Walking Dead

China is a vast country with diverse Sun Yat-sen University and significant climate differences between the north and south.

In the twelfth lunar month, the north is covered in ice and snow for thousands of miles, and even wrapped in a padded coat, it's still cold.

People in the south, however, strolled through the flower market in light clothing, carrying money trees and kumquats home in hopes of good fortune and abundant wealth in the coming year.

Shen Qi's father was a businessman, and businessmen are all superstitious.

Money trees and kumquat trees must be brought into the home by family members; otherwise, wealth will leak out, bringing bad luck and decline.

Shen Qi didn't believe in this stuff; a successor to socialism believes in science.

Even if he doesn't believe it, he still has to work; his dad does believe it.

After several busy days, Shen Qi had finished preparing all the New Year's goods for his home, and he invited a few of his high school classmates for a small gathering.

Xu Rui, Chen Xiaoting, and Gu Xiaodan all came. The four of them ate, sang, and reminisced about old times.

Apart from Gu Xiaodan, the other three are all college students.

Last year, Gu Xiaodan did poorly on the college entrance exam. He didn't want to attend a third-rate local university, and his family hoped he could get into a top university.

Therefore, Gu Xiaodan chose to repeat a year and will take the college entrance examination again this year.

She definitely had some mental burdens; you could tell Gu Xiaodan was feeling quite depressed, "No matter how badly I do on the exam this year, I'm going to university. I want to go to the capital and join you all. The cram school is too depressing; I want to end all of this as soon as possible."

"Gu Xiaodan, I'm sending you a song, wishing you success in your exams and a victorious reunion with the main force in the capital this autumn." In the karaoke room, Shen Qi, microphone in hand, sang his best song:

"How lonely it is to be invincible."

"How empty it is to be invincible."

Alone on the summit, the cold wind kept blowing.

Who can understand my loneliness?

He sang with great emotion, Shen Qi absorbed in his own voice.

"Damn, 'Invincible Loneliness,' Shen Qi, are you singing this to yourself?!" Gu Xiaodan was speechless. "Change the song, change the song! This song isn't suitable for a student repeating a year! Can you sing an inspirational song, sir?"

After starting university, Chen Xiaoting became more poised and confident, while retaining her understanding nature. She operated the song selection screen and immediately switched to a new song.

As the ancient yet inspiring prelude began, Shen Qi immediately switched to a new audio mode and sang in Cantonese:

"Oh~ Oh oh~ Oh oh oh~"

Even if fate is turbulent and unpredictable, even if fate is full of twists and turns...

Even if fate threatens you with the idea that life is meaningless...

Don't shed tears of sadness, and never give up~ I wish to be with you forever~

"Wow, that sounds great! It's so catchy!" Chen Xiaoting clapped and screamed; she was the queen of warming up the crowd.

Shen Qi, holding the microphone, looked at Gu Xiaodan and deliberately lowered his voice, saying, "Sing, Gu Xiaodan, this is your destiny."

Gu Xiaodan smiled knowingly; they had joked about this back in high school, "But boss, what's the price?"

"985!" Shen Qi picked up another microphone and tossed it to Gu Xiaodan.

Gu Xiaodan took the microphone, jumped up, and shouted at the top of her lungs:

"How many times have I fallen, how many tears have I shed in the pouring rain of the night~"

"I will walk through the twists and turns of life!"

Failing the college entrance exam, the pressure of repeating a year, all her old friends going to good universities in the capital to start new chapters, while she alone stayed in high school to endure the torment... Gu Xiaodan had many things on her mind that she wanted to confide in someone, and she poured them all into her songs.

"Wow, that's exciting!" Chen Xiaoting jumped up and shouted to Xu Rui, "Come on, let's sing together!"

Four high school classmates sang together, reminiscing about the past and looking forward to the future through their songs.

That's just how humans are; we're social animals, we live in groups. Shouting out our frustrations to a close friend makes us feel so much better. People who are crushed are often not broken by external circumstances, but by their own inner demons.

Gu Xiaodan's inner demons have been overcome, and she sang karaoke until her voice was hoarse.

After singing for a while, the three boys realized that there was only one karaoke queen— Chen Xiaoting.

The three boys were too tired to sing anymore, Chen Xiaoting sang a solo.

"The one who's changed the most is Chen Xiaoting." Gu Xiaodan hadn't seen Chen Xiaoting in a long time either. "Hey, Chen Xiaoting, have you hooked up with any handsome guys in the capital yet?"

"Hey, handsome guys like that, aren't they material for news articles?" Chen Xiaoting picked up a microphone and handed it to Shen Qi: "Shen, you're a genius, sing a song."

"I can't sing anymore," Shen Qi shook his head.

"Aren't you the king of long-distance running at Yanda University? How come your stamina is so poor? Come on, let's have one last song." Chen Xiaoting invited warmly, her bright and cheerful smile making it hard to refuse.

It was the Lunar New Year, and old classmates rarely got together. Shen Qi didn't want to spoil Chen Xiaoting's fun, so he took the microphone and said, "Okay, one last song. After that, go home and sleep. It's midnight."

"Then I'll pick one, 'Fly Away,' a duet." Chen Xiaoting selected the song with great enthusiasm, not sleepy at all.

As the music began, Chen Xiaoting and Shen Qi sang a duet of "Far Away and High." She sang better than Shen Qi, after all, she had studied piano, understood music theory, and her pitch was accurate.

Amidst the cacophony of music and singing, Gu Xiaodan shook her head. "Tsk tsk, girls shouldn't be sent to big cities. Chen Xiaoting went astray in just six months, hooking up with boys without leaving a trace."

"You're only just realizing that?" Xu Rui said softly, "Back in high school, she liked..."

"Hey! What are you two whispering about?" Chen Xiaoting suddenly turned around while singing.

"It's nothing, you keep singing!" Xu Rui shouted.

Taking advantage of Chen Xiaoting and Shen Qi's duet, Gu Xiaodan added, "A healthy and handsome academic star like him should be quite popular with girls, that's normal. I've never been to the capital, but I can guess that the line of girls who like Shen Qi probably stretches all the way to the gates of Yenching University, right?"

Xu Rui shook his head. "It's not that exaggerated. He's still single."

"This shouldn't be his fate." Gu Xiaodan fell into deep thought, then concluded, "His standards for choosing a partner are too high, that's why. The journalism student who's singing is indeed tall, but they don't have enough chemistry. I'm against this marriage."

"Gu Xiaodan, what good is your objection?!"

"Top students like women with high IQs, that must be why."

Class reunions, visiting relatives and friends, eating and drinking—this is pretty much how it is all over the country during the Spring Festival.

Shen Qi also spent the New Year in this way. In addition, he did some translation work, translating two papers, "Two Types of Analysis in Linear Combination Algebra," into English.

The Chinese-to-English translation was not difficult; the challenge lay in Professor Lu's research topic. "A Class of Bounded Strong Singular Integral Operator Along Homogeneous Curves."

The more Shen Qi researched, the more difficult this topic became.

The previous graduate student from the School of Mathematics worked on this project with Professor Lu, but to no avail.

The graduate student was quite clever; he simply changed his major earlier. If he couldn't write this math thesis, he wouldn't be awarded a master's degree.

Mathematical papers rely entirely on brainpower; some people spend years racking their brains and still can't produce a high-quality SCI paper.

Engineering projects at least have experimental data to support them. That graduate student switched to engineering to continue his studies. As long as he is diligent enough, he should be able to obtain a Master of Engineering degree from Yenching University.

Diligence is only one part of mathematics; inspiration is more important most of the time.

Shen Qi had lost his inspiration again. He hated this state the most, feeling like a walking corpse, his soul ripped out, yet helpless.

For Shen Qi, being without inspiration is no different from being a zombie; aside from swallowing food, there's nothing else meaningful to do.

The challenge lies in redefining the weighted amplitude space after performing Fourier transform on the Schwartz function. This is crucial, as it relates to the equivalent norm.

"I need inspiration, I need a little inspiration." Shen Qi arrived at the airport to return to school.

Yenching University starts tomorrow; it's time to go back to campus.

The problem is, even after returning to school, Shen Qi still has no inspiration.

On the first day of school, Shen Qi counted that there were 36 students in the class, and 30 of them had come.

Shen Qi called each of the six students who hadn't arrived at school to ask when they would come or if they were even coming at all.

"Come on, come on, on our way." That's how most of the students who didn't come answered.

"I'll rest at home for a while and return to school next month." That was Ou Ye's answer.

"Alright, take good care of your health. Only when you're healthy can we work together on something big." Shen Qi approved Ou Ye's leave application.

I recommend a new book about Scholar Story: <Amazing Scholarship>