Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
Lu Zhou swore.
He had never had a better invitation in America.
Lu Zhou looked at Ricardo and asked, “Is the food in jail that good?”
“It’s not good…” Ricardo shook his head and said, “No, no, it’s good, please send me to jail!”
Lu Zhou: ? ? ?
Jerick: ???
Jesus, is this guy crazy?
Jerick took out his phone and was about to call the police.
As an American, he knew the dangers of mental patients better than Lu Zhou. He was more aware of how to deal with a situation like this.
However, Lu Zhou waved his hand and gestured Jerick not to call the police.
“Although I want to help you…” Lu Zhou looked at Ricardo and paused for a second before he said, “You should be aware that once the lawsuit has been withdrawn, the court will not pursue another civil action on the same case again.”
When Ricardo heard Lu Zhou’s explanation, his face turned white. He took two steps back and sat on the sidewalk.
The security guards relaxed, but the pedestrians nearby were even more confused. Ricardo looked down at the ground; no one knew what he was thinking about.
Lu Zhou looked at him and sighed.
He remembered Professor Sarrot’s anger and could probably guess what Ricardo was afraid of.
In a sense, being a two-faced spy was worse than the usual corporate espionage. He both angered ExxonMobil and stained his resume; he could say goodbye to his career.
However, although Lu Zhou felt sympathetic, he wouldn’t apologize.
Ricardo was the one that did something wrong.
If only he didn’t bring the data to ExxonMobil…
If it were a normal resignation, Lu Zhou might have even introduced Ricardo to some of his scholar and research institute friends.
However, the world didn’t work in that way.
Like how no one would compensate the losses of ExxonMobil and Professor Stanley, no one would compensate Ricardo…
…
Lu Zhou finally left Columbia University and arrived at the quiet Princeton town.
Jerick drove his Ford Explorer to his driveway. When Lu Zhou was taking out his suitcase from the trunk, he received a warm welcome.
“Professor, you’re finally back,” Hardy said with a warm smile. He then said with an enthusiastic tone, “I was originally going to bet if you were going to stay there forever… but I knew you wouldn’t ditch us.”
Lu Zhou smiled; he felt warm in his heart.
Lu Zhou was about to say something when Qin Yue patted Hardy’s shoulder and said two words, “Pay up.”
Hardy muttered, “Oh, Jesus… Can’t you wait a bit?” He took out a hundred dollar bill and placed it in Qin Yue’s hands.
Vera couldn’t help but laugh at the two.
Even Wei Wen chuckled.
However, Lu Zhou gradually lost his smile…
This f*cker bet against me?
Jerick helped park his car into the garage while Lu Zhou walked into his warm house with his suitcase.
However, the dust inside his house made him sneeze.
No one had been in the house in two months.
Obviously, there was no way anyone could live here without some thorough cleaning.
The kitchen was in a mess.
Lu Zhou knew that this would happen, so he planned to go eat at the Ivy Club.
However, out of his five students, only Hardy was a member of the Ivy Club.
The weather was cool today. Therefore, Hardy proposed a barbecue in the backyard. Everyone unanimously agreed to this idea.
The group then started to work on it. They took out the barbecue stove and folding table from Lu Zhou’s garage and set up a lively barbecue party in Lu Zhou’s backyard.
Lu Zhou sat on the grass while eating authentic Brazilian barbecue and drinking cold beer.
Although this party wasn’t as luxurious as the one at the Hilton Hotel, it brought him a completely different type of relaxation.
As expected, he still preferred to hang out with his students.
Vera walked over to him while carrying a plate of food.
She sat next to him and made some small talk. After that, she reported to him her work for the past two months.
This included her number theory lecturing job, results of the class exam, the research progress on Collatz conjecture…
When Lu Zhou heard Vera’s report, he nodded with approval.
“Not bad.” He smiled and said, “Remember what I said? You were born for this job.”
Vera blushed and looked away before she quickly said, “Also, when you were gone, there were two letters sent to your office. I had retrieved it from the mailroom and placed it in your drawer.”
Lu Zhou nodded and said, “Okay, I will look at it tomorrow.”
He just got back from Columbia University; he needed a day to unpack his luggage and relax.
Today, he wouldn’t go to the Institute for Advanced Study.
However, everything would return back to normal tomorrow…
…
Lu Zhou spent the whole day relaxing.
The next morning, he wrote a report on his Columbia University exchange and sent it to Nassau Hall at Princeton University. He then quickly went to the Institute for Advanced Study.
When Lu Zhou got back to his office and sat down on his chair, he opened his desk drawer and found the two letters.
One letter was from the International Mathematical Union (IMU); it was an invitation letter to the International Conference of Mathematicians which was to be held on the 1st of August next year in Brazil.
As expected, he was invited to do an hour-long report at the International Conference of Mathematicians.
Normally speaking, reports were usually forty-five minutes or sixty minutes long. He should be the only Chinese scholar invited to do a sixty-minute long report at the conference.
Lu Zhou was surprised at the other letter.
It was from across the pond, all the way from Germany.
[Dear Mr. Lu Zhou, I apologize for disturbing your busy research schedule. We did extensive research on your “Theoretical Model of Electrochemical Interface Structure” thesis that was recently published in JACS. We still have many questions…
[… We sincerely hope that you can come to Europe. We will arrange a report session for you, and scholars from all over the world will get to witness this great moment.
[Max Plank Institute of Condensed Matter Physics.]
Lu Zhou wasn’t surprised by the content of the letter.
The letter itself was fine.
What he was confused about was…
Why was it sent by a condensed matter physics research institute?
