Awakening Elementary School System in University

Schultz showed great patience with these questions.

He would always listen attentively to each question before offering his own clear answer. A gentle smile remained on his face the entire time, betraying no hint of impatience.

Boosted by his [Little Mathematician] ability, Chen Lin was naturally captivated.

Annie, who was beside him, couldn’t help but lean over when she saw his completely absorbed, contemplative expression. In a very low voice, she asked curiously, "You... you can actually understand this?"

Hearing this, Chen Lin glanced over at her. The corners of his mouth turned up slightly in an enigmatic smile, playing the part of a silent master.

Time flew by in this back-and-forth exchange of questions and answers.

At 9:13, a staff member walked onto the stage and whispered a reminder in Schultz’s ear.

Schultz glanced at his PowerPoint slides, less than halfway through his presentation, and a helpless, wry smile appeared on his face.

Clearly, spending so much time interacting with the audience had completely disrupted his original lecture schedule.

However, he didn’t drag it out. He simply shrugged at the audience and crisply announced the end of his lecture.

The moment his words fell, the entire lecture hall erupted in thunderous applause.

The applause was enthusiastic and long-lasting, showing no signs of stopping.

Chen Lin, however, had no interest in sticking around to watch the crowd fawn over the genius mathematician.

He gently nudged Shen Yan’s arm with his backpack and gestured toward the exit with his eyes.

Shen Yan immediately understood. With a silent understanding, the two of them slipped out of the venue from their corner seats in the back row.

Annie, who had just sat down behind them, saw the two leaving. A flicker of curiosity crossed her azure eyes, and almost instinctively, she stood up and quietly followed them out.

The air in the hallway outside the venue was instantly much clearer.

Chen Lin hadn’t gone far. He and Shen Yan were standing by the wall not far from the exit, as if waiting for someone.

Annie curiously approached, but just as she was about to ask something, she saw Peter Schultz emerge from the hall, surrounded by a crowd of people.

Seeing his chance, Chen Lin strode forward and greeted him in fluent English, "Hello, Professor Schultz."

Schultz, who was surrounded by several enthusiastic questioners and feeling a bit overwhelmed, turned his head at the sound of the voice. When he saw Chen Lin’s face, his expression instantly changed. The polite, gentle smile from the stage was replaced by a genuinely delighted one that came from the heart.

"Mr. Chen Lin! I was just about to look for you!"

He offered a quick "Sorry" to the people around him, pushed his way out of the crowd, and walked briskly over to Chen Lin.

Before the two could exchange more than a few words, Chen Lin keenly noticed that many attendees leaving the hall were already casting curious glances their way.

He could even clearly hear a few Huaxia students whispering not far away.

"Holy shit, isn’t that Chen Lin? How did he get to be talking with Professor Schultz?"

"Look at Professor Schultz’s expression. You don’t think they already know each other, do you?"

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"This is like a clash of the titans..."

Chen Lin felt a wave of helplessness, but his face remained impassive as he suggested to Schultz, "Professor, there are too many prying eyes here. Perhaps we could find a quieter place to talk?"

"Of course!" Schultz readily agreed. He glanced around, and then, as if remembering something, smiled and suggested, "The organizers have provided two private lounges for us speakers to rest and have private discussions. They’re not far from here. We can go there."

Ten minutes later, the group of four arrived at Building 79 of the Imperial Capital International Mathematics Research Center.

When Chen Lin saw the familiar building number, the corner of his mouth couldn’t help but twitch slightly.

’What a coincidence,’ he thought.

This time, however, they didn’t go up to the second floor. Instead, Schultz led them directly into a large classroom at the end of the first-floor hallway.

This was evidently one of the lounges Schultz had mentioned. It was furnished with several comfortable sofas and a long conference table, creating a quiet and elegant atmosphere.

The group chose a set of sofas by the window and sat down. Chen Lin glanced at Annie, who was sitting beside him with wide, curious eyes, excitedly taking in her surroundings. Unable to hold back any longer, he asked her in English with a hint of resignation, "Miss Annie, isn’t there a lecture you’re interested in at this time? Why did you follow us here?"

"There was," Annie answered frankly, "but the chance to see you and Professor Schultz meet in person is much rarer than an ordinary lecture! I was just too curious, so I couldn’t resist following you to see what would happen."

Hearing this, Schultz just smiled, unconcerned. "It’s no problem. There’s nothing mysterious about it, really. It’s just a simple academic exchange with Mr. Chen Lin."

As he spoke, he carefully took out a stack of manuscripts held together with a binder clip from the brown leather briefcase he carried and handed it to Chen Lin.

"Mr. Chen Lin, after you replied to my email, I spent some more time doing a deep dive into your JAMS paper, studying it from beginning to end." Schultz’s face was lit with the excitement of someone who had met their match. "Following the line of thought you proposed in the article, I tried to make some further deductions and came up with some ideas of my own.

"However, as you know, Differential Geometry isn’t my specialty, so my research is still at a relatively superficial level. For now, I’ve only been able to produce a rough framework."

Chen Lin’s heart skipped a beat. He accepted the manuscript with a solemn expression.

He flipped to the first page, his eyes falling on the sweeping lines of handwritten text covering the paper.

In truth, with the boost from his [Little Mathematician] title, Chen Lin’s reading speed for purely mathematical content had already reached an unbelievable level.

Forget a single page—if he wanted to, he could scan an entire book in just a few seconds and instantly digest and understand all of its contents.

But to avoid appearing too shockingly brilliant, he forced himself to suppress the urge to read ten lines at a glance, feigning the appearance of a diligent student as he started from the first line and slowly read his way down.

Almost at the same moment, Shen Yan and Annie, who were beside him, also leaned in curiously, their eyes fixed on the manuscript.

With Shen Yan’s current knowledge as a third-year undergraduate, even though she had already self-studied some graduate-level courses, the contents of the manuscript, which involved cutting-edge mathematical research, were still like an esoteric text to her—incredibly difficult to read.

But she wasn’t reading for content. She was reading for the feeling—the thrill of witnessing a meeting of minds between two top-tier geniuses.

Annie’s situation was similar. Although she was a PhD student at MIT, her field was artificial intelligence algorithms. Understanding pure mathematical theory, especially an abstruse branch like Differential Geometry, was equally difficult for her.

Yet, at this moment, she felt even more excited than Shen Yan.

Because she understood, far better than Shen Yan, just how rare a scene like this truly was!