Study...
Mathematics?
Lu Zhou froze for a moment.
After a brief silence, he cleared his throat and spoke.
"Computational materials science is a branch of mathematics too..."
"I don't want to study computational materials science," Han Mengqi said, shaking her head stubbornly. "I want to study mathematics."
As though she felt she had not expressed herself precisely enough, she immediately added a clarification.
"I mean pure mathematics."
"Pure mathematics..."
Hearing her request, Lu Zhou felt a headache coming on.
Although, in all fairness, he did not particularly want to criticize someone else's aspirations...
Still...
Setting down his ballpoint pen, Lu Zhou interlaced his fingers on the desk and looked earnestly at Han Mengqi.
"Can you tell me why...? You've already spent three years studying computational materials science. Why choose to switch to pure mathematics now?"
Generally speaking, people switching from pure mathematics to other branches of applied mathematics were quite common, but switching from an applied field like this to pure mathematics was genuinely rather rare.
And it would have been one thing if it were someone else, but of all his students studying computational materials science, Han Mengqi was the most gifted and the one he was most satisfied with.
Even Jericho, who had already gone to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his doctorate, might not have matched her talent.
With such a promising future in computational materials science, she wanted to switch to an entirely new field. It would have been impossible for him not to feel that it was a shame.
After all, Lu Zhou had poured considerable time and effort into training her.
Faced with Lu Zhou's earnest gaze, Han Mengqi looked away slightly. After a moment's hesitation, she spoke with a complicated mix of emotions in her voice.
"I don't like chemistry at all...