Writing Papers Could Make You Rich Too

After working all day, Lu Zhou copied the program onto a USB drive at ten that night and shut down his computer.

Pulling all-nighters nonstop was out of the question. He had just stayed up late yesterday grinding through an introductory Python book, so he had to turn in early tonight. After all, he wanted to live a few more years.

According to his original plan, he had intended to follow the system-recommended reading list tomorrow and begin studying advanced C++ knowledge.

But now, it seemed his plan needed a few minor adjustments.

For example, without delaying his regular tasks, he could read a few more books on advanced Python usage.

"I didn't expect this reading list to come in handy so quickly..." Looking at the scrap of paper Senior Wang had forced into his hands, Lu Zhou silently said, May good people live in peace.

Summer passed quickly, and before he knew it, it was already mid-August.

Lu Zhou did not know whether the system had been meddling behind the scenes, but lately, he found himself growing more and more addicted to studying, unable to pull himself away.

Liu Rui said he had gone crazy, but Lu Zhou did not think so.

He fully agreed that studying was a tedious thing, but the process of gaining knowledge was joyful.

That might have sounded contradictory, but it actually was not.

After all, not every "act of studying" allowed someone to acquire knowledge. If a person stared blankly at a textbook for hours without taking in a single line, even a monk who chanted sutras every day would find it boring.

But if you could absorb every word and every line of knowledge, fully understand it, and experience the process of creating something from nothing, then even without anyone urging you on, you would naturally become immersed in it.

So far, he had completed the system's "reward mission" up to "25/30." Only the last five highly specialized books on mechanical engineering, IC design, and related subjects remained.

If it had been Lu Zhou from two months ago, he definitely would not have understood them. But now, with the theoretical foundations of Mathematics and Physics supporting him, he felt there should not be much of a problem if he was only aiming for an introduction.

On the other hand, Lu Zhou's main focus still lay in Information Science.

After all, he had paid such a steep price to raise Informatics Level 1. It would be too wasteful not to make use of it.

After nearly a month of work, the app's development was finally complete, and it had passed its final bug check. The process had been far more difficult than he had imagined, but fortunately, he had overcome it in the end.

With that, Lu Zhou's app development experience had made its breakthrough from zero to one.

The app was called Campus Train. As the name suggested, it focused on promoting itself among students at major universities. He had no money to hire dedicated artists, so the interface was fairly plain, and the image assets were all free materials found online. Still, its style was simple and clean, and it ran smoothly.

To learn Android development, he had also taught himself a pile of development tools and watched plenty of programming videos by technical experts. He had squeezed out time for all of that work.

As for porting it to iOS, Lu Zhou simply did not have the energy for it. He would take it slowly in the future.

The problem now was finding a server of acceptable quality. Without a server, he could at most host it on his computer for the guys in Dorm Room 201 to use. That could hardly be called benefiting society.

Just as Lu Zhou was worrying about the server, Old Tang suddenly called and summoned him to the office.

After he entered the office, Professor Tang smiled and gestured for him to sit wherever he liked, then asked kindly, "How have you been lately?"

"Everything's been good. Is there something you need, Professor?" Lu Zhou asked with a smile.

Professor Tang smiled and continued, "September is almost here. Director Lu asked me to sound you out and see how your preparations are going."

"My preparations are fine, I think. There shouldn't be any problems on my end. It just depends on how the other two teammates are preparing," Lu Zhou replied with a smile.

"That's good. This competition is an opportunity, and I hope you seize it. I won't ask much more about that. Your Teacher Liu understands this better than I do, so ask him if there's anything you don't understand." Professor Tang paused, then looked at Lu Zhou with a smile. "What have you been researching lately? Have you come up with something new again?"

Amazing!

You figured that out too?

Lu Zhou looked at Professor Tang in surprise and asked, "How did you know?"

"I was just asking casually! You really never let me rest easy, kid." Professor Tang leaned back in his office chair with a laugh, unscrewed his thermos, and took a sip of water. "Go on, what is it this time?"

"It's not really any research result worth mentioning this time..." Lu Zhou smiled awkwardly. "I heard some students complaining that it was hard to buy train tickets during holiday travel peaks, so I tried writing a ticket-grabbing app."

Lu Zhou's answer caught Professor Tang off guard, and he could not help frowning.

"Why have you started researching computers?"

He had thought Lu Zhou had quietly produced some new research achievement recently. Instead, Lu Zhou had not been working on Mathematics at all during this period and had gone off to fiddle with computers again.

The last time they met, he had still been asking about Mersenne primes.

This was not even one thing after another anymore. Wasn't this like a monkey breaking corn stalks?

Lu Zhou was equally puzzled. Why was Professor Tang the same way? Had his talent in Mathematics completely overshadowed his talent with computers?

Just over half a month ago, Hua Nation Youth Daily had been praising him as an "all-round talent."

"...Uh, haven't I always studied computers?" Lu Zhou tried to correct him.

Professor Tang paused slightly, as if he had only just remembered that, then smiled awkwardly and cleared his throat. "Are you planning to transfer to a computer science major next semester?"

Lu Zhou shook his head. "I don't have that plan for now. I think learning Mathematics well is very important. It helps a lot with studying other subjects, and even if I switched departments, it might not necessarily suit me."

That was not a lie. When he had been studying College Physics and the foundations of Inorganic Chemistry recently, his knowledge of Mathematics had indeed come in very handy.

"Computer science is also a popular major. If you want to transfer, I won't oppose it. Though personally, I think you could achieve more if you kept digging into Mathematics wholeheartedly. I've taught for so many years, and talent like yours is truly rare." Professor Tang sighed. "Of course, I also know you're not the sort who can settle down and sit steadily in a lab doing research. You're too restless!"

Lu Zhou could not quite figure out whether Old Tang was criticizing him or praising him.

Or perhaps regretting it?

"Forget it. Figure it out yourself." Professor Tang sighed and shook his head. "The main reason I called you here today was to talk about papers and see whether you had any new results lately. I didn't expect you to spend this month tinkering with computers instead, so I asked for nothing."

Lu Zhou's eyebrow twitched. When I publish too many papers, you worry that I'm padding my output. When I don't write for a month, you complain that I'm not doing proper work. So no matter what, I'm the one with the problem, right?

Of course, he could think that, but he could not say it aloud.

Lu Zhou cleared his throat and said with a smile, "Professor, Mathematics... it's not that easy to produce results. I've done my best."

Professor Tang waved his hand without arguing and set his thermos on the desk. "All right, that's enough. Leave your bank card number with me, and you can go."

His bank card number?

Lu Zhou froze.

Seeing the surprise on his student's face, Professor Tang narrowed his eyes and chuckled. "What? You look quite surprised. Haven't you heard about this?"

"Uh, what is it?" Lu Zhou's eyebrows jumped wildly, and he had a bad feeling.

"A few days ago, the university held a meeting. They said they wanted to strongly support individual research activities, encourage students to innovate with knowledge, and asked us to tally how many SCI papers each school had published in the previous academic year." Professor Tang paused, then smiled and continued, "Put simply, they're handing out money. How will it be distributed? Based on the impact factor of the journal where the SCI paper was submitted! I don't remember the exact amount, but it's no less than five thousand!"

Five thousand!

Lu Zhou inhaled sharply and put on a serious expression. "...Professor, I suddenly have several excellent ideas. Is it too late for me to go publish an SCI paper now?"

"Get lost!" Professor Tang cursed with a hearty laugh. "Too late!"

For some reason, seeing Lu Zhou suffer like this made him feel incredibly satisfied.

It was simply indescribably refreshing!