analysis, and something magical could happen.

It's worth a try.

"Does this hold?"

Chen Yang scratched his head. He then shook his head as he said, "I don't know… I think it's true, but I don't know how to prove it."

"It's an interesting problem." Lu Zhou looked at the blackboard and took a picture with his phone. He said to Chen Yang, "I might not be able to give you an answer now, but I'll do some research and get back to you later."

Chen Yang nodded and said, "Sure, I'll try to figure it out on my own as well."

Lu Zhou smiled.

"Good, we'll see who solves it first then."

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A prison in Southern California.

Mason was pushed into a meeting room by two guards.

The thick metal door closed, and the small room was quiet.

Mason's eyes were a little puffy, his hands were cuffed, and he looked exhausted. He stared at the man across from him.

It was a man in his forties, well dressed in an ironed suit, wearing an expensive-looking watch. He dressed like a successful, upper-class person. However, his calloused hands didn't belong to someone who sat in an air-conditioned office all day.

Mason had a vague idea of what was going on, and he grinned from ear to ear.

"I'm guessing you're not my lawyer."

"A lawyer can't save you, but we can." The man in the suit smiled and extended his hand as he said, "Allow me to introduce myself, I'm Brandon Melsen. I'm your boss now."

Like he had just heard a funny joke, Mason placed his cuffed hands on the table and began chuckling.

After a while, he sat up straight and looked at Melsen.

"I'm afraid you're mistaken. I'm a patriotic person, but that doesn't mean I'll be a slave to the White House."

"We're not the White House, we're the CIA."

Melsen's smile disappeared. He reached forward and stared deadly into Mason's eyes. He then sat back down and said, "The court hasn't decided on a sentence yet, but based on the evidence we collected from your home, even if you hire the best lawyer in California, you're going to spend the rest of your life behind bars."

Melsen paused for a second, and he had an evil smile on his face.

"And Mr. Mason, they're going to love you in there."

Mason nervously frowned and said, "What do you mean?"

Melsen smiled and said, "I'm just saying, they love skinny boys like you."

Mason's face turned white.

Beads of sweat began to roll off his forehead.

Melsen smiled with satisfaction and continued, "You'll have time to consider my proposal before sentencing… Of course, if after spending a few months in prison, you decide you want to make a deal. That offer might be off the table."

Mason hesitated for a while before he spoke.

"What do you want me to do…"

Melsen smiled and said, "The CIA is looking for an expert in information technology. If you help us, you won't be put in a prison with those real criminals. Also, if you do a good job, we can reduce your sentence. You could be a free man in five or six years."

Mason hesitated for a long time.

Melsen looked at his watch.

He only planned on giving Mason ten minutes of time.

Fortunately, it didn't take that long.

After three minutes, Mason spoke.

"I agree…"

"Fantastic, we're now on the same team."

Melsen didn't expect Mason to agree so quickly, but he wasn't surprised that Mason took the deal.

The CIA agent leaned back on his chair and said, "I can't get you out of cuffs yet, but I promise you'll be transferred to another facility in three days."

Mason was scared, and he nervously asked, "Where are you bringing me?"

"I can't tell you yet." Melsen folded his arms and said, "Now, I'm going to ask you questions, and you're going to answer truthfully. This is part of the deal."

"Go ahead," Mason said in a defeated voice, "but I have to remind you that even though I'm the leader of Eagle Hunter, I don't know the identities of the members."

Melsen smiled and said, "You mean those buddies of yours? Don't worry, all of them were arrested within half an hour of your arrest… Let me think… Lone Wolf, Hunter, and Kid… but he was arrested in China.

"Some people are on the run, but it's only a matter of time before we catch them. We know who they are. Even if we let them loose, the Chinese will never give up. You should just persuade them to surrender themselves. I'm sure they'd rather be caught by us than the Chinese."

Already…

Been caught?

After hearing Melsen list the IDs, Mason's face turned white. He began to sweat from his forehead, and his eyes were filled with disbelief.

This is impossible!

I thought that, even though I was caught, the others would escape.

But now this guy is telling me all of them were caught within half an hour?

This meant that, not only did Dr. Z hack my computer and servers, but he was also able to hack the other members of the Eagle Hunter group.

Is this guy… even human?

Melsen stared at Mason's eyes and felt something was wrong, so he said, "You have to tell me everything you know."

Mason muttered to himself, "Devil…"

"Devil?" Melsen frowned and said, "I'd advise you to choose your words carefully."

"He's a devil! He's not human…"

Mason's eyes were bloodshot. He grabbed his head with his cuffed hands and said, "This is not something a human can do, it's impossible!"

Melsen said, "Calm down, speak clearly. We think the person you were hacked by was a cyberwarfare expert. We have three suspects, and we need you to confirm…"

Mason suddenly snorted.

He shook his head and said, "Those guys? They're good, but they're not that good. Mr. Melsen, even the best hacker has to follow the rules of physics. Unless someone has superpowers… Listen, I didn't even get a chance to fight back."

Melsen frowned and said, "So what you're saying is, when the person was hacking you, you were powerless?"

If that's true, then maybe we're underestimating China's cyberwarfare capabilities.

Melson heard the words he least wanted to hear…

"Yes." Mason looked at Melsen with his bloodshot eyes and said, "I didn't stand a chance. When he was hacking me, he was still sending me messages to humiliate me… He's the devil."

"I'm an atheist, I don't believe in those things." Melsen shrugged and said, "Then what username did he use when he communicated with you?"

"Did you not watch the news?"

Mason chuckled and spoke.

"His name is Dr. Z.

"It's not like you'll ever find him…"

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"Achoo!"

Lu Zhou was in his Zhongshan International mansion, sitting at his study room desk. He had a pen in his hand.

"Do I have a cold…"

He sniffed and looked at the draft paper in front of him. He gently tapped his pen on the table.

"This is kind of hard."

[… When n is greater than 2, the two n-dimensional complex dimensions intersect X n (d), X n (d '), there exists a differential homeomorphism if and only if their Euler number, total degree, and Pontrjagin class are equal.]

Strictly speaking, this was neither a complex analysis problem nor a partial differential equation problem. It was a unique classification of smooth manifolds.

In fact, this was a fairly popular research direction in differential topology. It was mainly about studying the invariant properties of differential manifolds under homoeomorphic mapping.

However, the problem was that even though Lu Zhou had researched differential manifolds and topology before, he had had little contact with the mathematical branch of differential topology.

One could make the case that he was completely new to this field.

However, this was expected to happen. After all, Chen Yang was researching the Hodge conjecture, which was completely different from his research on Riemann's hypothesis.

He was introduced to this problem only because the hyperelliptic curve analysis method could be used to research the Cauchy-Riemann equations…

"This is not my cup of tea… Should I just give up?"

Lu Zhou pondered for a while, then shook his head. He didn't want to give up just yet.

He was the one who proposed a competition against Chen Yang on who could solve this first. Plus, he wasn't a person who would give up.

Even though differential topology wasn't his area of research, with his knowledge of differential manifolds and topology, he was able to pick up some of the core concepts of the field.

Not to mention that his research on Riemann's hypothesis had reached a bottleneck. Instead of trying to move an immovable object, he decided to venture on other paths.

If he could bridge the gap between topology and complex analysis, he might be able to apply the hyperelliptic curve analysis method to the Riemann zeta function…

"Xiao Ai, bring me a cup of coffee, no sugar!"

Xiao Ai: [But Master, instant coffee already has sugar in it? (ー〃)]

"… Shut up, just bring me the coffee."

[Yes, Master! (・・ *)]

The drone left the bookshelf and flew out of the study room.

Lu Zhou placed all of his attention on the draft paper in front of him.

He opened the pen cap with his thumb and began writing.

[Let f1, …, fr be a homogeneous polynomial of complex coefficients with variables z0, …, zn r. This set of polynomials defines a complex algebraic cluster X in the complex projective space CP (n r) …

[Let X be a complex complete intersection. If the complex dimension of X is n, then when X is a smooth manifold, a smooth complex complete intersection exists. Set X as a 2n-dimensional smooth closed manifold…]

The first step is done.

There was a twinkle of excitement in Lu Zhou's eyes.

He had a slight feeling that he was walking in the right direction.

"Set the smooth closed manifold with dimension 2n, establish an association on the complex projective space…"

Once he was in the zone, ideas began to flow like a river.

Lines and lines of calculations appeared on the draft paper, and soon, the entire draft paper was filled with numbers and symbols.

Time quickly passed by, and draft papers began to pile up on the table.

Xiao Ai was lying on the bookshelf, quietly observing. Ever since Lu Zhou banned Xiao Ai from using his laptop camera, Xiao Ai could only look through the drone camera.

Even though Xiao Ai didn't like seeing its master working so hard, when it came to creative work like this, there was nothing Xiao Ai could do.

The sun gradually began to set.

Lu Zhou turned on his desk light.

However, he didn't seem to be moving in the right direction.

As the sun in the sky gradually disappeared, his writing began to slow down. Beads of sweat began to drip down Lu Zhou's forehead.

This problem wasn't as easy as he had thought.

The deeper he dived into the problem, the more he realized how complex this maze was.

"Ah… why is it so difficult!"

After being stuck again, Lu Zhou turned into a grumpy old man. He scrunched up his draft paper and threw it in the bin.

"This can't be! If the proposition is true, there's no way I can't find a proof…"

He spun the pen in his hand and stared at the draft paper. He began to mutter to himself, "The strange thing is that I can't prove the proposition is wrong either… No matter how many parameters I set, the output is correct."

Lu Zhou sighed and opened his laptop. He logged onto the literature database and typed in a few words.

Rows of research papers appeared in front of him.

Lu Zhou sorted them by the number of citations and selected some of the top-ranking theses.

"There's no way no one has ever researched this problem before…

"I should be able to find similar examples."

Lu Zhou's eyes suddenly lit up when an interesting thesis title caught his eye.

The author of the thesis was Professor Kreck, an expert in the field of partial differential equations and topology. The thesis was published in Annual Mathematics and had quite a few references.

According to its abstract, the main intent of this paper was to improve surgery theory and to transform the problem of manifold classification into an edge group problem.

Lu Zhou was intrigued. He quickly downloaded the paper and began reading it.

After ten minutes went by, he finally finished reading the thesis. He suddenly spoke with excitement.

"This is it!

"I knew it, there has to be research done on this problem before… At least for a similar problem!

"If I can transform a manifold classification problem into an edge group problem… Jesus, this might be the last missing piece of the puzzle!"

Lu Zhou excitedly stood up from his chair and walked to the paper bin. He quickly pulled out the scrunched up draft paper.

"It's just a bit wrinkled, should be alright!"

As Lu Zhou flattened the draft paper on his table, his eyes were filled with determination.

"Let's do this!"

He started to write again.

And this time, he didn't stop until the sun came up…

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931 Sullivan Conjecture

When it came to most mathematical journals, the editors didn't necessarily have a strong academic background. Their job was mainly to check the format and word count of the paper, then contact peer reviewers and make a decision on the reviewers' comments.

However, not all journals were like this.

The Annual Mathematics journal, founded by Princeton, had editors-in-chief who were big-name mathematicians.

For example, former editor-in-chief Peter Sarnak was a great scholar in the field of number theory. He was also the 2014 winner of the Wolf Prize.

Professor Frakes was the editor-in-chief after Professor Peter Sarnak. Even though he had a weaker reputation, his strength was unquestionable. If he were still under 40 years old, he might be able to win a Fields Medal using his research results on differential manifolds.

Of course, the reason why Annual Mathematics chose him as the editor-in-chief wasn't purely because of his academic ability; there were many other factors at play.

Because the research on controllable nuclear fusion was rising in popularity, so was research on plasma physics. Due to the application of the "L-manifold" on solving the Navier-Stokes equations and plasma turbulence problems a few years ago, the research on mathematical fields such as partial differential equations and differentiable manifolds had also seen significant growth in popularity.

Ever since Professor Lu's Navier-Stokes equations report, there hadn't been any outstanding results produced in the field of partial differential equations and differential manifolds. It was like Professor Lu stole all of the magic from the fields himself.

Therefore, Professor Frakes was chosen as editor-in-chief of Annual Mathematics, mainly due to his expertise in the partial differential equation and differentiable manifolds.

This was because an editor was normally biased toward theses that were in his own area of research…

Princeton.

Annual Mathematics editorial department.

Professor Frakes already moved into his new office, and he was struggling with the mountain of work in front of him.

Even though most editors-in-chief didn't take their jobs seriously, Frakes was different. He was at most a decent scholar, especially in a place like Princeton, so he was like an invisible man.

Other people had the luxury of not caring about their editor-in-chief position, but he couldn't. Therefore, he took this job extra seriously, and he even put his research project on hold.

As he sat in front of a computer, one of his PhD students took a sip of coffee and suddenly stared at the computer screen. The student spoke while choking on coffee.

"… Professor, cough! You have a submission letter in your inbox!"

Professor Frakes was busy with other things, so he casually said, "I'll take a look when I'm free."

"But… the author is Lu Zhou."

Professor Frakes stopped typing and stood up. He quickly walked toward the student's desk.

"Give me the computer!"

"Oh, okay…"

Professor Frakes sat down at the computer and double-checked the email address. After he made sure that Professor Lu was the author, he quickly downloaded the attached thesis.

"Let me see what Professor Lu did this time…"

One of the best perks of being an editor of a well-known journal was being able to read about the latest outstanding research.

Professor Frakes opened the new thesis. He was looking forward to this.

However, when he read the abstract, the excitement in his eyes disappeared. A look of disappointment appeared on his face.

The PhD student said, "What's wrong?"

"It's not a new research result, just a supplement to the hyperelliptic curve analysis method." Professor Frakes shook his head and said, "He's beating a dead horse, it's not anything outstanding."

The student said, "… Are we going to reject the submission?"

"No," Professor Frakes shook his head and said, "if it's an important supplementary result, it should be fine… Just leave this to the reviewers. It at least deserves a peer review… Also, print the thesis, I want to have a look."

"Okay, professor."

The printer began to rustle.

Soon the thesis was printed.

Professor Frakes returned to his seat with the warm pages. He drank his coffee while reading the thesis.

Honestly, after reading the abstract, he didn't have any expectations for the thesis.

However, when he got to the third page, he began to mutter to himself.

"… When n is greater than 2, the two n-dimensional complex dimensions intersect X n (d), X n (d '), there exists a differential homeomorphism if and only if their Euler number, total degree, and Pontrjagin class are equal.

"Where have I seen this before?"

This conjecture seemed oddly familiar.

It was almost like a different version of another conjecture…

Professor Frakes stood up from his chair and wrote some equations on a piece of draft paper.

After writing down two lines, he froze.

"…"

This…

Is this…

Professor Frakes's pupils became larger as he stood up from his seat.

"Sullivan conjecture!"

This conjecture was proposed by Professor Sullivan when he was researching the "classification of the simply connected manifolds with limited uncertainty" and "rational homotopy". It was a conjecture in the field of smooth manifolds.

It was also one of the core problems in differential topology!

People outside of differential topology most likely hadn't heard of this conjecture. After all, this conjecture wasn't particularly significant for people in other mathematical branches.

Due to its difficulty, there were very few people researching this problem. Even Frakes, who was a decent scholar in the field of differential topology, couldn't recognize this problem at first glance.

However, Lu Zhou wasn't in the field of differential topology at all, and being able to produce a result like this was unheard of…

Judging from the citations, it was clear that Professor Lu didn't know that his proposition was another form of the Sullivan conjecture.

Professor Frakes was shocked, and his fingers began to tremble.

The PhD student sitting nearby looked at his supervisor and asked, "What's wrong, professor?"

Frakes ignored his student.

His eyes were locked onto the thesis as he muttered to himself with excitement, "Jesus Christ…

"We found a piece of treasure!"

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Jinling Institute for Advanced Study.

An office inside the Institute of Mathematics.

Lu Zhou held his breath and walked into the office. He immediately opened the windows and took a breath of fresh air. He then turned around and looked at Chen Yang, who was standing beside the blackboard with a muddled look.

"The question you gave me the other day was interesting."

Lu Zhou coughed. He had a stack of papers in his hand.

"I did some research, and this is what I got… Oh yeah, your proposition was correct. Seems like your mathematical intuition is quite sharp. If this were any more difficult, it could become a classical conjecture."

Chen Yang looked at the blackboard. He then looked at the stack of papers in Lu Zhou's hand. His face was full of surprise.

"You… solved it?"

"Took quite a while, but not too long. I might have pulled an all-nighter…"

Lu Zhou placed the stack of papers on the table and said, "Speaking of which, do you have coffee? Do you mind getting me a cup."

Chen Yang nodded.

"Ok."

The cup of coffee was placed on the table.

Lu Zhou looked at the chalk dust on the coffee cup and frowned.

"Can't you keep up with the times? You don't like whiteboards, but surely writing on draft paper is the same."

Chen Yang shook his head and said, "Writing on draft paper is soulless."

Lu Zhou: "…"

Chen Yang quickly said, "Can I read the thesis?"

"… Of course." Lu Zhou shrugged and took a sip from the dirty coffee cup. "Go ahead, I came here to talk about this thesis with you."

"Thank you."

Chen Yang placed all of his attention on the thesis and left Lu Zhou aside.

While Professor Chen was reading the thesis, Lu Zhou looked at the row of blackboards in the office.

The calculations on the blackboards were clearly his attempts to prove the proposition.

Unfortunately, Chen Yang was still stuck at the entrance of the maze.

Lu Zhou sighed.

He's talented.

But he's far from my level.

If I knew this proposition was this difficult for him, I wouldn't have stayed up all night trying to solve it. I'm so sleepy…

Ah, it's a lonely world for a genius like me…

Chen Yang suddenly looked up and spoke.

"Impressive!"

Academician Lu really is a legend!

Professor Lu wrote down proofs of things Chen Yang hadn't even thought of.

Chen Yang had a whole new level of respect for Lu Zhou.

He's too nutty!

Chen Yang was totally impressed.

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "You understand it?"

Chen Yang nodded and said, "Understand… most of it. There are some parts I don't get, can you explain it to me?"

Lu Zhou put down his coffee cup and spoke.

"No problem."

Answering Chen Yang's questions didn't take a lot of effort.

Even though this guy might seem a little silly, he had a sharp intuition for mathematics. Lu Zhou only had to give him some general directions and Chen Yang could easily figure out the rest on his own.

This reminded Lu Zhou of one of his Princeton students—Qin Yue. He was also a taciturn, independent scholar. However, Qin Yue was far from Chen Yang's level.

Honestly speaking, Lu Zhou was a little curious about how Chen Yang survived for this long.

For someone with such a low emotional intelligence, how did he not get beaten up?

After answering Chen Yang's questions, Lu Zhou was almost certain that there was nothing wrong with his thesis.

When Chen Yang looked back at the blackboard, Lu Zhou suddenly remembered something.

"Oh yeah, the problem was quite interesting. It integrated easily into the hyperelliptic curve analysis method… Like you said, this hyperelliptic curve analysis has more applications than I had thought.

"I submitted the thesis to Annual Mathematics, is that fine?"

Chen Yang was a little confused, "Why… wouldn't it be?"

Lu Zhou coughed and spoke.

"I don't really care about another thesis, but it should benefit you quite a lot… However, I was the one who solved it, so I wrote you down as the second author… Is that fine?"

Chen Yang nodded.

"Oh."

Lu Zhou: "…"

How did this guy… survive in academia for so long?

The office became quiet.

Suddenly, the phone in Lu Zhou's pocket began to ring.

"Let me take this."

"Okay." Chen Yang nodded and continued to stare at his blackboard.

Lu Zhou walked out of the dusty office and took a breath of fresh air. He took out his phone and answered the call.

"Hello?"

Director Li's voice traveled through the phone.

"It's me!"

Director Li?

Lu Zhou knew that the carbon-based chip report hadn't been written yet, so Director Li should be asking him about something else.

"What?"

Director Li awkwardly smiled and said, "Um, Academician Lu, are you free any time?"

Lu Zhou knew that this guy wanted a favor from him.

It's way too obvious!

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "Depends on what you're asking…"

Director Li: "Nothing big. If you have time, take a trip to Shanghai."

Lu Zhou said, "Why would I go there?"

What the hell is in Shanghai?

Director Li smiled and said, "It's nearly the end of the month. The headquarters of the ILHCRC is about to be unveiled. You're the chairman, shouldn't you go for a visit?"

Lu Zhou: "…?!"

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The phone went silent for a while.

Lu Zhou was shocked by Director Li's words, and he took a while to react.

ILHCRC headquarters building…

Unveil?

Didn't we just finish the meeting? How is the building already built? Unless they already started building prior to the meeting… Wait a second!

Lu Zhou suddenly realized something.

That's not even the most important part!

"The hell is chairman? How come I never heard about this?"

Didn't we say I was going to be a chief consultant?

When did it change to the chairman?

Lu Zhou was totally confused; he didn't even know what to say.

"You didn't hear?" Director Li coughed and said, "… I didn't get to tell you because you left Beijing too soon! But—"

"Don't give me buts!" Lu Zhou said, "I want to know what is going on."

Director Li knew that Lu Zhou was unhappy, he said, "Here's the thing, we couldn't wait any longer. This Lunar Hadron Collider project is going to cost US$20 billion, and there are dozens of countries participating. There has to be a face of the project, right?

"We didn't want to bother you, and we were just going to find some random academician, but the Communist Party of China felt like the Americans won't be happy with that, not to mention they already took a huge hit on the budget committee. You get what I'm trying to say, right?"

Director Li smiled and said, "You should just power through. Just do this for the first term, and after the term is over, if you're too tired, you can get someone else to replace you."

Director Li didn't know what to say.

If this were anyone else, they would gladly jump at the opportunity of being the chairman of such a huge project. They would immediately go to Shanghai.

After all, that was the headquarters of the International Lunar Hadron Collider!

A project that was going to be more significant than CERN!

It wasn't an exaggeration to say that when the collider on the Moon was completed, the Shanghai headquarters would become the future of theoretical physics. The ILHCRC leader would be the leader of theoretical physics.

Being able to serve as the chairman of such a powerful international scientific research organization was more valuable than winning a Nobel Prize, but Lu Zhou was being so reluctant…

In fact, Director Li didn't want to bother Lu Zhou.

However, the problem was that China had never been particularly good at scientific research, especially when it came to the field of theoretical physics.

Sending an academician might not do the job. After all, there were so many Nobel Prize laureates participating in the project, and they wouldn't respect the academician at all.

More importantly, if the chairman didn't do a good job, it was likely that the foreign scholars would take control of the newly built ILHCRC facility.

Therefore, Lu Zhou was the only candidate for the chairman.

He was the only person who could take this role without anyone questioning his ability.

Academician Zhang Wenlong, president of the Chinese Physical Society, personally wrote a letter recommending Lu Zhou as the chairman.

After all, Lu Zhou's "electrostrong interaction" theory was one of the most outstanding theoretical physics achievements of the century.

Lu Zhou was the only person who could serve as the face of China's physics community…

Lu Zhou could tell that Director Li was being serious, but he was a little flabbergasted.

"That's not the best idea, right? I still have my own research projects…"

Director Li immediately cut off Lu Zhou.

"What do you mean it's not a good idea! We're spending ten billion dollars on this! We can't just let those Americans send someone as the ILHCRC chairman, right? I don't care, we have to get someone from our side to serve as the chairman!"

Lu Zhou: "…"

Even though Lu Zhou didn't want to serve as the chairman, Director Li's words resonated with him.

All in all, China was investing US$10 billion on this project, so they couldn't just let someone else control the ILHCRC.

The first few terms of the chairman position had to be served by a Chinese person. They had to take the initiative…

…

Even though Lu Zhou was reluctant, he thought about the big picture and finally agreed to serve as the chairman.

After all, the collider was his idea…

After Lu Zhou got home from the Institute for Advanced Study, he took out his suitcase and began packing the clothes he only recently unpacked from his Beijing trip.

Xiao Ai's drone flew next to him.

Xiao Ai: [Master, are you going on a trip? (•̀•́)]

Lu Zhou looked at the drone and spoke.

"Business trip, why?"

Xiao Ai: [Um, Xiao Ai can't fly outdoors, so can you let Xiao Ai use external cameras? Xiao Ai will get very lonely if Xiao Ai can't see Master…]

Jesus Christ, the retardation is back again.

Lu Zhou coughed and said, "I'll… think about it."

Xiao Ai: [Yay! Master, you're the best! (⃔ * ́ *)]

Lu Zhou: "…"

I didn't even agree.

Isn't it a bit too early to celebrate?

Also, that emoticon looks a bit weird…

Another message popped up on the drone screen.

Xiao Ai: [Master, Master, you have mail!]

Lu Zhou: "Open it for me."

Xiao Ai: [Ok! (๑•̀ᄇ•́)و]

An email was displayed on the drone screen.

Lu Zhou began to read the email.

It was sent from the editorial department of Annual Mathematics and signed off by Professor Frakes, the new editor-in-chief.

The professor wrote in a sincere manner.

[Dear Professor Lu, we have received your submission.

[After reading your paper, I was surprised by your research results. There is no doubt that this is a prominent research result. Although I do have a suggestion. I hope you consider it seriously.

[Theorem 1.0 in your manuscript is one of the core propositions in manifold topology and differential topology. Considering the mathematical significance of this proposition, we hope that you can submit the theorem as a separate paper instead of passing it as a corollary for the hyperelliptic curve analysis method. This will ease the process of future scholars citing this paper…

[In summary, I suggest you modify the thesis.]

Lu Zhou: "…?"

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934 An Accident?

After being in academia for so many years, this was Lu Zhou's first time hearing an editor recommend him to split his thesis into two parts.

Generally, the authors had the habit of splitting their thesis into two or more parts for publication. They would even cite their own theses to increase the number of references. Oftentimes, the editor would ask the author to compile the theses together.

But here, the editor was asking the author to split the theses into two parts…

This was something that was rarely heard of.

"Theorem 1 is one of the core problems in manifold classification and differential topology…" Lu Zhou stared at the email and rubbed his chin. "Sullivan conjecture? The hell is that, I've never even heard of it."

He threw his suitcase aside and went upstairs.

He sat in front of his computer and began searching the database.

Rows upon rows of theses appeared in front of him.

I had no idea.

This conjecture is actually pretty popular.

I don't recognize any of these people. I guess the Sullivan conjecture isn't connected to other disciplines, but it's still an important problem in its own mathematical branch.

This is just like the twin prime conjecture.

No one outside of additive number theory would study that conjecture.

"… Jesus, no wonder it was so difficult. It took me an entire day! It turns out to be an actual mathematics conjecture?"

Basically, the first seven pages of his Annual Mathematics thesis contained the proof of theorem 1. In fact, this theorem proved the Sullivan conjecture for smooth complex manifolds.

This conjecture was about classifying smooth manifolds, and it had been around for more than half a century.

It was one of the core problems in differential topology!

This meant that he solved a half-century-old differential topology problem without knowing it…

After Lu Zhou finished reading the relevant literature, he felt a little shocked.

He was shocked at how nutty he was, but he was also shocked by Professor Chen.

Somehow, Professor Chen was able to connect the hyperelliptic curve analysis method with a classical conjecture in differential topology.

"Regardless… If the Sullivan conjecture is true, then the hyperelliptic curve analysis method can be applied to differentiable manifolds.

"I feel like I took another step forward to solving Riemann's hypothesis.

"I just don't know how many more steps it will take…"

Lu Zhou looked at the computer screen and opened his original thesis. He began reformatting the content.

This part was quite simple. He just had to take out the theorem 1 proof from his original thesis, write a few lines of abstract, and submit it as an independent paper.

Professor Frakes even wrote the thesis title for him.

[Proof of Sullivan's Conjecture on Smooth Complex Perfect Manifolds]

As for his original thesis, he just had to add a reference to this new thesis.

After ten minutes or so, Lu Zhou sent the reformatted theses to Professor Frakes' email.

After that, Lu Zhou was about to send an email to Professor Chen Yang. However, he suddenly remembered that he previously uploaded a preprint to arXiv.

Even though he rarely made edits to his manuscript, it was common practice in academia to also change the arXiv preprints when making new modifications.

Lu Zhou logged onto his arXiv account and was about to upload a new version of the thesis. However, he was shocked by the number of downloads.

22,000 downloads!

"Jesus Christ, it's only been two days! Is there really that many downloads?!"

Normally speaking, a well-written thesis in a popular area of research would have a couple hundred downloads at most.

Theses that had tens of thousands of downloads were theses in popular research fields that had been uploaded a long time ago.

Differential topology wasn't a popular branch of mathematics at all, especially when it came to manifold classification. There were less than 20,000 scholars in the world in this area of study.

Therefore, the number of downloads was a bit abnormal.

There was only one possibility.

Which was that his thesis caused a commotion in other branches of mathematics.

His thesis was so popular that scholars in other areas of research were curious…

Lu Zhou suddenly realized something, and he immediately logged onto his Mathoverflow account.

Just like he had expected, people on this world-renowned mathematics forum began talking about his thesis on the front page…

[Jesus, did anyone see Professor Lu's latest work?]

[I just read it, it's just a corollary to the hyperelliptic curve analysis method… What's so special?]

[That's not the main point! Have you read theorem 1! People outside of differential topology might not know this, but this is another form of the Sullivan conjecture!]

[My friend has a master's degree in differential topology, he said that his supervisor was working on differentiable manifold classification. I asked about his opinion, and he said this thesis is the real deal.]

[Professor Lu really is amazing, how does he casually produce such amazing research results.]

[I feel like I wasted my time learning differentiable manifolds…]

[Perfect, I'll use this as a topic for my discussion class tomorrow.]

After reading the forum posts, Lu Zhou sighed.

"These people are so boring."

Why don't they use their time to research something themselves?

It's just some random conjecture…

What's the big deal…

Lu Zhou closed his browser and placed his laptop aside.

Annual Mathematics was going to find a qualified reviewer for the peer-review process.

What he had to do now, was to prepare for his trip to Shanghai…

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The last Friday in February.

With a backpack on his back, Lu Zhou embarked on a jew journey.

This time, he was going to Shanghai.

According to Director Li, during the beginning of last year, the state conducted a bidding war for the ILHCRC building project.

By the middle of last year, the construction officially began. The main building had already been completed.

Actually, the Communist Party of China had a backup plan. If the international negotiations didn't go well, they would remove the "I" and change the name to LHCRC.

Fortunately, due to the controllable nuclear fusion negotiations and the successful mission of the Mars Rescue team, China's international reputation and image had greatly improved. Thus, the international negotiations went smoothly.

Now that the ILHCRC organization was established, various departments had begun moving into the newly-built building.

As the appointed chairman, Lu Zhou had two things to do in Shanghai. One was to unveil the new headquarters, and the other was to delegate work for various departments.

After all, top physicists and researchers around the world came all the way here to work on the project. Lu Zhou couldn't let that go to waste.

Even though the collider was still in the construction stage, there was still research work to be done. They also had to set some by-laws.

Lu Zhou, who had handled many large-scale scientific research projects before, was more than confident to perform his duties. However, he brought Luo Wenxuan with him just in case.

Because Luo Wenxuan often visited CERN with Witten, he was familiar with CERN's operations. If there was anything Lu Zhou forgot about, he could rely on Luo Wenxuan to help him.

More importantly, Lu Zhou still lacked a successor.

He didn't want to stay as chairman of the ILHCRC for three terms.

Therefore, he planned on giving the role to Luo Wenxuan…

Lu Zhou got in the high-speed rail and sat down in his business class seat. He adjusted the seat to a comfortable angle and took out his laptop. He began working on the PowerPoint slides that he started last night.

This PowerPoint was regarding the various departments' responsibilities and would be presented to the department heads.

The entire physics community had their eyes on Shanghai.

Even though he didn't like doing PowerPoints, considering the fact that this project was going to affect China's physics community, he had to put his head down and bear through it…

He was looking at the PowerPoint slides when he suddenly received two WeChat messages on his phone.

They were from Luo Wenxuan.

[ (shocked.jpg)]

[You're already on the train?!]

Lu Zhou looked at the message and replied.

[I'm arriving in an hour, when are you coming?]

Luo Wenxuan: [Tomorrow! I'll come tomorrow! I have some personal stuff to deal with… Just give me a day. Speaking of which, the unveiling ceremony of ILHCRC is in three days, right? Why are you going so early?]

Lu Zhou: [There are also other things to do prior to the unveiling ceremony. I plan on organizing a meeting with all of the department heads… What are you doing?]

Luo Wenxuan: [Uh, something important.]

Luo Wenxuan: [I have to go, see you later!]

Lu Zhou: "…"

Why do I feel like…

This guy isn't the best person to be my successor…

Should I have a backup person?

While Lu Zhou was thinking, Xiao Ai's message popped up on his screen.

Xiao Ai: [Master, Master, can Xiao Ai turn on Luo Wenxuan's laptop webcam? (* ́ *)]

Lu Zhou immediately said, "No, I told you, don't abuse your powers."

Even though he was curious about what Luo Wenxuan was doing, Lu Zhou didn't want to spy on him.

Xiao Ai: [Oh, okay… ( ̄ ̄;)]

Lu Zhou: "…"

Why does this thing love hacking into laptop cameras so much?

How did it develop this bad habit?

Lu Zhou felt that, as Xiao Ai's owner, he should take the time and give Xiao Ai a lesson. Otherwise, something bad could happen in the future…

…

After a two-hour train ride, Lu Zhou got off at the Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station.

When he and Wang Peng walked out of the train station, they saw a black Audi that was parked at the exit.

The driver immediately walked out of the car and helped Wang Peng put the suitcase in the trunk. The driver then gave Wang Peng the keys.

"These are for you."

"Okay."

Wang Peng sat in the driver's seat and looked at Lu Zhou through the rearview mirror.

"Going straight to the hotel?"

"Yeah, sure."

Wang Peng nodded and set the GPS to the hotel destination.

Lu Zhou sat in the back seat. He closed his eyes and wanted to rest for a while. However, the second he began to doze off, he received a call from his phone.

He picked up the call and heard a joyful voice.

"I looked at your friends' news feed, you're in Shanghai?!"

Lu Zhou yawned and could tell it was Chen Yushan.

"Yeah, why?"

Two hours ago, he posted a picture of the train to his friends' news feed.

Chen Yushan: "What a coincidence! I'm also in Shanghai!"

Lu Zhou said, "You're here?"

"Yeah, I have to go, but I'll send you my coordinates. Check your WeChat."

Before Lu Zhou could respond, the phone call ended. After that, he received a location message from his WeChat.

Coincidentally, he wasn't far from Chen Yushan's location. He just had to turn right at the traffic lights and drive two blocks.

Lu Zhou looked at Chen Yushan's message and sighed. He then spoke to Wang Peng.

"Don't go to the hotel."

Wang Peng said, "Then where?"

Lu Zhou: "I sent the location to your phone, I think it's a coffee shop… It's not far from here."

"Okay."

Wang Peng nodded without asking why. He merely turned the steering wheel and began to drive toward the new destination…

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A well-decorated cafe was sitting on the corner of a commercial street.

Judging from the decoration and the colored chalkboard at the entrance of the cafe, the owner was likely a hipster. There weren't a lot of people in the cafe.

Lu Zhou pushed open the glass door and walked in. He saw Chen Yushan sitting by the window waving at him.

Her appearance hadn't changed since Chinese New Year. She was wearing a beige coat, a white sweater, and knee-high black boots.

Chen Yushan wasn't the only person there.

Lu Zhou saw an unexpected acquaintance sitting next to her.

"Long time no see, Academician Lu." The woman sitting next to Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Thanks for taking care of my daughter."

"Mrs. Yang, you're too kind." Even though he was surprised to see Mrs. Yang here, Lu Zhou tried to act unfazed. He politely smiled and said, "Academician sounds too formal, just call me Professor Lu."

This woman was none other than Mrs. Yang Danqi, the mother of Lu Zhou's former student.

Seven years ago, Lu Zhou was still worrying about his living expenses and tuition fees. This woman helped him a ton. They barely kept in touch after he went to study at Princeton and Han Mengqi graduated from high school.

He didn't expect to see her today.

Chen Yushan smirked and spoke.

"Okay okay, enough small talk, it's not our first time having coffee together. What do you want to drink? I already ordered."

Lu Zhou: "Mocha, please."

Chen Yushan raised her arm.

"Waiter, a mocha, please."

When Lu Zhou didn't have access to instant coffee, a cup of mocha was his second choice.

The creamy chocolate masked the bitterness of the coffee, making it more palatable for him.

Lu Zhou took a sip of his mocha.

Chen Yushan looked at Lu Zhou curiously and finally asked, "Why are you in Shanghai?"

"I have some stuff to do at the ILHCRC. I didn't want to come, but they made me." Lu Zhou looked at Chen Yushan and said, "What about you? I didn't know you were in Shanghai."

Chen Yushan pouted and said, "Wow, I knew you never cared about me. You don't even look at my posts on WeChat."

Lu Zhou: "…"

What do you mean?

Do you know how busy I am, who has the time to look at your posts…

Seeing Lu Zhou speechless, Chen Yushan sighed and said, "Okay, whatever, remember that plan I told you about last time?"

Lu Zhou nodded and said, "Yeah… Is this related to that?"

"Sort of," Chen Yushan said. Because her auntie was here, she didn't elaborate on the details. She briefly said, "Basically, the state wants to invest capital in high-tech industries. There's a high-tech innovation and investment summit happening in Shanghai. It's quite big, and a lot of Chinese and Asian companies are attending.

"I received an invitation from GAZE—General Association of Zhejiang Entrepreneurs—so I came here as a representative of Star Sky Technology."

High-tech innovation and investment summit?

Sounds interesting, I wonder what it's about.

Lu Zhou looked at Mrs. Yang and spoke.

"Mrs. Yang, are you going as well?"

Yang Danqi nodded and said, "I'm an old member of GAZE, so I received an invitation as well. Even though my business has little to do with technology, I'm taking this as an opportunity to catch up with Chen Yushan."

Chen Yushan smiled and said, "What do you think? Do you want to come check it out? It's quite interesting."

"I'm good." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I don't even have an invite, so it's not a good look if I do."

Yang Danqi smiled and said, "Professor Lu, you must be kidding, you don't need an invitation."

Chen Yushan nodded and said, "Yeah, yeah, if you want to go, I can get you an invitation right now."

Lu Zhou looked at Chen Yushan and didn't know how to respond, so he shrugged and spoke.

"If I'm available… I can go."

"So, it's settled then." Chen Yushan smiled and said, "Which hotel are you staying at? I'll go find you, we'll go together!"

Mrs. Yang elbowed Chen Yushan and said, "Hey, you're just going to ditch your auntie like that?"

Chen Yushan awkwardly said, "We can go together, I didn't say I'm ditching you. We'll go pick up Lu Zhou together…"

Mrs. Yang smiled and shook her head.

"Okay, okay, you millennials can do your thing, I won't third wheel you two. I'll just go catch up with some of my old friends."

"Auntie, you're the best!"

"Okay, okay, fine."

Chen Yushan was grabbing Mrs. Yang's arm while giggling. Judging from Mrs. Yang's smile, she seemed quite fond of Chen Yushan.

Lu Zhou didn't know what to say.

This chick…

I didn't say I was going to go…

What if I'm busy that day?

But…

This high tech summit does sound interesting.

Lu Zhou had been to many academic conferences, and he wondered what the capital investment conferences were like.

If he didn't have to do anything himself, he was quite interested in going and watching on the sidelines.

Lu Zhou made up his mind.

If I'm not busy, I'll try to go…

While Chen Yushan was excitedly telling Lu Zhou about what this summit was about, a silver plane all the way across the Pacific Ocean landed at the airport in New York.

Xiao Tong got off the plane with her suitcase and headed toward the place her brother once worked and studied at…

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Princeton dorms.

A silver car appeared around the corner and parked at the entrance.

Qin Yue turned off the engine and spoke.

"We're here."

Xiao Tong unfastened her seat belt and politely said, "Thank you for picking me up."

Qin Yue smiled and said, "You're welcome, do you need help with your luggage?"

When Qin Yue was studying in Princeton, Lu Zhou helped him with a ton of things. Now was finally his chance to return the favor.

However, just like her brother, Xiao Tong didn't like to receive help from others. Xiao Tong immediately and euphemistically declined Qin Yue's offer.

"No, thanks, I got it."

Qin Yue nodded and said, "Okay then, if you need anything, call me."

"Okay, see you later."

"Take care."

After saying goodbye to Qin Yue, Xiao Tong went to the dorm reception and collected her keys. She then dragged all of her stuff upstairs.

She applied for the student accommodation online, and this place was well furnished and ready to go.

After Xiao Tong went into her room, she spent two hours unpacking and tidying. She then took her documents and went to Nassau Hall, which was Princeton's administrative building.

This actually wasn't her first time in Princeton.

A few years ago, she came here for two months after graduating high school. After her vacation was over, she went back and began studying at Jin University.

Back then, her brother was still a Princeton professor. She even remembered his cute, softly spoken assistant.

However, the assistant was too shy, and despite Xiao Tong's attempts at talking to her, they didn't become friends.

"I wonder if she's still here."

After Xiao Tong left the admission office, she returned to her apartment. She lay on her bed and stretched.

"If only I can find her and make friends with her… But then again, she probably doesn't recognize me, right? It's been so many years."

Xiao Tong had had a long day, so it wasn't long before she began snoring.

After traveling for so long, she could finally get a good night's sleep.

She slept peacefully until seven o'clock the next morning. She then yawned and crawled out of bed…

Xiao Tong then looked at her calendar on her phone before going to the bathroom to freshen up. After that, she opened her computer and sent an email to her future supervisor, Professor Krugman.

While she was still preparing breakfast, she received an email.

"Did he already respond?"

She thought that it would take a few days for her supervisor to respond; she didn't expect him to reply within an hour.

The email was short. Basically, Krugman thanked her for choosing Princeton and told her to report to his office when she was ready to begin her PhD studies.

His office address was also included in the email.

She contemplated on whether or not she should wait a few days and settle in before reporting to his office. However, she thought that it would be better for her to go now and leave a good first impression.

Therefore, she quickly finished her breakfast, put on some fresh clothes, and headed out.

Because of her good sense of direction, she easily found Professor Krugman's office in the economics building.

When she entered the door, a sonorous voice came from the office, which nearly scared her off.

"Welcome to Princeton! Are you settling in well?"

Xiao Tong took half a step back and made sure it was indeed Professor Krugman she was talking to. She composed herself and spoke.

"I lived here for a month before, and it's not my first time studying abroad, so I'm quite used to it."

Professor Krugman curiously asked, "Lived for a month? I thought you went to Jin Ling University for your undergrad and Oxford for your master's… Was it for an exchange?"

"Um, not quite… More like visiting a relative?" Xiao Tong said. She didn't expect her supervisor to know this much about her, so she was a little shocked.

"Oh." Krugman smiled and said, "Then I won't have to worry about you getting lost on campus. There's no distinct obvious boundary between the town and the campus, so it's easy to get lost… Wisl, help this student settle in. I have a phone call to make."

"Okay, professor," Wisl said. Wisl was a PhD student with freckles, and he wore a pair of thick-framed glasses. He looked at Xiao Tong and said, "I'm Wisl, a PhD student, nice to meet you."

"… Nice to meet you, I'm Lu Xiao Tong."

Wisl politely shook her hand and spoke.

"Lu Xiao Tong? Come with me."

Wisl brought Xiao Tong to an empty desk by the window, where he said, "This is where you will work. If you have any questions, ask me or Krugman… Or anyone else in the office. We will try to help you, but you'll be on your own for the most part."

Xiao Tong: "Thanks…"

"You should be thanking me. I got off work yesterday when Krugman called me and told me to clean up the empty desk." Wisl shrugged and said, "Normally, the new student would be the one cleaning up the desk… but Krugman seems to have more respect for you."

Xiao Tong awkwardly said, "I could've done it myself."

"It's fine, it doesn't matter," Wisl said nonchalantly. "I'll introduce you to the others in the office."

"Okay…"

Wisl was about to introduce the new student to the other people in the office when Krugman walked into the office with a smile.

"The call is over! I'll handle this, Wisl, you can do your work."

"Oh… okay," Wisl said. He was a little confused why the professor was so enthusiastic, but he still nodded and said, "I'll go work on my thesis… I'll introduce you to them later."

"Okay, thanks."

Xiao Tong nodded and looked at Krugman, who had a warm smile on his face.

Is Princeton always this welcoming?

How come I never heard my brother talk about this…

Professor Krugman walked toward Xiao Tong with a smile and gently spoke.

"I've read your graduation thesis many times. It was well written. Even though there are some flaws, being able to write a thesis like that at your age is impressive. Such talents are rare even in a place like Princeton."

He coughed and spoke.

"Since you have a certain amount of theoretical knowledge, I'll try to cultivate your other abilities… Speaking of which, Xiao Tong, have you attended academic conferences before?"

Xiao Tong: "I went with my supervisor…"

Krugman rubbed his chin and asked, "Was it a good conference?"

Xiao Tong said embarrassedly, "Not really…"

Unfortunately, her previous supervisor, Professor Forster, wasn't a big name in the field of macroeconomics. Forster didn't give her a lot of opportunities in the academic world. Instead, Xiao Tong was given internships at major investment banks.

Back then, Xiao Tong didn't know if she wanted to continue in the path of academia, so she didn't pay attention to the conferences. She only went to some conferences with her supervisor.

"Perfect then!"

Krugman's eyes lit up as if he had thought of a brilliant idea. He said, "There's a macroeconomics conference in Shanghai next week. Attending academic conferences is part of academia, and just listening to the reports will be beneficial. There are many scholars and PhD students attending. If you haven't experienced something like this before, I'll take you."

Xiao Tong noticed that Wisl, as well as the other students in the office, looked at her with jealousy in their eyes.

As a Nobel Prize scholar, Krugman rarely attended conferences with students, unless this student was doing a report at the conference.

But now…

Xiao Tong had been in this office for less than an hour, and she was already receiving "VIP" treatment…

I'm so jealous!

Xiao Tong was a little uncomfortable with everyone looking at her.

"But… I'm not prepared, maybe you should bring someone else."

"It's fine! You don't have to prepare for anything," Professor Krugman said. "One day, you'll publish a thesis at a top-level conference, so you should familiarize yourself with the process. It will greatly benefit you in the future."

Xiao Tong couldn't find an excuse to refuse the invitation.

She obviously didn't want to miss this opportunity.

However, she just flew here from Shanghai, and now she had to fly back with her supervisor…

When Xiao Tong thought about the 20-hour flight, she started to have a headache…

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Nine o'clock at night, Beijing time.

Sheraton hotel, presidential suite.

Lu Zhou stood next to the floor-to-ceiling windows. He was on a call with someone from the other side of the Pacific Ocean.

"I dropped your sister off at her apartment."

"Oh, okay, thanks."

"No worries." Qin Yue smiled and said, "Oh yeah, she's living in a student apartment right now… Should I just let her move into your house? I can rent a smaller apartment near campus anyway."

When Lu Zhou left Princeton, he gave Qin Yue the keys to his house and his Ford Mustang. All Qin Yue had to do was pay the property tax every year.

After all, he needed someone to take care of the house. Because Princeton was in the state of New Jersey, if there wasn't someone looking after the house during winter, it was very likely for a frozen pipe to burst, thus damaging the house.

Lu Zhou had quite fond memories of the fireplace in his own Princeton home.

Lu Zhou shook his head and said, "It's fine, I asked her about this during New Year, and she refused without even thinking about it. But then again, I won't feel safe letting a girl live in a suburban house by herself. If you don't want to live there, just ask Vera or the other professors."

Lu Zhou knew why Xiao Tong refused his offer.

On one hand, she was grateful toward her brother for taking care of her, but she also had a similar personality trait to Lu Zhou, which was that she never liked to receive favors from other people. She wanted to be independent and didn't want to cause any trouble for other people. She didn't want to be a burden to others…

Lu Zhou wanted to tell her that she wasn't a burden.

After all, she was family.

And families were supposed to help one another…

Qin Yue smiled and said, "I didn't say I don't want to live here anymore. With only US$3,000 a year for such a big house, this is probably the cheapest rent in America. I'm just saying, if your sister needs it, I can move out. But you're right. It's not safe for a girl to live off-campus alone."

Even though the student apartments in Princeton were expensive, it was close to campus and had good security. Qin Yue remembered that Xiao Tong's apartment was a two-bedroom. Having a roommate would help her integrate into campus life easier.

After asking some questions about his sister, Lu Zhou changed the subject and casually chatted with his former student.

"How are you doing?"

Qin Yue smiled and said, "I'm doing good, and I'm quite accustomed to life here. All I need is a quiet place to research. The only downside is that you're not here anymore, so I can't ask you for help now."

Lu Zhou: "You're a professor now, you should be the one helping others. Speaking of which, what are you researching these days?"

"Waring's conjecture in additive number theory…" Qin Yue sighed and said, "I hate this problem! I finally realize why there are so few people researching number theory. Most of the time, you think a problem is a number theory problem, then you dive deep into it, and it turns out to be an algebraic geometry problem. Then, you realize that algebraic geometry methods can't solve the problem, so you try to use representation theory, p-adic theory… and of course, your Group Structure Method."

"That's a good thing." Lu Zhou smiled and said, "That's how mathematics progresses. By connecting fields together."

Qin Yue said, "You're right, but as a researcher, this is not fun at all. Sometimes, I wish there was a tool that could tell us what method to use."

Lu Zhou: "I don't think that's possible."

Qin Yue: "Probably."

The conversation suddenly stopped.

Qin Yue felt like Lu Zhou had something to say. However, Lu Zhou was beating around the bush.

Lu Zhou suddenly spoke.

"Is Vera… doing okay?"

Qin Yue sighed and spoke.

"I asked around for you, but I didn't find anything useful. She doesn't want to talk about her condition. She tries to hide from me. I asked Molina, but she didn't want to tell me anything either."

Lu Zhou went silent for a second.

"Okay, thanks…"

He paused for a second and continued, "If she doesn't want to talk, don't force her."

Qin Yue: "I'll talk to you later then?"

"Yeah…" Lu Zhou looked at the clock on the wall and said, "It's getting late here."

Qin Yue hesitated for a bit and said, "Can I ask you a question, I've always wanted to ask this before, it's—"

Lu Zhou: "If it's an academic problem, go ahead…"

Qin Yue sighed and said, "Nevermind then…"

…

Wang Peng was in the room next door, and he had just finished shaving his beard. He sat on the edge of his bed while inspecting his equipment in his suitcase.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps outside his door.

He could tell who it was from the footsteps, so he stood up and opened the door.

"What's up?"

Lu Zhou spoke.

"Want to drink? It's on me."

Wang Peng went silent for a few seconds and said, "I can't drink or smoke on the job, but if you want to drink, I can accompany you."

"What do you mean by that?"

Wang Peng said, "I'll sit on the side and carry you back when you're wasted."

Lu Zhou smiled and shook his head.

"Me? Wasted? Forget about it…"

Lu Zhou turned around and walked toward the elevator. Wang Peng closed the door and followed him. When they got in the elevator, Wang Peng pressed the floor the bar was on.

Lu Zhou looked at him and didn't say anything.

He then walked up to the bar and sat on a stool. He looked at the bartender and spoke.

"Whiskey on the rocks."

"Coming right up."

Wang Peng looked at the bartender preparing the drink and had a feeling Lu Zhou was going to drink a lot tonight.

"The unveiling ceremony is tomorrow, I suggest you take it easy tonight."

Lu Zhou, who normally listened to Wang Peng's advice, gave a surprising answer.

"Cool."

Lu Zhou took the glass from the bartender and began drinking one glass after another…

Lu Zhou didn't remember when he stopped drinking.

When he came back to life, it was already the next morning…

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Lu Zhou had a great time last night.

But waking up in the morning was painful.

The next day, Lu Zhou woke up with a headache from his hangover. Thanks to his strong metabolic function, he felt a little better after taking a shower. He went downstairs and ate some breakfast, then got in the car waiting for him at the hotel entrance.

Lu Zhou sat in the back seat and pinched his forehead.

"What time did I drink until yesterday?"

Wang Peng said, "Early morning… I didn't expect you to wake up this morning."

Lu Zhou: "Nothing but a couple of shots, no big deal."

Wang Peng smiled and said, "… Where to?"

Lu Zhou: "ILHCRC headquarters."

"Okay."

Wang Peng skillfully turned the steering wheel and began driving.

Lu Zhou was leaning against the window. He planned on taking a nap but suddenly remembered how drunk he was last night.

"I drank too much last night, whatever you heard me say, pretend like I didn't say anything."

"It's fine, we all have our bad days." Wang Peng smiled and said, "Do you feel better? Are you ready for the unveiling ceremony?"

Lu Zhou smiled confidently.

"Of course I'm ready.

"This is nothing but a small event.."

…

Actually, it was quite a big event.

Media vans gathered in the parking lot of the magnificent ILHCRC headquarters building, which was situated in the high-tech zone. The entire world had their eyes set on this ceremony.

The crowd surrounded the front entrance of the building. A giant granite stone wrapped in red cloth, which was around five meters high, sat at the entrance of the building.

There were no red carpets, no balloons in the sky, no fireworks. However, no one looked down on the significance of this ceremony.

Scholars concerned about the future of mankind, laymen interested in physics, and politicians concerned about the impact of this project were paying close attention to this ceremony.

Some of them were sitting in front of a TV, others were live at the scene. They all couldn't help but hold their breath.

A man in a suit stood in the center of attention.

He didn't have a script in his hand, only a microphone.

He spoke in a clear and solemn voice.

"First of all, I'd like to thank the scientists, scholars, politicians, and everyone else watching at home for celebrating this glorious moment with us.

"As the chairman of the ILHCRC, I'd like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart!"

The crowd gave a wave of applause.

Lu Zhou nodded and cleared his throat.

"ILHCRC is an international physics research organization, and we are committed to solving problems that will impact our future.

"This project will help us understand the laws of the universe in which we live in.

"I'm honored to stand here and unveil this glorious building!"

Lu Zhou took two steps back and walked toward the granite stone.

He reached out and yanked off the red cloth.

A magnificent line of words was engraved in the stone.

[International Lunar Hadron Collider Research Center]

It was almost like time was frozen.

Then…

The applause and cheers began…

The researchers of the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences excitedly waved their arms, and they even hugged each other with tears in their eyes.

They were going to change history!

They were going to achieve something great together!

This kind of glory overshadowed all personal honors, even the honor of a Nobel Prize. At that moment, they were all in this together, as a team.

Luo Wenxuan was being squished in the crowd, and he nearly dropped his glasses.

Academician Zhang Wenlong, the chairman of the Chinese Physical Society, clapped until his palms began to hurt.

"Finally."

"Yeah," said Fang Shaoping, the director of the Institute of Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He rubbed his eyes and said, "This is a new page for the Chinese physics field."

Academician Zhang Wenlong chuckled.

"Not just the Chinese physics field!

"This is a new page for the world of physics!"

…

The unveiling ceremony was over.

Lu Zhou gently bowed and put down the microphone. A swarm of reporters came forward and extended their microphones.

"Professor Lu, I'm a reporter from Columbia TV, can you tell us why people think the hadron collider is a waste of money?"

Lu Zhou: "I think those people should educate themselves."

"I'm a BBC reporter! I'd like to ask if the ILHCRC chairman position was determined by a vote? Did the ILHCRC consult other nation members on this decision?"

Lu Zhou: "No comment."

With a group of security personnel escorting him, Lu Zhou finally escaped the reporters. Lu Zhou and other ILHCRC staff swiped their gate cards and went into the building.

Suddenly, he saw a glimpse of someone familiar in the crowd.

When the guy noticed Lu Zhou looking at him, he tried to slip away, but Lu Zhou yelled, "Luo Wenxuan!

"I was looking for you during the opening ceremony; you're finally here."

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Since Luo Wenxuan's cover was blown, there was no point in hiding.

Luo Wenxuan awkwardly looked at Lu Zhou and scratched his head.

He felt quite embarrassed about getting caught like this.

He smiled and tried to change the subject.

"What a coincidence, the weather is so nice today, thank god it hasn't rained. There's not a single cloud in the sky. If it were raining, everyone holding their umbrellas would—"

Lu Zhou: "Don't change the subject, where were you?"

Luo Wenxuan coughed and said, "The train was late, then there was a traffic jam…"

"You took the train this morning?" Lu Zhou said, "You just couldn't come to Shanghai a day early? Did you have to wait until the last minute?"

Luo Wenxuan awkwardly scratched his head and said, "Um… I didn't miss out on anything important, right?"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "Nothing important."

Luo Wenxuan patted his chest and sighed in relief.

"Oh, thank god!"

"Thank god my as*!" Lu Zhou said, "There's a press conference at two in the afternoon, and I want you to speak there. Go speak with the PR team, learn what you can say and cannot say to the public."

When Luo Wenxuan heard about the press conference, he jumped up like a bunny and said, "Wait a second! Why am I speaking at the press conference, I'm not—"

Lu Zhou: "Shut up, you should have come here yesterday. You missed out on the department meeting and was late for the unveiling ceremony. This is your punishment."

"No, please," Luo Wenxuan said. "Please forgive me, those reporters are monsters…"

Lu Zhou smiled and said, "I can't, you have to do it. Also, you're part of the reason for the ILHCRC, and you have a good understanding of the Lunar Hadron Collider design. I'm sure you can answer some questions. Think of it as a chance to brag."

Luo Wenxuan said, "What do you mean brag… How about I do the report for your next big research paper. Also, how am I part of the reason for the ILHCRC? It's not like CERN is begging to work with me."

"Enough," Lu Zhou said. "If you can't do this tiny press conference, why would I let you give a report on my research result?"

Lu Zhou walked up and patted him on the shoulder.

"You got this!

"Just think of it as a public speaking exercise!"

For some reason, Luo Wenxuan felt like there was something troublesome waiting for him.

This seems a little suspicious.

It's not like I can ask him.

After a while, he sighed and patted Lu Zhou's hand.

"Okay then.

"I guess I have to do it.

"I'll go prepare."

Lu Zhou: "…"

Motherf*cker, why do I want to punch this guy in the face?!

I'm training him to be my successor, yet he's making it seems like I'm torturing him.

He should be thankful!

Maybe I should get a backup to replace him…

…

Shanghai international airport.

Professor Krugman walked through the crowd with a suitcase in his hand and a hat on his head. He handed his suitcase to the PhD student next to him.

"Wisl, carry this for me!"

Wisl took the suitcase and spoke.

"Okay, professor!"

Professor Angus looked at the crowded airport lobby and said to Krugman, "Jesus, there's so many people here! It wasn't like this ten years ago."

People of all races were crowded inside the airport.

Professor Angus felt like he was in New York.

Professor Krugman smiled and spoke.

"My friend, the world is constantly changing. If you stay in Princeton for the rest of your life, the world is going to leave you behind… Wisl, how about you be a gentleman and carry the lady's luggage?"

Wisl looked at the professor; he was speechless. He quietly went over and tried to grab Xiao Tong's suitcase.

Xiao Tong held on tight to her suitcase and awkwardly spoke.

"… I can carry it myself."

Even though Xiao Tong euphemistically refused Wisl's offer, Wisl still had an angry look on his face.

This old man is using me as a slave!

I knew this was going to happen, but this is so humiliating!

However, his anger quickly disappeared.

When he thought about being able to attend an academic conference with a Nobel Prize laureate and being able to meet the big names of the industry, his anger soon dissipated.

This is nothing!

This will benefit me in the future!

Wisl was no longer jealous of his supervisor's bias toward the new Chinese student. He even felt his shoulders becoming stronger…

I got this!

Xiao Tong didn't notice Wisl's emotions. Instead, she was too busy being confused about Professor Krugman's actions.

Are all Princeton professors this kind?

It wasn't like this when I was in Oxford…

"… By the way, Xiao Tong, aren't you going to call your family and tell them you've arrived safely?"

Xiao Tong replied, "I just called them a few days ago…"

Professor Krugman said in a serious manner, "I know, but you flew again, right? It was a twenty-hour flight! Your family must be worried."

Xiao Tong: "…"

They won't be worried if I don't tell them.

Xiao Tong didn't know what to say.

"I'll call them at the hotel…"

Professor Krugman smiled and said, "Okay! Call them at the hotel… Don't forget."

Xiao Tong nodded awkwardly.

"Okay…"

There's no way I'm calling them. I'm not telling them I'm in Shanghai again.

If my brother knew that I went all the way to Princeton for a whole two days then came back, he would laugh his as* off.

Xiao Tong felt a little weird about Professor Krugman's actions.

"Too bad my brother is in Jinling. He won't be able to see him…"

Xiao Tong shook her head and walked next to her supervisor. She dragged her suitcase on the ground while walking toward the taxi stand…

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