"Teacher Dewitt, I received the prize. I'm studying it now. From what I can tell, it seems related to cryptography? Is this notebook about researching codes?"
Song He sent the message and waited quietly.
A moment later, a long string of replies came in. They were voice messages.
Song He long-pressed the screen, converting the voice messages to text and translating them.
Dewitt: "When I was young and looking for work, a friend told me the military was recruiting mathematicians for cryptography research. The salary was very high, so I devoted myself to the subject for a while. Later, for some reason, the high-paying recruitment disappeared, and I failed to become a cryptography expert. I was forced to become a mathematician instead."
Dewitt: "Later, I delved deeply into number theory, algebra, probability, and statistics. Whenever I made some progress, I would apply it to cryptography and try to come up with something novel. You could call it a hobby of mine."
Dewitt: "The first half of this notebook contains many variations on cryptography that I invented myself. The second half is my attempt to create a new mathematical language."
Song He: "A new mathematical language based on cryptography?"
Dewitt: "Yes. I named it Dewitt Language. At present, no one in the entire world fully understands it."
Song He: "There should be one person who understands it, right?"
Dewitt: "You mean me? Although I created Dewitt Language, I created it in my prime. My mental faculties have declined severely over the past twenty years, and I can no longer work out many of the deeper grammatical rules myself."
Dewitt: "I left some messages in Dewitt Language on certain pages. If you learned the earlier material well, you'll be able to understand those messages and read some surprising things—including treasure maps."
Dewitt: "If you never manage to understand them, preserve the notebook carefully and pass it on to your students in the future. I hope that one day, someone will understand my messages and find the life's work and secrets I buried."
Song He: "This disciple will remember it! I'm still young, so I believe I'll understand Dewitt Language someday!"
Dewitt: "I'm not trying to discourage you, nor am I being arrogant, but with your current aptitude, you're still far too far from understanding it. At my peak, my mental faculties were at least twice as strong as they are now. If there were some machine in the world that could measure a person's mathematical ability, I would have scored 100 when I was young. Now, I'd score 50 at most."
Song He was shaken. He knew that mental faculties declined with age, but could aging really have such a severe effect? Cut in half?
After thinking for a while, he found Deng Puhe's chat window.
"Teacher Deng, I was just chatting with Teacher Dewitt. He said his mental faculties are only half what they were when he was young. May I ask whether you feel the same way?"
After waiting a moment, he received a reply. It was another voice message.
Middle-aged and elderly people seemed to be especially fond of voice messages. They were probably too lazy to type.
Deng Puhe: "Dewitt is old and nearly on his deathbed. I'm still some distance from death, so my mental decline isn't as severe."
Deng Puhe: "If my peak mental faculties were 100 points, I'd be around 70 now. The initial idea for my award-winning work first emerged thirty years ago, and I developed the key concepts twenty years ago. All I've done these past years is patch things up, advance the minor details, and improve the ideas I had when I was young. I won't have ideas that good again in this lifetime."
Deng Puhe: "Why do you think the Fields Medal is restricted to people under forty? You understand now, right?"
Deng Puhe: "Work hard while you can, young man! You improved quickly in the pre-New Year Sprint Class, but those were all elementary problems. The upcoming problems are going to be much more intense!"
Song He: "Got it, Teacher! I'll study like crazy!"
After putting down his phone, Song He secretly broke into a sweat.
The pre-New Year problems were only elementary in difficulty? Deng Puhe, don't scare me like that! Those elementary problems nearly killed me!
While the group had yet to reopen classes after the New Year, he studied day and night. The holiday was the perfect time to widen the gap!
At present, he had two main areas of study:
Dickens's paper!
Dewitt's codebook!
At first, Song He planned to alternate between them, switching his focus every hour.
By dawn the next day, he realized that alternating by the hour was impractical.
Once he plunged into a problem, he could easily spend two or three hours unable to emerge. His thoughts raced at full speed; it wasn't something he could simply stop!
It was like a speeding car coming to an abrupt halt. The driver would only be thrown through the windshield after tearing through the seat belt!
Song He tried to force himself to stop and switch subjects twice. His thoughts refused to change lanes at all. His eyes were fixed on the codebook, but his mind was filled with Dickens's paper. His mouse scrolled through Dickens's paper, but all he could see was a code machine spinning wildly.
He had no choice but to stop setting a schedule. Whenever he grew tired of one subject, he switched to the other, following his mood.
The holiday continued until eight o'clock on the evening of the eighth day of the lunar New Year.
The long-silent Fields Medal Sprint Group suddenly came to life. Deng Puhe posted a photograph of a handwritten problem!
"The Spring Festival holiday is over. Class is starting!"
"The problems coming up are some excellent ones Dewitt and I encountered when we were young. They can greatly train your thinking ability. In fact, Dewitt and I owe a great deal of our success in winning our awards to these problems that broadened our minds!"
"But even the two of us would struggle to solve these problems now. If you can solve them, your level will be close to where Dewitt and I are now!"
Dewitt also appeared and spoke: "You have two weeks! If you can't solve them within two weeks, Deng and I will explain them to you. If you want to win the Fields Medal, solving these problems within two weeks is the passing mark!"
The students in the group sent a string of acknowledgments.
Song He licked his lips. His eyes were nervous yet excited, like a wild wolf preparing to attack its prey!
Before the New Year, the group members had generally finished the problems in a few days. Song He had solved every one of them in only two days. Now that the allotted time had stretched to two weeks, the difficulty of these problems was obvious!
The harder the problems, the greater the experience rewards and the faster the level-up!
After examining the problems several times, he put pen to paper and began calculating in his wild, elegant handwriting:
"Given that the sequence f is a multiplicative function, with its values at A1A2 represented at prime powers..."
"By Hessy's Inequality, μ's definition at A1A2 is..."
"The constrained power function u can be expressed in the form of a Dirichlet convolution..."
"By the Dickens Jump Number Formula, the Dickens Domain of Δ is..."
As he calculated, Song He suddenly let out an "Eh?"
His gaze swept over the scratch paper before him. On that short page, he had already used quite a few exclusive theories from Hessy and Dickens!
It seemed the papers written by these two group members really contained something. The traditional approach wasn't impossible, but using their terminology simplified the process by more than half.
Excellent! He loved scholars who created mathematical tools like this. The more tools there were, the faster one could cut through mountains and seas!
The murderous intent on Song He's face intensified. His bloodthirsty gaze accelerated as he wrote, like a wolf about to pounce on its prey, his hormones surging!
Meanwhile.
Peking University Mathematics Department, Deng Puhe's office.
Piles upon piles of books and documents filled the entire office, making it look like a publishing house warehouse.
Some documents in the farthest corner had not been touched for at least seven or eight years. The dust on top was thick enough to grow chives. The documents near the desk, however, lay spread out, their handwriting fresh.
Deng Puhe sat behind the desk, holding his phone and typing with a deeply furrowed brow.
"What the hell are you up to?" Deng Puhe messaged Dewitt.
Before you continue