Chapter 301 - 273: The Fish Took the Bait
The next morning, at Yan University’s School of Physics.
Professor Zhou Qifeng’s office.
Professor Zhou was humming a tune, sitting alone at his desk. On the screen was a paper he had just finished finalizing.
It was the paper he had poured the most effort into over the past six months.
The Fujikawa Path Integral Derivation of the SU(N) Gauge Field Chiral Anomaly in a Four-Dimensional Euclidean Curved Background
He had considered his options.
It wasn’t quite weighty enough for Physical Review Letters.
And for Nature Physics or the Annals of Physics, the subject matter wasn’t quite right.
The best fit was probably JHEP.
The Journal of High Energy Physics.
In the fields of gauge theory and Quantum Field Theory, it was the most relevant journal—the one that would ensure reviewers took the work seriously.
Top-tier, but not the absolute pinnacle.
He read the abstract from the beginning one more time. It seemed pretty good.
’This one... shouldn’t be a problem.’
He took a sip of his tea.
Just then, the office door was pushed open.
Director Liu walked in, a stack of materials for the master’s program interviews tucked under his arm.
The moment he saw the smile on Professor Zhou’s face, he knew the professor must have finished his paper.
"Professor Zhou."
"Is it all sorted out?"
"If this one gets published, with its significance... you’ll be a shoo-in for the next round of selections for the Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professorship, won’t you?"
"You’ve been working on this for ages."
Professor Zhou chuckled and nodded.
At his age, the award for distinguished young scholars was a thing of the past. The next step up was the Changjiang Scholar program.
After that step, the only thing further up was becoming an Academician.
But to become a Changjiang Scholar, one needed a truly landmark paper, a signature piece of work.
If this JHEP paper of his was published without a hitch...
This would likely be that paper.
Director Liu tactfully said no more and placed the materials to one side.
He leaned in, hoping to get another look at the abstract.
Just then...
There was a knock at the office door.
KNOCK KNOCK. The rhythm was so familiar it made him want to curse.
Professor Zhou looked up.
The smile on his face instantly froze.
The door was pushed open a crack.
A head peeked cheekily through the gap.
"Teacher Zhou."
Professor Zhou put down his teacup and frowned.
"What are you doing here, you brat?"
"Here to ask for time off again?"
He caught himself before he even finished the sentence.
"Wait, you don’t need to ask for time off anymore, do you?"
Li Dong walked in with an expression that screamed, "You’ve got the wrong guy!"
"Huh? Teacher Zhou?"
"Can’t I just stop by to see how you’re doing?"
Professor Zhou stared at him coldly.
He, Zhou Qifeng, wouldn’t believe a single word that came out of this kid Li Dong’s mouth—not even the punctuation.
The kid used to look for him to get time off. Now that he didn’t need to, that left only two possibilities.
One, he wanted a favor.
Two, he wanted a favor.
Professor Zhou sighed.
"Alright, alright."
"Spit it out. What is it?"
"I’m busy."
By now, Li Dong had walked up beside him.
His gaze naturally fell upon the screen.
He gave it a quick scan.
"Oh?"
"Teacher Zhou, are you looking over a student’s paper?"
The corner of Professor Zhou’s mouth twitched.
"Mhm." He couldn’t be bothered to correct him.
Li Dong leaned in a little closer.
"Hmm..."
His eyes stopped on a line of equations in the middle of the screen.
"Path integral measure transformation."
"Curved background."
"SU(N) on a four-dimensional Euclidean compact manifold."
He muttered a few phrases, seemingly to himself.
"The quality of this paper is quite high."
Professor Zhou’s expression flickered when he heard that.
’This kid... he figured out the main thrust of it at a glance?’
He himself had spent three months just trying to connect the curved background with the Fujikawa method, scribbling over and over on his whiteboard.
’And Li Dong got the main idea just by glancing at it?’
Just as he was reeling from the surprise...
Li Dong spoke again.
"It’s using the Fujikawa Jacobi determinant."
"Then it links the flat-space expansion in a curved background to the second Chern class."
"And that final patching proposition..."
"That extends the topological protection near the singularity to a non-compact open neighborhood."
Li Dong muttered a few more things, then nodded to himself.
"Mhm, that step is elegant."
"This is definitely good enough for JHEP."
Professor Zhou’s hand, holding his teacup, froze in mid-air.
’How did this kid even guess which journal I planned to submit to?’
’Still, he’s got a good eye!’
He put down his teacup, about to declare, "This is *my* paper, not some student’s."
But before he could open his mouth, Li Dong spoke again.
"However..."
He was looking at a section in the middle of the screen.
"This part here could be optimized."
Li Dong tapped his finger on the screen.
"Look at this step."
"When he expands the Jacobi determinant in a curved background into the flat metric plus a perturbation term, he introduces a first-order gauge connection correction term."
"This term is described as ’trivially of the same order’."
Li Dong paused.
"Strictly speaking, it should be called ’covariantly trivial to the same order’."
"That’s because this correction term has an implicit gauge choice on the tangent bundle."
"Writing it this way is correct in principle, but it isn’t precise enough."
"If a reviewer is being a stickler, they’d probably ask for this sentence to be rewritten in covariant form, with a small check for gauge invariance added."
He thought for a moment, then added,
"Of course, if the reviewer isn’t a stickler, it’ll probably get a pass."
"This step doesn’t affect the conclusion itself."
"It’s just not written as cleanly as it could be."
After speaking, Li Dong nodded to himself, as if confirming his own judgment.
The only reason he could spot it at a glance was that he had wrestled with this particular section before.
He knew that in the expansion of the Jacobi determinant in a curved background, the ’triviality’ wasn’t an isolated triviality; it was a triviality involving a gauge connection.
As for the other parts...
He had really just scanned it, following the main idea from the title. Pointing out this one flaw was all he had; he’d exhausted his knowledge on the subject.
After all, the paper was a comprehensive work.
Having said his piece, Li Dong waited for Professor Zhou to respond.
’He had come today on official business. Now that I’ve helped lighten his workload a bit,’ he thought, ’it should be easier to ask him for that favor, right?’
But he waited for a moment.
Professor Zhou didn’t say a word.
Li Dong turned to look at him.
Professor Zhou was just sitting there, staring intently at the screen.
Li Dong froze.
He thought he must have said something wrong.
He thought for a moment, replaying his last sentence in his mind.
’I don’t think I said anything wrong, did I?’
A minute or so passed in silence.
Professor Zhou finally moved.
He picked up his teacup, then set it down again.
He let out a long sigh.
He didn’t mention the paper again.
"Alright."
"Stop looking at it."
"State your business."
Standing to the side, Director Liu was trying his hardest not to laugh.
He had witnessed the whole thing.
Professor Zhou had just had a flaw in his three-month-long project pointed out by one of his own undergraduate students...
And said undergraduate still thought it was another student’s paper.
The scene was just...
Director Liu silently averted his gaze from Zhou Qifeng’s thunderous expression.
Li Dong was snapped back to reality and realized he needed to state his purpose.
"Teacher Zhou."
He chuckled sheepishly.
"So, recently, I’ve run into a problem. Just a small one."
"While I was studying, I came across a problem in gauge field theory, and I just can’t seem to wrap my head around it."
"I was hoping to ask a professor about it."
Professor Zhou grunted in acknowledgment.
He worked on gauge fields himself.
The moment Li Dong opened his mouth, he subconsciously assumed the kid had come to ask for his guidance.
’The kid really has good taste!’ he thought.
Adopting his professorial air, he was just about to ask what the problem was when...
Li Dong cut in again.
"So I was hoping to find a, you know, seriously top-tier professor to ask."
When Professor Zhou heard the phrase "seriously top-tier," he smiled.
’This kid,’ he thought.
’He’s quite the flatterer.’
’Knows enough to call me top-tier.’
But before the smile could fully form, the comment about the "trivially of the same order" part suddenly popped into his head.
His confidence in his own "top-tier" status wavered for a moment.
He looked back at Li Dong in silence.
’He doesn’t seem like he’s just sucking up, though.’
And sure enough.
Li Dong continued.
"Do you know any professors like that?"
"Preferably the best in all of Huaxia."
"No."
"The best in the entire world."
The room fell silent once more.
Professor Zhou stared at Li Dong, thoroughly aggrieved. He started cursing inwardly.
’The best in the world at gauge theory?’
’You might as well just say his name at this point!’
Finally, he sighed and said,
"You’re looking for Mr. Yang, aren’t you?"
Li Dong put on a look of mild surprise.
"Teacher Zhou, you know Mr. Yang?"
"Of course, a senior professor like you would have such an extensive network."
Professor Zhou waved his hand, completely ignoring Li Dong’s sycophantic flattery.
"Wait here a moment."
"I’m going to make a call."
He walked past Li Dong and headed for the hallway outside his office.
As he walked out, his face was still dark.
But the moment the door closed and he was out of Li Dong’s sight...
...a smile suddenly broke out across his face.
He lowered his head and scrolled through his contacts to find a number.
He dialed.
The call connected after two rings.
He lowered his voice.
"Dean Gao."
"The fish took the bait on its own."