134: Chapter 134 Everyone's Gaze

In the early hours of the 31st, the dark clouds that had accumulated over Nanjing for several days finally became too heavy to bear, unleashing a hearty and uninhibited downpour.

It washed away the lingering stuffiness and sticky, humid heat of the past few days completely.

At sunrise, the wind stopped and the rain ceased.

Outside the window, the mountain forests of Purple Mountain were dripping with lush green, and the rain-washed leaves shimmered with an extremely pale brightness in the morning light, making even the sunlight shining into the room clear and soft.

Jiang Lin got up on the dot at six, washed up, and took out the clothes from his suitcase.

A most basic white shirt and a well-tailored pair of black trousers.

After having breakfast on the second floor of the hotel, he went out. The hotel lobby was no longer as quiet as it had been last night.

Everyone coming and going was an academic in a suit or a casual shirt.

Some held printed opening ceremony agendas, scanning them quickly as they walked.

Others were discussing today's major report arrangements with their peers.

Some also bumped into old friends they had not seen for years at the elevator entrance, exchanging brief handshakes and greetings while whispering about their recent situations.

The unique bustle and anticipation of an academic grand event permeated bit by bit in the post-rain morning.

The elevator arrived at the first floor.

With a ding, the elevator doors slid open to both sides.

Tang Yue was already waiting outside the door.

Today, she had changed out of the basic blue vest she wore the past few days, donning a unified white conference formal suit with an eye-catching work badge pinned to her chest.

Upon seeing Jiang Lin, the slight excitement deep in her eyes was still hard to conceal, but it was quickly covered by a rigorous professional attitude.

However, strictly adhering to conference discipline, she didn't engage in excessive small talk. Instead, she stepped forward a small half-step, maintaining a polite and respectful social distance while slightly bowing.

"Teacher Jiang, good morning. Admission for the opening ceremony begins at 8:40, and it starts promptly at 9:00. Please allow me to guide you to the exclusive seating for special guests."

"Sorry to trouble you." Jiang Lin nodded slightly.

The two walked one after another through the hotel lobby, heading towards the main venue along the familiar glass corridor.

In the post-rain Chinese-style garden, the fresh fragrance of plants mixed with the earthy scent rushed toward them.

It was very refreshing.

Inside the grand pillarless hall of the main venue.

Hundreds and thousands of seats were packed full. This place encompassed almost a significant portion of heavyweight figures in the domestic and overseas Chinese mathematical community, as well as core research forces from major universities.

The front rows were seats for special guests. The tables were covered with dark red velvet tablecloths, and white bone china teacups, mineral water, conference manuals, and gold-stamped nameplates were arranged meticulously.

Behind every nameplate represented a resounding name in the academic world, representing a string of repeatedly cited papers, theorems, textbooks, and academic lineages.

In the middle were professors, researchers, Distinguished Young Scholars, and Chang Jiang Scholars from major universities.

The back rows consisted of vibrant young participating scholars, postdoctoral researchers, and some invited mainstream media journalists from central and local levels.

The stage background was the giant main visual of The 9th International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians.

The dark blue tone was solemn and profound, with countless geometric lines and abstract mathematical symbols looming in the background, resembling stellar tracks deep in the universe.

The venue's lighting was soft, and although there were many people, it was orderly.

Apart from low conversations, no clamor could be heard.

Tang Yue led Jiang Lin, braving countless overt and covert gazes, walking straight to the guest area in the front row.

Finally, she stopped in front of a seat slightly central in the second row.

This position was exceptionally far forward.

It was adjacent to the seats of a group of silver-haired senior academicians and senior professors bearing the titles of top-tier universities.

In the academic world, where seniority ranking was extremely implicit yet extremely strict, the arrangement of seats itself was a spatial materialization of power.

Those who could sit in the top three rows were usually either senior scholars who had branched out in a certain direction, or the very few young people who had crossed the seniority threshold with their achievements.

"Teacher Jiang, your seat is here."

Tang Yue pointed to the nameplate on the table with the two characters [Jiang Lin] written on it.

"Close at hand are simultaneous interpretation earphones, a paper version of the detailed agenda, and the conference commemorative manual. In addition, after the opening ceremony, please temporarily stay in place and wait. The conference team will have someone specifically guide you through the subsequent procedures."

She paused and softly added, "I will be on standby at Side Door No. 2 on the right side of the venue. You can call me anytime for any needs."

"Okay, thank you for your hard work," Jiang Lin answered gently.

Tang Yue retreated silently.

Jiang Lin pulled out the seat and sat down.

Around him, one resounding name after another passed by his side.

Someone deliberately stopped, walked over to shake hands with him, their eyes carrying undisguised amazement and the intention to make friends.

Someone nodded to him across the seats with a friendly smile on their face.

Of course, more people just glanced at him briefly as they passed, their eyes mixed with surprise and curiosity.

After all, the vast majority of people sitting in this area were middle-aged or even elderly scholars who had experienced years and countless boring projects.

A face as young as his, still carrying a bit of high schooler greenness, was truly a bit glaring in this region full of academic pressure.

At nine o'clock in the morning sharp.

As the host stepped onto the stage, the venue's lights dimmed by three parts, and the opening ceremony of The 9th International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians officially kicked off.

The speeches came one after another, proceeding in order according to the established administrative and academic specifications.

The welcoming speech by the president of Southeast University, the academic outlook by the representative of Tsinghua University, the regional science and technology development blueprint by the leaders of Jiangsu Province, the introduction to the city's cultural heritage by the leaders of Nanjing, and the earnest message sent via video by high-level officials of the Ministry of Education.

Jiang Lin listened quietly.

He did not show impatience or lower his head to look at his mobile phone during the lengthy administrative speeches.

Having stayed in the Wasteland for a long time and worked on engineering lines for a long time, he understood the logic of reality better than many people with a pure mathematics background.

The academic field has never been composed solely of chalk words on blackboards, formulas in papers, and pure proofs.

Such a massive and high-specification conference could be successfully held at this time and in this place.

A batch of scholars who had made great achievements overseas and even obtained tenured positions could take this opportunity to buy plane tickets and fly back for exchanges.

A batch of young people who were not yet famous but extremely talented could receive funding and sit in the front rows to be formally seen by the world...

Behind all this glamour, it was jointly supported by administrative organizations, academic institutions, financial budgets, conference systems, and long-term scientific research platforms.

Mathematics, as the crown of natural sciences, ultimately only recognizes proofs and logic.

But mathematicians are not gods; mathematicians are living people living in the Real World.

They need laboratories, supercomputing resources, research funds, and solutions for housing and family resettlement.

The Real World cannot operate solely on a few scratch pads filled with formulas and a few lines of proofs.

Therefore, he was not impatient.

Those links that seemed far away from the proof were actually the realistic conditions for the proof to be heard.

After the opening speeches, the process logically entered today's main highlight, which was also the segment that all media and participants eagerly anticipated.

The award ceremony.

If the previous speeches were blooming flowers spread across the sea surface, then at this moment, those grand preparations rapidly retreated like receding tide water.

Professor Zheng Shaoyuan, a famous mathematician, took the stage and began to introduce the award evaluation situation.

Before hearing his own name, Jiang Lin first heard a resounding name in the history of Chinese mathematics.

Yang Le.

ICCM Mathematics Contribution Award.

This was a heavy-weight award established for the first time by this congress to honor historical figures.

Its weight surpassed ordinary academic breakthrough awards.

The host read the citation: "This award aims to bestow upon those leader mathematicians who have made outstanding achievements and are highly respected in the field of mathematical sciences, and have made lifelong outstanding contributions to the climbing of peaks in the Chinese mathematical cause."

Light and shadow flowed on the big screen, showing black-and-white and color photos of Academician Yang Le spanning decades, as well as a brief yet weighty biographical introduction.

This did not belong to the genius narrative of the hot-search era that could detonate the entire internet at every turn, nor was it a legendary chapter where one could suddenly shock the academic world with a paper that emerged out of nowhere.

But thunderous applause erupted in the venue.

Academician Yang Le had full white hair, and although his steps were somewhat faltering, his spine remained straight.

He was part of that generation who, in an era when basic scientific research conditions were ridiculously crude, where even consulting a latest foreign literature required going through great trouble and even hand-copying, still relied on sheer solitary courage and supreme intelligence to devote their entire life to the deep cultivation of function theory and value distribution theory, as well as the arduous construction of the Chinese mathematics education system.

Huang Wei, Shing-Tung Yau, and Huang Ru, three heavyweight guests with enormous influence in academia and politics, stepped forward together and smiled as they presented the award to Yang Le.

Offstage, the flashlights of the media seating lit up into a sheet, resembling midday in midsummer.

The old man took the heavy medal and gold-stamped certificate with trembling yet extremely steady hands, slowly turning around to face the thousands of juniors offstage.

The applause rose again like a surging tide, almost overturning the venue's dome.

Jiang Lin sat upright in the second row, watching this scene with focused eyes.

Never before had he realized so clearly and concretely as at this moment that the gold medal for aperiodic monotile tiling he was going to receive today was not a lonely meteorite falling from the sky.

It fell on a very long historical chain stained with the sweat and painstaking efforts of predecessors.

Because there were people like Academician Yang Le ahead who paved the way in the thorns with a lifetime of time, frayed sleeves, and bleached white hair, there could be someone like him, Jiang Lin, at the unrestrained youth age of eighteen, being allowed, being accepted, and being pushed to stand here to pluck that brilliant star.

The old man did not recall his past suffering and glory too much.

What he talked more about was the vibrant young people offstage, the difficulties and hopes currently faced in cultivating Chinese mathematical talents, and the fact that under this volatile international situation, Chinese mathematics must and can only walk a path of self-reliance and self-strengthening.

Jiang Lin listened very carefully.

Some people talk about valuing young people just as polite clichés out of administrative routine, casting them behind after stepping off the stage.

But some people talk about young people because they truly see the names of several generations, the destinies of several generations, and even the future of the country's mathematics deeply in their eyes and engraved in their hearts.

...

After the presentation of the Mathematics Contribution Award, the atmosphere of the venue had been pushed to a climax.

The much-anticipated ICCM Mathematics Award.

In the Chinese mathematical community, its weight hardly needed extra explanation.

There was a momentary slight commotion in the venue due to various suppressed excitement and tension.

The page on the big screen switched instantly, and in the blue-and-white background, the textured gold-stamped English characters ICCM Medal of Mathematics emerged.

The host read out in a steady and powerful voice: "The winner of this iccm mathematics gold medal is — Ding Jian."

Thunderous applause.

Ding Jian, sitting in the middle seats, took a deep breath, stood up, buttoned his suit jacket, and walked towards the stage with steady steps.

The big screen began to rapidly scroll and introduce his main academic contributions.

Probability theory, mathematical Physics, exact thresholds for K-SAT random constraint problems, Ising model with random perturbations, existence and properties of two-dimensional Liouville quantum gravity metrics, Anderson localization problem with Bernoulli potentials.

To the general public, these terms were as abstruse and incomprehensible as heavenly books.

Unlike the monotile problem, they could not be brought into the understanding range of ordinary people through an intuitive geometric figure, a puzzle video, or a popular explanation.

But within the mathematical community, everyone sitting here knew that every single one of them was not a lightweight achievement label.

Behind these obscure terms in mathematics were academic barriers that no one had been able to advance for years, the limits of existing technical tools, and the hard cliffs in a research direction that countless top brains had tried, failed, and eventually been forced to bypass.

And Ding Jian was the person who pierced through the cliff head-on.

Ding Jian walked onto the stage.

Shing-Tung Yau and fields medal winner Caucher Birkar jointly presented the award to him.

The gold medal and gold-stamped certificate were solemnly handed into his hands.

Ding Jian stood in front of the microphone.

He talked about the confusion and dilemmas in scientific research exploration where no light could be seen, and how this heavy medal might become a spiritual encouragement to support himself from collapsing when encountering insurmountable mathematical difficulties again one day in the future.

He also talked about hoping that these meager works of his could provide a little meager nourishment and stepping stones for later generations when climbing peaks.

Jiang Lin felt this statement was exceptionally good.

Medals are never the end point of a proof.

It was more like solidifying the mud a person had waded through and the path they had walked in a specific stage of life into a piece of metal temporarily.

So that in the future, when truly facing desperate situations and self-doubt, one could take it out and look at it to remind themselves that they had never retreated before.

After finishing his speech, Ding Jian bowed and stepped off the stage.

The applause in the venue had not completely subsided, and the lingering sound was still circling around the dome.

Many people originally thought that the gold medal segment had ended here.

Media reporters had already begun to bow their heads to edit and send flash news of Ding Jian winning the award.

However, the host on the stage did not announce entering the silver medal presentation segment.

He lowered his head, glanced at the red cue card in his hand with a pause mixed with suppressed excitement.

Quite a few people acutely sensed the abnormality in the atmosphere, and the buzzing whispers gradually subsided.

"Dear colleagues, after multiple special reviews and final voting resolutions by the evaluation committee of this ICCM Mathematics Award."

The host's voice sounded again, slowing down his speech rate, biting every word extremely heavily.

"This year's gold medal will be simultaneously awarded to another young mathematics worker."

A slight commotion appeared in the venue once more.

"A young mathematics worker?"

"Who is it, Shu Yu or Zhang Wei?"

The host's voice suddenly rose by a notch: "To commend his work that has made historical breakthrough contributions to the problem of aperiodic monotile tiling."

Hum!

Young mathematics worker, aperiodic monotile tiling, breakthrough contribution—putting these three labels together, no one needed to guess anymore.

Professor Gu Nanzhou was originally sitting in a seat towards the middle-back, lowering his head to flip through the thick conference manual.

Hearing this sentence, he abruptly raised his head, his gaze shooting straight ahead.

Professor Lin Zhaoye was sitting on the side of the local Nanjing scholars' seating.

Hearing the host's voice, his first reaction was not even shock, but a pause.

The host's announcement echoed through the hall like rolling spring thunder.

"The evaluation committee believes that although this achievement was completed very recently, the problem it solves inherently possesses long-term openness. Its proof process has passed key verification by multiple independent academic teams and has been subjected to public inquiry by international peers in the ICM Special Report. Jiang Lin's work on Tile J has not only provided the first aperiodic tiling construction of a single geometric shape in human history, but has also developed a clear and complete theoretical method combining local forcing, substitution hierarchies, and machine-verifiable proofs. This method opens up a brand-new path for future tiling theory and discrete geometry."

The big screen suddenly lit up.

An unadorned ID photo appeared in everyone's view.

The young man in the photo had a calm expression, clean and clear brows and eyes, and still carried a strong student aura.

If this face were placed outside the doors of a Gaokao examination room, no one would find it out of place.

But at this moment, it appeared on the big screen representing the highest honor in the Chinese mathematics community.

And the text description accompanying the photo was even more shocking than the young face, carrying a hint of magical realism.

[Jiang Lin]

[Jiangcheng No. 7 High School]

[Independent Researcher]

Core contributions: Proposed the brand-new Tile J boundary compression construction, constructed and proved the first single aperiodic tiling prototype, established a complete local forcing hierarchy and boundary classification verification framework, and solved the long-standing unresolved single-tile aperiodic tiling problem.

In an instant, the entire main venue, which could hold a thousand people, became extremely quiet.

It wasn't that there was no applause, but that too many people simply hadn't reacted yet.

This was a gold medal.

Not a silver medal encouraging young people.

Not an award for an outstanding paper of a consolatory nature.

Even less was it the kind of special commendation with the nature of youth patronage.

Rather, it was the iccm mathematics gold medal, representing one of the highest honors in the Chinese mathematics community.

The next second, the applause broke through the floodgates like a long-accumulated torrent, deafening.

Young scholars in the back row straightened up abruptly as if electrocuted, and a few even stood up directly in their excitement, clapping their hands vigorously.

Low-voiced yet extremely dense inquiries began to appear in the media section.

"Jiang Lin?"

"Wasn't he attending as a guest?"

"He turns out to be this year's gold medalist?"

...

No one could answer their questions immediately.

This official list, which had clearly undergone repeated weighing and was strictly kept confidential until the very last moment, was only just revealed at this moment.

The vast majority of scholars present, like those media reporters who were driving themselves crazy, only learned of this shocking news that could be called an earthquake in the Chinese mathematics community until the host's voice fell and they saw those three glaring tags on the big screen.

When Professor Gu Nanzhou heard that name, he even forgot that he was still tightly clutching the conference manual in his hand, and subconsciously stood up.

Professor Lin Zhaoye remained in his original seat, slowly and forcefully applauding.

Amidst the tidal applause, what surfaced in his mind was not at all that dazzling ID photo on the big screen.

But that long table in the conference room.

It was Jiang Lin sitting quietly at the end of the table, facing his and Shao Mingtang's nearly tricky consecutive questioning, with that airtight poise and calmness.

It was also the scene when discussing the paper's authorship, where Jiang Lin insisted on listing the names of everyone who participated in the verification in the author column, only to be sternly and unceremoniously refused by their group of old fellows.

The white beam of the spotlight fell on the guest seats in the second row.

Jiang Lin nodded slightly, stood up amidst the attention of the entire audience, and walked toward the stage along the red carpet-paved aisle.

The young man had a lean figure and a steady pace, exuding a calm and composure that surpassed his age all over his body.

As if going there was not to receive a renowned award, but simply to solve an equation at the blackboard that he had long known by heart.

The distance from the winner's seat to the podium was actually only twenty-odd steps.

But these twenty-odd steps spanned society's prejudice against age, crossed the chasm of academic qualifications, and stepped directly into the hall of truth.

Today, it seemed to be jointly elongated by thousands of gazes in the venue.

Cameras successively zoomed in their lenses.

The shutter sounds of reporters in the media areas on both sides became denser than ever before.

On the podium, Shing-Tung Yau crossed his hands, watching this young man step by step approach him.

The old man's face carried undisguised admiration and a smile, revealing a huge relief that the Chinese mathematics community finally had successors through his amiability.

Jiang Lin stepped onto the last step and walked to the center of the stage.

Shing-Tung Yau and Fields Medalist Bill Carr stepped forward together.

The two figures with extremely high prestige in the contemporary mathematics community solemnly handed over that red velvet certificate and golden medal.

The gold medal was heavy.

On the front, the abstract emblem of this congress with great geometric aesthetics was engraved with exquisite craftsmanship.

On the back were the inscription of the ICCM Mathematics Award and the newly engraved pinyin "Jiang Lin".

"Congratulations, Jiang Lin." Shing-Tung Yau's voice clearly spread across the entire venue through the lavalier microphone, "You have done an exceptionally outstanding job. The future of Chinese mathematics rests on you vibrant young people."

"Thank you, Mr. Qiu, thank you Mr. Bill Carr, thank you to the evaluation committee." Jiang Lin bowed slightly and received this heavy honor with both hands.

The moment the medal was in his hand, it was slightly heavier than he expected.

As if what he was holding in his hand was not just a piece of high-purity metal, but the expectations of the entire mathematics community for him.

The three stood side by side, facing the audience.

The moment the camera froze.

The applause from the audience was like roaring waves crashing against the shore, lasting for a very, very long time, and even showing a tendency to intensify.

Jiang Lin turned around and faced the entire audience.

Under the dazzling stage lights, he narrowed his eyes slightly and finally saw clearly those faces in the main venue.

There were elderly scholars with silver hair, young professors in their prime, doctoral students with fanatical eyes, people he knew, and people he didn't know at all.

Professor Lin Zhaoye sat in a position near the middle, through thin lenses, his gaze was quiet and gratified, like watching a piece of art he helped polish finally shine brilliantly.

And in the further back row, quite a few young students were holding their mobile phones high, trying to record this historical moment.

The applause gradually subsided.

The host gestured to Jiang Lin indicating that he could deliver his acceptance speech.

Jiang Lin walked up to the standing microphone and slightly adjusted its height.

"Thank you to the ICCM Mathematics Award evaluation committee, thank you to the congress organizing committee, and thank you to all the teachers and peers who participated in the verification and discussion of the Jiangs Brick paper."

The first sentence was a very standard and faultless opening remark.

But starting from the second sentence, the attention in the venue obviously concentrated a bit more.

"The single-tile aperiodic tiling problem has never been a private issue belonging only to any single individual. For a very long time, it has attracted the efforts of many excellent mathematicians, computer scientists, and even amateur enthusiasts around the world. I am merely standing on the shoulders of giants and happened to pick up that key."

The audience was pin-drop silent.

"And the true establishment of a mathematical proof is never because the author himself subjectively believes how strongly it holds."

"Rather, it is because it can withstand others not believing it, and can even withstand others examining it with the sharpest suspicion."

Jiang Lin paused for half a second, his gaze sweeping across the entire audience.

"Being able to stand here today, I especially want to thank Professor Gu Nanzhou, Professor Lin Zhaoye, Shao Mingtang, and Professor Lu Zhixing. In the earliest verification stage of the paper, under tremendous pressure, they invested a huge amount of time and energy, accommodated my wild and unrestrained ideas, and helped me organize many jumpy proof fragments originally suitable only for my own reading into rigorous forms that peers could review using rigorous mathematical language."

Professor Gu Nanzhou smiled with his head lowered in the audience.

Professor Lin Zhaoye gently let out a breath, took off his glasses, and wiped them.

"Thank you to my parents, and the teachers who have taught me along the way, and thank you Senior Brother Chen Yan. Many people are accustomed to describing major mathematical achievements in isolation as some kind of innate talent falling from the sky. But the fact is, when a person can sit down in a quiet corner and spend a long time undisturbed doing an extremely difficult thing, behind him, many people must have silently held up an umbrella and provided a lot of invisible support."

Jiang Lin paused for a moment and glanced at the gold medal in his hand.

"To me, this medal is not a period."

In the main venue, the atmosphere that had relaxed slightly froze once more.

"It is merely a door that has already been opened."

The venue fell into an eerie silence for half a second.

"Mathematics does not lower its standards because of a person's age, nor does it refuse proof because of a person's age. What it ultimately recognizes is still only logic itself."

"Thank you."

Jiang Lin stepped back half a step, slightly bowed and bowed to the audience.

Applause thundered up once again.

The subsequent award ceremony process continued.

The recipients of the ICCM Mathematics Silver Award were invited to the stage one by one.

They came from different research directions and had their own complete and profound research trajectories: geometric analysis, probability, complex geometry, partial differential equations, and mathematical Physics.

Jiang Lin sat in his seat, listening attentively to the introduction of each award winner.

If the media outside was destined to focus their lenses on him as the most eye-catching anomaly, then those truly sitting here understood that the depth of a mathematicians' congress was definitely not propped up by any single person.

It is the accumulation of many unsolved mysteries, many unpopular directions, and many years of contenting oneself with loneliness.

As all the award segments ended, the opening ceremony neared its end, all winners were invited to the stage for a group photo, and the venue entered a brief formation adjustment, the mobile phone in Jiang Lin's pocket vibrated slightly, and he lowered his head to glance at the screen.

It was a WeChat message sent by his mother, Zhang Xiufen.

[Your dad and I both saw it.]

Jiang Lin looked at this sentence, his eyes flickering slightly.

On the stage, several experienced staff members were efficiently guiding the winners into position.

Ding Jian stood beside him, Academician Yang Le sat in the chair in the middle, while Shing-Tung Yau and several award-presenting guests and Ministry of Education leaders stood crowded around.

Jiang Lin stood properly according to the staff's instructions, holding the heavy gold medal in his hand, with the red certificate unfolded against his chest.

The photographer waved his hands down the stage and shouted: "Look here, three, two, one!"

The flashlights lit up violently.

A group photo destined to be recorded in the annals of Chinese mathematics history was frozen in time.

Even before the opening ceremony had completely ended, the media news outside the venue had completely exploded.

[Jiangs Brick author Jiang Lin reaches the summit of The 9th International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians ICCM Mathematics Award!]

[Eighteen-year-old high school graduate wins the iccm mathematics gold medal, breaking the historical record for the youngest winner in the Chinese mathematics community!]

[A humble family produces a distinguished son! Jiangcheng No. 7 High School student strongly ascends to the highest podium of The 9th International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians!]

...

In the office of the senior grade group at Jiangcheng No. 7 High School.

Teacher Liu was sorting out the exploratory class-assignment materials for the new senior year when the mobile phone on the desk suddenly vibrated continuously like it had gone crazy.

Teacher Liu irritably took off his glasses and picked up his phone.

The first message came from the head of discipline.

[Teacher Liu, look at the news]

The second came from the principal.

The third came from a local media reporter he didn't know at all.

[Hello Teacher Liu, I am the chief reporter of the Jiangcheng Daily. Regarding the sudden event that your school's student Jiang Lin just won the iccm mathematics gold medal, did the school have any internal news beforehand? The interview vehicle we dispatched has already arrived at the school gate, when would it be convenient for you to accept an exclusive interview?]

Teacher Liu blankly looked at the text on the screen. He recognized every Chinese character, but when combined together, his brain's language center refused to process this information.

After taking several deep breaths, holding back his excited heart and trembling hands, he clicked on the news link sent by the head of discipline.

In the high-definition large picture, Jiang Lin stood on the podium, holding that red certificate in his hand.

White shirt, black pants, upright posture, the youth was like jade.

On the huge exhibition board behind him, it read impressively: "The 9th International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians".

Teacher Liu stared at the photo on the screen for a full ten seconds.

Then, he culturedly swore an oath.

"This kid, he fucking didn't say it again!"

...

On the other side, the Jiang family.

Zhang Xiufen, who had already resigned from her job as a supermarket cashier, had some free time at home today and was currently sitting on the sofa looking at her phone.

She had originally only heard Jiang Lin say he was going to Nanjing for a conference, so she thought of browsing related news to see if she could coincidentally see his appearance in the congress footage.

Then she suddenly scrolled across a short video that was obviously from an audience perspective.

Her son was standing on the podium receiving an award.

Zhang Xiufen's whole person was as if pressed with a one-touch pause button, instantly freezing.

In the video, the son whom she had urged yesterday not to be greedy for coolness and eat too much ice was standing at a congress site that looked terrifyingly high-level at a glance.

[China's eighteen-year-old independent researcher Jiang Lin wins The 9th International Congress of Chinese Mathematicians iccm mathematics gold medal]

Zhang Xiufen's brain went blank for several seconds before she reacted and called out to her husband.

"Jianguo!"

The voice she shouted out abruptly even cracked.

Jiang Jianguo was coming in from the balcony holding a watering can.

"What's wrong, in broad daylight, jumping like that, don't shout your blood pressure up?"

"You, look at your son!"

Jiang Jianguo glanced at the phone following her finger.

Then he also stood still as if cast with an immobilization spell.

Neither of the old couple spoke, and the small living room was silent.

In the mobile phone video, Jiang Lin was delivering his acceptance speech.

Until the video played repeatedly several times, Zhang Xiufen finally recovered from the massive shock, turned her head somewhat blankly, and asked her husband: "Didn't our son say he was just going to attend a conference when he set off?"

Jiang Jianguo looked at the son shining brilliantly under the spotlight on the screen, and said with pride: "For such a big matter, it must have been that it couldn't be talked about casually beforehand."