30: Chapter 30 Deep Blue! Activate!

Chen Youhua's fingers danced precisely over the pipette, his movements as fluid as a pre-programmed robot.

On the lab notebook before him, the data was organized clearly, and the project's progress was as smooth as gears lubricated with oil—unbelievably seamless.

"Done."

He capped the last row of samples and placed them into the incubator with efficient, sharp movements.

This was already the... he couldn't be bothered to count.

Enough data had been accumulated that, let alone graduating, publishing a solid Tier 2 paper would be more than sufficient.

But Chen Youhua didn't stop.

Professor Zhang's project was a responsibility, and even more so, a mission.

Since the workflow was established and efficiency had improved, why not take advantage of this momentum to test more cell lines? Why not design more control groups?

Perhaps he could dig up a few more golden details for that national-level project, even if it just meant ruling out one more interfering factor.

That innate drive to push his capabilities to the absolute limit pushed him to automatically increase his workload.

However, his brain was operating at high speed in another dimension.

The waiting periods between experiments.

The few minutes the centrifuge was spinning, the ten-plus minutes the cells needed to sit, or even the dozens of seconds waiting for the equipment to preheat.

All of these became his precious math time.

A dog-eared copy of "Linear Algebra and Its Applications" lay open at the corner of the lab bench, surrounded by several sheets of scratch paper covered in derivations and strange symbols.

To an outsider, he just looked like he was spacing out, staring blankly at a reagent bottle or the eyepiece of a microscope.

Only Chen Youhua himself knew what kind of storm was brewing in his mind.

His extraordinary memory had already allowed him to imprint Advanced Mathematics, Linear Algebra, Probability Theory, Discrete Mathematics, and even several classic algorithm books and deep learning theories into his mind.

But memorizing and understanding were two different mountains.

He was currently struggling to climb the latter.

"Transformation of the integral domain... this boundary condition..."

He stared at the centrifuge's flashing indicator light, but his consciousness was spinning in the maze of analytic geometry.

The formulas were clear, but the logical chain was tied in a knot.

[Hint: Consider introducing the Jacobian determinant for variable substitution. Pay attention to the mapping relationship of the integral region under the transformation.]

A cold, emotionless voice suddenly rang out the moment his thinking stalled.

Chen Youhua's hand holding the pipette paused almost imperceptibly.

It was happening again.

This wasn't the first time.

In biological experiments, even if he worked until his eyes were bloodshot and was tormented to the point of exhaustion by various technical details, this so-called "Hint System" remained dormant, not saying a word.

He once wondered if this system was a biology hater or simply a decoration.

But as soon as he shifted to the fields of mathematics and algorithms, the system was suddenly activated!

From initial calculus problems to later probability theory traps, and recently to matrix decomposition and gradient descent optimization...

Whenever his thoughts got bogged down, that cold voice would act like a precise scalpel, hitting the mark perfectly and providing a key direction—no more, no less, just enough for him to break free and move forward.

"Is this specifically for mathematics?"

Chen Youhua couldn't help but grumble inwardly, feeling a sense of absurdity.

"I chose biology, but it favors math? What is this, a twist of fate?"

He shook his head, pushing the stray thought aside.

"It doesn't matter. Mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology all belong to the same family; they're just tools."

"Starting now is just right."

In fact, a bold idea occurred to him.

To test the limits of this system.

Once, while waiting for a set of cells that required a long incubation period, he was bored and let his consciousness sink into the edge of the Riemann Hypothesis, which had troubled the mathematical world for a century.

Of course, he didn't expect to solve it; he just wanted to see how the system would react in the face of a true dead end.

He mobilized all the relevant knowledge he could understand and deduced frantically until he felt his brain's CPU was about to smoke and his logic had fallen into a chaotic darkness.

[Hint: The deep connection between the distribution of non-trivial zeros of the ζ-function and the eigenvalue distribution in Random Matrix Theory. Focus on the potential correspondence between its statistical properties and Moduli Space Geometry.]

The amount of information was massive and the direction was vague, yet it was like a bolt of lightning splitting the chaos!

Chen Youhua took a sharp breath, his heart racing uncontrollably, nearly knocking over a nearby Petri dish.

He quickly steadied his mind and swept his sharp gaze around.

Fortunately, only Senior Student Li Wei was in the lab, buried in her microscope; no one noticed his loss of composure.

He quickly jotted down those keywords in the corner of his scratch paper, his fingertips trembling slightly with excitement.

This hint... was priceless!

Although it was still light-years away from solving the hypothesis, the direction it pointed out was an extremely novel entry point that he had never considered deeply before!

"Alright, system,"

He murmured in his heart, with a complex sense of apology and immense shock.

"My attitude before wasn't great. You... really have something."

This wasn't just a "hint"; it was practically a cheat!

It was just that the cheat's taste was quite peculiar, only interested in difficult mathematical problems.

The days slipped by in this strange dual-track parallel.

The biological experiments were as steady as a rock, with data accumulating like a rolling snowball.

His study of mathematics and programming, under the system's occasional guidance, was still brain-burning and painful, but the progress was astonishingly fast.

He even took advantage of the late-night hours when there were few people in the lab to secretly write several segments of core algorithm code.

The results also arrived quietly.

In biology, the project reports and paper drafts were already taking shape on his computer—clear logic, solid data, and a high probability of being accepted by a good Tier 2 journal.

As for mathematics... he looked at the paper document on the screen that he had just finished revising for the last time.

The title featured a string of complex mathematical symbols and phrases like "Distributed Optimization Algorithm Based on a New Information Entropy Theory." His mood was as mixed as a knocked-over spice rack.

The source of inspiration for this piece was quite less than honorable; it was a chain of thoughts triggered by the system's guidance while he was deriving another optimization problem, eventually forming an algorithm model that was theoretically highly innovative with significant efficiency improvements.

He had checked; the core idea was absolutely novel, and he aimed to submit it directly to a top Tier 1 journal in the cross-disciplinary field of mathematics and computer science.

The two papers were completely different in style, like products of two parallel worlds.

Chen Youhua leaned back in his chair, his fingertips unconsciously tapping the desk.

The biology paper was a crop he had grown with his own sweat and hard work on solid ground—tangible and real.

The math paper, however, was like an unexpected windfall from a fantasy adventure; it carried the original sin of using a system cheat—brilliant, but making him feel a bit uneasy.

"Which one to publish first?"

He stared at the two folder icons side-by-side on the screen, falling into an unprecedented dilemma.

The biology paper was the proper path, his graduation thesis for Professor Zhang's lab.

The math paper... was more like a secret, a stepping stone to his grand ambitions, but it could also attract unnecessary attention and suspicion.

"Xiao Chen?"

Senior Student Li Wei's voice interrupted his deep thoughts.

She walked over with a water cup, her eyes glancing at his screen.

The screen happened to be displaying an interface full of complex mathematical formulas.

Li Wei's mathematical foundation was clearly insufficient to understand the specific content, but the dense symbols themselves exuded professionalism and depth.

"Wow, what's this? A new experimental model?"

Li Wei asked curiously, then immediately dismissed the idea herself.

"Doesn't look like biology... What profound theory are you researching?"

Chen Youhua quickly switched the screen, revealing a calm smile.

"Nothing, just looking around, learning some new things to broaden my thinking."

He changed the subject.

"Senior, have you finished the data analysis for that set of membrane proteins? The correlation you mentioned last time..."

Sure enough, Li Wei's attention was diverted, and she immediately began complaining about a bug in a certain plugin of the data analysis software.

Chen Youhua listened patiently, but in his heart, he felt like he was carrying two heavy gold bricks with completely different attributes.

Professor Zhang's words from that day echoed in his ears.

"Don't just climb out of one micro-terrain only to plunge into another pit and exhaust yourself."

He was more than just in a pit; he felt like he was about to split himself in two, digging in two deep pits simultaneously—and in one of those pits, there was a talking miner's assistant who favored math.

Life was truly becoming more and more interesting.

He looked at Senior Student Li Wei's profile as she earnestly discussed the problem, then glanced at the encrypted folder icon containing the math paper.

He shook his head with a sigh.