My IQ has been increasing year by year.

Chapter 282 at the very beginning

A number of people gradually emerged from the steps in front of the Harvard Science Center.

The sky had darkened, and the streetlights lit up one after another, casting a yellowish glow on the road.

Several European scholars turned up their coat collars, lowered their heads, and walked quickly toward the distant intersection.

Chen Zhuo followed Li Jianming down the street with the flow of people.

Pierre and Arthur walked half a step ahead of them, while Shing-Tung Yau, Xi-Ping Zhu, and Huai-Dong Cao walked at the back.

The group walked through two blocks and turned into a relatively quiet street.

Arthur was familiar with the area, so he walked ahead and pushed open the door of a pasta restaurant.

The bell hanging on the door rang softly.

The noodle shop wasn't crowded, the heating was on full blast, and a few wall lamps were lit against the wall, the light wasn't glaring.

The waiter was a young man with a beard, wearing an apron, who came over.

Arthur said a few words to him, and the young man nodded, walked to the innermost part, and put the two rectangular tables together.

Everyone pulled out their chairs and sat down.

Pierre and Arthur sat on the outer side, while Shing-Tung Yau sat in the main seat.

Chen Zhuo glanced at it, then naturally walked over to Li Jianming's side, pulled out a chair and sat down. He casually moved the pepper shaker and salt shaker in the middle of the table to the side, making room for them.

Zhu Xiping did not sit down immediately.

"I'm going to wash my hands."

Zhu Xiping's voice was a little hoarse. He said something to Qiu Chengtong and then turned and walked towards the restroom at the back of the restaurant.

The bathroom was small, and the exhaust fan overhead made a buzzing sound.

Zhu Xiping walked to the sink, turned on the tap, and put his hands under the running water.

The pads of all ten fingers were covered with a thick layer of white chalk dust.

These are the marks left from a day of intensive simulations on the blackboard.

When I returned to the table, the waiter brought over several glasses of lemonade with ice.

Chen Zhuo reached out and took the tray from the waiter, placing the glasses one by one in front of each person with steady movements, without making any clattering sounds.

Finally, he placed a glass of lukewarm water (without ice) in Zhu Xiping's seat.

"Thanks."

Zhu Xiping pulled out a chair, sat down, and took a big gulp of warm water.

Several menus were on the table.

Nobody reads those fancy menu descriptions.

Everyone was exhausted, and after mental exhaustion, what their stomachs needed was immediate nourishment.

"Three servings of pasta, two ribeye steaks, all well-done, plus a few servings of whole wheat bread."

Li Jianming glanced at everyone's state, closed the menu, and told the waiter the names of the dishes.

The waiter noted down the dishes, took the menu, and left.

The dining table was quiet for a while.

Pierre held a glass of iced water, watching the occasional car drive by on the street outside the window, while Arthur leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes to rest.

Chen Zhuo sat in his seat, looking at Cao Huaidong and Zhu Xiping opposite him.

He could sense that although they were already sitting in the restaurant, these people were not relaxed at all.

Cao Huaidong took off his glasses and placed them on the table.

He stretched out his hands, pinched the corners of his eyes hard with his thumbs and forefingers, and rubbed his aching temples. There were many red blood vessels in his eyes.

"Old Zhu."

Cao Huaidong stopped rubbing his eyes, and without his glasses, he squinted at Zhu Xiping beside him.

Zhu Xiping put down the water cup in his hand.

"For tomorrow morning's show, Taubes didn't say a word today, but he has the clearest view from the front row."

Cao Huaidong's voice was very low, but his pronunciation was very clear.

"He kept working on Hamilton's problem about the extreme region, specifically the boundary of the convergence rate near the singularity. The manuscript was still a bit rough around the edges."

Before the food even arrived, the conversation on the table had already involuntarily returned to the huge blackboard.

Zhu Xiping nodded, his brows furrowing slightly.

"I noticed that too."

Zhu Xiping tapped his fingers lightly twice on the table.

"We made it through today, but tomorrow Taubes will definitely scrutinize the details here. Just because he doesn't ask doesn't mean he's given up."

Yau Shing-Tung sat in the main seat, holding a water glass in one hand, listening attentively to their conversation without interrupting.

"The limit derivation on page 120 of the manuscript."

Cao Huaidong put his glasses back on and looked at Zhu Xiping across the table.

"We can't wait for him to make his move. Tomorrow at the start of the session, you go over the derivations from those pages on the blackboard again."

"OK."

Zhu Xiping readily agreed.

"I'll go back tonight and mentally calculate the scaling range of that coefficient again. As soon as I take the stage tomorrow, I'll seal the door shut."

What was an incredible victory to outsiders during those three hours of defense today was, in their own eyes, merely the first hurdle in a long battle.

Tomorrow, the day after tomorrow, next week.

In this lecture hall at Harvard, every day is a precarious defensive battle.

Hundreds of pages of manuscripts could be scrutinized at any moment with a magnifying glass, with a tiny crack being pointed out, forcing them to fill it in on the spot on a blackboard.

The waiter came over with a tray and placed several baskets of freshly baked whole wheat bread in the middle of the table, with slices of butter next to them.

Li Jianming took a piece of bread and handed it to Chen Zhuo next to him. Chen Zhuo took it, whispered a thank you to his teacher, tore off a small piece, put it in his mouth, and chewed slowly.

Pierre sat up straight.

He picked up a slice of bread, took a bite without butter, swallowed it, then picked up the glass beside him and took a sip of water.

Pierre's gaze swept across the dining table and landed on the exhausted Zhu Xiping. He looked at him for a moment, then turned to look at Qiu Chengtong, who was sitting in the main seat.

"mound."

Pierre spoke, his voice tinged with curiosity.

Yau Shing-Tung raised his eyelids and looked at Pierre.

"I always thought that your Chinese teams now prefer algebra or pure geometry."

Pierre put down the half-eaten bread he was holding.

"I really didn't expect that someone could derive the partial differential equations of Ricci flow with such terrifying proficiency as they do today."

Pierre glanced at Zhu Xiping's hands, which were still slightly red.

"Without looking at the manuscript, I immediately set up the blackboard and calculated the convergence boundary."

Pierre shook his head.

"This kind of fundamental analytical skill cannot be developed in just a few years."

The people at the table stopped what they were doing.

Arthur also opened his eyes and looked at Shing-Tung Yau.

This was also a question that lingered in his mind. Prior to today's presentation, the international mathematics community knew very little about the background of this Chinese team.

Shing-Tung Yau leaned back in his chair.

He didn't puff out his chest, nor did he show any pride or self-satisfaction on his face.

He simply stared at the bread basket on the table, his gaze calm.

"1995".

Yau Shing-Tung slowly began to speak, stating a year.

Pierre and Arthur listened quietly.

"That year, I invited Hamilton to China."

Yau Shing-Tung's voice was soft, as if he were recounting a very ordinary past event.

"He lectured in China, talking about his Ricci flow. My idea at the time was very simple: I wanted to build a team in China to work on the Poincaré conjecture with him."

Yau Shing-Tung picked up his water glass and took a small sip.

But no one answered.

Yau Shing-Tung put down his cup and glanced at Pierre across from him.

"Back then, there were quite a few people in China working on partial differential equations, but the computational load in Ricci flow was too large; it was all very difficult."

Yau Shing-Tung spoke in a very calm tone.

"Everyone knows this is a quagmire where you might never achieve anything in your entire life. If you don't produce results, you won't get any papers, and you won't get a teaching position. Who would dare gamble their entire academic career on a dead end?"

Upon hearing this, Arthur simply sighed silently.

In the end, only Old Zhu accepted it.

Yau Shing-Tung turned his head and glanced at Chu Hei-Ping, who was sitting next to him tearing bread with his head down.

"He originally worked on simple partial differential equations, but because of Poincaré, he changed direction and plunged headlong into differential geometry."

Shing-Tung Yau continued.

"Starting in 1997, he would visit me at the Chinese University of Hong Kong every year, and we would stay in his office for half a year at a time."

Yau Shing-Tung didn't describe how they stayed up all night, nor did he describe how high the pile of discarded draft papers was.

He simply stated the time and place.

Ten years, six months each year, relentlessly pursuing our goals.

Pierre's eyes flickered slightly upon hearing this.

He looked at Zhu Xiping again. The Chinese scholar in an ordinary suit was calmly eating his bread, as if the person Qiu Chengtong had just mentioned was not him at all.

"Ten years of time to gamble on a topological trap left by someone else."

Arthur shook his head gently, a hint of emotion in his voice.

"In today's academic world, this is practically like an ascetic practice."

Zhu Xiping swallowed the bread in his mouth.

He picked up a napkin to wipe his hands, then looked up at Arthur and Pierre across from him.

There was a slightly embarrassed smile on his face, a unique expression of someone who hasn't interacted much with the outside world in a long time, when they hear others talking about them to their face.

"It's not that bad."

Zhu Xiping's voice was still hoarse, but his tone was very reassuring.

"Scholarship always has to be done by someone. Hamilton paved such a long road ahead and built all the pipes. If the pipes burst, we can't just stand by and watch it leak."

He paused, then picked up the glass of warm water in front of him.

"We just patched it up and got it done."

After Zhu Xiping finished speaking, he took a sip of water and then fell silent.