In the southern United States, North Carolina, Durham, in an apartment next to Duke University.
It was already ten o'clock at night, and Laurent Lane took advantage of the moment his wife went to put the children to sleep to turn on his computer in the study.
In the eyes of many people from Huaxia, Americans keep their work and personal life very separate, so they definitely don't work overtime and would never take work home.
But that is somewhat of a stereotype.
In fact, as long as you are in a country or area where the gap between rich and poor is widening, there will be people who work overtime. It's just a question of how much and whether it's mandatory.
For instance, Laurent Lane, after spending time with his family in the evening, wouldn't mind heading to the study to deal with some work if he still couldn't sleep.
To many people, being an academic journal editor seems like a respectable job, but maintaining that respectability can be challenging.
Laurent Lane's annual salary fluctuates around 80,000 US dollars.
But after paying all kinds of detestable taxes and insurance, it's probably just over 70,000 dollars left.
The year before last his wife gave birth to a daughter for him, making him a successful man with both a son and a daughter.
However, the corresponding price was that his wife quit her administrative job at the school to take care of the two children, meaning that the family would be down about 40,000 dollars in income every year for at least the next six to seven years, until their daughter started school.
His salary was just barely enough for a family of four. To live better, he would need to perform better.
So sacrificing thirty minutes to an hour each day to handle some piled-up work seemed like a good choice.
At least during this time, he could maintain smoother communication with some colleagues in Europe.
After hesitating for a moment, Laurent opened WhatsApp and sent a message to Joe Berner, the chief editor, "Joe, are you asleep?"
He soon received a reply: "Yes, still awake, what's up?"
"Is it convenient for you to talk on the phone now?"
"Of course."
After receiving the last message, Laurent directly made the call.
"Joe, we suddenly received several complaints in the mailroom, all suggesting that the newly published paper might involve academic infringement. The reason given is that the first author of the paper, the one called Qiao Ze (transliteration, not a typo), is just a student who has recently graduated from high school and has not had formal higher education."
"Oh? That's really interesting, you know? Laurent, just twenty minutes ago, Sumant was on the phone with me, also mentioning an interesting matter."
"What was it, Joe?"
"This morning, 'Pure and Applied Mathematics Communications' published a paper on its official website titled 'A Mathematical Architecture for Self-supervised 3D Point Cloud Prediction'. Guess who the first author is?"
"Hmm... wasn't Ackerman from the University of Cologne always working on this topic?"
"Haha, yes, but the first author of this paper is his student, Kori Durant. Do you remember this young guy?"
"Of course... Kori... He must be the youngest PhD to give a personal report at Princeton, and although they only gave him half an hour that day, I must say, he performed excellently. He's a young man who left a deep impression."
With those words, Laurent Lane's mind went back to that afternoon two years ago, in a Neoclassical building made of red bricks, where Ackerman Konietz, buoyant for just having won the Gauss prize, introduced his student to all of them in a conference room in that building.
A handsome young boy with golden-yellow hair, just nineteen years old.
That face, filled with both youthfulness and rawness, even made Laurent Lane feel a twinge of jealousy.
What was most important was that the mere nineteen-year-old was already able to discuss topics confidently in front of a group of editors and mathematicians.