Save Me

Two days later, Sun Erxiong offered his sound advice.

"Shen Qi, to make the last inequality of this positive semidefinite condition true, we need to reduce Δ and δ. I provide the following formula for your reference only."

The formula was written on Shen Qi's printed copy of the paper:

||xk+vksk-x||<δ'

||xk-x||≤δ<δ'

Reviewing Shen Qi's paper nearly killed many of Sun Erxiong's brain cells.

"Thank you for your guidance, Professor Sun. I will revise it immediately."

Shen Qi quickly finished revising the paper and submitted the final PDF document, "Analysis of Generalized Nonlinear Complementary Problems with Linear Inequality Constraints," to the email address of the Mathematical Herald.

The Mathematical Herald is a core mathematics journal sponsored by Yenching University, with an impact factor of 0.492, ranking 2nd-4th among similar journals nationwide.

The top-ranked journal is the * Journal of Mathematics *, which is supervised by the Chinese Academy of Sciences. This is a widely recognized fact in the industry. The reviewers for the * Journal of Mathematics * are often academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and no other journal in China has the same authority.

The journals * Annals of Mathematics *, * Advances in Mathematics *, and * Mathematical Herald * are ranked second only to * Journal of Mathematics *. In fact, these three journals are not ranked in any particular order; they are all ranked 2nd to 4th.

Shen Qi submitted the highest-quality of his five papers to the Mathematical Herald, thus supporting Yenching University's own business.

Now it's just a matter of waiting. Shen Qi hopes that his paper, submitted to the Mathematical Herald, can enter the peer review stage before the Spring Festival.

Of course, time is a bit tight; today is already December 10th.

The Lunar New Year falls on January 28th. The journal's editorial board estimates that they will be on holiday around mid-January and will resume work after the Lantern Festival.

If the peer review process doesn't proceed before the Spring Festival, and they continue to dawdle after the Lantern Festival, the paper might not be accepted until March or April of next year.

But when it comes to the review of math papers, there's no use rushing.

Shen Qi's first paper was "A Solution for Three-Dimensional Hypercomplex Numbers," which he submitted to the Journal of Mathematical Research, sponsored by Zhejiang University, on November 3rd.

On November 6th, Shen Qi received an electronic reply from the * Journal of Mathematical Research *: "Dear author, your manuscript has been received. Please wait patiently for the editor to contact you."

The receipt is a standard procedure and does not indicate whether Shen Qi's paper was accepted or rejected.

This only proves that Shen Qi, your paper was successfully sent to the journal's email address and was not destroyed by the virus.

It wasn't until the editor contacted Shen Qi that he received a clear answer as to whether the project would proceed to peer review or be rejected.

It's been over a month since November 6th, and the editor still hasn't contacted Shen Qi.

That's normal, just wait.

The results for Marxist Philosophy were released today; students can check them on the intranet.

Shen Qi checked and found a score of 97.

Ask your three roommates about their Marxist Philosophy scores: Zhou Yu'an got 87, Cai Qing got 94, and Luo Ji got 92. Nobody got a perfect score.

Ask other students in the Mathematics Department; the highest score was 98, achieved by Ou Ye. No one in the entire department got a perfect score in Marxist Philosophy.

It's obvious that teacher Chen Xinhong is determined not to give anyone a perfect score.

97 points it is, Shen Qi could only accept this objective fact. Goodbye, Professor Chen Xinhong, I will never have to attend your class again, and I have 2 credits.

"This is outrageous! This is so unfair!" Zhou Yu'an was extremely aggrieved, pounding her chest and stamping her feet, so angry that she couldn't eat.

Of the four people in the dormitory, Zhou Yu'an attended the last Marxist Philosophy class before the exam with a strong sense of responsibility, made three copies of the key points for the exam, and distributed them to her three roommates.

As a result, Zhou Yu'an, a kind-hearted person, only scored 87 points, the lowest in the entire dormitory.

"Good people don't get good rewards!" Zhou Yu'an covered his face, in great pain, hating himself.

It's noon now, Shen Qi, Zhou Yu'an, Ou Ye are having lunch together in the Yenching University cafeteria.

Ou Ye is the most amazing. She never attended a single Marxist Philosophy class, Marxist Philosophy scored the highest in the entire department with 98 points in Marxist philosophy.

Shen Qi remained silent, staring blankly out the window.

"Shen Qi, say something! You're driving me crazy! From now on, you'll have to photocopy the exam notes yourself. Don't count on me. You're the class monitor, Laozi bastard! I'm just the acting monitor, and I quit!" Zhou Yu'an forcibly snatched a chicken leg from Shen Qi's plate as compensation for his emotional trauma. "Hey, Shen Qi, are you stupid? What are you looking at? Say something!"

Shen Qi finally spoke, "It's snowing."

"So what if it snows? It's December already, it's bound to snow." Zhou Yu'an took a big bite of the chicken leg.

Shen Qi: "I've never seen real snow before, this is my first time. The snowflakes are so beautiful!"

"Huh?" Zhou Yu'an was stunned. "No way, you've never even seen snow? Are you from Africa?"

Shen Qi said, "It doesn't snow in my hometown, not even during the coldest days of winter. Of course I've seen snow on TV, and I've traveled to the north during summer vacation, but I've never been to the north during winter vacation, so I've never seen real snow."

"Poor child, he's never even seen Zhenxue. Shen Qi, I'm finally better than you in one way: I saw Zhenxue the moment I was born." Zhou Yu'an found a sliver of solace.

Shen Qi stood up. "Let's go play in the snow."

"Naive." Zhou Yu'an refused to go.

"Let's go play in the snow," Shen Qi said to Ou Ye.

"Oh." Ou Ye and Shen Qi left the cafeteria and went outside.

Today's snowfall is the first snowfall in the capital since the beginning of winter; it's neither heavy nor light.

The snowflakes had just started falling, and there wasn't any snow on the ground, so there wasn't much snow to play in anyway.

"Have you ever seen real snow, Ou Ye?" Shen Qi asked, opening his palm to catch the falling snowflakes.

Ou Ye, shivering in the snow, put her hands in her coat pockets. "Yes, I've seen it. I grew up in the north."

Shen Qi took off his coat and casually draped it over Ou Ye's shoulders. "Sorry, I forgot you weren't feeling well. You should go back inside. I'll experience the northern snow by myself."

"Aren't you cold?" Even after putting on Shen Qi's coat, Ou Ye still felt cold, but she didn't immediately go back to the room where the heating was on.

"I'm a long-distance running champion, I'm in great shape," Shen Qi said with a smile, as he again spread his hands to catch the snowflakes.

The snowflakes melted rapidly in Shen Qi's palm, existing for only a very brief moment.

"Snowflakes are truly beautiful; they are perfectly hexagonal in shape. What's amazing is that, amidst the myriad of snowflakes dancing in the sky, no two hexagons are exactly alike. Ou Ye, don't you think that's incredible?" Shen Qi said. "Is there a mathematical method that can qualitatively describe the distribution of snowflake shapes, thereby finding a pair of identical snowflakes?"

Ou Ye: "Someone has done that before, Koch."

"Yes, Koch's Snowflake Curve can be further optimized. Hey, Ou Ye, let's work on a project together. Let's call it 'A Class of Calculation Methods for Snowflake Curve,' what a beautiful topic! This project will require a lot of calculations, so I'll leave the calculation work to you." Shen Qi suddenly had a whimsical idea and thought the project was quite interesting.

"Achoo!" Ou Ye sneezed.

"Alright, alright, I was just saying. Let's not discuss this snowflake topic anymore." Shen Qi forcefully pushed Ou Ye into the cafeteria and instructed, "Don't come out. You can come out after the snow stops."

Ou Ye took off Shen Qi's coat and tossed it to him. "Don't play for too long."

After speaking, Ou Ye rubbed her frozen hands and entered the cafeteria.

Shen Qi put on his coat and stood in the snow, gazing up at the sky like a statue. He remained unmoved as the wind and snow eroded his young and resolute face, like a plum blossom standing proudly in the snow.

Achoo!

Shen Qi sneezed.

"This spread way too fast!" Shen Qi wiped his nose, dropping the pretense; he was a little cold.

Just as Shen Qi entered the cafeteria to escape the cold, his phone rang at the entrance. It was Xu Rui calling.

"It's snowing, Shen Qi! It's snowing!" Xu Rui had never seen real snow before.

Shen Qi calmly said, "So what if it snows? It's December already, it's bound to snow. Xu Rui, be more mature, you're not a child anymore, you're a few months older than me."

"Shen Qi, come to my school quickly, come and save me!" Xu Rui's voice sounded very anxious.

"Damn it, you got into a fight again! What part of your University of Science and Technology is it? Send me your location on WeChat, I'm coming right now!" Shen Qi thought to himself, Xu Rui, you've been fighting your way from the south to the north, invincible throughout the world? You're a track and field athlete, not a martial artist!

"What are you fighting for? This materials science major I'm studying is a complete rip-off!" Xu Rui was utterly desperate. "This stupid major makes me study Material Science, Inorganic Chemistry and Organic Chemistry, and I also have to learn physics and Engineering Drawing... I'm being tortured to the point of being an idiot! I left my hometown for the capital, am I asking for this torture?! Shen Qi, you're the best student, only you can save me, come here quickly!"