Paper Published! (Bonus chapter for Alliance Leader Eddy1414!)

If anyone asked what Lu Zhou was doing right now,

that would naturally be sleeping.

Having stayed awake for the entire night, his phone had long since run out of battery. When he returned to the dorm at seven in the morning, he plugged the phone into the charging cable the moment he walked through the door, climbed onto his bed, and fell fast asleep the second his head hit the pillow.

When Lu Zhou woke up, it was already afternoon, and the dorm was completely empty.

Feeling the hunger in his stomach, he rubbed his sleep-tuxed eyes, yawned as he climbed down the ladder, washed up cleanly on the balcony, and then put on his clothes to go downstairs, heading straight for the cafeteria.

Ordering a bowl of fried rice with soy milk, he sat in a secluded corner to eat while taking out his phone, preparing to scroll through his Moments for a bit.

As a result, when he turned on his phone, he discovered that Tang had called him more than a dozen times using the office landline.

Could it be that the paper revision is finished? This... there's no need to make so many phone calls, though.

Amidst a lingering sense of warmth in his heart, Lu Zhou finished his dinner in a flash, quickly took his bowl and chopsticks to the dish-return cart, and hurried toward the experimental building without stopping a moment.

"I called you all day and couldn't get through. What on earth is your brat doing all day long?" Sitting behind the office desk, Tang first gave Lu Zhou a good scolding.

"Um, my phone was out of power and I forgot to turn it on." Lu Zhou scratched the back of his head.

He didn't plan to tell the professor about his part-time job. For one thing, the school strictly forbade freshmen from staying out overnight, and for another, he didn't want the matter to reach the counselor's ears and ultimately make it back to his dad, worrying his family.

Fortunately, Old Tang didn't press for details either. He took off the reading glasses on the bridge of his nose, unplugged the flash drive from his laptop, and placed it on the desk. "Your paper is good, and the parts that need revision are few, so I won't shamelessly let you add my name to the authorship."

"How can that be? Without your guidance—"

Tang Zhiwei raised a hand to cut off Lu Zhou's words. "Whether it works or not is up to me. I've read your paper. If that bit of academic discussion could meet the standard for co-authorship, wouldn't papers bearing the name of Tang Zhiwei be in the tens of thousands? Teaching is my duty, and whatever habits other professors have is none of my concern, but this bad practice cannot start with me. If you truly feel that I've done you a big favor, there's no need to repay this human favor of mine through such a method; just help me take care of a matter."

To tell the truth, a mere SCI paper was long since nothing rare to someone at Tang Zhiwei's level. Yet for Lu Zhou, a independently published paper was immensely precious. Putting his own name on it might allow his manuscript to enjoy certain privileges during the review process, but for him, it wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Lu Zhou said sincerely, "Please just give the command if there's anything I can do to help."

"Heh, it's nothing major either. Rest assured, it's only beneficial to you and does no harm." Tang Zhiwei said leisurely, "For the National Mathematical Modeling Contest in September, our institute is planning to team up with the Software Institute to field a regular army. Director Lu and I discussed it, and we've decided it'll be you."

The National Mathematical Modeling Contest?

Lu Zhou felt a slight ripple of surprise in his heart.

He had indeed heard of this thing. It was said that the gold content of national awards was quite high—so high that when some corporate HRs got hold of your resume, they might even give it an extra glance precisely because of this award.

Only...

As for the legendary mathematical modeling contest, he had only ever heard of it.

It was already mid-June now, leaving only three months until late September.

Was there really no problem preparing in three months?

Lu Zhou asked tentatively, "Can I go back and think about it?"

Professor Tang's eyebrows flared as he pressed his hand straight down onto the flash drive. "What is there still to consider? You even need to think about such a great opportunity? Fine then, go back and think to your heart's content right now. I'll leave this flash drive here with me first, and you can come back and get it when you've thought it through!"

Looking at Old Tang's unreasonable demeanor, Lu Zhou didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "But Professor Tang, I've never participated in this kind of competition at all. If you make me represent the institute to compete, and I end up letting you down..."

Participating was fine...

But if they lost, he didn't want to take the blame!

"I'm not worried at all, what are you afraid of?" Tang Zhiwei snorted. After a brief pause, he continued in a softened tone, "Don't think of this competition as too difficult either; just go for it with boldness and confidence. Your ability is absolute enough, of which I can be certain."

Since Professor Tang had already put things this way, if he were to refuse again, it would truly be too unappreciative.

Actually, thinking about it carefully, participating in such a competition would definitely be beneficial and harmless to him. The only factor making Lu Zhou hesitate was none other than the worry that competition training might delay his part-time working hours and the progress of completing the system's tasks.

He had already planned to stay at school over the summer vacation to grind up the system's levels as quickly as possible—at least getting mathematics to LV1, otherwise trailing behind in other subjects with zero across the board would be simply too agonizing. And aside from grinding tasks, the rest of the time would be for part-time work, considering not only his expenses at school during the summer break, but also living expenses after the next semester started.

As if seeing right through Lu Zhou's money-minded thoughts, Professor Tang smiled and said leisurely, "Although the mathematical modeling contest doesn't offer prize money, our school has awards. The teams that manage to win a national first prize will not only get ten thousand yuan in prize money, but also priority evaluation for scholarships."

"Professor Tang, I've thought it through. Please let me fight on behalf of the department!" Lu Zhou said with a deadpan earnestness.

Professor Tang held back a laugh, placed his thermos cup on the desk, and waved a hand. "Then I'll submit your name. Come over here on Saturday and meet your teammates. That's it, don't forget."

"Yes!" Lu Zhou said, brimming with fighting spirit.

Ten thousand yuan in prize money! Split among three people, that was still over three thousand each! Plus the eight-thousand-yuan National Scholarship, adding those up came to over ten thousand.

To students from well-off families, that might not count for much, but to Lu Zhou, whose card held only three thousand yuan, it was undoubtedly a colossal sum!

After thanking Professor Tang once more, Lu Zhou took the flash drive and returned to the dorm.

By then, the sky had already grown dark. Aside from Liu Rui, who was still in the classroom reviewing mathematical analysis, Shi Shang and Huang Guangming had both returned and were sitting in front of their computers, locked in an intense, thrilling team battle.

Although he also wanted to join them to relax a bit, Lu Zhou ultimately abandoned this fleeting thought upon remembering that he still had serious business to attend to. He carried his laptop onto the bed, connected to the dorm's Wi-Fi, and prepared to upload his paper.

After a bout of internal struggle, he ultimately chose Communications in Mathematics and Applications, the institutional journal of the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at New York University in the United States, as his submission target.

As for the reason, it was naturally because he could save a hefty sum in page fees.

Yet correspondingly, he might have to wait in line for a while.

Opening the webpage, filling out author information and his email address, and spending roughly ten minutes to get all these odds and ends done, Lu Zhou finally reached the final step: clicking to upload the paper.

The status displayed "Submitted-to-Editorial-Office," meaning the manuscript had been sent to the editorial office, and what followed next would be a long wait—waiting for some reviewing editor to lay eyes on his paper manuscript as a total nobody...

Stretching his back, Lu Zhou was just about to lean against the bed to lie down for a moment when his phone vibrated softly.

Expecting it to be the senior student named Chen Yushan asking him more math questions, he unlocked the screen and opened it up, only to find an email instead.

The moment he saw the email's title, Lu Zhou froze.

He almost doubted whether he had read it wrong, and couldn't help muttering softly to himself.

...How is that possible?

It was a copyright authorization agreement sent from across the Pacific Ocean!

In other words, his submission had already entered the so-called "proof" stage!

Although various journals had different rules, most only sent out authorization agreements after accepting a manuscript, a process that could take anywhere from a day to two weeks.

Which meant his manuscript had cut the line in an instant, presenting itself directly on the journal editor's computer...

Could this also be the power of the system?

Lu Zhou swallowed hard, opened his email on the computer, downloaded the agreement in the message, signed the authorization agreement according to the instructions, and mailed the electronic version back to the address provided in the email.

After waiting for about five minutes, he refreshed the submission webpage.

[Under-Review]!

Lu Zhou felt his heart beating somewhat fiercely.

This meant his article had already passed the technical editor's formatting review and was about to be reviewed by professional academic editors—meaning the so-called external review!

First-time submitters usually got stuck at the technical editor stage a few times, but because Old Tang had helped him revise the paper, he seemed to have passed this hurdle on the first try. As for the subsequent external review, it would be the strictest and longest process in the entire SCI submission journey.

Because under normal circumstances, academic editors were themselves busy scientific researchers, and peer review was unpaid work that consumed a great deal of energy. Therefore, when they would contribute their efforts to the academic community for free entirely depended on the reviewer's mood. Encountering someone dilatory or quite busy, having the "UR" stage stall you for a month or two was no exaggeration at all!

After waiting for about five minutes, Lu Zhou refreshed the webpage once more.

This time, the manuscript's status hadn't undergone any changes.

For some reason, seeing this scene actually made Lu Zhou feel relieved.

Although the system's power had shattered his common sense within certain limits, at the most crucial juncture it seemed to have returned to the realm of common sense. An academic editor couldn't possibly stare at their email mailbox around the clock for unpaid labor of this sort.

It seemed the system couldn't manipulate a person's behavior. Although it appeared to use some mysterious power to let his manuscript cut the line within the rules, and perhaps even ensured his manuscript perpetually appeared on the very first line of an academic editor's email inbox, this force ultimately still possessed certain restrictive factors within it.

As for what this factor was, Lu Zhou couldn't determine just yet, but no matter what, this was a good thing.

If the system were truly powerful enough to dictate a person's actions, that would be simply too terrifying.

Even though he enjoyed the knowledge and various conveniences the system brought him, he didn't want to turn into a puppet of the system one day. Freedom was priceless; even when times were tight, that was still how he felt.

Of course, if this final "UR" stage could finish before the mathematical analysis exam, that would be even better...

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(Thanks to Eddy1414 for the Alliance Leader sponsorship!!!)