My IQ has been increasing year by year.

Chapter 213 Counterattack

The wind picked up in the Princeton night.

The wind blew through the oak grove in the yard and struck the glass windows of the second-floor study with a dull thud.

Pierre sat behind a large walnut desk, which was cluttered with piles of printed paper, an uncapped fountain pen, an ordinary ballpoint pen, and an empty teacup.

Amidst a pile of miscellaneous items, there was a clean orange aluminum can.

That's a beverage unique to China called Jianlibao.

A computer sat in front of Pierre, its screen emitting a cold, white light that shone on his face.

He wasn't writing out equations.

He stared at the email client on the screen.

That was the Listserv system, the highest-level internal mailing list in the global field of topology and algebraic geometry.

Normally, this discussion group doesn't receive more than a few new emails a day.

The older professors prefer to have coffee together face-to-face or to engage in leisurely debates at seminars held every few months.

But tonight, the inbox on the screen is refreshing like crazy.

Lines of bold black headings kept popping up like bullets.

"Request for Editorial Intervention: Logical Discontinuity in Article No. 211".

From: Gray.

"C. Zhuo's Identity Investigation and Academic Ethics Controversy".

From: Durand.

"Continuity is Inviolable: On the Transgression of Algebraic Judgments".

From: Schmidt.

Pierre held the mouse and scrolled the wheel.

He opened each letter one by one, reading them line by line.

He wasn't angry.

He just found it funny.

The wooden door to the study made a soft creak; the hinges were a bit old, and the sound was clear in the quiet night.

Matilda came in carrying a porcelain plate with two cups of freshly brewed black tea, still steaming.

She wore a dark gray wool shawl, her hair was pinned up, and there were fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.

"You didn't take your medicine tonight."

Matilda placed the porcelain plate on the corner of the table, making some space.

"I don't need to take medicine."

Pierre's eyes never left the screen.

"I feel better now than I have on any day in the past five years."

Matilda glanced at the screen.

She understands French and English, and she knows the names of those familiar faces on the screen.

"Are they arguing?"

"They are shaking."

Pierre picked up his teacup and took a sip.

"They saw that the house they had built with their own hands all their lives had a hole drilled in the load-bearing wall."

Matilda pulled over a chair and sat down across the table.

Her gaze fell on the orange soda can.

"What you brought back from that faraway East, besides a box of tea, a silk scarf for me, a pen, was this empty jar."

"Matilda said softly."

"And then there's this storm on the screen right now."

Pierre smiled.

He leaned back in his chair and turned to look out the window.

"Matilda, do you remember 1999?"

"Remember."

Matilda nodded.

"You sat in this study for three months, finished that paper on topological tearing, and then you told me you were going to stop because nobody could catch up with your stuff."

"Yes."

Pierre's voice lowered.

"Back then, I found the world boring. They were too slow, so slow that I lost the patience to explain."

He pointed to the screen.

"Gray, Durand, Schmidt, they ganged up on me back then, saying my mathematics had no beauty and that I was a butcher wielding an axe."

Pierre paused for a moment.

"But during my trip to China, I met someone."

Matilda held her teacup and listened quietly.

"A thirteen-year-old child."

Pierre's tone was tinged with amazement.

"The first time I met him was inside a dilapidated library. He was wearing a white T-shirt with a worn-out collar. He didn't recognize me. He took me to eat something called soup dumplings on the street."

Pierre stretched out his finger and gestured in the air.

"He didn't give me chopsticks. He asked the boss for a spoon and taught me how to bite a small hole in the bun to blow away the hot air inside. He said that if I ate it directly, I would burn my throat."

Matilda raised an eyebrow slightly.

"She sounds like a very caring child."

"Yes."

Pierre nodded.

"He was very gentle. He would slow down and wait for me when we walked on the street, and he would stand on the side with cars when we crossed the street. He looked like the most ordinary and obedient boy next door."

Pierre turned his gaze back to the screen, looking at the appendix to the paper that had triggered the tsunami.

"But in mathematics, he is an absolute genius."

Pierre opened the PDF file of the paper and scrolled directly to the introduction on the first page.

"Look at these three sentences."

Matilda moved a little closer.

"In his first statement, he overturned the continuity of infinite-dimensional networks; in his second statement, he replaced local rules with discrete paradoxes; and in his third statement, he declared the absolute dominance of algebra."

Pierre read it aloud, word by word.

"Matilda, when I wrote that paper, I added two pages of background information at the beginning, and I even tried to explain to them why I was going to use this axe."

Pierre looked at his wife.

"But he didn't. He didn't write a single word of nonsense. He was too lazy to even refute those outdated theories. He simply stepped over them and welded the door shut."

Matilda put down her teacup.

She looked at her husband.

She hadn't seen that light in the old man's eyes in a long time.

"What are you planning to do?" Matilda asked.

"They are now preparing a joint letter to pressure the editorial board, and they want to define this paper as academic fraud."

After all, when an unknown person writes something like this, the easiest excuse they can find is that the author's identity is unknown.

Pierre didn't say anything.

He gripped the mouse.

He closed the noisy discussion group page.

He opened the official internal email system of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton.

He created a new email.

Recipient: Committee of the Global Union of Mathematicians, Editorial Office of the Annals of Mathematics.

CC: Listserv Topology Core Discussion Group.

The sound of keyboard typing filled the study.

It was straightforward and decisive, without any unnecessary delays.

Matilda didn't say anything. She stood up, walked behind Pierre, and looked at the lines of letters that appeared on the screen.

There were no polite greetings at the beginning.

[Statement regarding the manuscript "Discrete Mapping and Singularity Convergence in Large-Scale Network Topologies" (Issue No. 211).]

I am Pierre.

I saw your posts in the discussion group. I saw your fear, and I saw your arrogance as you tried to conceal it.

Pierre's fingers tapped on the keyboard.

Five years ago, I left behind that set of discrete tools, and I said that no one in this world was worthy of using them.

I retract that statement today.

It's not because you've become smarter over the past five years that you're still stuck in those useless continuous manifolds.

]

I take back that statement because I've found the person who was born to wield this axe.

Pierre paused for a moment.

He picked up the pen that Chen Zhuo had taken from the old library that day, twirled it in his hand twice, and then put it back in its place.

He continued typing.

[The first author of this paper is C. Zhuo.]

His Chinese name is Chen Zhuo.

He is 13 years old.

Hereby, I formally announce to all of you that Chen Zhuo is the last and only disciple I have ever had in my academic career.

Seeing this, Matilda gently placed her hand on Pierre's shoulder.

"You've said something too harsh," Matilda said softly.

"You're using your entire life's reputation as a shield for him."

"He doesn't lack shields."

Pierre stared at the screen.

"I'm just warning those old guys not to get too involved."

Pierre continued typing.

Some have questioned the brevity of his introduction, considering it an academic offense.

I want to tell you that for someone who can see through the fog at a glance, explaining the shape of the sun to a blind person is a waste of life.

His three-line introduction wasn't a discussion with you; it was his final judgment.

Every derivation and every step of the discrete segmentation in this article was completed independently by him based on intuition; he did a better job than I did in 1999.

[If you have any questions about the logic of this paper, or if anyone here thinks they can find even one mathematical flaw in the singularity convergence on page 12.]

Please buy a plane ticket and come to Princeton to find me.

If you can't do that.

Please remain quiet.

[Signature: Pierre G.]

Pierre stopped.

He glanced back at Matilda.

"Press Enter for me," Pierre said.

Matilda smiled, extended her index finger, and pressed the large Enter key.

The screen flickered.

Sent successfully.

Pierre leaned back in his chair and let out a long sigh.

He picked up the now lukewarm black tea and drank it all in one gulp.

"Grey will probably need to take sleeping pills tonight," Pierre said.

"You're acting like a rude father who's afraid his child will be bullied at school, so he's waiting at the school gate to ambush them."

Matilda tidied up the tea set on the table, her tone teasing.

"No."

Pierre shook his head.

"I'm not protecting him, I'm protecting the last shred of self-respect those old guys have left. If they were to personally go and besiege a thirteen-year-old kid, only to be logically crushed by that kid in the end... I think they would jump into the Seine."

.

The wind outside the window has stopped.

The night was dark.

Trinity College, Cambridge University.

In Professor Gray's office.

After hanging up the phone, he remained seated at his desk, staring at the unfinished draft of the joint letter in front of him.

.

The door was pushed open.

Miller walked in quickly, holding several freshly printed sheets of paper in his hand.

Miller looked terrible, as if he had just recovered from a serious illness.

"Grey."

Miller placed the paper in his hand on the table.

"You don't need to write anymore."

Gray looked up.

"Did the editorial department reply?"

"Not the editorial department."

Miller's voice sounded a little weak.

"It's Pierre."

Gray's gaze fell on those few pages.

White background with black lettering.

Official email header from IAS.

He saw the name: C. Zhuo.

He saw the phrase: "The only disciple who has closed his doors."

He saw the sentence: If you can't do it, please keep quiet.

Gray sat in the chair.

The light from the screen shone on his face, illuminating the crisscrossing wrinkles on his face.

He didn't speak.

He stared at the phrase "explain the shape of the sun to a blind man".

He slowly loosened his grip.

The pen in my hand fell onto the solid wood table with a crisp sound and rolled to the ground.

He didn't pick it up.

He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

The fireplace in the lounge was still burning, but Gray felt cold.

The coldness started from the soles of my feet and ran all the way to the top of my head.

They not only received a sharper axe, but they also received a tyrant with absolute power who protected that axe.

All resistance becomes a laughable struggle in the face of absolute academic authority and absolute logical crushing power.

École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

Durand stared at the computer screen.

His hands were still on the keyboard, replying to an email about the details of the joint letter.

Now, this email, which was only half-written, is left hanging there.

His gaze was fixed on the latest online announcement that had popped up.

From: Pierre.

Durand read the entire article.

He stared at the screen for a long time.

.

Then, he reached out and pressed the power button.

The screen went black.

He stood up, picked up his coat draped over the back of his chair, and walked out of the office.

The corridor was quiet.

He didn't speak to anyone, but walked straight out of the teaching building and into the deserted streets of Paris.

Moscow.

Wolfkov looked at the report on the screen.

He took the vodka bottle and poured himself a full glass.

He raised his glass and clinked it against the air.

"Well done, you old madman."

He drank it all in one gulp.

The strong liquor burned his eyes, making them red.

He turned his head and looked out the window at the snow falling heavier and heavier.

The old era is coming to an end.

The new era was ushered in by someone kicking down the door in an extremely rude manner.