Chapter 153 The fight begins, the fight begins

"What's so great about physics! It's all engineering work involving approximations! Using your brain to do physics calculations is a crime against mathematics!" Outside in the corridor, two staff members who were on their way to the confidential office to submit reports stopped abruptly upon hearing the commotion. They looked at each other, clutching their envelopes, neither daring to take another step forward.

This is Vice President Zhou's office, where it's rare to see even someone speaking loudly. Yet, this almost roaring accusation is coming from here, and judging from the voice, it's Professor Li Jianming from the School of Mathematics, who is known for his stubbornness.

in the office.

The Taoist priest stood a few steps away, his expression completely frozen. His once composed face now looked as if he had been slapped twice across the face.

His face gradually darkened, turning ashen.

But Li Jianming completely ignored the Taoist priest's reaction.

Now, all he could see and think about was the twelve-year-old boy in front of him, wearing a pure white collared short-sleeved T-shirt.

Li Jianming's right hand gripped Chen Zhuo's left forearm tightly.

He has a very strong grip.

An old professor, whose fingers were already somewhat deformed from writing complex equations on the blackboard for many years, suddenly burst forth with a power that he himself was unaware of in his extreme excitement and tension.

He was like a traveler who had been lost in the desert for months and was on the verge of despair, who suddenly clung tightly to a sweet well, fearing that if he loosened his grip even slightly, the new mathematical path that seemed viable would turn into a mirage.

Chen Zhuo's brows immediately furrowed.

A sharp pain shot up the muscles in my forearm.

He twitched his shoulder slightly backward, trying to pull his arm back, but to no avail.

Chen Zhuo did not cry out in pain, nor did he push the elder in front of him.

The pain was real, but his inherent upbringing and gentle nature allowed him to forcefully suppress the intense, instinctive resistance his body felt in shock. He lowered his head slightly, shifting his gaze from the creased sleeve of his shirt to the edge of the solid wood desk.

Li Jianming's left hand was pressed firmly on the A4 draft paper.

Because he was so engrossed in the calculations for those three minutes, his brain was working at high speed, and coupled with the intense emotional fluctuations he was experiencing, Li Jianming's palms were sweating profusely.

"Teacher Li."

Chen Zhuo spoke up.

Because of the pain in his arm, his voice was a little strained, no longer as calm and composed as when he first entered, but carrying a hint of genuine, youthful urgency.

"Please don't get agitated."

Chen Zhuo stared intently at the edge of the draft paper.

"Your left hand is sweaty."

Li Jianming's breathing remained heavy, his chest heaving violently, his eyes fixed on Chen Zhuo's face, seemingly oblivious to what he was saying. "The bottom right corner you're pressing."

Despite the pain in his forearm, Chen Zhuo continued to remind him, speaking a little faster.

"The collapse results of the two singular terms that just completed the homology mapping are written right under the palm of your hand; the paper is almost soaked with sweat, and the words are about to smudge. It's a very simple reminder."

But for Li Jianming, who at this moment regarded that piece of draft paper as his life and his only hope, these few words were more effective than any desperate shouting.

Li Jianming suddenly shuddered.

He seemed to suddenly awaken from some kind of delirium, and abruptly looked down.

Sure enough, the heel of his left hand was pressing firmly against the corner where the constant result had just been calculated.

The sweat in his palms had dampened a small patch of the rough draft paper, and the gray-black pencil marks were starting to fade and become blurred under the moisture.

"Ouch!"

Li Jianming let out a short, panicked cry of pain, as if his palm had accidentally pressed against a red-hot iron.

He instantly released his right hand from Chen Zhuo's arm and took a half-step back as if he had been electrocuted.

His hands trembled slightly as he held the clean, unwritten edge of the draft paper and lifted it flat from the table.

He didn't even dare to wipe the water stain with his fingers, for fear that he would wipe the formula away completely.

He could only bend down slightly, pucker his lips, and gently, evenly blow on the corner that was about to be stained with sweat, trying to dry it as quickly as possible. His careful manner made it seem as if he were holding a fragile, rare antique.

Taking advantage of the moment when Li Jianming loosened his grip and stepped back, the sorcerer who had been standing by finally made his move.

Fang Shi strode forward, his broad shoulder naturally and forcefully cutting between Li Jianming and Chen Zhuo, using most of his body to shield Chen Zhuo behind him.

"Li Jianming, have you gone mad from working with graph theory?"

The sorcerer lowered his voice, but the tension in his tone was already palpable.

He stared at Li Jianming, who was still blowing on the draft paper, his eyes cold.

"You went to the administration building, tried to snatch someone away right in front of Principal Zhou, and even yelled at and physically assaulted a twelve-year-old student. Professor Li, do you have any sense of decorum as a teacher?"

Li Jianming stopped blowing air. He carefully folded the precious draft paper and put it in his pocket, making sure that one corner was exposed to air dry naturally. Only then did he raise his head and meet the alchemist's gaze.

"Decent? What is decent stuff compared to wasting resources!"

Li Jianming refused to back down.

"Who are you calling a waste of resources?"

The alchemist's temper was completely ignited by those words.

Li Jianming's statement that physics is an engineering task involving approximations had seriously crossed his line and challenged his pride as a physicist. Fang Shi stretched out his hand and pointed at Li Jianming's nose.

"Stop spouting nonsense here. Do you even know what fluid mechanics is? Do you even know what complex aerodynamic simulation is?" Fang Shi's voice echoed in the spacious office, carrying a kind of toughness unique to the engineering physics school.

"Do you know what project Chen Zhuo saved with the algebraic matrix he constructed in our fluid mechanics lab? It was the wind tunnel model of a key national high-speed rail train! It's a transportation artery that will run at speeds of hundreds of kilometers per hour on the tracks in the future! It's a real national strategic asset!" Fang Shi waved his arm forcefully in the air, his knuckles turning white from the force.

"Without our physics to define the boundaries of the real world, to solve practical engineering obstacles, and to turn blueprints into steel behemoths that can withstand wind resistance, what is your mathematics? Your mathematics is just a bunch of empty symbols that float on paper forever, detached from reality!" Fang Shi turned his head, glanced at Chen Zhuo standing behind him, and then stared intently at Li Jianming again.

"When Chen Zhuo was working on that wind tunnel model, he demonstrated top-notch physical modeling intuition. He could see through the energy difference of aerodynamics at the microsecond level at a glance and use a simple compensation term to control the work boundary of potential energy and pressure."

What is this?

This is a brain born to explain the laws governing the universe!

The sorcerer spoke faster and faster, pressing the issue relentlessly.

"What are you sending him to your math department for? To spend all day drawing circles on a blackboard with you? To prove that stupid network conjecture that won't be applied to reality for decades, even centuries? You're letting him waste his exceptional talent on finding a few general formulas for divergent series? Li Jianming, this is a crime against the country!"

His words were powerful and resounding.

Fang Shi slammed the practical value of physics, the strategic significance of key national projects, and the power of science to transform the world right in Li Jianming's face.

Normally, if someone attacked pure theoretical mathematics with its practicality at an academic conference, Li Jianming might still put on his scholarly airs and argue, citing classical texts, about the forward-looking and independent nature of mathematics as a basic science.

But today is different.

He had just witnessed firsthand Chen Zhuo's mathematical deductions, which were like those of a creator.

He witnessed firsthand how Chen Zhuo effortlessly navigated a dead end that had plagued countless people with just two sentences and a homology mapping formula. Li Jianming's academic fervor had long since burned away all rational notions of politeness and decorum.

"Major national instruments? Explaining the laws of reality?"

After hearing the Taoist priest's angry rebuke, Li Jianming was not angry at all; instead, he let out a series of low, cold laughs.

The laughter carried the undisguised arrogance and mockery of a pure mathematician when facing applied disciplines.

Li Jianming took a step forward, getting less than half a meter away from the sorcerer.

Instead of pointing at the sorcerer's nose, he gently patted the draft paper in his pocket.

"Fangshi, stop trying to intimidate me with these grand terms. Your wind tunnel model is, in the end, just a mess because it lacks computing power and has incomplete theoretical models."

Li Jianming's wrinkles gathered together as he sneered.

"Without my abstract and pure mathematics as your foundation, your broken wind tunnel wouldn't even be able to handle the most basic air resistance! Your physics department's crappy computers would be calculating until they were smoking, and it would still be a dead end, wouldn't it?"

Li Jianming's smile vanished, his eyes becoming extremely sharp, like two knives scraping across the sorcerer's face.

"Physical intuition? What do you, a sorcerer, know about true intuition!"

Li Jianming suddenly raised his hand, over the Taoist priest's shoulder, and pointed at Chen Zhuo standing behind him.

"What he saw through in your lab wasn't some aerodynamic energy difference at all! What he saw through was the discrete algebraic structure behind that pile of messy continuous data! He used nonlinear compensation, and now he's using homology group mapping! This is something your physics can't possibly produce; this is the highest level of algebraic beauty, pure logical power!"

Li Jianming's voice boomed and echoed in the office.

What is physics doing? Physics is just picking up the rules that are left over from mathematics and trying to apply them to this riddled real world to fix things up!

Mathematics is the foundation of all sciences!

It is the absolute truth that explains all existence, independent of any physical object!

Li Jianming pressed forward again, his chest almost touching the sorcerer's body.

"His ability to construct a high-dimensional algebraic matrix out of thin air to solve your low-dimensional problems proves that he rightfully deserves a place on the throne of mathematics! You expect him to calculate wind tunnel drag? To calculate those aesthetically unappealing engineering errors?"

Li Jianming waved his hand fiercely, as if to sweep all the alchemists' theories into the trash heap.

"It's like asking a genius who can compose timeless symphonies to equip your physics department's tractor with an engine sound! You think this is a national treasure, but to me, it's a complete waste!"

The two were locked in a fierce confrontation, neither willing to back down an inch.

The vice-principal's office has completely transformed into an academic arena without the smoke of battle.

One is the powerful vice dean of the physics department, holding a national-level fluid mechanics project in his hands; the other is a leading figure in graph theory in the mathematics department, representing the top level of basic mathematics in China. Both are influential figures in their respective fields in China.

But now, they are like two children on the street, their eyes red with rage, fighting over a rare treasure. They take turns pointing out each other's shortcomings and relentlessly attacking each other's weaknesses in their respective subjects with the most cutting language.

And to the side and behind the sorcerer.

Chen Zhuo, at the heart of this massive storm, stood quietly.

On his left arm, where Li Jianming had gripped him tightly, a distinct red mark was now appearing.

The dull pain hadn't completely subsided, so he quietly raised his right hand and gently rubbed his left forearm through the thin fabric of his white T-shirt. After rubbing it a couple of times, the pain eased slightly.

Chen Zhuo lowered his hand, looking somewhat helplessly at the two elderly people who were almost touching each other.

He wasn't frightened by the heated argument between the two titans, but as a twelve-year-old junior, he felt a helpless embarrassment and disorientation in the face of such undignified mutual accusations between his elders.

He couldn't get a word in edgewise.

In this context of discussing "major national instruments" and "absolute truth," any dissuasion seems pale and powerless, and may even become the spark that ignites the next powder keg.

To avoid the awkwardness, Chen Zhuo's gaze naturally fell on his hands.

His right hand was holding the black softcover notebook, and between his fingers was the silver mechanical pencil whose lead had just broken by Li Jianming during his frantic calculations.

Inside the office, the adults' arguments rose and fell.

Chen Zhuo lowered his head slightly.

His thumb rested on the metal cap at the top of the mechanical pencil.

"Clatter."

A very faint mechanical sound.

Chen Zhuo pressed down on the pen cap, and a small piece of broken gray lead fell from the nib, landing silently on the thick carpet. He didn't look at the broken lead on the floor, but instead pressed down on the cap again, holding it down to pour the remaining small piece of lead from the pen barrel into his palm. Then, he pinched the metal sleeve at the nib with his thumb and forefinger, adjusted it, and then released it.

"Clatter, clatter."

He pressed the button twice more, and a brand-new, appropriately long black lead core was smoothly pushed out.

He gently pressed the tip of the pen with the pad of his index finger to test the length and hardness of the lead core.

A barely perceptible trace of pencil ash remained on his clean, white fingertips.

The argument between the Taoist priest and Li Jianming showed no signs of stopping.

Chen Zhuo's gaze passed over the shoulders of the two titans and landed on the spot behind the large solid wood desk.

Zhou Qiping was sitting in a large leather chair, holding a cup of green tea that had long since gone cold, quietly watching the farce unfolding before him.

Chen Zhuo's gaze met Zhou Qiping's.

Across two old men arguing fiercely, the twelve-year-old boy and the vice-principal in charge of the school's scientific research exchanged a very brief glance.

Chen Zhuo's eyes were clear, revealing a student's innocent and pure nature, as well as a hint of helplessness at being trapped here and unable to leave.

That look seemed to be asking a silent question:

Principal Zhou, how much longer are these two teachers going to argue?

Zhou Qiping received that look.

He looked at the mechanical pencil that Chen Zhuo had just repaired in his hand, and then at the two college leaders in front of him who were willing to lose all face in order to snatch students. He suddenly felt that the scene was extremely absurd.

The prestigious Faculty of Science at the University of Science and Technology of China lost its composure like this in front of a child.

Zhou Qiping put the glass teacup back on the table.

He didn't slam his fist on the table, nor did he shout like Li Jianming.

He simply reached out, picked up the heavy lid of the cup on the table, and then gently tapped it against the rim of the cup.

"bite."