Super God-Level Top Student

Li Jiangao had guessed right; even though the academic conference was to start the next day, and Zhang Chunlei was the special guest speaker, scheduled to take the stage.

He was pulled away after dinner anyway.

Thinking back to a scene at dinner, Li Jiangao wanted to laugh.

A group of professors had let down their guard, taking the initiative to introduce themselves to Qiao Ze.

Of course, Qiao Ze's performance indeed warranted the professors' metaphorical bowing.

Li Jiangao didn't feel any urgency about his prized pupil possibly being poached—in fact, he felt quite the opposite: relieved and relaxed.

With so many people seeing Qiao Ze's shining side, even if there were issues with the school, the kid was guaranteed a spot at a key university, maybe even one better than Xilin University of Technology. In this way, he also fulfilled Qiao Ze's mother's trust in him.

By then, Qiao Ze had already been sent back to his room to go online.

As for what the kid would do on the internet, no one was really worried.

When left to his own devices, this kid had almost completed all the mandatory mathematics courses from university to graduate level, so it was unlikely he'd be browsing anything inappropriate now.

Of course, even if he did, it wasn't a big deal.

Everyone had been through that age.

Since he had almost learned everything he should (and shouldn't), it wouldn't hurt to relax a bit.

...

In the hotel, the 1107 room where Zhang Chunlei stayed was a small one bedroom, one living room suite.

At this time, everyone was gathered in the little living room, preparing to cross-examine Li Jiangao.

"Let's hear it, Li, where exactly did you dig this kid out from?" Zhang Chunlei asked first.

"Ah, you surely won't believe me if I told you. His mother was worried he wouldn't have a school to attend, so she came to our school today looking for Admissions Officer Yu. Just so happened that last night I switched rooms with Yu, and she found me. That's quite a serendipitous encounter, right? Just as I discovered the kid's mathematical talent, I decided to keep him."

Li Jiangao replied truthfully.

"No way? A kid like that with no school to attend? Wait a minute, which high school is he from? I need to call our admissions officer stationed in Xingcheng. This has to be a joke, right?" Zhang Chunlei scratched his head, feeling confused.

"Haha, don't bother. The situation is not what you think. You saw the kid this afternoon; he became quite talkative. You don't know how he was when he first walked into my room with his mother.

Let me tell you, if I hadn't just switched rooms with Yu, I would have never discovered the kid's talent. He didn't even deign to speak a word to the admissions officer. Who would have known he was so gifted and had accumulated such substantial capital!"

Li Jiangao said, laughing.

"Alright, Professor Li, you're boasting now. Since he was so reticent when he first met you, how did you see his shining point? Don't tell me the kid saw some kind of kingly aura in you and approached you to talk about mathematics?" another professor teased with a laugh.

Li Jiangao smiled nonchalantly and replied, "Speaking of which, I should thank Professor Liu."

Sitting in the corner of the sofa, a bespectacled professor who had been silent pointed unconsciously to his nose, surprised, "Thank me? Why? Li, I didn't know that child before, don't talk nonsense. Later, these people will blame me for not introducing such a good talent to them."

Li Jiangao laughed and explained, "Haha, didn't you specially recommend to me on WeChat the day before yesterday the latest paper published by Brandt Ronnier? It's the one published in Mathematics Annual, 'Analysis of a Class of Special Compact Lie Groups.'"

Professor Liu nodded and said, "Yes, I thought the idea in that paper was quite novel. It turned out to be directly applicable to the subject I'm applying for, which could save a lot of trouble."

Taking a deep breath, Li Jiangao continued, "After you told me, I happened to print out that paper before coming here yesterday. When they came to me, I just casually placed the paper on the bedside table. While I was dealing with his mother, I noticed the kid was already reading the paper.

He even said that the proof of Lemma 3 in the paper was incorrect and couldn't be directly applied to four-dimensional space. Because the equation has a unique solution, substituting it directly would result in the paradox where either the hyperplane does not exist or it intersects directly with the lead line.

Well, regardless of whether his judgment is correct or not, wouldn't you all be shocked to hear such a conclusion from a child?"

Professor Liu tugged at the corner of his mouth, momentarily at a loss for what to say.

"The one from the third issue of Princeton's Mathematics Annual? This year's fourth issue hasn't come out yet, right?" At this point, Zhang Chunlei had already taken over the laptop and asked.

"It's the third issue, the second paper. The corresponding author is Professor Ronnier from the University of Illinois." Professor Liu quickly responded.

Zhang Chunlei began to operate on the computer, attracting several heads to lean over.

Meanwhile, Professor Liu took out his phone, seemingly to confirm the situation with Lemma 3 of the paper, while Li Jiangao sat there steadily, sipping tea.

Watching these people act as if they had never seen the world, he found it quite amusing.

Suddenly, Li Jiangao felt he could understand the frustration Qiao Ze had when communicating with ordinary people; it seemed he couldn't blame the child for thinking everyone else was an idiot.

After all, once the intellectual gap between people truly widened to the distance between the intelligence of an ordinary person and that of a dog, that feeling...

Li Jiangao unconsciously shook his head slightly, casting aside these uncomfortable thoughts from his mind.

Qiao Ze was after all developing in a positive direction, and such thoughts about an innocent child should not be entertained.

But could it be true?

Twenty minutes passed, and while Li Jiangao was immersed in this mysterious feeling, most of the professors who had been crowded around reading the paper had lifted their heads, looking at each other in disbelief, until finally Zhang Chunlei lifted his head, surprised, "How could that child have figured out that the equation has a unique solution in four-dimensional space in just about ten minutes?"

Li Jiangao shook his head, responding, "Probably less than ten minutes, more like five or six minutes at most. According to his explanation, he estimated it. Qiao Ze said he just imagined the three-dimensional projection coordinate system of the four-dimensional structure, and then by substituting the coordinates of those points, he could directly make the estimate."

"This..."

"That's impossible, right?"

"No, Professor Li, I feel that's a bit far-fetched... He could just imagine it and then estimate it? Did you verify it?"

"This happened this morning; when would I have had the time to verify it?"

"Enough talking, let's do this: we'll divide the work up. Liu, Li, you two have already looked over the paper, so handle the diagrams; Professors Qian and Xu, you're responsible for recording and writing the algorithm; Professor Chen and I will study the equation set first to identify any gaps, and then we'll move on to verify it on the supercomputer as soon as possible.

None of you will sleep until we get results today, will you?!"

Obviously, the bigwig was getting serious!