Chapter Sixty: Testimony Complete

Wu Tong was not unfamiliar with her current state. For someone engaged in research, when inspiration strikes, such total immersion is a common sight.

Li Yisheng took out the top page—a draft that marked the beginning of the initial deduction process—from the stack of calculation papers and examined it closely.

As he read, his attention was entirely absorbed; his demeanor transformed from casual indifference to solemn concentration. Soon, he fetched paper and pen, bent over the other end of the desk, verifying the calculations for himself.

The early spring sunlight, filtered through the window lattice, shifted and narrowed before finally vanishing as dusk approached. It was nearly dark when Wu Tong concluded her storm of thought, setting down the final line of her equation.

When 2^(2^n)

Proof complete. Emerging from her state of deep immersion, Wu Tong exhaled a long breath. Hunger and fatigue were secondary; her heart brimmed with joy and satisfaction.

She had just proved Zhou’s Conjecture!

As she raised her head, she met Li Yisheng’s gaze.

“Oh, Professor Li? Why are you here?” She glanced toward the door, realizing with a start that much time had passed; twilight had already fallen.

It seemed she had missed lunch and was close to missing dinner as well—that explained her growing hunger.

Zhou’s Conjecture had truly been a formidable challenge—the most difficult problem she had encountered to date, one that had taken her the longest to solve.

But the reward was immense. Beyond the exhilaration of cracking a hard problem, in the instant of her breakthrough, she gained a deeper, more holistic understanding of number theory and prime numbers. It felt as if she had ascended into a new realm of knowledge.

The Stone of Enlightenment celebrated with her, as the luminous warmth in the depths of her mind grew brighter and richer. Wu Tong’s advancement in scholarship had nourished it, the power of newfound insight returning many benefits in kind.

This time, the Stone of Enlightenment regained some of its original essence, bestowing a new ability: absolute deduction and the power to determine the correctness of a direction.

Such a gift was of great use to Wu Tong. Whether in future research or, especially, in experimental work, with this ability to judge the right direction, she would avoid many fruitless detours.

“How do you feel? Mathematical conjectures aren’t as simple as they seem, are they!” Li Yisheng chuckled. He had been here all afternoon—she was only just noticing?

This child’s focus was truly extraordinary. Only such intense concentration could yield her astonishing speed of learning. No one succeeds easily without effort and dedication.

He shifted his numbed foot; standing for so long had made his heel ache as if pricked by needles. Suppressing a grimace that might compromise his composure, Li Yisheng sighed—he was not young anymore. He hadn’t realized he’d been standing, absorbed in Wu Tong’s deductions, and now he could hardly manage.

“It was hard—so hard. I’ve been working on it since noon, and only now, as darkness falls, did I manage to prove it!” Wu Tong flexed her fingers and rolled her shoulders, loosening up after sitting stiffly for most of the afternoon.

Fortunately, her constitution was good; otherwise, maintaining that writing posture all day would have left her spent.

“What...?” Li Yisheng was taken aback, wondering if his ears had deceived him—had he really heard something so incredible? He stared at Wu Tong in disbelief. “You mean you... you’ve proved it?”

Wu Tong nodded with certainty. Why else would it have taken her so long?

“I should thank you for your lecture today—it inspired me,” Wu Tong said with a grateful smile. “Lately, I’ve been curious about the Twin Prime Conjecture and have studied many materials on primes. Today, during your class, I suddenly had some ideas about Zhou’s Conjecture and decided to try deducing it.”

And then...

“And then you proved it!” Li Yisheng drew in a sharp breath, finishing her sentence.

“Sorry to have kept you waiting so long—I spent six or seven hours on it!” Seeing Li Yisheng’s almost faint expression, Wu Tong pinched the bridge of her nose, a little embarrassed.

Had her slow pace made him doubt her abilities?

Li Yisheng clutched his chest, feeling as if he might need heart medicine.

Seven hours?

Seven hours—did she know how much time number theorists had invested in this problem? Not just ten times or a hundred times that—far more! He himself had devoted at least seventy hours to it.

And she’d solved it in seven hours, and almost by accident? As her teacher, how was he supposed to feel?

Li Yisheng could not yet confirm if Wu Tong had truly proved it, but the portion of her deduction he had reviewed that afternoon was flawless.

The thought made his heart pound wildly. Was he really about to witness a miracle—a problem that had stymied mathematicians for nearly twenty years, proved by a sixteen-year-old girl?

Li Yisheng did not immediately deny or confirm her claim. He knew Wu Tong’s ability and character; she would not make such statements lightly. The twenty or so pages of calculations could not have been fabricated, and the section he had checked was correct.

But for a problem of this magnitude, no one could declare it solved without exhaustive verification.

Every year, countless amateur mathematicians claimed to have proved Goldbach’s Conjecture or the Riemann Hypothesis—yet the genuine solution was elusive. Proof of such a world-class conjecture required thorough scrutiny.

“I’ll check the rest for verification,” he said.

Without hesitation, Wu Tong stacked her draft papers neatly and handed them to Li Yisheng—standard procedure. If she intended to publish, she would want him as her corresponding or supervising author.

“But before that,” Li Yisheng did not immediately accept the bundle. Instead, he asked solemnly, “Wu Tong, I must confirm—are you sure you want to entrust me with your proof for verification?”

The world was not short of ill-intentioned or morally corrupt individuals who would steal the work of others. If Wu Tong handed her results to someone unscrupulous, they might claim the proof as their own—all the honors would go to them, leaving her with nothing. Academia was meant to be pure, yet was not without its scoundrels.

Wu Tong, after all, was only a high school student of sixteen who had yet to set foot in university, while he was a university professor. Public opinion would hardly side with her.

“You must understand: the honor of proving a world-class conjecture is beyond compare—worth far more than a gold medal in a competition. If I were the one to prove such a problem, never mind international fame—even domestically, honors like Distinguished Young Scholar or Changjiang Scholar would be within reach!”

Wu Tong smiled serenely. “Why not, Professor Li? I know what you’re worried about. First, I trust your character. Second, if I can prove Zhou’s Conjecture, I can prove others too. This is just one problem I’ve resolved—my knowledge is something no one can steal.”

She had that confidence and certainty—what was hers, no one could take away.