A genius student? Ha, they're nothing but ants at your feet!

Although he had completely solved the Smail problem, and should have been able to relax and sleep soundly, Su Hao tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep no matter what he did.

The bed creaked and groaned from his pancake-like tossing and turning.

Deep within my mind, it felt as if a fine, poisonous thorn was embedded.

I can't find one.

I can't swallow it.

Although the derivation steps of the Mingsmael problem were flawless, the intuition that "some detail seemed to have been missed" tormented him.

He was like a conductor with perfect pitch who, while listening to a perfect symphony, heard a slightly off-key noise.

But even after shaking his brain to clear it up, he still couldn't figure out what was wrong.

"What the hell is this thing?! Stuck here, unable to go up or down, this is so damn uncomfortable!"

This situation is completely out of control.

Whether eating in the cafeteria or taking a walk on the street, Su Hao couldn't shake off that thought.

Night fell, and all was quiet.

That agonizing, excruciating feeling was amplified to an epic degree.

The moment he closes his eyes, good heavens, all those lifeless formulas and symbols on the blackboard come alive!

They twisted and deformed wildly, turning into cold, slippery venomous snakes that silently climbed up his ankles.

Entangled!

Tighten up!

They were tightly bound together, ready to devour his soul!

An overwhelming feeling of suffocation washed over me.

Su Hao suddenly clenched his pajamas at his chest, panting heavily.

"Where exactly did things go wrong?"

He got out of bed and opened the window.

call--

The biting night wind lashed at my face like a knife.

The sudden physical cooling instantly cooled his cerebral cortex, which was almost burning hot.

The noise disappeared.

Dopamine secretion tends to stabilize.

As consciousness became crystal clear in an instant, a flash of lightning cleaved through the fog!

He finally found that suspicious place that had been hidden in the shadows all along!

"Absolutely right. That's exactly the kind of chilling feeling!"

Su Hao didn't sleep all night.

As soon as dawn broke, he rushed to the laboratory.

.......

hum-

In a budget motel in Cambridge.

Theodore, sporting dark circles under his eyes, was intently examining his master's thesis.

Hearing the vibration on the table, he picked up his phone.

Hello, I am Su Hao's mother.

It's almost lunchtime, and I haven't been able to get in touch with Su Hao, so I'm sending him a text message to check on him.

I made a big pot of braised pork ribs today, which is unusual for me...

Are you two together?

If you're here, Theodore, please don't be shy, come over for dinner!

"What kind of trouble is this kid up to now?"

He stopped what he was doing, frowned, and quickly typed on his phone screen, replying to the message with polite words.

Don't worry. I'll go to the lab to look for him; he's probably just put his phone in the drawer again.

Theodore pulled the heavy coat he'd bought on Christmas sale from the back of the chair, wrapped it haphazardly around himself, pushed open the door, and walked out of the motel into the cold wind.

Because while writing my thesis, I often shamelessly went to Su Hao's house to freeload meals.

Over time, this native foreigner actually became familiar with his family.

From their initial awkwardness, they have now developed a magical relationship where they can sit together and eat in complete silence without feeling embarrassed at all.

In Cambridge, it gets dark exceptionally early in winter.

The sun seems to leave early every day, always disappearing in the blink of an eye.

With the end of the final exams, the countdown to the end of the year has begun.

The usually bustling campus was eerily quiet.

The lights in the laboratory building were mostly off, leaving only the Christmas decorations swaying in the wind in the empty corridors, forcibly creating a festive atmosphere.

Those students from the "Exam King" program, those who should return to China have returned, and those who should return to their hometowns have returned.

The once bustling MIT teaching buildings are now so empty that even a fart can echo.

"It's kind of absurd, really, I'm not even a proper student at this school..."

Theodore reached out and touched the temporary pass specially issued by the mathematics department hanging around his neck.

He could walk around MIT with impunity until that academic conference ended.

Could it be that subconsciously, I've already gotten used to studying and living at this school?

Although it was already dark, he could tell the direction of the laboratory even with his eyes closed.

As soon as you enter the mathematics department building, a unique smell of air, a mixture of old chalk dust and musty paper, hits your nostrils.

The surroundings were so quiet that only the sound of one's own slightly heavy footsteps could be heard.

The laboratories, teaching buildings, and even the library were all closed, and there was hardly any sign of human activity.

However, just as they turned a corner of the stairs, they saw a faint but persistent light shining from under the door of that familiar laboratory at the end of the second-floor corridor.

Splash!

Theodore leaned close to the door frame, confirmed that the light was leaking from the crack in the door, and then pushed the door open and went inside.

The moment the door was pushed open, a tremendous sense of oppression hit you.

On the huge blackboard that occupied an entire wall, there were symbols, sequences, charts, and the Smail core derivation that had already been cracked.

Su Hao was standing with his back to the door, under the dim yellow light of the incandescent lamp by the window.

He had clearly been battling here for a whole day, going through countless writings and erasures.

His once relatively clean jacket sleeves were now covered with a thick layer of white chalk dust.

Theodore sighed and stepped forward.

"Your mom is looking for you."

Su Hao did not turn around, nor did he answer.

He simply raised his arm slowly, pointing with his fingertips, covered in white ash, to one side of the blackboard's edge.

"Um? 』

Theodore paused for a moment, then looked in the direction the finger was pointing.

In that corner, a few lines of distorted and incomprehensible strange formulas were written all by themselves.

Theodore stood there and stared at it for a long time.

"What the hell is this thing?"

This set of formulas is like a string of encrypted gibberish, completely beyond the scope of general mathematical logic, and it's impossible to understand it at all!

After drawing on all his knowledge, the only thing he could barely understand was that it was related to the Riemann zeta function.

Su Hao licked his dry lips, picked up the chalk, and wrote down the finishing steps in the corner of the blackboard.

rustling.

The rhythmic tapping of chalk echoed through the room.

"In the process of solving the Smail problem, I realized something."

Su Hao filled the last blank space at the edge of the blackboard and spoke slowly.

Smail's conjecture is based on the premise that "even if the spatial form changes, its essence remains unchanged."

But this is not actually the case, because this continuity is broken once the boundary is reached.

Su Hao nodded to himself, seemingly very satisfied with his idea.

"So I suddenly had a thought: what would happen if I directly and brute-forcedly translated Smail's stability condition and stuffed it into the space of the Riemann zeta function?"

As a result, I discovered a very interesting phenomenon.

That is: only under the extreme condition of absolute stability of the analytic conditions will the zeros of the Riemann zeta function, hidden deep in the fog, obediently reveal themselves!

boom!

It was as if a thunderbolt had struck Theodore directly on the top of his head without warning!

He was taken aback and his whole body shuddered violently!