Hey, what else could you do?
The Group Wisdom project was an opportunity for Qiao Ze before he proved himself, so he was allowed to join as a nobody.
Now if a project proposed by Qiao Ze is short-staffed, I'm afraid even graduate students won't have the qualifications to ask about it.
They're starting with Ph.D. students, and even those positions are hard-fought. Trying to get in now is simply impossible.
It's just like Zhang Zhou and Gu Zhengliang can only follow Liu Chenfeng's mediocre projects.
"Fuck! I knew I couldn't relate to you anymore! Chen Yiwen, please just go die already."
"Chen, a brave man doesn't boast about his past. Giving up your career for love, you must be feeling pretty awful now, right?"
"Heh..." Chen Yiwen glanced at the two of them, didn't argue, and just lifted his head proudly as he walked into the washroom.
"Hey, Qiao, done washing your face? Let me scrub your towel for you... "
"No big deal, I scrub towels super clean. "
Meanwhile, Chen Yuanzhi was pacing back and forth in his study at home.
Tonight was really too sudden.
First the shock, then the surprise.
Truly, Chen Yuanzhi had never realized that being a university president could be so thrilling.
Learning Qiao Ze had used Dou Dou's Weibo to wage war on the Natural Fund, Chen Yuanzhi's heart had practically leaped to his throat.
Qiao Ze could do whatever he wanted with no restrictions, but not him.
The higher-ups might let it slide because they valued talent and wouldn't hold it against Qiao Ze, especially considering he was only nineteen, and his future could arguably be said to have not even started yet. The sudden emergence of Group Wisdom and Dou Dou had already changed many people's views of him, not to mention his involvement in the ongoing lithography machine project.
All of these were Qiao Ze's talismans.
In theory, even if Qiao Ze poked a hole through the sky, there would be people ready to patch it up.
But he was different.
He was just a university president.
In Xilin University of Technology, he may carry weight, but in the eyes of the higher management departments in the Capital, he was just so-so.
The perfect target for displaced anger.
If they couldn't touch Qiao Ze, couldn't they handle a university president?
Indeed, at the very moment when he saw the content on Weibo, Chen Yuanzhi's blood pressure surged and he even started to envy Xu Dajiang.
Being a dean was better after all.
Now, not only could he do as he pleased within the university, but even Chen didn't seem to be a big deal in his eyes. What's more important is that in face of such situations, he wouldn't be the one to bear the brunt from those above. After all, his position was too low to carry that burden.
Just as Chen Yuanzhi was planning to find someone to talk about the situation, news that Qiao Ze was praised by a big name at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton spread to the university.
This time he had tackled the Yang-Mills Theory...
In shock, Chen Yuanzhi slowly started to breathe easier.
With such big news breaking out, who would care about a little incident on Weibo?
So Chen Yuanzhi immediately phoned Xu Dajiang, urging him to quickly check with Qiao Ze to confirm whether the paper was indeed written by him.
Even though among Huaxia's nineteen-year-olds, there was no one but Qiao Ze.
But Qiao Ze had only mentioned to Xu that he planned to research this topic and never told the university about publishing a paper. What if it's a misunderstanding?
Now, Chen Yuanzhi was just waiting for news from Xu.
Suddenly, the phone on the desk rang, and Chen Yuanzhi hurriedly picked it up, but he hesitated when he saw the number.
It wasn't Xu Dajiang's call, but rather from Zhang Hongcai of Yanbei University.
One of the leading figures in Yanbei's mathematics, calling him at this time, somewhat eased his anxiety as he immediately answered the call.
"Hello, Professor Zhang, why the sudden urge to contact me?"
"Haha, President Chen, such words make us seem distant. After all, we are close comrades in the same system and should naturally communicate more."
Chen Yuanzhi sneered inwardly...
Previously, he hadn't seen the other party show much interest in communicating with his institution. Now, as soon as Qiao Ze's major paper news broke out, everyone suddenly became close comrades in the same system...
Of course, outwardly, Chen Yuanzhi remained extremely enthusiastic: "You're absolutely right, Professor Zhang! The next time you visit Xilin University of Technology for research, let me take care of you."
In this manner, the two chatted cordially for a few minutes, and finally, Zhang Hongcai on the other end of the phone couldn't hold back anymore and brought up the main topic: "President Chen, I almost forgot to congratulate you, your student Qiao Ze from Xilin University of Technology has conquered another world-level problem! Not to flatter you, but you really held back, not leaking a whisper of this in advance. If it weren't for the word from Princeton, we'd still be in the dark."
"Haha... That's because we were not certain if it would be accepted by the academic community, so we didn't want to publicize it much. Being low-key about such matters is never a mistake until it's confirmed." Chen Yuanzhi deflected casually.
Of course, he couldn't tell the other party that the university had been utterly unaware of this until tonight.
He was counting on this paper to turn the tables.
Only if the university knew Qiao Ze had written such a paper and it was under internal review, likely to solve the issue, could they make it clear to the higher-ups how instrumental Xilin University of Technology had been to Qiao Ze.
That would justify the university's indulgence in Qiao Ze's capriciousness.
Wouldn't it be fine for the university to be lenient toward a student solving problems of Nobel Prize caliber?
"Haha, that makes sense! You really know how to play it cool, President Chen. Actually, I called precisely because I need a favor from you. You might not realize this since you don't work in theoretical research. In our fields of mathematics and theoretical physics, when it comes to solving well-known problems, it's not always definitive just because a paper is formally published in a journal.