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Chapter 108: Chapter 105: Does It Have to Be This Absurd?

「Hang City High-speed Rail Station.」

The moment Li Dong walked out of the high-speed rail station, he saw Sun Xiang waving at him from outside the exit.

”Li Dong! Over here!”

Ever since Sun Xiang had resigned from his teaching post at Jiangcheng Sixth Middle School and come to work as a research assistant for Professor Zhang Minfang at the Zhejiang University School of Life Sciences, his entire demeanor had changed.

”Teacher Sun,” Li Dong said with a smile as he walked over to greet him.

Sun Xiang stepped forward and gave him a big hug.

”You incredible kid! You really did it! Provincial top scorer in science, and you even got into Yan University Yuanpei! I knew it back at Sixth Middle School—a kid like you was never meant to stay in a small pond!”

The two exchanged a few pleasantries, then Sun Xiang cut the chatter, pulled Li Dong into a ride-share car, and headed straight for the Zhejiang University School of Life Sciences.

Along the way, Sun Xiang updated Li Dong on the latest progress of the research project.

”I already told you about the current situation over the phone.”

”The T1 generation seeds have been germinated and have now grown into mature plants. They’re in the most critical flowering stage...”

Li Dong listened quietly, taking mental notes.

Soon, the ride-share car arrived at Zhejiang University...

In the Plant Genetics and Molecular Breeding Laboratory on the third floor of the School of Life Sciences building, Li Dong changed into a white lab coat and followed Sun Xiang into the climate-controlled cultivation room.

On rows of tissue culture racks, the Alpine Willow Chrysanthemum had already bloomed with pale yellow flowers.

”The next part is pure manual labor. We need to complete two core verification tests.”

”First, we need to emasculate and artificially pollinate these T1 generation mutant strains to confirm they’ve completely lost their ability for parthenogenesis and require fertilization to bear fruit.”

”Second, we need to compile the complete trait segregation data for this batch of T1 generation plants to verify the expected results.”

Sun Xiang handed Li Dong a pair of pointed tweezers.

Li Dong took the tweezers. As he looked at the sea of pale yellow flowers before him, he suddenly remembered something and turned to Sun Xiang.

”Oh, right, Teacher Sun. The key homologous gene regulating apomixis that we isolated from this batch of Alpine Willow Chrysanthemum—shouldn’t we give it an official name before writing the paper?”

Sun Xiang smiled.

”You’re the one who located it by researching the literature, and you personally extracted the plasmid to knock it out. The naming rights naturally belong to you.”

Li Dong mentally reviewed the academic rules for species classification and nomenclature.

”A team from the Netherlands previously cloned a parthenogenesis gene from the medicinal Hairy Mountain Willow Chrysanthemum (*Pilosella officinarum*) and named it PpPAR.”

Li Dong said thoughtfully.

”We’re using the same material Mendel used in his experiments, the Alpine Willow Chrysanthemum (*Hieracium prealtum*), which taxonomically belongs to the True Mountain Chrysanthemum genus.”

”To maintain consistency in gene family naming while also reflecting the cross-genus species difference, let’s call it—HpPAR (for *Hieracium prealtum* Parthenogenesis gene).”

Sun Xiang’s eyes lit up. He thought the name was excellent.

”HpPAR? A great name! It’s both rigorous and pays homage to cutting-edge research.”

”Now that the name is settled,” Sun Xiang said as he put on his gloves.

”Let’s get to work! As long as we can personally confirm that after knocking out the HpPAR Gene, these Alpine Willow Chrysanthemums resume sexual reproduction and their offspring perfectly replicate Mendel’s 3:1 segregation ratio... once this paper is published, the entire field of genetics will be shaken.”

Li Dong nodded, took a deep breath, and the [Life Analysis] system manifested a phantom in a Monk’s Robe behind him.

He picked up the tweezers and reached for an anther.

...

「Meanwhile, in Kyoto, at Yan University, Building 35, Men’s Dorm Room 404.」

”Dammit, couldn’t get a front-row seat again today!”

Wang Hao shoved the dorm room door open, threw the books in his hand onto the desk, and immediately started cursing.

Following behind him, Liu Qiang and Chen Nan also complained with looks of indignation.

”I suspect those guys were recruited for sports. They run so damn fast.”

Today, they had Professor Liu Ruochuan’s *Mathematical Analysis* class again.

After all, the blueprint for mathematics that Professor Liu had laid out yesterday had left them all stunned, and the entire class’s enthusiasm was at an all-time high.

Although today’s lecture only covered the basics of analysis, Professor Liu still taught it brilliantly, citing classics and sources.

But the awe-inspiring vision of a grand unification of mathematics from yesterday was something these chosen sons of heaven couldn’t forget.

”Hey, you guys think the Riemann Hypothesis will ultimately be proven or disproven?”

Chen Nan asked.

Wang Hao shot him a look like he was an idiot.

”For those of us in math, we basically all use it as if it’s already a theorem, okay?”

”Many major corollaries in number theory are based on the premise that the Riemann Hypothesis is true. So what do you think?”

”Hey, speaking of the Riemann Hypothesis...”

Liu Qiang suddenly interjected, then looked under Li Dong’s bunk.

”Brother Dong’s computer, running that program to verify the non-trivial zeros of the Riemann Zeta function... it’s been going for two straight days and nights, right?”

Wang Hao leaned in for a closer look too.

”Yeah, but to be honest, verifying non-trivial zeros isn’t just about pure mathematical derivation anymore. You also have to optimize the algorithm.”

The know-it-all Wang Hao was now online, ready to drop some knowledge.

”I’ve specifically looked up information on this before.”

”The current internationally recognized computation record was set in 2004 by the French mathematician Xavier Gourdon.”

”Back then, he used a distributed supercomputer cluster, optimized the top-tier Odlyzko-Schönhage algorithm to its absolute limit, and ran it day and night for several months just to verify the non-trivial zeros up to a terrifying ten trillion.”

He pointed at Li Dong’s computer.

”Brother Dong’s mobile workstation, with its standard-voltage i9 CPU and large amount of RAM, is definitely top-of-the-line for a personal PC.”

”But compared to the supercomputer cluster from back then, its hardware processing power is off by at least two orders of magnitude.”

”Running for two days and two nights, given the physical limits of its processing power with a conventional algorithm, reaching even the tens-of-billions level would require god-tier C++ low-level memory management.”

After hearing all that, Chen Nan’s curiosity was completely piqued.

”So, what number do you guys think Brother Dong’s program has reached by now?”

”We’d just be looking at the screen. Just moving the mouse to wake it up won’t interrupt the program. Let’s take a look.”

Liu Qiang swallowed hard, and mustering his courage, he reached out and gently moved Li Dong’s mouse.

The previously dark screen slowly lit up.

In a black console window, lines of green numbers were steadily scrolling downward.

The three of them immediately huddled closer, their eyes fixed on the real-time statistical data refreshing at the bottom of the screen:

[Verified Zeros: 168,451,239,840...]

[Verified Zeros: 168,451,245,112...]

At that moment, the dorm room fell completely silent.

”Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands... hundred thousands, millions, ten millions, hundred millions... billions, ten billions, hundred billions...”

Liu Qiang and Chen Nan muttered.

”One hundred... one hundred and sixty-eight billion?”

”1.6 times 10 to the 11th power?”

”Haozi, how good is this for Brother Dong?”

The composed smile Wang Hao wore just a moment ago had frozen on his face.

”It’s... it’s okay, I guess...”

He didn’t dare to confirm it, because this was just too unbelievable.

His first thought was, ’Li Dong probably isn’t doing a full verification.’

Liu Qiang and Chen Nan didn’t understand, but he knew a thing or two.

’If this is a full verification...’

He began to quickly calculate the difference in speed and hardware, but the more he calculated, the more he felt like his entire worldview was about to collapse...

’You have to understand, the processing power of those supercomputers is measured in TFLOPS, or trillions of floating-point operations per second, or even PFLOPS!’

’They ran at full tilt for months just to reach ten trillion!’

’Although their absolute number is higher than what Li Dong has run...’

’But Li Dong is just using a consumer-grade mobile workstation!’

’And he completed a full verification of over 160 billion zeros in just two days and nights on a single machine?’

’If he let it run for a few months, wouldn’t he catch up to the record?’

’He might even surpass it!’