Chapter 64 - 48: Feng Yunhai
At the mention of his grandson, a helpless yet doting smile touched Liang Tianshi’s lips. "It’s summer vacation now, and a high school kid rarely gets the chance to relax. I came to the Imperial Capital on business this time, so I didn’t want to drag him along for the trouble."
Feng Yunhai nodded and said with concern, "Speaking of which, when I called to wish your wife a happy New Year, she mentioned that Liang Qing and his wife have been going to great lengths for Xiaodong’s education. Let’s see, he should be a rising senior this year, right? Would he be interested in coming to the Imperial Capital? I could talk to some of the other guys from our time and see if we can..."
"That won’t be necessary." Liang Tianshi cut him off with a shake of his head, his tone calm. "I know that boy better than anyone. He’s a good kid, but he’s just not the academic type. You and I have been in this world long enough to know that academics require a certain aptitude. There’s no point in forcing it. That would just be a waste of the nation’s resources."
He paused, his tone softening with the warmth of an elder. "All I hope for now is that the boy grows up healthy and stays on the right path. That’s more than enough. Our family may not be fabulously wealthy, but we can certainly ensure he’s provided for his entire life."
Feng Yunhai, knowing his mentor’s unimpeachable character, simply nodded and didn’t press the matter.
After a bit more small talk, he finally got to the point. "Liang, you seemed quite urgent when you called me over. Is there something you needed?"
"Yes." Liang Tianshi’s smile faded, his expression growing serious once more. He gestured to the three sheets of A4 paper on the coffee table. "Take a look at this."
Feng Yunhai picked up the papers. His eyes fell on the question on the first page, and after a single glance, a look of clear surprise spread across his face.
"Wait a minute. Isn’t this the question you used to test Wei Beichen individually, back when you were with the IMO national training camp?" He looked up, a hint of nostalgia in his eyes. "I remember it vividly. It was precisely because he solved it in under an hour that you overruled the committee and made the final call to let a high schooler represent the nation at the IMO."
Liang Tianshi nodded in approval, a look of reminiscence on his face as well. "That’s right. When I first met young Wei, I only saw a focused, talented kid. I never imagined he’d shoot to stardom like that—winning the IMO gold for two consecutive years, and with perfect scores! He truly brought great honor to the nation in those two years."
On that note, Liang Tianshi asked casually, "How is the boy doing now? The last time I saw him... it must have been seven or eight years ago, wasn’t it?"
Feng Yunhai replied, "That’s right. When you last saw him, he was working as a Postdoctoral Researcher under me. He’s an assistant professor now."
Liang Tianshi: "Still researching the Navier-Stokes equations?"
Feng Yunhai: "He is. He dove headfirst into it and hasn’t looked back. He’s published some very substantial work over the last few years."
"One of the seven Millennium Prize Problems..." Liang Tianshi lamented. "You just don’t find many promising young talents these days who are willing to settle down and dedicate themselves to purely theoretical research like that."
"Fewer and fewer," Feng Yunhai sighed, sharing the sentiment. "The gifted ones nowadays are more interested in making money. Right after graduation, they jump into quantitative finance or get into the latest craze, artificial intelligence."
"That’s just human nature, I suppose." Liang Tianshi nodded, letting the topic drop.
Feng Yunhai steered the conversation back on track. "So, Liang, did you call me here just to ask about Wei Beichen?"
"No." Liang Tianshi shook his head and gestured with his chin toward the other two pages in Feng Yunhai’s hand. "Look at those."
Feng Yunhai looked down and began to read carefully.
He read with intense focus, nodding at times, frowning at others. Partway through, he looked up and asked Liang Tianshi for a pen and paper. He began scribbling furiously on a piece of scratch paper, checking his work against the steps on the pages.
The office fell silent once again.
Some ten minutes later, Feng Yunhai finally set down his pen. He looked up, a trace of admiration on his face.
"The proof is flawless. Extremely rigorous. The core logic is the same as what Wei Beichen used all those years ago, but this person has even optimized some of the details. Who wrote this?"
Liang Tianshi calmly stated, "A sophomore at Yannan University."
"Yannan University?" Feng Yunhai frowned. "Someone who can solve a problem of this difficulty should have at least made the IMO national team. Yannan has a solid math department, but if I recall correctly, there hasn’t been a student from Yannan on the team for the past two years."
"I haven’t been following the competitions much these last few years. Let’s not get bogged down in the minutiae." Liang Tianshi waved a dismissive hand, his gaze sharp as he posed the crucial question. "Do you have any idea how long it took this student to solve it?"
Feng Yunhai shook his head instinctively.
Liang Tianshi slowly raised two fingers.
"Twenty minutes."
The moment the words left his lips, Feng Yunhai’s expression went blank. In an instant, the calm, collected demeanor of a top-tier academic vanished without a trace!
He shot up from the sofa so abruptly that he knocked over an empty teacup on the coffee table.
"Impossible!"
Realizing his outburst, Feng Yunhai quickly righted the teacup he had toppled and looked at Liang Tianshi apologetically.
"My apologies, Liang," he explained with a strained smile. "I’m not questioning you. It’s just... that’s a bit too..."