The Language Problem!

He knew what an SCI paper was.

It was a mandatory requirement for master's and doctoral students to graduate. Many people spent three years studying without publishing a single paper, and some young lecturers stayed up late every night until they went bald, all to publish SCI papers and secure tenure.

The best route for a freshman who wanted to publish an SCI paper was to churn out a low-quality paper.

But even that took some skill.

Qi Hao's mind raced. One piece of academic common knowledge after another surfaced, things he had picked up while lurking on Tieba and Zhihu.

The so-called low-quality journals on the market that published quickly and accepted papers as long as you paid could indeed complete the process in two or three months. The problem was that their publication fees started at two thousand yuan!

He was a college student from an ordinary family, with a monthly allowance of just over eight hundred yuan. Where was he supposed to get two thousand to publish a low-quality paper?

At a better university, he might have been able to submit an invoice and get reimbursed from his supervisor's research funds. But he was a freshman who had never set foot in a lab or even met a supervisor. Where could he get reimbursed?

Work a part-time job and pay to publish an SCI paper himself?

That would be downright brainless.

"If I don't spend any money, I'll have to find a journal that supports the traditional subscription model... But publishing a pure mathematics SCI paper in ninety days?"

Qi Hao frowned.

He had heard senior students complain that SCI peer review in pure mathematics was notoriously long and torturous.

What was he supposed to do?

Qi Hao had Kolorod's unpublished paper on hand. He took out his phone and began searching online to see if anyone had published a paper with a similar idea.

Only after confirming that no one had did he start looking for journals.

"Mathematical logic... graph theory... formal proofs..."

Suddenly, a famous journal caught his eye.

JSL!

It was an absolute top-tier journal in mathematical logic, computation theory, and the foundations of mathematics!

The journal had a certain preference for articles that used pure symbolic computation and rigorous logic to solve problems at the foundations of computation.

Konrod's paper fit the bill, but while an established top-tier journal like JSL was certainly prestigious, charged no publication fee, and carried the highest academic weight, its review speed was a mystery.

Some people online said they had heard nothing after three months of review.

How long would JSL actually take? Did it have a fast-track review process? For an unknown freshman like him, from a university that was neither a Project 985 nor a Project 211 institution and without an academic affiliation, would the editor take one look and reject him outright?

Qi Hao got a headache just thinking about it.

"Forget it. I'll settle on JSL for now," Qi Hao decided.

For something this deep in academic waters, an inexperienced student like him couldn't just search blindly online and expect it to work.

Having decided to complete the system's task, he resolved to find a senior student who had published a paper, or go straight to one of his subject lecturers for advice, and see whether there were other journals he could choose from.

Right now, though, he faced an even more serious problem.

The system's task didn't just require him to publish an SCI paper; it also required him to cite Soviet Union papers!

Most academic literature from the Soviet era had been published in Russian-language journals. Many of those journals had ceased publication after the Soviet Union collapsed, and database coverage was incomplete. Some existed only as paper copies gathering dust in an archive somewhere in Russia.

Just finding references that met the requirement would take a lot of time.

Worse still, he didn't know Russian!

"Do I really have to start by memorizing the Russian alphabet?"

Had this lousy system come up with a task like this just to force him to learn Russian?

In ninety days, he'd barely get his tongue around Russian, supposedly one of the world's hardest languages, so how was he supposed to publish an SCI paper?

System, can I change the task? Qi Hao asked inwardly.

The system didn't respond.

As expected.

The Soviet System never wasted words. Once it issued a task, that was that; there was no room for bargaining.

Qi Hao tucked his phone back into his pocket and began seriously considering whether this was feasible.

He had Kolorod's unpublished paper, and that was his biggest trump card.

With his current understanding of mathematical analysis and related fields, mastering the topology and measure theory tools in the paper wouldn't be too difficult.

But there was no getting around the language problem...

Wait, he had points!

Qi Hao suddenly remembered that the system had mentioned he could try using points to solve problems when he ran into them.

System, open the exchange panel! Qi Hao issued the command in his mind.

The interface in his vision instantly changed, and a very crude shop panel popped up.

Qi Hao entered "Russian" as a keyword in the search bar.

[Searching...]

A cold notification flashed by, and several options immediately appeared on the panel.

[KGB advanced social corpus (complete mastery of listening and speaking)]

[Exchange price: 5,000 points

Description: Lets you use the most authentic Siberian slang to strike up brotherly friendships with KGB agents in a vodka tavern on Moscow's Red Square, and even swipe their secrets.]

"Never mind. I can't afford it, and I wasn't planning on becoming a double agent anyway." Qi Hao's mouth twitched, and he skipped straight past it.

[Moscow State University preparatory course: basic Russian (everyday communication edition)]

[Exchange price: 50 points

Description: Master basic everyday Russian conversation and writing, enough to communicate with other people.]

"That's the one!"

Qi Hao's eyes lit up. It suited his current needs, and the price was within his budget.

System, exchange for [Moscow State University preparatory course: basic Russian (everyday communication edition)]!

[Command confirmed. Deducting 50 points...]

[Warning: Receiving a language may be accompanied by a slight increase in intracranial pressure. Please remain seated and do not panic!]

"Slight?"

Before Qi Hao could grasp the full weight of that word, a massive torrent of information slammed into his brain!

His brain felt like a locker being forcibly stuffed with countless hefty dictionaries.

Cyrillic letters flooded his vision like a waterfall, followed by grammar that gave him a headache at a glance:

declensions.

What did it mean for a single verb to take twelve different forms depending on the context?

No wonder Russians produced mathematicians. What ordinary person could keep all that straight?

Before Qi Hao had finished complaining, a vast amount of specialized vocabulary poured into his head.

The whole process lasted about a minute.

But to Qi Hao, that minute felt longer than grinding through a hundred Demidovich problems.

When the torrent of information finally stopped, he sat in his chair, his head feeling incredibly foggy.

Was that it?

Qi Hao wondered. He tried saying a word, but he couldn't produce the rolled sound, and it came out sounding strange.

Apparently, his tongue and throat hadn't had enough practice. Even with the knowledge in his head, he still didn't know how Russians made that trilling sound.

Qi Hao tried for a bit, then decided to forget it. He couldn't let anyone see him trying to tame his tongue.

Right, he couldn't ruin his image as a top student in public.

He glanced at his Russian experience points.

Russian LV2 (0→510/10000). He had actually gained a level!

Judging by the experience points, though, his Russian still had room to improve.

Qi Hao closed the system panel, wanting to test it in practice.

His pronunciation wasn't up to it, but what about written Russian?

He got up and left the science reading room, striding down the corridor toward the foreign-language collection. The science section was on the third floor, and the foreign-language section was on the east side of the second floor. He had glanced at it when he passed by last time.

The shelves on the east side of the second floor were neatly lined with all kinds of textbooks and reading material in English, Japanese, French, German, and Korean. From New Concept English to Standard Japanese, from TestDaF prep to all sorts of past exam papers, the selection was as complete as a small foreign-language bookstore's.

Qi Hao scanned the spines row by row. English, Japanese, French, German, Korean...

No Russian.

He searched from beginning to end again, even crouching down to look through the dusty books on the bottom shelves.

Still nothing.

There wasn't even an introductory Russian booklet.

Qi Hao stood up, brushed the dust off his knees, and turned toward the circulation desk.

A middle-aged female librarian sat behind the desk, looking down as she entered something on the computer.

"Hello, ma'am. Could I ask if the library has any books on Russian? Textbooks or books in the original language would be fine."

The librarian paused. "Russian?"

"Yes."

"No. Our university doesn't even offer a Russian major, so naturally the library doesn't buy Russian books. There are plenty if you're looking for English or Japanese, though."

"Then..." Qi Hao asked, "is there anywhere nearby where I can find Russian materials?"

"If you're looking for Russian books, the provincial library has them. Their foreign-language collection is fairly comprehensive, with some Russian books in the original language and journals. There used to be a lot of exchanges with Russia, after all, so there's a considerable old collection left over. But it's a bit far from our university-more than forty minutes by bus."

The librarian gave him a strange look, seemingly unconvinced that he could read Russian.

"All right, thank you."

The provincial library was a forty-minute ride away. That was no big deal. Today was Thursday, and he had classes all day tomorrow. He could head straight there first thing on Saturday!

After making his plan, Qi Hao suddenly thought of another shortcut.

If Kolorod's original manuscript cited other people's papers, couldn't he use them too?