This Isn't Dog Food-You Were Beautiful to Begin With

They held hands and kissed.

Shen Qi and Ou Ye naturally engaged in the basic activities of a couple, further deepening their relationship.

Shen Qi and Ou Ye shared a very similar attitude towards sex.

Let things take their natural course; what's meant to come will come naturally. Don't force it, and don't reject it.

When the mountain flowers are in full bloom, choose an auspicious day, with warm sunshine and birdsong, then...

The short weekend holiday in Beidaihe is over, and the Academic God couple, Shen and Ou, are back to their intense studies. Their love is quietly growing, without any earth-shattering events.

High-end dog food is quite expensive, and feeding it three times a day is costly.

Letting single people go hungry for a few days isn't a big deal; they won't starve to death.

With 140 days left until his departure abroad, around the end of March, something that would give Shen Qi a headache happened.

Mary Schmidt- Schultz, a female mathematics PhD from the University of Bonn in Germany, pre-recorded a paper on arVix a few days ago, which caught Shen Qi completely off guard.

Shen Qi did not know this German female PhD. The information he had came from the author's own profile on arVix: Mary Schmidt- Schultz, German, female, PhD candidate in the Mathematics Department at the University of Bonn.

Attached is a profile picture of a red-haired Caucasian woman. The female PhD student's profile picture has been clearly photoshopped, making her appear very charming and even dreamlike.

She's practically the German version of Nicole Kidman, reminiscent of Nicole Kidman's stunning stills from "Moulin Rouge!"

Meitu software has swept the world; foreigners use it too, and they're even more adept at it than the Chinese.

Shen Qi's author bio on arVix is equally simple: Shen Qi, Chinese, male, currently a student in the Mathematics Department at Yenching University. Attached is a handsome selfie of himself.

Shen Qi's profile picture has no filters or any signs of photo editing. You are beautiful as you are.

Shen Qi possessed very limited useful information, half of which was fabricated and cannot be fully trusted.

Judging from the format of Dr. Mary Schmidt- Schultz's name, she should be married.

Mary is her first name; Schmidt and Schultz are either her mother's surname or her husband's surname.

In Germany, it's now popular to combine the husband's and wife's surnames like Mary -Schmidt- Schultz or Mary - Schultz -Schmidt. Whether the husband's or mother's surname comes first is decided by Dr. Mary based on her mood when registering the marriage.

In short, this red-haired married German woman has gotten into a fight with Shen Qi, which is giving him a huge headache.

The timeline of this event is as follows:

Last March, Dr. Mary published a paper in the British mathematics journal, The London Mathematical Society Journal, in which she used the p-adic method and a very complex technique to obtain an exact upper bound on the number of solutions to Diophantine equation. This result came very close to the proof of the Wash Conjecture.

Last April, Shen Qi stumbled upon Dr. Mary's paper and was deeply impressed.

In May, Shen Qi participated in the Capital University Track and Field Games. During the run, he had an inspiration and jotted it down in his notebook. This mathematical inspiration actually came from Dr. Mary's number theory paper. Shen Qi, who is well-read, does not deny this. Mathematics is like this: it continues to move forward on the basis of predecessors or contemporary colleagues, and then surpasses them.

In June, Shen Qi, overwhelmed with work, compiled his inspiration into a short paper abstract, just three lines long. He named it "On the Proof of Diophantine Equation Wash Conjecture" and assigned Ou Ye to complete the subsequent writing of the main text.

In November, Ou Ye collapsed from exhaustion and went home to recuperate. He had completed half of the writing of "On the Proof of Diophantine Equation Wash Conjecture".

The girlfriend collapsed, but the boyfriend continued.

In February of this year, Shen Qi completed the second half of his work on "Proof of Diophantine Equation Wash Conjecture" and submitted it to the "Journal of Mathematics". At the same time, Shen Qi pre-recorded this number theory paper on arVix to demonstrate his academic originality.

Shen Qi numbered this paper, which he co-authored with Ou Ye, as "Document No. 9." This was the ninth mathematics paper he drafted during his time at Yenching University.

In early March, the editors of the Journal of Mathematics returned to work, and Shen Qi's "Document No. 9" quickly passed the initial review and entered the peer review stage.

A few days ago, while Shen Qi and Ou Ye were on vacation in Beidaihe, Dr. Mary pre-recorded a new paper on arVix. This was her doctoral dissertation, also in the field of number theory, and also about the Wash Conjecture.

Just now, the editor of the * Journal of Mathematics * told Shen Qi: "Your paper did not pass the expert review. Thank you for submitting the manuscript, please keep trying."

After seeing Dr. Mary's recently pre-recorded doctoral dissertation, Shen Qi already knew what was going on. Without any expert intervention, he voluntarily removed "Document No. 9" from arVix.

Shen Qi's "Document No. 9" was initially inspired by Dr. Mary's previous number theory paper. He cited the research results of the German female doctor a year earlier and combined them with the Thue-Siegel method to make an effective algebraic approximation, finding the exact upper bound on the number of solutions to Diophantine equation of the form aX^4-bY^2=1.

There is no problem with this. Drawing on the advanced experience of his contemporary mathematical colleague, Dr. Mary, Shen Qi made further innovations and improvements in this small branch. His "Document No. 9" has taken the lead in the field of the Wash Conjecture, surpassing his peers.

So in early March, as soon as the editorial department of the Journal of Mathematics started work, it passed the initial review of Shen Qi's paper, which can be described as an instant approval.

However, the situation changed dramatically. Within a month, Dr. Mary launched a counterattack. Her latest doctoral dissertation used the Evertse method to defeat Shen Qi's Thue-Siegel method plus effective algebraic approximation.

Under the new proof method of the German female PhD, Shen Qi's "Document No. 9" is rendered useless. It cannot compare with the German female PhD in terms of precision, nor in terms of the simplicity and intuitiveness of the proof.

This academic competition in a small branch of number theory is essentially a battle between originality and imitation.

Dr. Mary was the originator; her paper opened up a new approach to proving the Diophantine equation Wash Conjecture equation. Although it had its shortcomings, its merits outweighed its flaws.

Shen Qi, who has an extremely wide range of reading, is a follower. He made secondary innovations based on Dr. Mary's work, and very keenly discovered and improved upon the small flaws in Dr. Mary's previous paper, refining a more advanced idea and putting himself ahead of Dr. Mary.

Dr. Mary cannot accuse Shen Qi because Shen Qi explicitly stated in "Document No. 9" that he cited some conclusions from a paper published by Dr. Mary -Schmidt- Schultz last March.

Then, based on Shen Qi's "Document No. 9," Dr. Mary carried out a new round of innovation and improvement, defeating Shen Qi, who was a follower, and defending the status of the original creator.

Shen Qi could not accuse Dr. Mary because Dr. Mary explicitly stated in her doctoral dissertation that she cited some informally published research findings by the Chinese scholar Shen Qi.

"This German woman who loves using Meitu Xiu Xiu to edit photos is really difficult to deal with." Shen Qi was at his wit's end. The German woman was a formidable opponent, but he respected this academic rival.

Shen Qi's "Document No. 9" was originally a gift for Ou Ye, and it was also a very important part of his task to complete the special achievement mission of the system.

Of course, I can't back down. For the sake of my mathematical career, for the sake of my academic achievements, and most importantly, for my girlfriend.

Shen Qi felt guilty that his Switzerland trip had been downgraded to Beidaihe trip.

If he still can't deliver on his promise of a mathematical paper, Shen Qi will be too ashamed to face Ou Ye.

Time was running out for Shen Qi. He racked his brains, trying to find an ultimate method to directly and irrefutably prove the Wash Conjecture, achieving a one-step solution with no future problems.

"Ugh! My head hurts!" Shen Qi racked his brains for three days without any results. He felt that there was something wrong with his mathematical insight and judgment, or rather, his level 8 math proficiency was not enough.

While the Wash Conjecture is not as difficult as the Riemann Hypothesis, Goldbach Conjecture, or Hodge conjecture, it is still a challenging problem that is not easily solved.

"If only I could level up one more level." Shen Qi checked his academic points in the system; he was still a little over 210,000 points short of reaching level 9 in mathematics.