```
"Yu, I'm sorry, you know what's going on with the kid now, right?" Li Jiangao rubbed his hands outside the room, apologizing.
"This kid…" After thinking for quite a while, Yu Chenggong couldn't find the right adjective to describe Qiao Ze. He ended up saying simply, "Isn't he just too stubborn?"
"It's true that he doesn't know how to communicate normally, but his mathematical talent and attainment are also real. Many geniuses are like this, unconsciously offending others, possibly alienating many, and being misunderstood, leading to their talents being buried. But if you just give them a chance to shine, they can be dazzling like the sun. Just like the historical Ramanujan."
Li Jiangao was racking his brain to speak well of Qiao Ze. Although his understanding of the boy was still not broad, he genuinely had high hopes for him. Moreover, with the help of Yu Chenggong, a highly experienced admissions teacher in the school, there was a much higher chance of successfully getting the peculiar child Qiao Ze into the school.
Of course, he also truly hoped to make Qiao Ze as normal as possible.
Even though this was not within his job scope, it could still allow Qiao Ze to shine more easily and avoid some detours.
What was even rarer was that at this moment, Li Jiangao had very little self-interest in doing these things and was motivated purely by his love for mathematics, and he couldn't bear to see a special child like Qiao Ze wasted.
"Professor Li, you really don't have to tell me all this. But don't think I'm overstepping our acquaintanceship by saying some words. Recruiting such a child is generally risky, and if anything happens to him at school, it would be troublesome, especially since he comes from a single-parent family. But if you really have high hopes for him and need me to help write a report or something, just let me know," Yu Chenggong said with a smile.
"Then, thank you very much, Teacher Yu!"
"Haha, Professor Li, don't mention it. Call me if you need anything! I must be off now, there's a student's parent coming for a consultation shortly."
"Alright, Teacher Yu, go ahead and be busy."
In Li Jiangao's view, Qiao Ze was a potential stock.
In Yu Chenggong's view, Li Jiangao was equally a potential stock.
Those who understand know just how impressive it is to get hired in a 985 top university's 3+3 program and to smoothly stay on.
Not to mention someone like Yu Chenggong, who had been mixing in the university circle for twenty years, and had witnessed how the criteria for hiring teachers became increasingly demanding each year to the point of being almost perverse.
For instance, last year the school had a returnee who was a star achiever, with an undergraduate degree from a top 5 domestic university plus a doctoral degree from a famous overseas institution, and numerous achievements leading a team. Yet, after six years without reaching an associate professor position, he was let go, with no one able to save him. Now, for a slot of an associate professor at a university, it seemed like hundreds of candidates were waiting to seize the opportunity.
Li's PhD advisor was also quite impressive, but he had already retired five years ago. Under such circumstances, the usually reticent Li Jiangao was still able to smoothly obtain the title of associate professor and stay at the school, which sufficiently demonstrated his capabilities.
Whatever the aspect of his abilities, it was worth investing in.
Who knows, in a few years, he might become a significant professor at the university, and perhaps then Yu Chenggong might need to ask Li Jiangao for a favor. To decline such an easy favor would be truly foolish.
...
After seeing Yu Chenggong off, Li Jiangao turned back to the room, only to see Qiao Ze looking at him with curiosity.
He touched his face subconsciously and asked, "What is it?"
Li Jiangao didn't know that although he had deliberately kept his voice very low while speaking with Yu Chenggong, Qiao Ze was not only exceptionally intelligent but also had an especially acute sense of hearing.
Aside from giving him a somewhat reclusive personality, God appeared to have bestowed nearly all the excellent human genes on him.
```
So the conversation between the two was not lost on Qiao Ze's ears.
"Apart from Lu Xiuxiu, you're the first person who has tried to understand me and also wants to help me. And you're much smarter than Lu Xiuxiu."
"You heard everything?"
Li Jiangao was stunned for a moment before he said seriously, "Well, regardless of how talented or smart you are, if you truly want to engage with more interesting ideas, you must first learn to respect others. Starting now, you're not allowed to call Lu Xiuxiu by her name, you must call her 'Mom'!"
Qiao Ze cocked his head to the side and asked, "Why?"
"You can think of respect as a choice. An inequality of intelligence is not the original sin. Okay, let's not talk about grand principles, but gratitude is the basic moral baseline of a person. Your mother has worked hard to raise you, doesn't she deserve your respect?" Li Jiangao's tone was serious yet not harsh.
After all, the child was sick in the head, and it wasn't a mild case.
Qiao Ze fell silent for a moment and then argued, "A name and 'mom' are both pronouns, symbols. I don't think they necessarily represent respect or lack thereof. And I will repay her."
Li Jiangao simply sat in front of Qiao Ze and said frankly, "Oh? Then tell me, how do you plan to repay her? You are not even willing to seriously consider college, you're not good at socializing, and you want her to worry about your future. Is that your way of repaying her?"
"I have a way to make money! Enough for her to spend!" Qiao Ze emphasized.
Li Jiangao took a deep breath and said, "Okay, I'll give you ten minutes. If you can convince me that you truly have a way to make money, I won't force this issue upon you anymore."
Qiao Ze pursed his lips and then said earnestly, "I've been thinking about a problem, and I'm close to having an answer. This problem is worth a million US dollars. Once I solve it and get the prize money, I'll give it all to her, enough for us to live on."
A problem worth a million dollars?
This specific amount made Li Jiangao think of a special series of mathematical problems subconsciously before he gasped in shock, feeling a chill run down his spine.
In the year 2000, the Clay Mathematics Institute offered a global prize for seven mathematical problems.
Each problem had a prize amount of one million US dollars.
Anyone who solved any of these problems and got the mainstream mathematical community's recognition could take away the prize money of one million US dollars from the foundation.
And it's a tax-free million US dollars at that.
Li Jiangao's mouth hung open as he asked in a low voice, "Okay, which one of the seven problems are you talking about? Since you're looking at those problems, you should know that the Four Color Theorem and Poincaré Conjecture have already been solved by others, right?"
Qiao Ze gave a small, somewhat proud smile and said, "Of course it's not those two problems. The problem I'm going to solve is the Mass Gap hypothesis. It won't be long before I can prove that in a simple, connected Lie group, there is a mass gap solution for the four-dimensional Euclidean space quantum Yang-Mills Equations."
After hearing Qiao Ze's words, Li Jiangao suddenly felt an urge to call Yang, who was still alive.
Really, if this problem was truly solved by the child in front of him, quantum physicists all over the world would owe this kid a debt of gratitude.
Even Li Jiangao wouldn't mind immediately kneeling before this child.
At least up to this point, no one in the world had been able to truly solve the Yang-Mills Equations, and it's rather sad that the primary framework used by quantum physicists to describe the laws of nature couldn't yet be handled mathematically.