My IQ has been increasing year by year.

Chapter 305 Before the Singularity

Pierre and Professor Arthur were standing there.

Pierre was wearing a dark knit sweater, holding a cup of black tea, and looking down at the fallen leaves in the square outside. He had faint dark circles under his eyes, but his expression remained calm.

Professor Arthur's condition was much worse.

He leaned against the wall, his hair disheveled, holding a half-finished cup of black coffee, his face showing the exhaustion of someone drained by long hours of intense mental work.

Hearing footsteps, Pierre turned his head.

"Professor Qiu."

Pierre greeted him with a smile, then his gaze fell on Chen Zhuo, who was standing next to Shing-Tung Yau.

Arthur also looked up, and the moment he saw Chen Zhuo, his previously listless eyes brightened slightly.

"Look who this is."

Arthur straightened up, pointed at Chen Zhuo with the finger holding the coffee cup, his tone filled with undisguised teasing and complaint.

"That algebra genius who saw through the illusions of the world, abandoned us to suffer in this continuous manifold hell, and ran back to the hotel to live a carefree life, has finally shown up today?"

Arthur walked over and looked Chen Zhuo up and down.

"You look great. Is the bed in the hotel much more comfortable than the folding chairs in the lobby?"

Chen Zhuo smiled faintly.

"The bed is indeed quite comfortable, Professor Arthur."

Chen Zhuo stopped and took over the conversation in a gentle tone.

"But I slept for too long, and my bones are a bit sore, so I came out for a walk."

"Want to go for a walk?"

Arthur glared.

"You want to come out and walk around the Harvard Science Center? This place is the most torturous place in all of Boston right now."

Arthur sighed, raised his coffee cup, and took a big gulp. The bitter taste made him frown.

"Partial differential equations, this meat grinder, have been turning my brain upside down these past few days. You're smart, though, you spotted the quagmire and slipped away before it got too far."

Chen Zhuo shrugged as he looked at Arthur's dejected appearance.

"I had dinner with Professor Zhu the day before yesterday, and I promised him that I would sit in the front row and listen attentively to his lecture on the most crucial lemma of Ricci flow today. I always keep my promises."

"Attend a lecture?"

Arthur shook his head.

"I hope that when you sit in the front row later, you won't be hypnotized by those densely packed partial differential equations on the blackboard."

Pierre listened quietly to the two bickering.

He held his teacup, his gaze lingering on Chen Zhuo's face for a moment.

Pierre took a step forward, separating himself from Arthur, and stood in front of Chen Zhuo.

The two exchanged a glance.

Pierre gently swirled the teacup in his hand.

"Sent it?"

Pierre's voice wasn't loud, just loud enough for Chen Zhuo to hear.

Chen Zhuo nodded.

"Sent."

Chen Zhuo's voice was equally calm.

"Page 15. I just sent it to Dean Cyril using the apartment's fax machine this morning before I left home."

Pierre's hand paused slightly.

Pierre looked into Chen Zhuo's clear eyes and smiled helplessly.

He let out a long breath, reached down and took off his reading glasses, then rubbed his temples with his thumb.

"Cyril probably won't be able to drink his coffee this morning again."

Pierre put his glasses back on, a smile of satisfaction mixed with a touch of melancholy playing on his lips.

"What a coincidence."

Chen Zhuo put his hands in his coat pockets, his tone devoid of any arrogance.

"Compared to Professor Zhu and the others performing surgery on stage and forcibly suturing the singularity, what I did was just skipping class and avoiding the most difficult muddy road."

"Mathematics only looks at the result, not the source."

Pierre picked up his teacup.

"Your skill lies in being able to go around it and pave the way."

Beside him, Shing-Tung Yau listened quietly to their conversation.

The old man didn't interrupt, but his smile grew wider and wider. He looked at Chen Zhuo as if he were looking at a priceless treasure.

Just then, a few people walked out of the corridor on the other side of the rest area.

Li Jianming was walking at the very front.

He was wearing a slightly wrinkled shirt with a dark jacket over it, his hair was messy, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was clutching a sheet of draft paper covered with calculations.

Following behind Li Jianming were Professor Zhou from Peking University, and two other top scholars from China.

Their condition was similar to Li Jianming's; each of them exuded the fatigue of working through the night.

As Li Jianming walked, he kept looking down at the draft paper in his hand and muttering to himself.

"Old Li."

Professor Zhou quickened his pace, patted Li Jianming on the shoulder, and then pointed to the direction of the rest area ahead.

Li Jianming stopped and looked up in the direction Professor Zhou was pointing.

He spotted Chen Zhuo standing next to Pierre immediately.

Li Jianming paused for a moment, then tucked the draft paper under his arm and strode over.

"teacher."

Seeing Li Jianming approach, Chen Zhuo took two steps forward to greet him, bowed slightly, and said hello.

Li Jianming walked up to Chen Zhuo and looked him up and down.

"Where have you been these past few days?"

There was no blame in Li Jianming's tone, only the concern of a teacher for their favorite student.

"I saw you at the conference a couple of days ago, but I haven't been able to see you at all these past two days. I thought you were sick in the hotel because of the change in environment."

"I'm not sick."

Chen Zhuo smiled gently.

"I stayed in the hotel for two days and thought about some things. Today, Professor Zhu is lecturing on the core lemma, so I came to listen."

Li Jianming stared at Chen Zhuo for a while.

He knows this student he mentored all too well.

Chen Zhuo said he was thinking about something in the hotel, so it was definitely not just ordinary random thoughts.

Li Jianming didn't ask him what he was thinking. At the demonstration of the Poincaré conjecture, everyone's mind was like a taut string, and sometimes the more you asked, the more confused you became.

"It's good that you're not sick."

Li Jianming nodded and patted Chen Zhuo's shoulder twice.

"You really should have come to this class today. Old Zhu and Old Cao have been risking their lives lately. Today they're going to gather an important variation of the Ricci flow at the singularity. This is the toughest of the tough."

Li Jianming turned his head and glanced at the closed door of the No. 1 lecture hall on the other side of the lobby.

"Find a seat near the front later. This level of continuous derivation will be beneficial for your future work in algebraic geometry."

"I've got it."

Chen Zhuo nodded in agreement.

Professor Zhou also came over from the side.

He nodded to Pierre and Shing-Tung Yau, then looked at Chen Zhuo with a slightly tired smile.

"We old bones are rolling around in the mud, while you young man are enjoying a life of leisure."

Professor Zhou made a joke, then his tone became more serious.

"Old Zhu's appearance on stage today is a tough battle for the Chinese mathematics community in Boston. It's good that you're here. Sit in the audience and add some momentum to our own people."

"Okay, Professor Zhou," Chen Zhuo said.

The voice just fell.

A clear electronic notification suddenly came from the loudspeaker at the top of the hall.

Hey~

The sound wasn't loud, but in that instant, it seemed to have some kind of magic, pausing all the arguing, discussions, and footsteps in the hall.

Immediately afterwards, a deep, calm female voice came over the loudspeaker and announced the same thing in English.

The door to Lecture Hall No. 1 is about to open, and the demonstration report on the Poincaré conjecture will officially begin in ten minutes.

The notification tone has ended.

The scholars who were originally sitting in the coffee shop, leaning against the corridor, or even sitting on the stairs all stood up silently.

Everyone tidied up their draft papers, tucked them into the handouts, and crushed their empty coffee cups, throwing them into the nearby trash can.

Then, like rivers flowing into the sea, the crowd spontaneously and quietly surged toward the two doors of the No. 1 lecture hall.

"Let's go."

Yau Shing-Tung switched the lecture notes to his left hand and patted Chen Zhuo's arm.

"They're inside."

Pierre also put down his teacup.

Chen Zhuo nodded and followed Qiu Lao and Pierre, joining the flow of people heading towards the lecture hall.

The door to the No. 1 lecture hall had already been pushed open by staff.

Chen Zhuo followed Qiu Chengtong and walked down the corridor to the very front.

First row.

This position is reserved for the core team and the top experts.

Old Qiu sat down in the center, and Chen Zhuo did not refuse, taking the empty seat next to Old Qiu. Pierre sat on the other side of Chen Zhuo.

People gradually filled the surrounding area.

The sounds of turning pages echoed in the spacious lecture hall.

A few minutes later.

The side door next to the lecture hall was pushed open.

Professor Zhu Xiping and Professor Cao Huaidong walked in one after the other.

The noise in the auditorium quickly subsided until it was completely quiet, with only hundreds of eyes fixed on the two people on the stage.

Zhu Xiping walked to the center of the podium.

He placed the manuscript on the lectern, without looking at the audience or making any opening remarks.

He simply looked up and glanced around the first row.

His gaze swept over Shing-Tung Yau, over Pierre, and finally lingered on Chen Zhuo's face for a moment.

Professor Zhu's serious and tired face softened slightly.

He nodded slightly in Chen Zhuo's direction.

Chen Zhuo didn't speak, but simply sat there and nodded slightly in return as a junior.

After a brief exchange of glances.

Zhu Xiping withdrew his gaze.

He turned around and picked up half a piece of white chalk from the lectern.

He faced the huge blackboard and took a deep breath.

There was no microphone, and no further explanation.

Zhu Xiping raised his hand and the chalk landed heavily on the upper left corner of the blackboard.