Chapter 59: Another Day Crushed Underfoot

When Xu Qingzhou returned, the dorm was quiet.

Xu Zhengyang and Kong Xianbo sat on chairs, as if their souls had been drained; Zhai Ziqiang was slightly better, but now he had no heart for reading.

Squeak~ The door opened.

Xu Zhengyang’s hollow eyes moved slightly; he suddenly stood up and pulled out Xu Qingzhou’s chair himself, “Old Xu—no, Boss Zhou, can you tell me what happened?”

Kong Xianbo and Zhai Ziqiang turned to look.

“Song Yao and I were high school classmates,” Xu Qingzhou drank some water.

Kong Xianbo adjusted his glasses and said slowly, “So the guy who escorted Song Yao to her dorm on opening day… was you?”

Girls’ dorm.

Read! {

Xue Ying sent a weak emoji, then another line popped up beneath her avatar: “It’s done now, just a bit of a failure—I collapsed on the first day.”

Another ten minutes passed, and even the seat beside Xu Qingzhou was taken by a fat old man.

In about two minutes, Xu Qingzhou finished and handed the densely filled paper to the girl.

The Mathematics Library is on the first floor of the Mathematics Academy, Room 1159e, covering about 300 square meters, divided into four sections: reading area, book storage, reader search area, and acquisition and cataloging area.

“So fast?” Yan Sishu took the paper in surprise, stared at the answers, and froze—not only had it been solved, but there were two methods?

Xu Qingzhou typed on his bed: “Yeah, we were high school classmates.”

Xu Zhengyang’s tone was wistful—he was completely convinced.

Xu Qingzhou patted Xu Zhengyang’s shoulder: “Little Xu, the meaning of life isn’t all about romance. You can imagine higher things—the origin of the universe, the motion of galaxies, humanity’s future…”

Yan Sishu quickly handed over the paper.

Opposite him was a girl wearing round glasses.

Is this what they call a genius blessed by heaven? Another day crushed underfoot.

The first method derives the intersection point of the normal line at point (p) on surface o with the tangent plane π; the second requires using variational calculus or the gradient of the distance function d(p, q) to find the shortest distance.

Yan Sishu: “.”

It wasn’t until Thursday night, when rain finally gave the freshmen a break, that at 8 p.m. Xu Qingzhou changed clothes, grabbed his laptop and paper drafts, and headed to the Math Academy Library.

Yan Sishu had no choice—she’d struggled with this problem for two hours already. She’d planned to ask a professor who often came to the library, but he hadn’t shown up today.

What had tormented her all day was just his leisure tool. Xu Qingzhou almost explained he was a freshman, but the girl across from him had already lowered her head and started writing furiously—he gave up.

In university mathematics courses, Euler’s formula is typically introduced in complex analysis or advanced calculus; at Jingda, complex analysis begins in the second year, and advanced calculus is a third-year course.

Kong Xianbo and the other guy still didn’t believe it.

During military training, besides daytime drills, the first night still included a night march.

Xu Zhengyang was now seriously wondering if Xu Qingzhou was gay.

“Mm.”

!.

Xu Qingzhou quickly sank into translation; progress was decent, especially since many parts he’d already written in English—so in just one hour, he finished a fifth. Then he picked up his pen and wrote out the solution.

Xu Qingzhou nodded. “Hand it over.”

He glanced over and saw the girl across from him looking slightly embarrassed, whispering, “Classmate, if you’re free, could you help me with a math problem?”

Xue Ying: “I heard from Shen Yueqing and others that you know Song Yao?”

“Are you two dating?” Xu Zhengyang’s tone was sour.

[Abstract: This paper explores the crucial role of Euler’s formula in the representation of quantum mechanical wave functions. The wave function is the fundamental mathematical tool in quantum mechanics describing particle states, containing physical information such as position, momentum, and energy.]

Xu Qingzhou glanced at it—a differential geometry and manifold problem—and immediately two solutions popped into his mind.

“Thank you, senior.”

The dorm fell silent for three seconds.

Seeing Xu Qingzhou sit down, the girl across from him gathered her things; he nodded in thanks, then pulled out his first paper: “On the Application of Euler’s Formula in Wave Function Representation.”

Xu Qingzhou, lying on his bed, saw several messages from Xue Ying.

“Phew~” Xu Qingzhou exhaled, rubbing his temples.

At 9:30 p.m., the library was even more crowded, with only about ten seats left.

“Are you feeling okay?” Xu Qingzhou didn’t pursue the topic, but typed instead.

On her phone screen was a small line: Are you dating Song Yao? After long hesitation, Xue Ying sighed softly, deleted the message, and put down her phone.

“Old Xu, I always thought I was the ultimate show-off—now I realize you’re the real boss.”

When Xu Qingzhou arrived, the place was still busy—half the seats were taken.

Xue Ying: “It’s so nice to have a familiar high school classmate at the same school.”

“Just to relax my brain,” Xu Qingzhou smiled and shook his head.

They chatted aimlessly for a few minutes; Xu Qingzhou decisively ended the conversation, put down his phone, and went to sleep.

At that moment, a pen extended over and tapped Xu Qingzhou’s arm.

“Come on, you’ve got such a pretty girl right beside you—don’t you have any thoughts at all?”

Xu Qingzhou shook his head. “Heart sealed, love locked.”

In a three-dimensional non-Euclidean geometric space, consider a surface o defined by the parametric equations: (x=u\cos(v+u^2)), (y=u\sin(v+u^2)), (z=\ln(1+u^2)). Let any point on the tangent plane π be q(x, y, 0) (since the tangent plane is parallel to the xoy plane, z-coordinate is 0). Find the shortest distance d(p, q) from point q to point p(1, \frac{\pi}{4}, \ln2) on surface o.

The reader search area provides desktop computers, all-in-one printers/scanners/copiers, and self-service card systems, allowing readers to independently search, print, copy, and scan.

About the same size as the Physics Academy’s. Xu Qingzhou walked around the library to get familiar with it, then sat down in a corner.

Yan Sishu softly greeted the fat old man beside Xu Qingzhou: “Professor Gu.”

Because they were in the library, the fat old man didn’t speak—only nodded slightly, put on his glasses, pulled out a bookmark, and continued reading the book only the Math Academy Library had acquired: “Mathematical Thought from Ancient to Modern Times.”

Xu Qingzhou’s attention remained fixed on his paper, lost in translation; he didn’t know how long had passed when suddenly, the old professor’s voice reached his ears.

“Student, may I see your paper?”

(End of Chapter)