Chapter 255: Respective Futures
Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Dorm 201.
After Lu Zhou left, the four-person dorm became a three-person dorm. Although one of their friends was gone, the three students did not feel lonely. Instead, their lives were even richer and more eventful.
If winning the Cole Prize boosted Lu Zhou into the sky, then winning the Crafoord Prize boosted him to the moon. Lu Zhou’s status in the eyes of mathematics majors reached a whole new level.
Especially those master’s students who watched Lu Zhou go from an undergrad to a master’s student, then a PhD. They could not help but feel jealous.
Due to this, every exam there would be people praying to G.o.d Lu.
These people would sit in Lu Zhou’s chair in his dorm, and muttered some words. Then after a while, once they thought that they have absorbed Lu Zhou’s energy, they would happily leave to study.
This kind of ethos was not restricted to the mathematics department as even the computer science department jumped on the bandwagon. This was because some computer science students remembered when Lu Zhou published nine theses at once.
Even though until this day it was still a mystery why Lu Zhou had to published nine computer science theses, there were still computer science majors who were wors.h.i.+ping him.
Therefore, although Lu Zhou had not sat in his chair for a long time, it never collected dust.
Most of his “wors.h.i.+ppers” wiped the chair clean.
Since there were so many people coming, Huang Guangming and s.h.i.+ Shang joked about turning it into a church and taking donations.
Of course, they were only joking.
Suddenly, the dorm room door was pushed open.
A familiar voice came from the door.
“201, your G.o.d is back…”
The atmosphere was inexplicably quiet.
Pairs of eyes stared at Lu Zhou and he was almost embarra.s.sed by it.
“Uhh… Is there something on my face?”
He thought that his friends would start bantering with him, but the brothers of Dorm 201 responded weirdly.
Liu Rui, “Liu Rui…”
Huang Guangming, “Zhou.”
s.h.i.+ Shang took a deep breath. He then stood up and with a voice that trembled with excitement, he said, “You came back…”
Lu Zhou coughed and said, “Don’t be so sentimental, I’m almost embarra.s.sed to come in.”
The school arranged a five-star hotel for Lu Zhou to stay at. Although he was personally against wasting money on extravagant things, since the school had already booked it, he could not do anything.
However, before going to the hotel, he wanted to get together with his brothers.
After all, he had not seen them in a while.
…
The fish restaurant outside the school.
The waiter brought the grilled fish on the table and looked at Lu Zhou.
Maybe he wondered why Lu Zhou looked familiar to the guy on TV, or maybe he wondered why Lu Zhou came back.
However, he did not say anything. Even though he did not know Lu Zhou’s name, but he had grown familiar with him over the past three years.
The food and beer arrived.
Everyone had not seen each other for a long time, so everyone wanted to chat.
s.h.i.+ Shang asked Lu Zhou about life in Princeton.
After all, Princeton was the holy place in mathematics. Everyone listened intently.
Especially Liu Rui, he had plans for studying abroad for his PhD.
Once Liu Rui finished a bottle of beer, he said emotionally, “Once I graduated, I plan to continue to study.”
Lu Zhou, “Applied mathematics?”
“Yes, but not really,” said Liu Rui as he shook his head. He paused for a second before saying, “I want to study functional a.n.a.lysis at Yan University.”
Lu Zhou, “Functional a.n.a.lysis is a widely used subject. It’s applicable both in the real world and laboratories. I also wanted to do research in this area, but I changed to number theory instead. I wish you the best!”
Lu Zhou and Liu Rui toasted.
It was obvious that Liu Rui matured a lot.
Maybe Lu Zhou influenced him subconsciously, or Liu Rui made an effort to change. In short, Liu Rui no longer thought of himself a genius anymore, but he still had a pa.s.sion for study.
Huang Guangming loved to talk about his life plans.
“I want to do research as well, but I can’t do mathematics anymore. I plan on switching majors.”
Lu Zhou, “Switching majors?”
“Yeah,” said Huang Guangming. He scratched his head and smiled, “I’m pretty good at calculations, but I can’t deal with the harder theories. I plan on doing a master’s in accounting or something. My family recommended this as well, and they said that this major is popular.”
s.h.i.+ Shang sighed and said, “You’re all going into further studies. It seems that I’m the only one graduating.”
Lu Zhou asked, “You’re not studying?”
Logically, s.h.i.+ Shang’s family had the most money.
“Not studying anymore,” said s.h.i.+ Shang as he shook his head. He smiled, “I’m sick of it. It’s time for me to go into the real world. As a man, I have to give Ya Jing a good future.”
Ya Jing was s.h.i.+ Shang’s girlfriend. Lu Zhou met her a few times. She was a good girl.
It was obvious that s.h.i.+ Shang matured emotionally.
Lu Zhou, “You guys plan to get married?”
“Yeah,” said s.h.i.+ Shang as he nodded. He then said in a relaxed tone, “I’ll marry after three years. In these three years, I’ll put int my best effort to buy a house.”
For fresh graduates, it was insanely difficult to buy a house in three years without any help from their parents.
However, Lu Zhou admired s.h.i.+ Shang’s confidence.
Lu Zhou raised his gla.s.s and said, “Well I wish you success in your career. Don’t forget to send me a wedding invite.”
The two toasted and s.h.i.+ Shang said with a smile, “For sure!”
…
The four friends were up drinking late. Lu Zhou took a taxi to the hotel before he pa.s.sed out in his room. The next morning, a phone call from Dean Qin woke him up.
He suddenly remembered that he had a report to do in the afternoon.
Lu Zhou took a shower and ate some food at the hotel buffet. He returned to his room and put on his suit. The car that came to pick him up arrived.
A long time ago, the system reward item enhanced his metabolic capacity. Therefore, he was less p.r.o.ne to hangovers.
He wore his suit and walked out of the hotel looking fresh. No one could tell he was out drinking all night yesterday.
Lu Zhou sat in the school’s car and arrived at the University of Jin Ling campus. He adjusted his tie and walked into the large auditorium.
The report was naturally on Goldbach’s conjecture.
Like Sweden, this auditorium was filled with thousands of people. Lu Zhou had already experienced this before, so he was very calm.
Not only were people from University of Jin Ling present, but there were professors from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Aurora University, Yan University, Shuimu University, and a couple of other universities.
Especially Shuimu University, they almost sent their entire mathematics department.
The report was halfway through and many people from Shuimu were almost in tears.
They could see signs of the large sieve method in the Group Structure Method. They could see their predecessors efforts living in a new theory.
Large sieve method never came to a conclusion or end, like how people thought the ancient Greece method created by Ertosto could not be changed.
The old theories were never outdated. It just needed to make some changes to accommodate new problems.