A genius? I just love studying.

Chapter 145: Why is it him again?
"Oh?"

Kong Nie felt a little regretful. That's how research is. You're doing it, and others are doing it too. If someone else does it before you, then all your previous efforts become meaningless.

Fortunately, his student had only been doing this for a little over six months, so the sunk costs weren't too high.

Back in his office, Kong Nie clicked on the link sent by his student and began to study it. The Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics certainly had a print edition, but the print edition was often much slower to be published than the online version. He couldn't wait until then, nor was it necessary.

After all, he was his student, so he decided to read the paper first and then offer his student a new way out.

Although his area of ​​expertise is noncommutative geometry, a maverick of his caliber is also quite knowledgeable in other areas of mathematics, and he is certainly capable of understanding papers on Diophantine equations.

He completed the verification in just over half an hour.

It is indeed a very ingenious paper, especially the chord-tangent addition method proposed in the paper, which is very interesting. It makes solving cubic Diophantine equations much simpler, reducing them to the level that can be solved manually.

After reading the paper, he seemed to remember something and scrolled up to look at the author list. He had only glanced at it briefly and, finding that it wasn't someone he knew, he couldn't wait to start reading the paper.

Now that he has read the paper, he has developed a slight interest in the author.

"Hui Chen?"

"Ok?"

"Also a Chinese?"

Kong Nie frowned slightly. Although he had studied the Chinese language a little, it was too difficult. Even now, he still didn't quite understand Chinese names.

"And he shares the same name as the student he met this morning?"

"It can't be the same person, can it?"

Konn quickly abandoned this outrageous idea. The child from that morning was just a high school student. At his age, even Schultz had never published an article of this caliber.

Although he didn't think there was any possibility of this guess, after thinking about it over and over again, he still felt like a cat's claws were scratching at his heart, so Kong Nie picked up the phone on the table.

"Hey Hoffman, old chap, how have you been lately?"

The call was quickly connected, and Konn said with a hearty laugh that although the relationship between Germany and France was not good in history, mathematicians from both countries had a lot of exchanges due to their geographical proximity, and the relationship between them was still quite good.

As it happened, he knew Hoffmann, the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.

"Absolutely wonderful!"

Hoffman's hoarse voice came through the receiver, "But you're calling to disturb my lunch break, I'm afraid you don't just want to chat, do you?"

Paris and the University of Bern are in the same time zone, so this time of day is indeed lunch break time.

"Of course, nothing can escape the discerning eyes of an old friend!"

When asking for favors, Kong Nie was quite accommodating.

"Oh, what's so important that you have to be so humble?"

Hoffman, sitting opposite him, also sat up straight. "If it's something too difficult, you'd better not say it. I'm afraid it won't look good for everyone if I refuse."

Hoffman's tone wasn't very friendly. As the editor-in-chief of the journal, he didn't have a huge amount of power, but he had his own principles.

Kong Nie was both amused and exasperated. "You still have that same bad temper."

"Don't worry, it's nothing difficult."

"I saw a recent paper in the Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics on a special solution to cubic Diophantine equations, and I would like to know more about the author."

Konné decided to be direct, as he was worried that if they continued reminiscing, Hoffman would hang up on him. He knew Hoffman was capable of doing that.

"..."

Hoffman thought it was something serious.

This information is usually available directly on the journal's official website, including the author's name, affiliation, research interests, and contact information.

"Hui Chen is a Chinese mathematician from Jiangcheng University. I'll send his contact information to your email later."

Hoffman blurted out without reservation, as he also happened to have some recollection of the paper's author: "Old man, that's all I know."

"Jiangcheng University?!"

Upon hearing this name, Kong Nie was startled.

He remembered that Xu Zhiyuan's workplace when he introduced himself was Jiangcheng University!

So, could the author of this paper really be that little guy?

"I'm rather curious, why have you suddenly become interested in this author?"

Before the call was even disconnected, Hoffman's curious voice came through.

After hesitating for a moment, Kong Nie finally spoke up, "You might not believe it, but this morning I met a very talented young guy. He's a contestant from Saclay University participating in this year's IMO. He's only sixteen years old, and his name is also Hui Chen. He's also from Jiangcheng University!"

Hahahaha...

A hearty laugh came through the microphone.

Hoffman laughed unrestrainedly and said, "Old man, I think you're really getting senile."

"The IMO only allows high school students to participate, but Jiangcheng University is a university, and university students are not qualified to participate in the IMO. How could they be the same person!"

A word to awaken the dreamer.

"I see!"

Kong Nie suddenly realized that this was indeed the case.

……

Chen Hui did not go to Saclay University in the afternoon, but stayed in his hotel room to study. The study rooms at Saclay University were not easy to find, at least not for an outsider like him. He did not want to have another misunderstanding like that in the morning.

[Congratulations, host! You have published a Q1 SCI paper. Free attribute points +1]

Suddenly, a barrage of comments popped up in front of me.

yes!

Chen Hui smiled happily.

Judging by the timeline, Chen's paper on fractions was submitted less than five weeks ago, yet it was published directly. It seems that Duke Mathematics Journal is quite efficient. He will disagree with anyone who says that Westerners are inefficient in the future.

My senior brother had previously told him on WeChat that submitting a manuscript is a long process, often requiring extensive revisions based on the reviewers' comments before it can be officially published.

I can't believe he passed on his first try, he's really lucky!

Unfortunately, despite being the first author and publishing a Q1 SCI paper, I only received one free attribute point.

I wonder if I'll get more free attribute points if I make four big bets.

There's no need to hesitate, "Give me some creativity!"

He used to be indifferent to creativity, but after writing papers, he tasted the sweetness of creativity and now he naturally wants to make up for it.

[Host: Chen Hui
Insight Level 4: (4.1/5)

判断力1级：（1.8/2）    创造力2级：（2.5/3）

Memory Level 3: (3.6/4)

Looking at his extremely unbalanced basic attributes, Chen Hui shook his head inwardly. He was really lacking in free attribute points right now!
After doing all that, he opened his notebook, logged into his email, and sure enough, he found the journal's acceptance email in his inbox.

But it wasn't from the Duke Mathematics Journal, but from the Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics.

Chen Hui never expected that his paper on Diophantine equations, which was published nearly two weeks later, would be published first.

It turns out I went to the wrong grave.

Sure enough, the Germans are something else!

Americans? No way!

The next day, at 9:30 a.m. as usual, everyone gathered outside the examination hall. However, the way everyone looked at Chen Hui today became strange. Clearly, in just one night, the story of Chen Hui's deeds from the previous day had already spread among the contestants.

Gao Zhen had dark circles under his eyes, indicating that he hadn't slept well last night.

However, none of this mattered to Chen Hui. He entered the examination room, waited for the test papers to be distributed, and then began to answer the questions.

Today's questions were significantly more difficult than yesterday's. The first geometry proof required proving a lemma and then using that lemma to complete the subsequent proofs.

The proof for the first part of the second question is very simple. As long as you understand the question, you can easily prove it. The second part can also be solved by induction. Although it is a little more complicated, the approach is still very natural.

The third question is a bit strange, as it involves number theory and spatial reasoning. To solve this question, you no longer need a lot of knowledge, but simply a keen sense of mathematics and logical thinking ability.

There's always a problem like this in every IMO; otherwise, you could get a gold medal just by doing practice problems, and IMO doesn't like gold medalists like that.

However, such questions were already a piece of cake for Chen Hui at this point, and he walked out of the examination room in just thirty minutes.

Hopefully, I'll be able to get free attribute points this time!
Although he was looking forward to it, after finishing it, Chen Hui completely put the matter aside and devoted himself to studying the thesis.

Yuan Xinyi's paper covers a very wide range of fields. Although it is not too difficult, the content is very rich. Chen Hui has only read less than a tenth of it in the past few days, but he is enjoying it.

This time, Li Zehan and his friends did not show up outside the examination hall to make a scene. Even with their abilities, there wasn't much time left after they finished. They didn't dare to be careless and made the most of the limited time to check their work. The IMO gold medal was still very important to them.

It wasn't until all four hours were up that the candidates gradually emerged from the examination hall. The smiles that had graced many faces yesterday were nowhere to be seen today.

"Gao Zhenjun, how was your day?"

The island nation's tour leader frowned as he looked at Gao Zhen, whose eyes were dark-rimmed, and asked a question.

"not too good!"

Gao Zhen answered truthfully.

He feels terrible right now.

He originally thought that staying up late wouldn't have a big impact, but when he actually got to the exam hall and saw the questions, he realized that whenever he tried to think deeply, his mind was like a complete mess.

Who would have thought the questions on the second day would be so much harder?

He only managed to solve the first question and the first part of the second question in four hours today; he had absolutely no idea how to solve the second and third parts.

"idiot!"

The team leader reprimanded him without any politeness, "Do you know how many people are waiting for this spot? If you had known this would happen, you would have given it to Jiulang instead."

"If you don't win the gold medal this time, you can expect to be punished!"

"Sea Wing!"

Gao Zhen was already used to bowing his head and agreeing, but he transferred all his resentment to Chen Hui.

It's all that guy's fault. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have been suffering from insomnia. With his ability, he shouldn't have achieved this result.

The two-day exams have ended, but the IMO is not completely over yet. After the results are released in a few days, there will be an awards ceremony, especially for those who achieve a perfect score, who will receive a separate award at the closing ceremony.

Back in 07 at the IMO, Liu Zhiyu, a contestant from China, achieved a perfect score and stood on the podium. Peter Schultz was also there that year.

Although Schultz also won a gold medal, it wasn't a perfect score, and he didn't make it to the podium.

Unfortunately, Liu Zhiyu, who competed against Schultz, rejected MIT's full scholarship offer after graduating from Yanbei University and became a monk.

Today, Peter Schultz is a renowned mathematician, while Liu Zhiyu works as a psychological counselor to help people. It's hard to judge other people's choices, but thinking back to what happened back then, there's only endless sighing.

There are no lectures or events similar to the CMO after the IMO competition, but if you want to attend lectures, Saclay University does offer them.

However, most participants will take advantage of these few days to have a good time in Paris, as it is a rare opportunity for them to relax.

Of course, not everyone was in the mood for travel, such as Gao Zhen from the island nation team and John from the United States team.

"John, what's wrong with you?"

At the IMO-designated hotel, the US tour leader looked at the listless little guy and asked with concern.

John remained silent, only shaking his head.

Clearly, Gao Zhen was not the only one affected by Chen Hui's incident yesterday.

Chen Hui had never taken the matter of criticizing Chen Hui and his friends to heart, but he couldn't help but feel a little bothered by it, especially after seeing Chen Hui's amazing performance yesterday, which inevitably caused a change in his mindset.

"Hey, it's just an exam, it's no big deal. You're still young, you can always try again next year."

The team leader offered words of comfort.

"Come and see this!"

Suddenly, one of the team members exclaimed and handed his phone to the team leader.

"A special solution to the cubic Diophantine equation?"

The team leader stared blankly at the content on his phone, unsure of what the team member was trying to say.

"Look at his author!"

The player seemed somewhat excited.

"Hui Chen?!"

The team leader understood what the team member meant, and his eyes were filled with horror.

"It can't be the same person, right?"

Goodness, while the American prodigies he mentors are still participating in the IMO and solving problems, this guy has already started writing papers, right?
Furthermore, it is a Q1 SCI journal, a core mathematics journal, such as the Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics!
"No, that's not the point. The point is his institution—Jiangcheng University!"

Tom knew the team leader had misunderstood. "The IMO only allows high school students to participate. If that guy is already in college, then he is not eligible to participate in the IMO. Even if he gets a perfect score, it will be invalid."

"Is it the same person?" the team leader asked again, the same question, but with a completely different meaning.

"You've forgotten, the team leader from China happens to be a teacher at Jiangcheng University!"

Tom said with absolute certainty, "He must be the author of this paper!"

It's normal for people to have the same name, but with so many coincidences combined, there can only be one answer!
He was one of the people who went out with John that day, so he knew perfectly well why John was affected. If he could make that guy lose his IMO gold medal qualification and avenge John, he would be more than happy to do so.

(End of this chapter)