Awakening Elementary School System in University

Chen Lin subconsciously sized up the senior student named Yan Lin.

She wasn’t very tall, maybe five-foot-three at a glance, and was wearing a crisp white lab coat over a simple plaid shirt.

She had a sweet, girl-next-door look, her face endearingly rounded with a hint of baby fat.

In terms of looks alone, she definitely fell short when compared to the three female employees at his company.

Never mind comparing her to top-tier campus belles like Shen Yan and Yunqing—even next to the poised and professional Huang Yiyi, she was still somewhat lacking.

Then again, Chen Lin had to admit that his standards had been set ridiculously high by top-tier beauties like Shen Yan and Yunqing.

Among ordinary people, Yan Lin would definitely be considered attractive. She was the kind of pretty girl who, after putting in a little effort to dress up, would have guys mustering up the courage to ask for her WeChat on the street.

After the four of them sat down casually in the small classroom, Professor Lu Zhongqi was the first to speak, a smile on his face. He looked at Chen Lin, his eyes full of unconcealed admiration. "This morning, I saw all the news about you on my Friends Circle and in various group chats!

Chen Lin, you’ve really made a splash—no, you’ve shaken the world! With your level of skill, I’m very hopeful that we can solve the little problem our project team is currently facing!"

"You’re too kind, Professor Lu." Chen Lin smiled humbly, but then his tone shifted and his expression grew serious. "It’s not just about solving it. Dean Zhuang briefed me before I came. We need to work fast and try to get results before Modu Shuangdan University."

"Oh? So you’re already aware." Professor Lu’s smile remained, but a hint of gravity entered his eyes. "In that case, I won’t repeat myself. In short, this problem, combined with the tight deadline, is indeed rather tricky."

"I’ll do my best," Chen Lin nodded.

As he said this, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Yan Lin, sitting across from him, was glancing back and forth between him and Shen Yan with a peculiar expression.

’That look... how to describe it? It was filled with probing curiosity, mixed with a faint, almost imperceptible hint of excitement.’

Chen Lin was all too familiar with that kind of look.

Back when he first met Yunqing, she often used to look at him the same way.

It was the look of a gossip.

The raging fire of gossip that smolders deep in the soul of every curious onlooker.

Chen Lin found it rather amusing but kept his expression neutral. He took the initiative to ask, "Yan Lin, is something on your mind?"

"Ah? I..." Yan Lin was caught off guard by the sudden question. A faint blush rose to her cheeks as she instinctively started to ask her question, "I just wanted to ask, you and Shen Yan..."

However, before she could get the words out, Professor Lu Zhongqi, who was sitting beside her, cut her off with a soft cough.

"Yan Lin," Professor Lu shot her a look, his tone carrying a subtle note of rebuke. "Focus. Give Chen Lin the materials you prepared."

"Oh, right!" Yan Lin snapped out of it, sighing inwardly. ’What a shame.’

She had wanted to subtly probe and find out just what the relationship was between the two of them.

After all, it was the hottest gossip topic of the day in several of the Yannan University girls’ WeChat groups she was in!

She never imagined she’d get to see the legendary male and female leads of the story in person. The gossipy soul within her was practically buzzing, and she’d almost failed to hold her tongue.

Luckily, her professor had reacted quickly and stopped her just in time.

Professor Lu felt a wave of resignation. ’This student of mine is good at everything, but her gossipy side is sometimes too much, and she has no sense of occasion.’

Not daring to dwell on it, Yan Lin quickly pulled two printed documents from her canvas bag and handed one to Chen Lin and the other to Shen Yan.

"Chen Lin, Shen Yan, this is the key technical bottleneck our project is facing. It’s mainly a mathematical problem."

Yan Lin quickly switched into work mode and began to explain.

Chen Lin accepted the thick stack of documents and flipped to the first page, listening as Professor Lu began to explain.

Professor Lu pushed up his glasses and began to explain, his expression serious. "Our project is on solid-state batteries for electric vehicles.

"During the charge-discharge cycle, the repeated movement of lithium ions in and out of the interface between the electrode and the electrolyte generates a periodic mechanical stress, which we call ’von Mises stress.’

"The distribution and evolution of this stress field directly impact the battery’s stability and lifespan."

"The core problem we’re facing right now is how to accurately describe and solve for this stress field.

"It needs to simultaneously satisfy several very stringent conditions. For instance, the electrode particles cannot penetrate the electrolyte as they expand, the actual morphology of the interface is a fractal structure at the nanoscale, and the material’s own stress-strain relationship is nonlinear..."

Chen Lin flipped through the documents, his eyes scanning the dense clusters of mathematical formulas and Physics terms.

...defining the hyperbolic Sobolev space

H = {v ∈ H¹(Ω) : [[v]] ≥ 0 a.e.}

...and finding the stress field σ that satisfies a complex variational inequality...

...where the expression for the fourth-order elasticity tensor Cijkl is related to the hyperbolic tangent function in the nonlinear constitutive relationship...

...and the coefficient κ(x) in the boundary integral term is related to the fractal interface’s Hurst exponent H = 0.7...

"...So, what we need to solve now are three main mathematical problems," Professor Lu’s voice pulled Chen Lin from his thoughts. "First, to prove that this variational inequality has a unique weak solution.

"Second, to provide a regularity estimate for the solution on the fractal boundary.

"And third, most importantly, to construct a condition that allows our model to converge to the classic elasto-plastic model under specific limiting cases."

Having finished his explanation, Professor Lu picked up the thermos on the table and took a large gulp of water to soothe his somewhat dry throat.

He looked at Chen Lin and noticed a trace of... confusion on the young man’s face?

His heart sank a little. He asked tentatively, "Chen Lin, how does it look? About when do you think you might have some preliminary results?"

Chen Lin scoffed internally.

He hadn’t understood a single word of the professor’s explanation.

That said it all.

In truth, Chen Lin understood some of the mathematical concepts in the documents.

But the documents Professor Lu had provided were laced with too much specialized knowledge from outside the field of mathematics. As a result, even with the aid of his "Little Mathematician" ability, he couldn’t grasp the complete problem.

’If he couldn’t even understand the problem, how could he possibly solve it?’

Chen Lin discreetly stole a glance at Shen Yan beside him.

’Thank goodness.’

Shen Yan’s delicate brows were furrowed. One hand cradled her cheek while the other flew across her notebook, scribbling furiously. She occasionally flipped through the documents, completely immersed in thought. It looked like she was, at the very least, understanding and digesting the content of Professor Lu’s explanation.