Super God-Level Top Student

"And then?"

"Well, we have Qiao Ze's number, don't we? We'll try to contact him when he's not busy, it would be best to add him on WeChat. We'll just take it one step at a time from there, slowly play the sentiment card. If the kid wants to work on any projects, we might be able to offer some support, and that way we'll get to know him better."

"I thought you had some great idea. Fine, I'll give the graduate school a call later. And you and Lu staying up all night going crazy, don't rope me into it! Unless the sky falls down, don't call me before 6 a.m! That trip to Xilin, even though we didn't snatch the guy, I still learned how to blacklist numbers."

Having said this, Zhang Hongcai couldn't be bothered to listen to Qian Yuhai's nonsense anymore and hung up the phone.

"Who was that calling so early?" Seeing Zhang Hongcai put down his phone, his wife stretched lazily and asked casually.

"Qian," Zhang Hongcai replied.

"Qian? What's up?"

"Remember the kid I told you about the other day? I even made a special trip to Xilin for him."

"What's up with that kid again? Last time you said he was quite rude."

"Being rude is one thing, but this month he's had two papers published in internationally recognized top math journals in a row."

"What? That high school student? That's enough for a professorship at our university, isn't it?"

"There's more, he did a project that I suspect caught the attention of Youwei Group. The day before yesterday, Yu Hongwei even made a Weibo post especially for him, talking about a strong partnership."

"You mean, he can handle projects and pull in funding?"

"Exactly! Old Qian is still trying hard. He's given up on the undergraduate stage, hoping we can invite him at the graduate level."

"Qian really is wishful thinking! Even when the kid didn't have any reputation yet, three of you went all the way there and couldn't bring him back, now with this situation, as long as those leaders in Xilin University of Technology have half a brain, they'll do whatever it takes to keep him at their own school."

The blunt truth is always hard to hear.

Zhang Hongcai glared at his wife and said, "Like you know so much!"

After speaking, he sulkily got up from the bed, ready to wash up and head to the school early.

It's not like I can just do nothing just because there's not much chance, right?

...

Xilin University of Technology.

As July arrived, the campus had gradually quieted down.

It was a physical kind of quiet because with the end of exams in various faculties, normal undergraduates could go home to enjoy one of the increasingly rare joyous summer vacations of their lives.

Those kids who had already signed up early for professors' research projects bid farewell to the summer vacation in advance, immersing themselves in the labs to deal with all kinds of machinery or bottles and jars, laying the foundations for their future.

But today, the mood of any professor on campus with a bit of network was heating up, even boiling over.

The new student that the School of Mathematics had recruited published a paper in a top math journal, which had already sparked some ripples on campus.

At that time, in addition to admiration, people were also somewhat distracted by the School of Mathematics' indescribable maneuvers.

Afterward, it became trendy in the mathematics community to look for "watermarks" in Qiao Ze's papers. It didn't really break into other circles much. For professors in other faculties, they just thought the School of Mathematics was extremely lucky this time to have found such an outstanding student.

But when the second paper was published in a top international journal just a few days after the first, the impact began to spread.

In the academic world, everyone is familiar with padded papers.

Most of the time, it's not that they want to pad, but that they're forced to.

Positions, titles, bonuses, rankings... a series of personal honors and financial interests are all tied to scholarly output, so submission fees are nothing.

Generally, being able to pad core journals is already enough to be considered a big-shot.

There really aren't many people in the world who can pad top international journals, let alone in mathematics.

If you shrink that timeline to one month, even the top big-shots haven't heard of such a thing.

Unless they have a few capable lieutenants under their command, but usually, they'll just be listed as corresponding authors. At a certain level, the team members care about their image; they wouldn't take the lead authorship from someone else.

This isn't just excellence; it's downright defiance of the natural order.

The School of Mathematics and the university's leadership, however, seemed much calmer.

Li Jiangao was an honest man and had already reported to Xu Dajiang that they had initially published two papers.

Plus, the top management already knew about Youwei Group's interest in Qiao Ze's project. Compared to missing out on a project that could let the university soar, the excitement brought by two top-journal papers was significantly reduced.

What alerted them more was that the official Weibo of Yanbei Graduate School, out of the blue, posted early in the morning:

"Congratulations to our country's math prodigy Qiao Ze for publishing another paper in the world's premier applied math journal 'SIAM Review'. We ask the public to offer more kind tolerance and less critical attention to Huaxia's math hope of the future, allowing a young sprout to grow in peace and excellence. Thank you all."

Honestly, when they saw this Weibo post, everyone was mentally cursing. MMP!

My student gets attention, and what the learning environment is like isn't any of Yanbei University's damn business!

Making such a post out of the blue, it seemed a bit too calculating.

The most direct effect was that Li Jian Gao, who was just about to head out to join a research group to study the paper, received a call from Xu Dajiang, "Hello, Jian Gao, the principal just called to say that Qiao Ze's mother is coming this afternoon, right?

He wanted to personally greet her, but he really can't get away from a meeting, so he has already entrusted Principal Zheng and two leaders from the school office to greet her. Our school will be represented by me, you, and Zhu, and Zhuo from the admissions office will also be there. Who else besides Qiao Ze from the student side is going to greet her?

Please send me the list later so I can arrange the transportation properly."