A fat man who was reborn from the dead? He transforms into a perfect male god in a week.

Jiang Chen lived a leisurely and carefree life.

But on the other side...

Shanghai, headquarters of Sprout Magazine.

At nine o'clock in the evening, the editorial office was still brightly lit.

Several editors and chief editors sat around a conference table piled high with manuscripts.

These are all submissions from the preliminary round of this year's "New Concept Writing Competition".

Middle school students from all over the country send their works here, where editors conduct a preliminary review and select the works that will advance to the semi-finals.

However, this year's preliminary review process has been exceptionally difficult.

"Sigh...it's just another clichéd coming-of-age romance novel."

A young editor wearing glasses put down the manuscript in his hand and rubbed his temples.

"I read thirty articles tonight: twenty about unrequited love, eight about broken friendships, and two about family conflicts... They were all formulaic."

The middle-aged female editor next to me sighed, "Students these days are all trapped in the mindset of exam-oriented essays. The beginning must state the topic, the middle must be divided into paragraphs, and the ending must be a profound conclusion... The writing is neat, but there is no inspiration at all."

"The New Concept Writing Competition demands 'newness'...new thinking, new perspectives, and new expression, but how many of these submissions truly achieve 'newness'?"

"Forget about being 'new,' there are very few articles that actually catch my eye."

Editor-in-Chief Lao Wang tapped the table: "Complaining is useless, keep reading. We need to complete the initial review by the end of the month, time is very tight."

The editors had no choice but to continue reading the manuscript.

The only sounds in the meeting room were the rustling of papers being turned and the occasional sigh.

until……

Holy crap!

A young editor sitting in the corner suddenly swore.

All eyes turned to them.

"Xiao Liu, what's wrong?" Old Wang frowned.

The editor, known as Xiao Liu, looked up, her eyes shining: "Editor-in-chief, please look at this!"

He held up several pages of manuscript paper, his hands trembling with excitement.

Old Wang took the manuscript and glanced at the title.

Deconstructing Three-Dimensional Love in a Two-Dimensional World: On Emotional Collapse and Quantum Entanglement in the Cartesian Coordinate System

"..."

Old Wang was stunned for two seconds.

This title... is interesting.

It's not only interesting, but even a bit "crazy".

Why put an emotional topic like "love" together with hard science concepts like "Cartesian coordinate system" and "quantum entanglement"?

This author is either a genius or a madman.

Old Wang continued reading.

First paragraph:

"If love can be quantified, what is its unit?"

"Is it heart rate per minute, dopamine levels... or WeChat chat history...?"

"In a Cartesian coordinate system... I'm trying to build a functional model for 'liking': y = kx + b... where x represents time, y represents emotional intensity, and k is the slope..."

"But I soon discovered that this model is as fragile as a piece of paper in the face of reality, because when you truly fall in love with someone, your emotional curve does not rise smoothly, but rather... like a quantum leap."

"One second they're in the ground state (indifferent), the next they jump to the excited state... there's not even a transition in between."

"This violates all the laws of classical mechanics, but perfectly conforms to the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics... You never know which state your mind will collapse into in the next instant."

"..."

Old Wang read the first three hundred words and then fell silent.

He looked up at Xiao Liu: "This author... is a high school student?"

"The submission information says Jiang Chen, a senior at Jiangcheng No. 3 Middle School," Xiao Liu said excitedly. "And look at the handwriting, it's clearly handwritten, not printed."

Old Wang looked down at the manuscript again.

The handwriting is neat and the strokes are strong, clearly the result of years of practice.

And this content...

"Taking love from metaphysics to science, and then from science back to the quantum superposition state of metaphysics..."

Old Wang muttered, "This kind of leap in thought... you really can't write this without a solid foundation in science."

"It's more than just a strong foundation in science!"

A female editor with a science background leaned over to take a look and exclaimed in surprise.

"This quantum mechanical analogy is quite professional! Ground state, excited state, wave function collapse... this must be at the university physics level, right?"

Old Wang continued reading.

In the middle section, the author begins to show off his erudition:

"To quote the story of Baoyu and Daiyu repaying their debt of tears in 'Dream of the Red Chamber'... repaying debts of tears is an attempt to reverse the increase of entropy, which is doomed to failure."

"Using Romeo and Juliet as a reference, game theory was used to analyze the feud between the two families... which ultimately led to the Pareto worst solution, and the two committed suicide together."

"Using the analogy of Titanic, the probability of Jack surviving after falling into the water was calculated using fluid dynamics... so he could actually have survived, but the plot required him to die."

"..."

Old Wang's lips twitched as he watched.

What is all this about?

To reconstruct literary classics using scientific theories? And to do so in a logical and well-founded way?

The key point is that he actually thinks...it makes some sense?

"Editor-in-chief, please keep reading!" Xiao Liu exclaimed excitedly, "There's something even more amazing coming up!"

Old Wang turned to the next page.

"Modern love has entered the era of fast-food quantum entanglement..."

"So nowadays, when it comes to dating, we have to follow Heisenberg's uncertainty principle..."

"If you knew he replied instantly, then his true feelings..."

"If you're sure he's sincere, then the speed of his reply..."

"The scariest thing is Schrödinger's confession: 'Before you even open the WeChat chat window...'"

"Once you send 'Are you there?', the wave function collapses, and the answer is revealed... most likely 'I don't like it.'"

"..."

The meeting room was silent for a few seconds.

Then bursts of laughter erupted.

"Hahaha! 'Schrödinger's Confession'! That's an amazing metaphor!"

"If I had known this back then, I wouldn't have been rejected more than ten times when I confessed my feelings..."

"This author is a genius! He's managed to make quantum mechanics so amazing!"

Old Wang couldn't help but laugh, but after the laughter came an even deeper shock.

This is more than just an essay.

This is a... crossover masterpiece.

A hodgepodge of literature, science, philosophy, and sociology.

Moreover, the mix was quite wonderful, and it felt perfectly harmonious.

He continued reading.

The author begins to quote various literary allusions:

"Using the ospreys' cry in the Book of Songs to demonstrate the biological basis of avian courtship behavior..."

"Using the love story of Darcy and Elizabeth in 'Pride and Prejudice,' analyze the emotional dynamics arising from class differences..."

"Using 'Love in the Time of Cholera' to interpret love as a disease from an epidemiological perspective..."

"..."

Old Wang felt a chill run down his spine.

Is this level of knowledge something a high school student should have?

He could understand literary classics such as the Book of Songs, Pride and Prejudice, and Love in the Time of Cholera, since liberal arts students might read them.

But how did he integrate concepts from science such as game theory, Nash equilibrium, and epidemiology?

And it blends in so naturally?

Finally, the concluding paragraph:

So, what exactly is love?

"It's an unknown that mathematical formulas can't solve, something that physical laws can't control... it's the most unstable element in a chemical reaction..."

"But it is also the only high-dimensional projection that we three-dimensional beings can perceive in the two-dimensional world..."

"Perhaps this is the most romantic paradox of mankind... We use all our scientific knowledge to deconstruct love, only to find that the only answer to love lies precisely in its indestructibility."

"..."

Old Wang put down his manuscript and let out a long sigh.

He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and the last sentence kept echoing in his mind.

"We have exhausted all scientific methods to deconstruct love, only to discover that the only answer to love lies precisely in its incomprehensibility."

That's spot on.

This essay, starting with its title, is about "deconstruction," using scientific theories to dissect love into fragments.

But in the end, a paradox that is "unconstructable" brought everything back to square one.

It's not just about good writing skills.

This is a perfect combination of intellectual depth, breadth of knowledge, and leaps in thinking.

"Editor-in-chief, how did it go?" Xiao Liu asked expectantly.

Old Wang opened his eyes and scanned the editors in the conference room.

Everyone stared at him, their eyes filled with the same shock.

"This essay..." Old Wang began slowly, "If it were in previous years, it would definitely be a top prize."

"This year too!" Xiao Liu interjected. "I dare say, out of all the submissions this year, not a single one reached this level!"

"It's not just this year," the middle-aged female editor exclaimed. "I've been reviewing New Concept Writing assignments for ten years, and I've never seen anything like this. This is no longer an essay; it's an academic essay, a philosophical reflection, a... genius joke."

"Yes, it's 'The Genius Joke'!"

Another editor slammed his fist on the table. "Look at how he uses those serious scientific theories in such a playful yet apt way! This effortless mastery is something an ordinary high school student could never write!"

Old Wang nodded, picked up a red pen, and wrote in the upper right corner of the manuscript paper:

[Initial review score: 60 points (out of 10)]

[Comment: A masterpiece of crossover, a game-changer; recommended as the top seed in the semifinals and should be heavily nurtured.]

After finishing writing, he sent the manuscript to the other editors: "Everyone take a look and then give it a score."

The draft was circulated around the conference room.

Every editor who read it had the same reaction: first stunned, then amazed, and finally applauding in admiration.

The ratings were all 60 points.

The comments were varied:

"This is the most 'new concept' essay I've ever seen."

"Is the author a science student? This level of scientific literacy far surpasses that of many college students."

"Your literary foundation is also profound! You can use those allusions with ease and in just the right way."

"The most crucial thing is his thinking... He can connect so many unrelated things together, and do it so brilliantly. His ability to leap through ideas is terrifying."

The final draft was sent back to Lao Wang.

He looked at the sheet full of 60s and smiled.

"It seems everyone is in agreement."

"Then this essay, 'Deconstructing Three-Dimensional Love in a Two-Dimensional World,' will be awarded first place in this year's New Concept Writing Competition."

"Put this on the front page of the next issue of the magazine's New Concept Writing column."

"Also, contact the author Jiang Chen and inform him that he has entered the semi-finals. The semi-finals are on-site essay writing. I want to see what kind of person this high school student who can write about 'quantum entangled love' is."

Xiao Liu excitedly wrote it down: "I'll contact them tomorrow!"

……