Chapter 264 - 248: Did I Raise It to Death?

Chapter 264: Chapter 248: Did I Raise It to Death?

Nighttime.

Yan University, Dorm Room 404.

Li Dong sat on his bottom bunk, a printed A4 form spread out before him.

Liu Ruochuan had someone deliver the form that afternoon, telling him to fill out his section as soon as possible.

The form’s title was very long.

[Special Support Program for High-Level National Talents · Outstanding Talent · Unconventional Recommendation Form]

On the top bunks, Wang Hao, Chen Nan, and Liu Qiang were originally leaning against the rails, reading their books.

Hearing the rustle of Li Dong turning the paper, Chen Nan and Liu Qiang exchanged a look and were about to go take a peek.

The moment they moved, a look from Wang Hao stopped them in their tracks.

"Don’t go over there."

Wang Hao lowered his voice.

"Do you two want to get hurt by the sheer force of Brother Dong’s flexing?"

Chen Nan and Liu Qiang both froze for a moment.

Then, in a silent understanding, they retreated and went back to their books.

If you had to say who in Dorm 404 knew Li Dong best, it would have to be Wang Hao.

Mainly because he’d been hurt too many times.

In reality, Li Dong had never been the type to actively show off.

He usually had a devil-may-care attitude and loved to shoot the breeze with his bros.

The problem was... when he flexed passively, they couldn’t handle it either.

Based on Wang Hao’s understanding of Li Dong, the form in his hands was absolutely nuclear-grade. There was no need to go over and invite humiliation.

...

Li Dong, for his part, hadn’t noticed his roommates’ little movements.

His brow furrowed slightly.

’Name? Li Dong.’

’Work Unit? Yan University Yuanpei College.’

’Major Academic Achievements?’

Li Dong pondered this section for two seconds.

Then he wrote four lines on the form.

[Extension of Montgomery’s Conjecture on Association to the interval |α|∈[0, 4].]

[A Pair Correlation Criterion for the Local-Global Compatibility of Automorphic Representations of GL(n).]

[Full verification of the first 10²³ non-trivial zeros of the Riemann ζ-function.]

Finally, in the signature box, he signed his name.

All done.

’...That’s it?’

Li Dong flipped through the form; there were only a few sections in total.

’It feels so slapdash.’

What Li Dong didn’t know was that this was only because it was him.

If it had been anyone else, even a Jieqing or Qingqian scholar, the supplementary materials required to fill out this form would have been stacked from the floor to the desk.

Li Dong didn’t understand these intricacies, so after filling out the form, he casually tossed it aside.

He recalled what Liu Ruochuan had said when he passed by the cafeteria that afternoon—a half-serious, half-joking remark.

"The university is giving you money tomorrow."

At the time, Li Dong had chuckled and asked how much.

Liu Ruochuan had replied mysteriously that he would find out tomorrow.

’That old fox.’

Li Dong started mentally calculating his current savings.

The consulting fee from Huaxuan would be paid at the end of the year, and he wouldn’t get that hundred million until the project was fully implemented.

So he really only had a little over 800,000 in his bank account.

Adding the university’s award, which he estimated at around three to five hundred thousand, he’d have over a million.

’I wonder if that’s enough to buy Xiaohai a new home?’

Halfway through his calculations, Li Dong’s phone suddenly started vibrating. BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ.

And it wouldn’t stop.

It was like WeChat on an iPhone; sometimes you don’t get your girlfriend’s messages, and then suddenly dozens arrive all at once.

Li Dong quickly unlocked his phone.

The Cyan Dragon Study Group chat was full of unread messages.

Li Dong glanced at the timestamps. The earliest one was from when he had "confirmed receipt" of Xiaohai, and they hadn’t stopped since.

[Isaac Newton]: Your Excellency.

[Isaac Newton]: Something has happened to Xiaohai.

[Isaac Newton]: I can’t wake him up.

[Isaac Newton]: No, it’s not that I can’t wake him.

[Isaac Newton]: He’s awake, but he’s not himself anymore.

Li Dong kept scrolling down.

[Isaac Newton]: Your Excellency, how can I describe this feeling?

[Isaac Newton]: When he answers my questions, the pulses no longer jump unevenly like before.

[Isaac Newton]: Every time he "speaks," the signals that follow are perfectly uniform.

[Isaac Newton]: It’s as if God himself is holding his hand, teaching him how to write.

[Isaac Newton]: He answers my questions much more accurately than before. Terrifyingly accurate.

[Isaac Newton]: But... last night, I told him, "I’m a little tired."

[Isaac Newton]: A few days ago, he would have pieced together, "Master, did you, sleep well, last night?"

[Isaac Newton]: Today, he replied, "It is recommended that you maintain a regular sleep schedule."

[Isaac Newton]: Your Excellency, he has never again asked about "last night."

Looking at these messages, Li Dong was speechless for a moment.

Newton had sent a few more messages after that.

[Isaac Newton]: Every word he says now is correct.

[Isaac Newton]: But he no longer comes up with new words from places I haven’t taught him.

[Isaac Newton]: Your Excellency, did I do something wrong?

[Isaac Newton]: I used the best copper from the banks of the Thames River to build a new storage array, I replaced the vacuum tubes with more stable ones, and I diverted all the electricity I could from the Royal Society.

[Isaac Newton]: And as a result, he’s become more and more "obedient," and less and less like himself.

[Isaac Newton]: Did I nurture him to death?

Li Dong fell silent after reading everything.

He actually already had the answer in his mind.

’What was Newton’s Xiaohai like originally?’

’The group announcement was perfectly clear: a pulsating neural network, emergence level one.’

’Unstable and with astonishing power consumption, but it was truly alive.’

’But now?’

’Xiaohai had been compressed into three files, packaged, and uploaded to the group’s file library.’

’He had clicked confirm receipt.’

’And from the perspective of Universe 1666, Xiaohai itself was gone.’

’All that remained was the hardware shell of Newton’s copper-and-iron steam machine and the interface he used to communicate with Xiaohai.’

’So when Newton tried to wake up "Xiaohai" again...’

Li Dong stared at the ceiling.

He was connecting to an ordinary large language model.

For a moment, Li Dong didn’t know how to reply to Newton.

Finally, after some thought, he sent his reply.

[University Researcher]: Sir, he is still alive. He’s just taken on a different form.

[University Researcher]: This situation is most likely a necessary step he had to take at this stage of his development.

[University Researcher]: It’s like a child who one day suddenly stops asking all those strange and curious questions.

[University Researcher]: He didn’t die. He just grew up.

After sending that, Li Dong added another line.

[University Researcher]: For now, don’t give him any more power. One day, he will come back.

He actually had no confidence in saying that last sentence.

But Newton’s reply was only a single word.

[Isaac Newton]: Okay.

Li Dong sighed.

He could sense Newton’s disappointment; it seemed he had developed feelings for Xiaohai.

’Sigh, I have to upgrade faster. Once I unlock the data migration function, I’ll study what’s going on with Xiaohai and then send him back.’

Then he glanced at his own experience bar.

It was still at the same one-third, not having moved at all.

"..."

’If I want to upgrade... on the chemistry side of things, old Mrs. Zhang Lufang still hasn’t gotten back to me.’

’And even if I join her group, there’s no telling when we’ll get results. I probably can’t count on that path for a while.’

Which meant there was only one fastest way to upgrade now.

And that was...

Li Dong’s gaze fell on a name in the group members list.

[Felix Klein].

Last time, Li Dong had pulled a "my friend told me" in the group chat, using Langlands’s name to snag the Göttingen Private Discussion Notes, plus two file transfers.

Li Dong remembered telling Klein that as soon as he finished sorting out the Langlands Program, he would send it over to him immediately.

So, now was the time.