Flipping through the chat history, it seemed to be an unusually serious group chat. There was no idle chatter, only endless discussions proving theorems. Occasionally, a line or two of non-formulaic text would appear, usually exchanging information about some international mathematics event or congratulating a group member on winning a mathematics award.
Therefore, after Song He joined the group, nobody said a word of welcome. The group remained eerily silent. The immortals were probably all very busy and had no time to pay attention to a new junior immortal.
"Actually, I originally planned to focus on the Song He Manifold, but after listening to your lectures several times today, I suddenly became very interested in the Dewitt Conjecture as well," Song He said. "So... I want to see if I can advance both at the same time."
Dewitt was still smiling broadly when he heard the first half, but he froze completely at the second half.
"How could that be possible?" Dewitt said. "Both directions are extremely difficult, and both require you to devote all your energy to them. What was that saying of yours again? Your eyebrows and beard..."
"You can't try to grab both your eyebrows and beard at once," Deng Puhe supplied from the side. He then nodded. "I agree with Dewitt. If you work on both topics, you'll end up doing neither of them well."
"How about this? First, tell me how much you currently understand about the Dewitt Conjecture and what difficulties you're facing. We can discuss it now." Dewitt decided to make sure the deal was settled first.
Song He pulled a prepared sheet of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and handed it over.
"I roughly understand what you've explained so far. I've been trying to continue the proof, and for now I've