At the beginning of the year, before Lu Zhou poached Chen Yang from the Yan University mathematics center, Chen Yang had already begun researching the Hodge conjecture.
Lu Zhou still remembered seeing Chen Yang researching the hyperelliptic curve analysis method on a blackboard. Chen Yang used a very clever mathematical tool to improve this method, which was originally designed to solve Riemann's hypothesis. This meant the hyperelliptic curve analysis method could be applied to singular complex algebraic clusters, as well as geometrical problems that were defined on the sub-clusters.
This left a good impression on Lu Zhou, which caused Lu Zhou to poach him from the Yan University mathematics center.
Almost a year had gone by since then, and there had yet to be any significant progress on the Hodge conjecture. Not to mention that Lu Zhou was busy with unifying algebra and geometry; he had totally forgotten about this.