Free Web NovelChapter 725: Chapter 400: Perfection, envied!
Zhao Yi gossiped about Liu Chengjie’s confession and then thought about it carefully. He felt that the failure was quite normal, following the regular pattern, as ’licking’ someone’s boots generally wouldn’t succeed. It made logical sense.
It’s not because of the act of ’licking,’ but rather an issue of perspective.
For example, a super good-looking wealthy second-generation wouldn’t ’lick’ an ordinary person because the former inherently feels superior and subconsciously thinks the latter is not good enough for them.
Only those in a weaker position would resort to ’licking’ behavior in order to obtain their dream partner.
From the perspective of those being ’licked,’ they also hope to pursue someone they like who’s better than themselves, rather than turning around and accepting someone they don’t like who is somewhat inferior.
The act of ’licking’ itself isn’t wrong. If used on the right person, it wouldn’t be considered ’licking’ but would become sweet love instead.
Zhao Yi also felt sorry for Liu Chengjie.
Liu Cheng was indeed weaker than Yan Yi, mainly in terms of appearance and personality. He was very ordinary-looking with no obvious strengths, and seeking flaws was also difficult. His personality only seemed to please his superiors, being honest, hardworking, and dedicated. But honesty was by no means an advantage in relationships.
Moreover, there was also a gap in their work and education backgrounds. Both were deputy researchers in the lab, but Yan Yi had overseas experience from prestigious universities and had worked at a well-known biological institution in Country D. After returning to China, she was directly appointed as a lecturer at Yanhua University. Even in the lab, her research and future development potential were not inferior to Liu Chengjie.
Compared to Yan Yi, Liu Chengjie was indeed in a weaker position.
Zhao Yi sympathized with Liu Chengjie and thought that it was good for the two to stay as colleagues, as couples or spouses weren’t suitable for the lab setting.
There were only a few people in a lab, and if a relationship was to go sour, the resulting tension and atmosphere would affect the work.
Office romances were not welcomed.
If the two had become a couple, it wouldn’t be long before the rest would feel dissatisfied and one of them would surely leave.
For now, it was fine.
Zhao Yi thought as the lab supervisor, he should comfort Liu Chengjie. He asked him to go out for dinner together and even invited Li Renzhe and Huang Wenqian.
Li Renzhe found the phone call quite baffling, "A big feast? Why? And you invited Wen Qian too?"
"Yes."
"But..."
Zhao Yi explained, "Brother Liu in my lab has encountered some emotional setbacks today. I invited him to dinner to comfort him, and just happened to think of you and Huang Wenqian, so why not invite you both?"
"Well, it’s been a while since we last had a meal together."
"...Okay." freёwebnoѵel.com
Li Renzhe felt odd but agreed, thinking that he would get to enjoy a free meal.
Zhao Yi picked a rather good restaurant that day and explained that he ’needed to comfort Liu Chengjie specifically,’ so he and Li Renzhe sat separately. Li Renzhe thought it was quite nice as he could treat it as a date with Huang Wenqian, and it was even better because someone else was footing the bill.
On one side, Li Renzhe happily ate and chatted.
On the other side.
Zhao Yi comforted Liu Chengjie, "It’s no big deal if you failed. There are plenty of fish in the sea. In my opinion, Brother Liu, you just need to adjust your mindset."
"But I truly love Yan Yi..." Liu Chengjie said with frustration.
"I know."
Zhao Yi nodded in agreement, "I like her too."
"Huh?"
"Really, I like any beautiful girl. For example, if you see a stunning girl on the street, would you dare say that because you like Yan Yi, you wouldn’t even take a look?"
Zhao Yi asked in return.
After giving it some thought, Liu Chengjie nodded, "That’s true."
"See, there’s really nothing serious about it. It’s just a rejection...Look over there, that couple who greeted me just now, they’re my roommates. You know them, right?" Zhao Yi secretly gestured towards Li Renzhe, who happened to look over and give them a smile.
Zhao Yi immediately grinned back.
Liu Chengjie glanced over and said, "I know, Li Renzhe. Is that his girlfriend next to him?"
"Yes."
"What do you think?"
Liu Chengjie paused, and then spoke bluntly, "Well, that girl is quite chubby. Your roommate has quite unusual taste."
Zhao Yi laughed, "Look how happy he is, enjoying his meal. You can tell he’s very content. Do you guys want to switch places?"
"No, no."
Liu Chengjie immediately waved his hand and shook his head, "I’d rather be single, single forever."
"You see, people need comparisons. So, like I said, you really have nothing to be sad about. How much worse can it be? It’s just a rejection."
Zhao Yi continued, "How about this? Since your project is more or less done, I’ll give you three days off, plus the weekend. That’s a total of five days. You can go anywhere to relax, and hopefully, you’ll get your mindset right by next week."
Touched, Liu Chengjie said, "Thank you!"
...
Zhao Yi played the role of an emotional master for once, feeling rather relaxed at heart. He thought that it wasn’t too bad to have such activities once in a while.
Once he was back at the dorm, Zhao Yi continued his work.
He and Edward Witten scheduled a video call, and before that, he organized the draft of the mathematical work on examples.
A phone call suddenly came in.
Zhao Yi found that the caller was "Ni Hongyu", and it took him a while to remember who it was. After pressing the answer button, he heard the other side say, "Is this Academician Zhao?"
"It’s me, Director Ni?"
"Yes, Brother Zhao, I’m honored that you still remember me!" Ni Hongyu exchanged pleasantries for a while, then immediately said with some excitement, "The Neutron Generator technology you provided has been verified to be feasible through our repeated experimental designs, and the effect is very good!"
"This time you helped us solve a huge technical problem. I just saw the experiment myself, the neutron beam travels several meters, and the visible effect..."
Ni Hongyu excitedly said a lot in succession.
Only then did Zhao Yi react to the situation, and he had almost forgotten about the Neutron Generator technology issue. At that time, he only came back to write a technical paper and submitted it.
As a result... feasible?
Of course, feasible!
Zhao Yi didn’t feel any surprise; his heart remained calm. He was more concerned about the technical conversion problem, "In your experiments, the neutron beam only reached a few meters?"
"It’s already incredible, as the neutron beam was previously completely uncontrollable." Ni Hongyu said, "We’ve spent a long time designing it, customizing several components, debugging and installing, and finally succeeded."
Zhao Yi said, "A few meters is just the beginning. According to my theory, it is possible to spread several hundred meters or even several kilometers or further. Of course, that would be for military use."
Ni Hongyu said, "Military use is something we don’t concern ourselves with and have no qualifications to concern ourselves with, and even if the technology is not enough, having enough theoretical basis is useless."
"That’s true."
Zhao Yi agreed with this statement.
Theory provides technology, but the research gap is quite significant. Even with a theoretical basis, there are many technical challenges to overcome. To make the neutron beam propagate further, the difficulty is still very high. It would be a great achievement if the research can break through after being stuck for a decade or several decades.
Ni Hongyu didn’t talk more about technology, but he said, "With this technology, we can cooperate with the medical equipment field to develop equipment for boron neutron capture therapy. But don’t worry, you will definitely have a share in the patent rights. In this regard, those above us have already taken care of that. When we reported the technology, you were also the core technical support personnel."
"Well, thank you."
Zhao Yi and Ni Hongyu exchanged a few words, and Zhao Yi felt pretty good after hanging up the phone.
Technical patent?
"Maybe there will be more patent fees in the future?" Zhao Yi thought, shrugged, and saw that it was almost time for the video call, so he switched his thoughts and started the call with Edward Witten.
Recently, Edward Witten has been somewhat depressed, probably also due to Zhao Yi’s "fast results." He always hoped to produce results more quickly, but the more anxious he became, the more problems arose. Mathematical proof took a full month, only to find that errors had occurred halfway through. When he returned to deduce, he found that his research had entered a dead end.
So it was Zhao Yi who started the conversation. He talked about the inspiration he got from Qiu Chengwen, "There is no perfect thing in the world, so is there a perfect mathematical structure?"
He pondered, "For example, my analysis of particle energy arrangement is also flawed. It is precisely because of these flaws that we seek perfection, and thus continue to move."
"The universe is the same..."
Zhao Yi said a lot in succession.
Edward Witten immediately perked up and forcefully retorted, "Absurd! Too absurd! I don’t accept this claim. The more perfect it is, the more it should exist, especially in mathematics!"
"Is there absolute perfection in mathematics?"
Edward Witten thought for a while but couldn’t come up with an answer, so he retorted, "But perfection is the goal of pursuit. The mathematics of string theory are very perfect, and they should exist."
"But there are still flaws." Zhao Yi emphasized.
"Of course there are." Edward Witten said, "We just haven’t done it well enough yet. What we are doing now is to pursue perfection. I firmly believe that mathematical perfection exists. It must exist."
"If..."
Zhao Yi didn’t continue to argue with Edward, but put forward a hypothesis, "If there is a perfect mathematical structure, and I mean ’if,’ will it be envied?"
"Envy? What do you mean?"
"I mean, envy. Being excluded. Venus’s broken arm—lack makes beauty. If it’s too perfect, it will lose its significance. Perhaps some kind of envy caused the lack of perfection..."
"Lack is beauty? I still don’t accept..."
The two’s conversation shifted to philosophy.
Zhao Yi found that he indeed couldn’t match Edward Witten, who had a "Doctor of Philosophy" degree, in the study of philosophy. He said a few sentences and was utterly refuted.
In the end.
This video call ended with both parties not accepting each other’s expressions.
Anyway, it was not pleasant.
Zhao Yi didn’t take it to heart. Having differences on a theory or viewpoint are common. He believed Edward Witten felt the same way. After he closed the video call, he suddenly had an idea.
"The lack of perfection."
"The lack caused by envy... Perfection will be envied... What about mass?"
"Will mass be repelled by space because its mathematical logic is perfect? So space will ’envy’ it and squeeze it out?"
"The development of the universe takes the zero state as the ultimate direction, letting all energy dissipate and all matter disappear. Mass with a ’perfect structure’ can persist in existence, so space must repel and squeeze it, letting it also move towards the ’zero state’..."
"That makes sense!"
Zhao Yi carefully considered it and then suddenly brightened his eyes. He found a great line of thought.
