I was a top student in America.

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When he stood in the interactive area, Li Ao calmly glanced at the street dance moves performed by the students in front of him.

When Lily saw that her partner was Li Ao, she thought it was too much of a coincidence. However, she didn't think much of it and just assumed that he was a complete novice who couldn't dance at all. She was even thinking about how to teach him a few simple steps to get him started.

However, before she could even speak, Li Ao had already turned away.

With a deft push of his hands to the ground, his core strength exploded instantly, and to everyone's surprise, he smoothly cut into the deep bass beat of the music, executing a textbook-perfect, high-difficulty floor freeze move.

In that instant, Lily felt a buzzing in her head, and she froze on the spot as if her brain had crashed.

All the reminders and comforting words I had prepared in my throat suddenly vanished from my mind.

A deafening roar of screams and cheers suddenly erupted from the surrounding crowd, but Lily's mind was now filled with only one huge question mark:

This guy's body control—how could it possibly be that strong?!

As an expert who had spent a lot of time in the dance studio since childhood, Lily mastered various dance steps at a very young age, and never neglected her practice even after entering university.

To put it bluntly, even the most experienced members of the school's dance club who specialize in street dance might not be as stable as Li Ao when performing floor poses that severely test core strength.

That's precisely why the scene before her eyes seemed so unbelievable.

In everyone's perception, Li Ao is an academic genius who has achieved remarkable success in the fields of mathematics and physics. His time should be completely filled with scientific research. How could he possibly have the leisure to hone such a core and time-consuming skill to such a professional level?

The thought of how she had just acted like an elder, telling people to "follow the beat" and "don't look at their feet" made Lily's cheeks feel slightly hot.

Fortunately, her professional skills were still excellent. After a brief moment of stunned silence, she managed to regain her composure before her dance steps went awry.

Using the cheers around her to cover her embarrassment, she quickly moved her feet to the rhythm of the next dance, fully cooperating with Li Ao to complete the interaction.

Compared to the relaxed atmosphere of the first half of the free exchange, the overall pace of the partner interaction segment was much faster.

Before long, the dance came to an end, and Li Ao and everyone else calmly walked off the dance floor.

When the group returned to the rest area, Lily pulled Emily forward to greet them.

She gave Li Ao a deep look and exclaimed sincerely, "You really can't judge a book by its cover. I never expected that you, Leo, could dance street dance so well."

In her view, no matter how hard a person works, their time is limited.

After ruling out the absurd speculation that Li Ao secretly practiced dancing every day, she could only attribute this illogical control to a terrifying physical talent bestowed upon her by God.

"It's alright, just some casual practice. I hope you'll forgive my poor performance." Li Ao smiled, remaining as humble as ever.

Since he had to wait for Arjun and Carter's physics classmates to join him, he didn't chat with Lily and Emily for long. After exchanging a few pleasantries, he politely said hello and turned to walk towards the other side of the rest area.

Watching Li Ao's tall and slender figure gradually blend into the crowd until he completely disappeared from sight, Lily finally looked away, nudged her best friend with her elbow, and teased, "Seriously, Emily, I'm starting to envy your taste. Where did you find such a god-like guy? Not only is he academically gifted, but even his dancing is breathtakingly handsome."

"Take my advice, if you encounter an opportunity in the future, hold on tight and don't let go."

Lily lowered her voice, but her tone was incredibly serious. "Anyone with eyes can see that Leo treats you completely differently from how he treats other girls. Besides, you both came from the South District together, and your dad is his teacher. This natural hometown connection is your biggest advantage."

Emily did not refute Lily's teasing; her clear eyes remained fixed on the direction Li Ao had left in.

After hearing her roommate and best friend's candid words, a bright smile appeared on her delicate face.

For Li Ao, the Christmas ball was just an insignificant little episode that did not disrupt his study rhythm at all.

The optimization work on boundary energy estimation has been progressing steadily.

Aside from occasionally attending classes in the computer science department to organize his thoughts, he spends most of his time in the library, delving into the topic of weak boundary solutions.

Of course, he would also take the time to visit Professor Reynolds' office, which always helped him to generate some new inspiration.

In late December, the weather in Chicago grew colder day by day.

On the last Friday before the Christmas holidays, Li Ao had just finished his last basketball game before the break.

After lunch, he went to Professor Reynolds' office again.

The two sat down easily and began to discuss research directions on singular integral operators and boundary localization estimation.

After more than an hour of in-depth conversation, Reynolds' smile grew wider and wider.

In a great mood, he even went to the coffee machine in his office and made himself two cups of coffee.

He handed one of the cups of black coffee to Li Ao, smiling as he said, "Here, Leo, try the coffee I made and see how it tastes!"

After Li Ao took the beans, Reynolds sat down on the sofa and introduced them, "These are some good beans left over from the department's seminar a while ago. I specially kept most of them so that you would come here more often to discuss issues. If you like to drink them, I'll pack some for you to take home when you leave."

Although Li Ao is now Professor Jensen's key student, Reynolds has never treated him as an outsider.

Especially after these in-depth exchanges on the problem of weak solutions at the boundary, he grew to like Li Ao more and more, and sincerely hoped that this young man could reach a higher position in the field of mathematics.

As for who is nominally whose mentor, that becomes a secondary matter.

To be honest, Li Ao rarely drinks coffee, let alone knows how to distinguish between good and bad coffee beans.

He took the paper cup, took a sip, and, meeting the old professor's expectant gaze, honestly uttered two words: "Delicious."

Reynolds understood immediately from his reaction, but still maintained a gentle smile, jokingly saying, "You young people probably prefer to drink cola or energy drinks. When you get my age, you'll be researching tea and coffee yourself."

Li Ao smiled somewhat embarrassedly and did not reply.

Reynolds finished his coffee, put the empty cup down, and casually brought up a new topic: "The Christmas holidays are just around the corner, what are your plans for the next few days?"