Chapter Summaries

Qi Hao learned about Fang Jiaxue’s family difficulties and discovered that her father worked in quantitative investing, a field that matched his mathematical interests. As he began considering quantitative finance as a way to fund his research and support his family, Fang Jiaxue’s friend suggested testing his ability with competition problems.

• Fang Jiaxue told Qi Hao that her father’s work kept him away from home and that she had taken on much of the responsibility for raising Xiao Ze after their mother died.
• Fang Jiaxue explained that her father, Fang Guoping, used mathematical models and computer programs for quantitative investing, prompting Qi Hao to consider studying the field.
• Fang Guoping raised Qi Hao’s tutoring rate to five hundred yuan an hour and asked him to teach Xiao Ze for two hours the following Saturday.
• Fang Jiaxue’s friend questioned whether Qi Hao had the mathematical ability to tutor Xiao Ze and suggested giving him provincial math competition problems to assess him.
• On the bus back to school, Qi Hao researched quantitative investing and decided he wanted to earn money through mathematics to support his family and fund his research.
• Qi Hao judged that current quantitative investing methods in Huaguo were clumsy.

Qi Hao saw that his paper had passed its initial screening and was assigned to an MIT professor for review, though the professor delegated the first look to his busy doctoral student. After tutoring Fang Jiaze, Qi Hao took on three math competition problems for Fang Jiaxue’s friend and began solving them.

• Qi Hao noticed his paper’s submission status had changed to “Editor Assigned” just a week after he submitted it.
• Professor Lauren received the paper for review and asked his doctoral student Kevin to check it for errors, but Kevin set it aside with his other work.
• Qi Hao returned to tutor Fang Jiaze, who had completed more than half of the assigned exercises and showed growing interest in the lesson.
• Fang Jiaxue gave Qi Hao three provincial math competition problems from her best friend.
• Qi Hao said the problems were not hard and began working on them, leaving Fang Jiaxue dumbfounded.

Qi Hao finished solving Fang Jiaxue’s friend’s math problems and accepted Fang Jiaxue’s invitation to lunch. After discovering she could barely cook, he took over the meal, leaving Fang Jiaze surprised by the dishes on the table.

• Qi Hao solved the three problems in under twenty minutes and told Fang Jiaxue to have her friend ask him about any confusing steps.
• Fang Jiaxue invited Qi Hao to stay for lunch, then revealed that she would be cooking because the household cook was away.
• Qi Hao watched Fang Jiaxue struggle with the ingredients, then stepped in when she nearly ruined the potato dish.
• Qi Hao discarded the failed potatoes and prepared three dishes and a soup from the ingredients in the fridge.
• Fang Jiaxue called Fang Jiaze downstairs, and he hesitated when he saw the meal, asking whether his sister had cooked.

Fang Jiaxue and Fang Jiaze enjoyed Qi Hao’s cooking, and Fang Jiaze joked that it set the standard for his future brother-in-law. After Fang Jiaxue sent Qi Hao’s solutions to Chen Xiang, Chen Xiang and Associate Professor Xu examined them and recognized his unusual mathematical skill, leaving Chen Xiang stunned when Xu encouraged her to compete nationally.

• Fang Jiaze praised Qi Hao’s cooking and teased Fang Jiaxue about finding a future brother-in-law who could cook as well.
• After Qi Hao left, Fang Jiaxue sent Chen Xiang photos of his solutions to three difficult competition problems and asked whether they were easy.
• Chen Xiang found that Qi Hao’s correct solutions used unfamiliar, concise methods rather than the standard answers.
• Chen Xiang took the solutions to Associate Professor Xu, who examined them and praised the originality of Qi Hao’s methods.
• Associate Professor Xu told Chen Xiang that she should compete at the national level, and Chen Xiang reacted with disbelief.

Xu Zhengping recognized Qi Hao’s solutions as unusually advanced and offered him academic advice, while Chen Xiang resolved to study harder. In the United States, Kevin and Lauren moved to reject the Huaguo author’s paper over its Russian references, but Professor Alexei began reviewing it at Stony Brook University.

• Xu Zhengping told Chen Xiang that Qi Hao’s solutions were research-level and gave her a business card to pass on to him.
• Chen Xiang messaged Fang Jiaxue about Xu Zhengping’s praise and decided to work harder on the problems.
• Kevin read a paper submitted from Huaguo, distrusted its Russian references, and recommended major revisions to Lauren.
• Lauren agreed to request major revisions and told Kevin to write professional review comments.
• Professor Alexei opened the same paper for review at Stony Brook University.

Professor Alexei recognized that a paper from Huaguo built on overlooked Soviet research in game-tree pruning and found its central argument sound. He recommended minor revision to address a missing estimate, leaving the paper’s fate to the other reviewer and editor.

• Alexei found Soviet papers by Brudno and Adelson’s colleagues in the references and recalled how their work had been overlooked in the West.
• Alexei read the paper closely and saw that its author extended earlier pruning results with a new state space compression operator.
• Alexei identified a missing estimate between Proposition 4.3 and Theorem 4.5, though he judged the gap repairable.
• Alexei submitted a review praising the paper’s contribution and recommending minor revision.

Qi Hao received a minor-revision decision on his paper, with Reviewer 1 demanding extensive proofs and Reviewer 2 requesting only one technical addition. After he revised the paper to address Reviewer 2’s comment, it was accepted, completing his Academic Legacy task.

• Qi Hao read the reviewers’ reports and realized Reviewer 1’s demands would require him to reprove numerous lemmas drawn from Soviet literature.
• Qi Hao found that Reviewer 2 praised his work and requested only a rigorous estimate of the compression operator’s Lipschitz constant.
• Qi Hao added the missing proof, explained his revisions, and submitted the revised manuscript.
• Three days later, Qi Hao checked the submission system and saw that his paper had been accepted.
• Qi Hao celebrated the acceptance of his first SCI paper, and the system congratulated him on completing the Academic Legacy task.

Kevin and Professor Lauren dismissed the acceptance of Qi Hao’s paper as a mistake, while Qi Hao received an A+ mission rating and opened two treasure chests. The first yielded three pills that could sustain a Soviet academic ace’s study state, though the system warned of abnormal side effects.

• Kevin told Professor Lauren that Discrete Mathematics had accepted Qi Hao’s paper after another reviewer verified its Russian citations.
• Lauren criticized the journal’s decision and predicted that peers would eventually uncover problems with the paper.
• Qi Hao received an A+ mission rating, 2,000 mathematics experience, 300 points, and two random treasure chests.
• Qi Hao checked his personal panel and noted that his mathematics had reached LV2 while most other subjects remained at LV1.
• Qi Hao opened the first chest and received three Mind-Clearing and Brain-Strengthening Pills, then demanded that the system explain its warning about side effects.

Qi Hao used a ritual before opening a treasure chest and received a complete proof of the Jacobian Conjecture. After learning how the conjecture had damaged Yitang Zhang’s career, Qi Hao was left with the proof in his system inventory.

• Qi Hao bowed three times before opening a chest and obtained a purple treasure chest.
• Qi Hao opened it and received a complete proof of the Jacobian Conjecture.
• Qi Hao searched online and learned that the conjecture had remained unsolved for decades.
• Qi Hao read how Yitang Zhang’s doctoral work relied on a flawed lemma by his advisor, Tzuong-Tsieng Moh.
• Qi Hao learned that Tzuong-Tsieng Moh refused to recommend Yitang Zhang, leaving him struggling to find work before he later secured a temporary lecturer position.
• Qi Hao realized the proof that had once brought disaster to Yitang Zhang was now in his inventory.

Qi Hao began studying the prerequisites for understanding the Jacobian Conjecture and found that Kostrikin’s Soviet algebra textbook suited his learning style. After borrowing several books, he heard that an undergraduate from his university was suspected of citing nonexistent references in a mathematics paper, and feared the accusation was about him.

• Qi Hao tried to view the proof of the Jacobian Conjecture, but the system blocked it and recommended six prerequisite textbooks.
• Qi Hao struggled with a Western abstract algebra textbook, then read Kostrikin’s Introduction to Algebra at the provincial library and found its concrete, guided approach easier to understand.
• Qi Hao borrowed three books and returned to campus with plans to study them.
• Liang Tianhao told Qi Hao that a Tieba post accused an undergraduate mathematics major at their university of academic misconduct for citing references that could not be found.
• Qi Hao realized the accusation might concern his own paper.

Qi Hao read a Tieba post accusing a freshman at D University of fabricating five Soviet-era references in an SCI paper, while commenters condemned the unnamed author. As Liang Wenhao angrily denounced the alleged fraud, Qi Hao began to suggest that he knew who the accused person was.

• Qi Hao asked Liang Wenhao about the post, and Liang showed him a Tieba thread alleging that a freshman had published a paper with five nonexistent references.
• Qi Hao read the post and its replies, where commenters treated the missing references as evidence of deliberate academic fraud and called for an investigation.
• Qi Hao noticed that nearly every commenter condemned the author, while one sympathetic reply had been harshly rebutted.
• Liang Wenhao fumed that the scandal was damaging serious researchers at their university and vowed to confront whoever was responsible.
• Qi Hao asked Liang whether he knew that person.

University leaders met to investigate allegations that first-year student Qi Hao had cited five nonexistent Soviet-era sources in a paper accepted by Discrete Mathematics. The president ordered a thorough inquiry and sent Old Wang to bring Qi Hao in, while Old Wang worried the accusations could damage his student's research future.

• The president told the academic affairs director, the mathematics dean, and Old Wang that online allegations against Qi Hao had gone viral and a formal complaint accused him of fabricating five references.
• Old Wang defended Qi Hao as an honest student, but the dean argued that the missing references demanded an investigation.
• When Old Wang learned Qi Hao had independently published a sole-authored paper in Discrete Mathematics, he celebrated his student's achievement despite the allegations.
• The president ordered the university to investigate promptly and forbade anyone from publicly judging Qi Hao before the facts were established.
• The president warned that confirmed misconduct could lead to the paper's retraction, university discipline, and a journal blacklist, then told Old Wang to bring Qi Hao to the office.

Qi Hao defended his use of five Soviet-era sources in his mathematics paper, explaining that they supported a deterministic combinatorial approach and were difficult to find or read. The university leaders remained unconvinced without seeing the sources themselves, while guests in the president’s reception room learned that a freshman was under investigation for paper fraud.

• Old Wang questioned Qi Hao about citing five Soviet-era papers in his submission to Discrete Mathematics, and Qi Hao explained why English research did not support his paper’s approach.
• Qi Hao argued that many Soviet mathematical papers were missing from online databases because they had circulated narrowly and were never digitized or translated.
• Qi Hao said he had taught himself Russian to read original Soviet research, prompting Old Wang to joke that he wanted Russian girls before Qi Hao explained his academic interest.
• The president told Qi Hao to bring in the five sources, and Qi Hao realized he might not have located one of them.
• Guests waiting in the president’s reception room discussed the trending fraud allegation against a freshman, and Engineer Tian decided to look into it.

Engineer Tian recognized the paper’s proof as credible and useful for Institute 611’s search-space problem, then arranged for Huaji engineers to verify it. He left before meeting the president, calling the paper an unexpected windfall and leaving the president and vice president puzzled.

• Engineer Tian studied the paper and told Xiao Zhao that its combinatorial approach could help bound the search problem and might save three to six months.
• Engineer Tian argued that the paper’s Soviet references were genuine, citing the connected lemmas, researchers’ academic lineage, and Landis’s work.
• Engineer Tian assigned Huaji engineers to verify the paper because Xiao Zhao’s team could not spare anyone.
• Engineer Tian and his colleagues left after learning the president would be delayed, and Engineer Tian told the vice president the visit had brought him an unexpected windfall.
• The president arrived afterward, learned what Engineer Tian had said, and wondered whether it had been sarcasm.

Dean Hu defended Qi Hao at a provincial mathematics conference while Qi Hao searched for five Soviet papers to clear his name. Lin Lan contacted Dr. Xu, who had sorted through Soviet papers, and Qi Hao’s roommates learned he had found most of the citations but was still missing one.

• The university president told the vice president that Qi Hao needed to find the five Soviet papers and their originals to resolve the scandal.
• Dean Hu attended the provincial mathematics conference, rejected other deans’ accusations, and defended Qi Hao’s academic work.
• Lin Lan recognized Qi Hao in a Weibo post and called Dr. Xu, who invited her to search through his collection of Soviet papers.
• Li Hui, Wang Jun, and Chen Yuan tried to comfort Qi Hao, and Qi Hao told them he had the papers except for one.
• Wang Jun called Qi Hao’s attention to Weibo as Qi Hao prepared to keep searching through Russian forums.

Lin Lan defended the authenticity of the Soviet sources cited in Qi Hao's paper, but skeptics continued to accuse them of fraud. The university then published Professor Alexei's confirmation that the citations were genuine, leaving netizens wondering why an American professor had intervened.

• Lin Lan posted images of Soviet journals and other sources, but commenters questioned whether the Russian-language evidence was genuine.
• Wang Jun and Qi Hao grew angry at the accusations, and Qi Hao urged Wang Jun to help defend Lin Lan online.
• Lin Lan said Qi Hao had identified a serious error in a Soviet mathematics book within ten minutes, but skeptics still accused her of making excuses for him.
• Lin Lan rebuked a commenter who suggested she had a personal arrangement with Qi Hao, while Li Hui and Wang Jun prepared to join the online argument.
• Wang Jun noticed that the university's official Weibo account had posted a statement confirming that Professor Alexei Kozlov verified all five sources and their citation details.
• Netizens wondered why Professor Alexei had intervened, unaware that he had been the second reviewer of Qi Hao's paper.

Professor Alexei Kozlov defended Qi Hao’s paper, authenticated its Soviet references, and praised its mathematical originality in an email posted by Rongcheng Radio and Television University. His support shifted public opinion, but the controversy continued as a verified corporate account appeared in the university’s comments.

• Alexei Kozlov emailed Rongcheng Radio and Television University, supplying scans of the five Soviet-era works cited by Qi Hao and defending the paper’s methods and significance.
• Rongcheng Radio and Television University posted Alexei’s full email in English and Chinese on its official Weibo account.
• Netizens reconsidered their criticism, while some deleted earlier accusations and others explained the importance of Qi Hao’s result.
• The hashtag supporting Qi Hao’s paper rose to fifth place on Weibo’s trending list.
• At 8:42 that evening, a blue-V verified corporate account appeared in the comments on the university’s statement.

Huaji’s CEO publicly praised Qi Hao’s mathematical paper and asked to meet him, while Huaji’s research team confirmed its practical value. Qi Hao accepted Yang Guang’s apology, but online users exposed Yang Guang’s own academic record, and Engineer Tian revealed that he had already made arrangements concerning Qi Hao.

• Huaji announced that its tests found Qi Hao’s theorem useful for improving game-search efficiency, and Huaji’s CEO asked Rongcheng Radio and Television University to arrange a meeting with him.
• Yang Guang, the doctoral student who had accused Qi Hao of fabricating research, apologized after his accusation was locked and featured on Tieba.
• Qi Hao accepted Yang Guang’s apology but asked him to consider the harm a false accusation could cause its target.
• Online users publicized Yang Guang’s rejected papers and threatened to contact his university and supervisor, prompting him to call the police.
• CEO Lan told Engineer Tian that Huaji had handled the matter as requested, and Engineer Tian said he had already made arrangements for Qi Hao.

Qi Hao met with the principal and university officials, who praised his Q2 SCI paper and promised to protect and reward him. The principal rejected Professor Zhou’s attempt to recruit Qi Hao for a modeling competition, hinting that the university had a more ambitious plan for him.

• Professor Zhou asked Old Wang to send Qi Hao to join the mathematical modeling team, but Old Wang said Qi Hao’s participation was no longer up to them alone.
• The principal praised Qi Hao’s paper and explained that the university had prepared to defend him against academic misconduct accusations before outside supporters silenced the criticism.
• Old Hu advised Qi Hao to consult Old Wang on future papers and said his current work might have been polished enough to target Q1.
• The principal told Qi Hao that the university and math school would award him six thousand yuan for his Q2 paper, delighting Qi Hao.
• Professor Zhou promoted the national modeling competition, but the principal said it would waste Qi Hao’s abilities and hinted that a more extraordinary path awaited him.

Qi Hao agreed to enter the Microsoft Imagine Cup after learning about its prize money, and the university promised to support his preparation. His system then assigned him a mission to win an international competition and defeat every American team, while the principal told him Huaji’s CEO wanted to discuss his paper with him.

• The principal told Professor Zhou and the others that the university’s academic committee had recommended Qi Hao enter the Microsoft Imagine Cup instead of the national modeling contest.
• Old Wang explained the Imagine Cup’s international scope and challenges, and Qi Hao initially hesitated because of his studies and upcoming final exams.
• After Old Wang revealed the competition’s prize money, Qi Hao agreed to participate, and the principal offered university resources and Old Wang as his faculty adviser.
• Qi Hao received a system mission requiring him to take first place in an international competition by defeating every American team, and he accepted it.
• The principal told Qi Hao that Huaji’s CEO would visit the university in a couple of days and wanted to discuss Qi Hao’s paper with him.