Chapter 401

Xu Qingzhou had seen through Song Yao.

He discovered that who was the hunter and who was the prey seemed indistinguishable now; they were fishing for each other, and both were taking the bait.

Sighing inwardly, Xu Qingzhou, adhering to the principle of cooperating when one should, asked with a smile, "Do you want to drink something?"

Song Yao handled the situation perfectly, giving a cold, aloof "Mm."

Xu Qingzhou nodded, but then remembered that the school beauty Song was on her period at the beginning of the month, so he confirmed first, "Are you... okay with drinking alcohol these few days?"

"I'm fine."

Song Yao continued to speak with cold aloofness.

"The supermarket ones are too much of a rip-off, let's buy some outside."

Xu Qingzhou understood immediately, pushing the shopping cart and following behind her happily.

Song Yao walked in front, her steps light and quick, her high ponytail swinging.

Xu Qingzhou looked at the slender back in front of him and clicked his tongue. When this girl was being cold and aloof, she looked completely like someone who didn't eat the food of mortals; who could see the ferocity with which she would pin him to the sofa and ravage him?

Finally, when paying, he pulled a box of condoms from the side and threw them in.

Tonight was destined to be a bloody battle; taking more equipment was just being prepared.

The two of them came out of the supermarket, Xu Qingzhou carrying two large bags of things, muttering to Song Yao, "You clearly have a lot of strength too."

"I'm a girl." Song Yao held a cup of milk tea.

"Before, someone could lift a suitcase weighing dozens of jin, but now..."

Xu Qingzhou didn't continue, because his girlfriend had already raised her right hand and gestured with a fist. Truth be told, this little bit of stuff wasn't heavy; he just purely wanted to tease Song Yao.

She had just said she was a delicate little girl, and a few sentences later, she broke character.

Song Yao bit the straw and thought back carefully; after having a boyfriend, she seemed to have really become lazy. In high school, she did everything herself.

But...

She had a boyfriend now.

Before, there was no choice; now there was this guy.

She glanced at the boy beside her.

His expression was calm, he wasn't even panting, he wasn't tired at all; he was clearly just looking for a beating.

"I want to drink too."

"You just said you didn't want any."

"Just one sip."

Song Yao handed her milk tea to Xu Qingzhou's lips, and then watched as this person took a huge gulp, leaving only a third of the milk tea in the cup.

"Xu Qingzhou!"

Song Yao glared.

"Gulp~"

Xu Qingzhou swallowed the milk tea and looked at Song Yao innocently: "What's wrong with me?"

"..."

At the intersection, the two of them then went to a red wine specialty store to buy a bottle of red wine.

6:00 PM.

The hot pot in the living room was already bubbling with steam.

Next to it sat a four-inch small cake.

Lighting candles, blowing out candles, making a wish.

The two of them had quite a strong sense of ritual.

Xu Qingzhou asked with a smile: "Happy birthday... what wish did you make?"

"For our parents to be healthy and safe; the second wish, Teacher Xu, I made it for you."

Song Yao's eyes were crystal clear when she spoke.

"Made it for me?" Xu Qingzhou was a bit moved and couldn't help asking: "What did you wish for?"

Song Yao's tone was gentle, "Mm, I hope I can beat you up every day."

"..."

"Teacher Song, your second wish is a bit perverted." Xu Qingzhou was speechless, not knowing what kind of wish this was for him. What was certain was that this girl's wish definitely wasn't this.

Song Yao hummed lightly, cut the cake—a four-inch small cake was just right for two people—picked up a dollop of cream and licked it, squinting her eyes to feel the happiness brought by the sweetness.

The first wish was true; she hoped her parents, Aunt Wang, and Uncle Xu would all be healthy.

The second one was very simple, purely a little girl's wish; she just hoped that she and Xu Qingzhou could be together forever.

Halfway through eating, they received a call from Song Shisong and Zhang Junli. Seeing their daughter having hot pot and cake, the couple felt much more at ease.

Wishing their daughter a happy birthday, they didn't disturb the two young people's life for two, and hung up the phone.

Rongcheng.

Song Shisong put down his phone and turned to look at the family photo on the wall, "Our daughter has grown up."

Beside him, Zhang Junli was flipping through photos of her daughter in the group chat, also feeling a bit dazed; her own daughter was already 21.

"21 years old, in another year, she'll be at the age to get a marriage certificate." Song Shisong muttered to himself again.

"Yeah... wait, Old Song, our daughter is only 21."

Zhang Junli had been nodding, but soon realized something was wrong; young people nowadays didn't get married that early.

"Also true, let them plan this matter themselves." Song Shisong coughed dryly and said.

"And she's much more lively than before; she's doing quite well now."

Zhang Junli nodded with satisfaction. In previous years, she had always worried that her daughter's personality was too withdrawn and it would be hard to find a boyfriend; now... she didn't have that worry anymore.

A mother-in-law looks at her son-in-law and becomes more satisfied the more she looks.

Song Shisong had the same thought.

This kid Xu Qingzhou had nothing to complain about in all aspects, and most importantly, his daughter liked him.

After sighing for a while, Song Shisong looked at the time on his phone and said: "I won't be eating lunch at home."

Because they were more than ten hours ahead of Xu Qingzhou and the others, it was already Sunday morning there.

"Mm?" Zhang Junli frowned; didn't he say last night that he was resting today?

Seeing his wife's expression change, Song Shisong hurriedly explained: "Old Xu said he found a good fishing spot, so I'm just going to go take a look today."

Hearing this, Zhang Junli nodded, her furrowed brows smoothing out. Due to a change in position and his advancing age, her husband hadn't been as busy as before these past two days; he didn't have to rush to the front lines for everything like he used to. Fishing was quite good; it was a way to recuperate.

He was almost becoming an old man; he should engage in such relaxing activities.

Boston.

Xu Qingzhou came out after showering, and Song Yao was holding her phone, chatting with Ding Jiahui: "The logic of handling problems, the atmosphere of learning, are all quite different from back home. Although I've been here for a very short time, I've really learned a lot of things."

"I'm envious. Wait until Guo Ziyang and I plan it out, and we'll come find you guys to play. We haven't even been abroad yet."

"Okay, we'll take you two around properly when the time comes."

Song Yao had finished drinking, her pretty face still flushed. Today she was wearing a small white camisole, revealing two fair and slender legs. When she spoke, her two legs bent and overlapped.

Seeing Xu Qingzhou come out, she hugged her legs together, made space, and then put them in Xu Qingzhou's arms.

Xu Qingzhou stroked Song Yao's legs while listening to the two little sisters chatting.

Although it was only early August, Guo Ziyang and Ding Jiahui had both returned to school; one was busy with a project, and the other was looking for two internships.

"Mm, I'm still getting used to the people I've met so far; they're all very kind."

Song Yao and Ding Jiahui chatted about the people she had come into contact with here.

Xu Qingzhou's thoughts gradually drifted away. Counting his past life and now, he had spent quite a few years abroad. The biggest realization was that true discrimination wasn't that kind of verbal offense, but two words: being ignored.

The kind where they act as if you don't exist.

Pia~

A slapping sound rang out in the living room.

Xu Qingzhou came back to his senses, looking at his hand blankly. He had just been lost in his thoughts, and his hand had unconsciously moved upward...

Song Yao swatted someone's claw away from her skirt.

Xu Qingzhou touched his hand and sighed: "I'm used to it."

Song Yao gritted her teeth; her boyfriend was too asking for a beating!

"Yaoyao, what was that sound?"

On the phone, Ding Jiahui asked suspiciously. "Nothing."

Song Yao shook her head, continued the topic with Ding Jiahui, chatting about the different customs of the two countries, and hung up the phone 5 minutes later.

"Today is a good day." Xu Qingzhou's fingertips brushed across Song Yao's lower leg.

Song Yao looked up at Xu Qingzhou; as soon as her boyfriend opened his mouth, she could guess what he wanted to say.

"We can do something else... hmm?" Xu Qingzhou implied something.

"Xu Qingzhou, it's my birthday, not yours." Although she said this, Song Yao's heart was thumping; that sense of tension and excitement rushed up again.

If Xu Qingzhou forced himself...

"It's your birthday."

Xu Qingzhou said as a matter of course: "I'll help you."

"No."

Song Yao looked elsewhere, feeling a bit guilty.

Xu Qingzhou squinted his eyes.

No errors in the content, keep reading!

Creak.

Song Yao was pinned to the sofa.

"Xu Qingzhou! Mmph~"

In the corner, Er Miao's ears twitched, it looked up once, then lowered its head and went back to sleep.

A long time later.

Two heavy, coarse gasps rang out in the bedroom.

Song Yao's eyes were moist, her voice soft and glutinous, "Xu Qingzhou, if you dare, I will bite you..."

"Mmph~"

12:00 AM.

Xu Qingzhou was wiping his body as he came out; at the washbasin, Song Yao was gargling.

"You've already gargled four times."

Xu Qingzhou reminded her.

Song Yao turned back and glared fiercely at this guy.

Xu Qingzhou shrugged, looking at the school beauty Song's slender figure.

"Xu Qingzhou!"

"It's still early..."

"..."

After a storm of passion, the two of them lay down exhausted to rest, not climbing out of bed until 10:00 AM the next day. The next morning, Xu Qingzhou was dragged off and beaten up.

12:00 PM.

Song Yao's expression was still sour; looking at the person humming in the distance, she just wanted to drag him over and beat him up again.

She shouldn't have drunk alcohol, she shouldn't have made decisions at night.

Song Yao felt a wave of annoyance.

Xu Qingzhou handed a glass of water to Song Yao and said sincerely: "If you really can't get over it, how about this, next time I'll help you."

"..."

After dragging Xu Qingzhou over and ravaging him fiercely, Song Yao finally felt a bit better inside.

The two of them heated up some leftovers from last night, and then went to do their own things.

Professor Morton gave Song Yao two days off.

On the application of the discounted cash flow method and real options valuation method.

Over the past two weeks, she had consulted more than twenty documents, and almost every week she needed to write an analysis report.

Xu Qingzhou, on the other hand, seemed relatively free.

Most doctoral students would choose to follow their supervisor's project; after all, no matter how you look at it, working under a supervisor is the wisest choice, even though this also keeps one busy as a dog.

But Xu Qingzhou had his own project and could arrange his own time freely.

His teaching assistant work wouldn't start until September.

He occasionally went to Professor Roberts to ask about mathematical problems, and the rest of the time he was basically reading materials in the library, or doing calculations for the Riemann Hypothesis.

Two weeks passed.

Every step was difficult.

Although progress was slow, Xu Qingzhou already had a basic proof strategy.

First, he introduced three proposition inequalities into the proof.

Through the coupling between the inequalities, ideally, one could discover that if the Landau-Siegel zero exists, there would be a contradiction.

To put it colloquially.

For a finite sequence of real numbers xn, how to prove that it is not non-negative?

This requires proving that at least one xn in it will not be less than 0.

Just to give a simple example, now there exists an even number n, and now one can use p(n) to define such a characteristic function.

Here n is a prime number, p(n) equals 1; conversely, p(n) equals 0, and this will result in a sequence.

In fact, in analytic number theory, many things can be reduced to this problem.

In short, the final thing is that Xu Qingzhou needs to prove that the calculated result is less than 0.

Just like the Goldbach Conjecture, it can ultimately return to a sequence; one can calculate whether there is such a number less than 0 in the sequence. If there is, the Goldbach Conjecture is correct.

Of course, currently this is only theoretically so. If it were really as simple as Xu Qingzhou thinks, the Goldbach Conjecture wouldn't be a century-old problem.

But unfortunately, it is impossible to prove it is less than 0; at most, one can discover that zn is close to 0. Xu Qingzhou also discovered that the calculated result would be less than e multiplied by something.

One can even discover many zn.

These past few days, Xu Qingzhou intended to use the calculus of variations, using integral equations to find the maximum characteristic root.

Although it seemed full of difficulties, Xu Qingzhou's mindset was very good.

To give an analogy.

If the various problems of the Riemann Hypothesis that need to be solved are a huge mound of dirt, the Landau-Siegel zero conjecture can be counted as an excavator; solving it would increase the speed of dismantling this mound of dirt by several times.

The weakened version of the Landau-Siegel zero conjecture that Xu Qingzhou is currently working on is equivalent to a shovel.

Using it to solve the Riemann Hypothesis mound of dirt would be very slow, one could even say inefficient, but at least there is some progress.

Monday morning.

As soon as Xu Qingzhou opened his computer, he saw a new email.

【Xu, I heard you came to MIT to study, congratulations. Recently, while looking at data, I discovered some interesting phenomena, perhaps related to undiscovered new particles. If you are interested, we can cooperate.】

【I will be on a business trip at Boston University for 4 days. If you are interested, perhaps we can meet.】

The owner of the email is named Kunlis Richard.

Xu Qingzhou thought back carefully and remembered who this was: a physics professor at Princeton, a scholar from the French group when he participated in the quantum collider laboratory at LHC before.

He had even invited Xu Qingzhou to study for a PhD at École Normale Supérieure in Paris back then.

Particles, huh.

Xu Qingzhou leaned back in his chair.

Real collision experimental data is open to researchers from all countries.

The LHC's computer network has integrated thousands of computers in hundreds of data centers around the world into global computing resources, which facilitates the storage and analysis of the massive amount of data the LHC will collect.

So everyone can access it.

Quite interesting.

Progress on the Riemann Hypothesis is slow; it might be good to study something new, consider it relaxing the brain.

Moreover, studying particle physics really does have a feeling of exploring the world and mastering the truths of the world.

Thinking this, Xu Qingzhou opened the email and agreed with the other party on a time and place to meet.

(End of chapter)