"Hi, Professor Liu, you know that's not me. It's just that it's not easy for you to make the trip from Ancheng. After a tiring journey, having a meal and then going back to work, I was worried about delaying your work."
"What are you talking about, for other things, I wouldn't come even if you asked. But a wedding? What trouble could there possibly be to fear?"
"Exactly, Jian Gao, you're going to be criticized this time. Acting so distant, is that appropriate? It looks like I'll have to toast you a few extra times the day after tomorrow."
"Ah... spare me, please."
"Haha, I'll say something fair here, Brother Jian Gao surely has good intentions, let's not be hard on him. Just one request, at the wedding the day after tomorrow, seat your most outstanding student with us at the same table, that's not too much to ask, right?"
"Brother Zhang, you might have misunderstood my relationship with Qiao Ze. I usually just follow his arrangements..."
"You can say that about work, and I'd believe it. But I don't believe he'd be arranging things on his wedding day."
Li Jian Gao really wanted to say that even the restaurant for the day after tomorrow's meal was arranged by Qiao Ze's father-in-law.
But after thinking it over, he held back.
After all, it wasn't just a few old friends there today. If he spoke too deeply, others might think he was showing off.
Honest people are like that, always subconsciously considering the perceptions of others, not carefree enough.
At least they can't behave like Xu Dajiang who said, 'Just go ahead and strut.'
"Hey, alright, alright, let's have dinner together tonight. You must have a lot to take care of tomorrow, so we won't bother you any longer."
"Fine! Dinner's on me today, but just to be clear, I have to pick someone up tomorrow and we can't drink."
"Alright, let's go, no one's forcing drinks!"
The video of Edward Witten's report was contracted beforehand for live broadcasting and playback.
The live stream and playback were both run by the Huaxia Science Academy's Zhi Jie live academic platform. This platform itself is a non-profit academic video platform produced by the Engineering Academy, with the content mostly consisting of various academic reports by top experts in their fields.
It had nothing to do with money.
Edward Witten's report was attractive enough on its own. The venue definitely couldn't fit everyone, and not everyone had the time to attend such a report in person. To maximize the effect, video live broadcasting and playback was naturally the most convenient; these would all be valuable academic visual and audio materials for the future.
And for a dean who was obsessed with internet influence and unwilling to give up any chance to promote his institution, of course, he would not mind opening the door wide in this respect.
The collaboration between the two could be described as a perfect match.
However, probably no one expected this purely academic report to catch fire online.
The reason was none other than there being too many idle folks in the academic world.
It seems that someone, after watching the report, found it entertaining and decided to edit together how many times Edward Witten mentioned Qiao Ze in his two-hour lecture, and cut out every instance where he mentioned Qiao.
In a ninety-minute report, after editing together every mention of Qiao, it turned out to be as long as seven minutes and thirty-two seconds.
It was interesting, so they just posted it in a group.
"Come on, let's count how many times Professor Witten mentioned Qiao Ze in one report."
This suddenly sparked immense interest throughout the entire group.
It might not have been noticed while watching, but when you edit these mentions together, it becomes really interesting...
"He mentioned him that many times? I watched the livestream and didn't even realize."
"Was this a report for Qiao Ze or what?"
"This makes me even more curious about Qiao's latest paper. It's said that Edward came to Huaxia precisely to discuss gravitons with Qiao, but we only got to see one formula?"
"Right, where is Qiao's paper?!"