Chapter 21: Visa Denial

After the meeting, in Deng Yonghua’s office.

"Zhou Yun, I was just about to look for you, and here you are. You go first—what did you want to see me about?"

"Professor, I’ve finished the new paper. I’ve sent it to your email."

"Is that so? That was fast. Let me take a look." Deng Yonghua opened his email and downloaded the paper.

He spent about five minutes reading it.

"Excellent! With the experience from last time, your paper-writing skills have improved significantly. There isn't much left for me to guide you on. I’ve skimmed through it, and there don't seem to be any issues. I’ll look at it more carefully later and let you know if I find anything."

"By the way, have you uploaded this paper to arXiv? And the previous one—did you upload that?"

Zhou Yun shook his head. He was, of course, familiar with arXiv; it was a free, open-access academic preprint platform. For time-sensitive fields like computer science, mathematics, physics, and biology, many papers are uploaded to arXiv before formal submission. However, in his previous life, he had mainly published papers just to graduate. Although he had read many papers on arXiv, he had never once published there himself. He had felt it was pointless and troublesome, so he hadn't bothered.

"You really should post them on arXiv to stake your claim. Otherwise, you risk someone else publishing the same research first, and then all your hard work will have been for nothing."

"Should I post both? Isn't one of them already submitted to NeurIPS?"

"Post both. It doesn't matter if it's already submitted. Top-tier conferences like NeurIPS use double-blind peer review; as long as you don't include the reviewer suggestions or author information, it will be fine. Also, don't make the code public just yet. While you shouldn't wish harm on others, you must be guarded against it. You will have more and more research results in the future, and you need to strengthen your awareness in this regard."

"I see. I'll go back and make a few edits, then upload them to arXiv. Oh, and you mentioned you were looking for me? What was it about?"

"There is one thing. There's a freshman welcome ceremony in the second half of the year. Dean Lin mentioned it at the meeting earlier and wanted you to give a speech as the freshman representative. What do you think? Are you interested? Don't feel any pressure—go if you want to, and don't if you don't."

Zhou Yun thought for a moment and decided to decline. "I think I’ll pass. I’m not really suited for that kind of occasion."

He was fine with giving academic presentations, as he now had some confidence in his familiar field. But asking him to speak as a freshman representative? What was there for him to say?

Deng Yonghua wasn't surprised by Zhou Yun’s decision. "If you don't want to, then so be it. Frankly, it’s all just performative anyway—it serves no real purpose. Going would just be a waste of your time."

"Is there anything else, Professor?"

"No, that’s all. You can head back now. I’ll read your paper right away and give you a response tomorrow morning." He had originally intended to say he would reply in the evening, but remembering that Zhou Yun seemed to leave work even more punctually than he did, he changed it to tomorrow. After all, he shouldn't interfere with his student's rest.

***

A week later, at the visa office of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing.

Matthew Coleman was sipping coffee, trying to shake off the afternoon drowsiness. He was forty-two years old and had been working as a visa officer for ten years; he had long since grown weary of the daily, repetitive work.

"Another student?" he muttered, clicking on a submitted application. The photo showed a boy who looked like he had just turned twenty.

"QianTang University? What kind of school is that? A diploma mill?" Although he had lived in China for ten years, he couldn't possibly recognize every university. In his eyes, if it wasn't a school he knew by name, it was a diploma mill.

"What is a student from a school like this doing going to Canada? Academic exchange?" He gave a dismissive laugh, took a sip of his coffee, and continued flipping through the materials.

When he saw "NeurIPS," his brows arched. "Oh? They really are going to a conference?"

He continued reviewing the documents, his brow furrowing. "They don't even have an invitation letter?"

He then clicked on the applicant's profile. The system showed the person was a freshman who hadn't even enrolled yet, with zero academic achievements.

"How could someone like this possibly have a paper published at NeurIPS?"

Although he didn't work in scientific research, ten years of screening had familiarized him with the names of various top conferences. He was certainly no stranger to NeurIPS.

Matthew shook his head, a familiar sense of suspicion rising in him. In the cases he handled, it was not uncommon for Chinese students to forge invitation letters or exaggerate their academic accomplishments.

"Another one trying to sneak into Canada," Matthew muttered to himself. He clicked to deny the visa, expertly inputting the reason: "Materials insufficient to prove the authenticity of the purpose of the visit."

He didn't even look at the detailed explanatory material written by Deng Yonghua.

After clicking "Submit," Matthew stretched, preparing to review the next file. He made dozens of such decisions every day and was long accustomed to it. In his view, a participant at a top-tier conference should at least be a senior PhD student or a professor, not some "newbie" who hadn't even enrolled yet.

Three days later, Zhou Yun, who was in the middle of a workout, received a message.

[We regret to inform you that your visa application has not been approved...]

They actually rejected it? On what grounds?

Clearly, Qiu Yan’s visa had been approved just a few days ago. The only people going to the conference this time were Qiu Yan, Yu Tianrui, Wang Jiayue, and Shen Rui—the latter three were all busy with internships. As for the third-year graduate students, there was no need to mention them; those who hadn't pursued a PhD were already working and simply had no time.

Was he being targeted? That couldn't be right!

Although he didn't have an official invitation letter, the university had provided all the other supporting documents. Did the visa officer not even look at them?

He clicked the link sent by the official website, which contained the reason for the rejection.

[Materials insufficient to prove the authenticity of the purpose of the visit.]

Zhou Yun was so angry he laughed.

Giving in to impotent rage was not his style. He informed Deng Yonghua of the situation, as he had previously told him to reach out if the visa didn't go through.

[Professor, the visa was rejected.]

Upon seeing Zhou Yun’s message, Deng Yonghua’s face dropped, and unpleasant memories flooded back.

After reading the reason for the rejection, he was one hundred percent certain that the visa officer had not looked at the materials he had written. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to reject the application. He had suffered from this type of situation once before, so he knew how to prevent it, but he hadn't expected the official to not even glance at the paperwork.

[File an appeal first. Leave the rest to me.]

After thinking for a moment, he called Dean Lin.

"Dean Lin, it's Deng Yonghua. Here is the situation..."

"I understand. Don't worry. I know a few people at NeurIPS and the visa center. Leave this to me. As long as the materials are complete, the visa will definitely be issued. Tell Zhou Yun that the school will always be his strongest backer."

"Understood. Thank you, Dean Lin."

After hanging up, Deng Yonghua put down his phone. It should be fine now. If there were still issues, he had other ways to handle it.