Far away on the other side of the globe.

On the campus of Princeton University, which is shrouded in darkness, it is already late at night, and only the few libraries that have night study rooms are lit.

In the activity room of a library near the apartment, Vera placed a stack of papers on the table, opened a page of the papers, and swept her slender index finger along the lines of calculations, finally stopping in the middle, and whispered.

“…… Page 27, line 11, is problematic with the equation here. ”

She hadn't changed much from three years ago, except that the short ponytail, which always resembled a little squirrel's tail, had grown so long that it hung down to the crook of her arms and was combed into a beautiful and easy-to-care Greek princess braid.

If you wear a long dress with lace trim, you may be mistaken for a real princess. Unfortunately, the slender shoulders were wrapped in a very ordinary campus attire, which made her always mistaken for a high school student who came to attend an academic summer camp at certain times......

"I'll see...... Oh God, you're simply stricter than my PhD supervisor. Molina, who had dark circles under her eyes, rubbed her eyebrows, grabbed a pen from the table, stretched and sat up slowly.

This feeling of staying up late and bursting the liver is not pleasant, and it is a burden for both the shoulders and the lumbar spine. Although she entered the school relatively early, she could not be considered young when she received her doctorate and became a lecturer at Princeton University.

At least, compared to the young girl standing next to her.

After being praised by her partner, Vera smiled a little shyly and said embarrassedly.

"Where, I'm still far behind Ms. Sophie Morrell."

When Molina was still a doctoral student, Sophie Morel was her mentor, and the two had worked together for a long time on the critical line of the Riemann conjecture, but after Sophie Morel lost the Nobel Prize for 18 years, Sophie gave up the difficult bone of the Riemann conjecture and moved on to other topics, and now she is doing well.

Molina, on the other hand, is still very determined to work on this subject, even though she has gone from being a doctoral student to a lecturer at Princeton University.

As for why she got together with Vera, that's a long story.

In short, the two are now in the same research group, striving for the same goal, that is, the Riemann hypothesis.

"No, that's because you're too modest. That coward can't complete such a beautiful proof of Kakutani's theorem, and it is absolutely impossible to find such a tricky problem carefully......" Molina, who was biting the cap of her pen and staring at the line of calculations repeatedly, scratched her hair and said with some irritation, "Damn, Odrizko's zero-point calculation, I should have thought of it earlier." ”

"Bingo, Odrizko's zero-point calculation," Vera said softly, writing two lines of equations on paper with a ballpoint pen, correcting the error, "and the corrected algorithm can be rolled out, and 40% of the non-trivial zeros are on the critical line...... Congratulations, Ms. Molina, you have discovered a method other than Levinson's algorithm that re-proves Conrey's critical line theorem. ”

The last half of the sentence she said was comforting.

Although, she wasn't sure if it could be called comforting.

It took a month to come up with an idea, and another two months to try it, but the final result was a conclusion that had already been reached in 1990.

The critical line dividing the non-trivial zero of the ζ function still stands tall at the nasty number of 40%. Whoever can push it forward a little bit will have a good chance of winning the next or next Fields Medal.

However, after all these years, only its challengers have fallen, and no one has ever forced the dragon to take a step back.

"But there's no point," Molina sighed, "and maybe ...... Mathematical Chronicle will consider accepting our papers." ”

Vera gave her an encouraging look and whispered.

"I think they'll think about it, at least we've found another use of Odrizko's zero-point method."

Unlike other disciplines, mathematics is not entirely result-oriented, and sometimes it doesn't come up with a pretty answer, but if the process is good enough or interesting, it can be a reason to get published. In particular, the "Mathematical Chronicle", although it is no longer Princeton's work, is still relatively "lenient" for the papers produced by Princeton.

It's just that......

It's more difficult to get the four top journals like the Annals of Mathematics.

"Perhaps......" Molina rubbed her long, somewhat messy hair, "perhaps we should think differently, I studied Sir Attia's notes some time ago and found his research interesting. ”

Vera opened her mouth.

"Molina......

Molina, who had dark circles under her eyes, tilted her head: "What's wrong?" ”

Vera said seriously, "You really should take a break. ”

Although this may have been a bit disrespectful to the late Sir Attia, many people had such thoughts long before his death, and eventually returned in disgrace.

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine......" Molina reached out and touched her forehead, "Maybe you're right, it's time for me to rest." ”

She began to study Sir Attia's papers, and she thought she must be insane.

Vera opened her mouth slightly, and finally sat down next to her, silent for a moment, and asked.

"Why do you ...... Have been obsessed with the Riemann conjecture? ”

Hearing this question, Molina teased in a rhetorical tone: "Like why are you obsessed with that man?" ”

Vera's face flushed slightly, and after hesitating for a moment, she stared at the paper on the table and said.

"I ...... Not as persistent as you say, it's just that he gave me light when I was most helpless. ”

Molina: "But that was many years ago, wasn't it?" ”

Vera was silent for a moment and nodded.

Indeed, she also knew that it was many years ago.

She wasn't even sure if Lu Zhou remembered what she looked like.

Although she always remembered what he looked like......

"Me too," Molina smiled, her index finger squirting lightly from the empty mug on the table, and continued, "Math has given me the same thing. ”

Vera looked at her puzzled.

"But why the Riemann conjecture?"

"Let's talk about that when we get a chance."

With that, Molina got up from her chair, but staggered to the side because she was too tired. Fortunately, Vera immediately got up and helped her so that she didn't trip.

"Thank you," Molina, standing firmly with her right hand propped up on the back of the chair, said with a curl of her mouth, "If he doesn't want you, you can marry me." ”

Vera's face suddenly turned red, and she quickly said, "I'm sorry...... I'm not the one. ”

Molina pursed her lips and smiled.

"I'm just kidding, don't take it seriously."

As she spoke, she blinked, picked up the paper on the table and hugged it to her chest, and walked away quickly.