Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
What was Lu Zhou doing?
He was obviously sleeping.
After working all night, his phone ran out of battery. He went back to his dorm at seven o’clock in the morning, plugged in his phone and went to bed.
Lu Zhou woke up in the afternoon. There was no one in his dorm.
He felt his stomach rumbling. He rubbed his eyes, climbed down the stairs and went to wash his face. Then, he put on some clothes and headed towards the cafeteria.
Lu Zhou ordered a bowl of fried rice and soy milk and sat down in a corner. He took out his phone and was about to scroll through his friends’ news feed.
However, when he opened his phone, he saw that Professor Tang’s office left him a dozen missed calls.
“Maybe he finished editing the thesis? Why… Why are there so many missed calls?”
Lu Zhou did not know what to think. In no time, he finished eating dinner and quickly put his tray on the collecting table. He then started to walk towards the research building.
…
“I called you all day and you didn’t pick up. What are you doing all day?” Professor Tang sat behind his desk and criticized Lu Zhou.
Lu Zhou scratched his head and replied, “Uh, my phone ran out of battery. I forgot to turn it off.”
He did not plan on telling the professor that he was working all night. First of all, the rules of the university prohibited students from staying out all night. Secondly, he did not want this thing to reach the counselor who might tell his dad and caused his family to worry about him.
Thank god that Old Tang did not persist in asking. He took off his glasses and unplugged the USB from his laptop. He then placed the USB on the table and said, “Your thesis is pretty good. There weren’t that many changes to be made so I won’t ask you to add me as a co-writer.”
“How can you do that! Without your help…”
Tang Zhiwei waved his hand. He interrupted Lu Zhou and said,” It’s my decision. I’ve read your thesis. Your little thesis isn’t good enough for my Tang Zhiwei’s co-signature. Teaching is my expertise. I don’t care what other professors do, I can’t let you write my name on it. If you really want to pay the favor back, just help me do this one thing.”
Honestly speaking, someone of Tang Zhiwei’s level could not care less about an SCI thesis co-signature. As for Lu Zhou, an entire self-written thesis was very precious. Having Tang Zhiwei’s name on it might give Lu Zhou an advantage during the review process, but it was not necessarily a good thing for him.
Lu Zhou said sincerely, “I’ll do anything you want me to.”
“Ah, it’s nothing big. Trust me, it’s good for you,” said Tang Zhiwei. He spoke slowly, “In September, there’s this national mathematical modeling competition. Our department decided to team up with the computer science department and form a super team. I talked to the dean, Lu Fangping, and you’re the chosen one.”
A national mathematical modeling competition?
Lu Zhou felt slightly astonished.
He had heard of it before. Apparently, the value was very high. It was so significant that some companies’ HR department would look twice at your CV if this competition was written on it.
Just what…
As for the legendary mathematical modeling competition, he had only heard about it before.
It was already June, only three months left till September.
Three months of preparation time, was it enough?
Lu Zhou asked softly, “Can I think about it?”
Professor Tang frowned. He reached out his hand, pressed on the USB and said, “Think about it? This is such a good opportunity! Okay, you can go and think about it but this USB stays here. You can take it back when you’re done thinking!”
When Lu Zhou looked at how illogical Professor Tang was behaving, he did not know whether to cry or laugh. He said, “But Professor Tang, I’ve never been in this type of competition before. If you ask me to represent the department in the competition and I screw up…”
Entering the competition is no problem…
I just don’t want to be a liability!
“Don’t worry about it. What’s there to worry about?” said Tang Zhiwei angrily. He paused for a bit then said gently, “Don’t overestimate this competition. Just enter it with confidence. Your ability is definitely good enough. I’m sure of it.”
Given that Professor Tang already begged him until this level, it would be unreasonable not to accept.
Actually, if he was to think about it, there was no downside to entering this type of competition. The only thing that made Lu Zhou hesitated was that training for the competition would interfere with his work and the completion of the missions.
He had already planned to attend summer school and quickly level up his system. He wanted to at least be level 1 mathematics as looking at the row of zeros was too painful. Other than completing missions, the rest of the time was allocated to working. Not only did he had to pay for summer school, he still had to save up for the livings fees for next semester.
As if Professor Tang saw through Lu Zhou’s thought process, he said, “Even though there isn’t any prize money associated with the competition, there is a prize from the school. A team that wins the gold medal will not only receive a ten thousand yuan prize, they will also receive a priority on scholarship assessment.”
‘Professor Tang, I’ve thought about it. Let me represent the department in the competition!” said Lu Zhou with a serious look on his face.
Professor Tang forced a smile and set down his cup. He waved his hand and said, “I already put your name down. Come here and meet your teammates on Saturday. That’s all, don’t forget.”
“Okay!” said Lu Zhou with high morale.
A ten thousand dollar prize! Splitting it three ways would still be around three thousand! Plus adding the eight thousand yuan scholarship, that would be over ten thousand dollars!
The amount was little for a student with a rich family, but for someone like Lu Zhou who only had three thousand in his bank account, it was a massive amount of money!
After thanking Professor Tang again, Lu Zhou took the USB and went back to his dorm.
The sky was already dark. Other than Liu Rui, who was still studying maths in a classroom, Shi Shang and Huang Guangming had already come back. They sat in front of the computer and were playing games intensely.
Even though Lu Zhou also wanted to relax with them, he knew that he still had some stuff to do. In the end, he gave up on this thought. He carried his laptop to the bed, connected it to the wifi and started to upload his thesis.
He contemplated for a long time. Finally, he selected the journal from New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences – Theoretical and Applied Mathematics Communication.
As for why, it was obviously because there were no submission fees.
On the other hand, he might have to wait a long time.
Lu Zhou opened up the website, filled in his name and email, then spent around ten minutes filling in other miscellaneous stuff. He finally reached the last step and submitted his essay.
The status displayed “Submitted to the editorial office”. Now all he had to do was to wait. He just had to wait for an editor to notice his small thesis.
Lu Zhou stretched his back and was about to lay down on his bed. Suddenly, his phone vibrated.
He thought it was Chen Yushan asking for help again, but instead, he saw an email notification.
Lu Zhou saw the title of the email and he was stunned.
He thought he read it wrong and so, he read it again.
“… How is this possible?!”
It was the copyright authorization agreement issued from America!
Which was to say that his thesis had already entered the “proof” stage!
Even though different journals had different rules, but most journals would send the license agreement after accepting the thesis, and the process would take one to two weeks.
Which was to say that his thesis skipped ahead of the line, and directly went to the computer of the journal editor.
Maybe this is the power of the system?
Lu Zhou gulped. He opened up the email and downloaded the contract. He signed the license agreement as required and sent the electronic file back to the address given in the email.
After a five minute wait, he refreshed the submission page.
[Under review]
Lu Zhou felt his heart beating very quickly.
This meant that his thesis had already passed through a technical format review.
It would soon be reviewed by a professional academic editor, which was also the so-called peer review!
The average person would be stuck a few times in the technical editor’s review. However, because Old Tang helped him modified the thesis, he seemed to have passed the first time. The following review process was the strictest stage of the SCI journal submission and it was also the slowest stage.
In normal circumstances, academic reviewers themselves were also researchers. Reviewing was a non-paying job and it required a lot of effort. So, after submitting one’s own work into the academic world, it was entirely determined by the academic reviewer. If you encountered a temperament or busy reviewer, they might stall the submission by one or two months!
Lu Zhou refreshed the page again after waiting for around five minutes.
This time, the status of the submission did not change.
Lu Zhou did not know why, but he felt relaxed after seeing this.
Even though the system’s abilities surpassed his estimations, it seemed to return to common sense in the most critical time. Academic reviewers would not be staring at their inbox all day, waiting for unpaid work.
It seemed that the system could not manipulate the behavior of a person. It seemed to possess some sort of mysterious power as it was able to accelerate his submission process within the acceptable rules. Maybe it made his thesis appeared in the first line of the academic reviewer’s email address. However, this power was still subject to certain constraints.
Lu Zhou was still unsure of what exactly could the power be. However, no matter what, this was a good thing.
If the system is really powerful enough to dominate a person’s behavior, it would be very scary.
Although he enjoyed the knowledge and convenience of the system, he did not want to eventually become the puppet of the system. Freedom was priceless even in difficult circumstances.
Of course, it would be great if his thesis was accepted before his mathematical analysis exam.
