My IQ has been increasing year by year.

1999, October.

The autumn heatwave in the south not only bites people, but also drains their energy and spirit.

The red brick teaching building of Yuhong Primary School looks like it has been thrown into a steamer.

The cicadas chirped shrilly in the plane trees outside the window, their sound like a rusty saw, repeatedly tearing at the sultry afternoon air.

In the classroom of Grade 1 (2), the old-fashioned ceiling fans overhead were spinning loudly.

They spun so slowly that they brought little cool breeze; instead, they mixed the sweat, cheap soap, and woody smell of pencil leads from dozens of children with the faint stench of urine from the corner into a suffocating broth.

"Students, put your hands behind your backs and straighten your backs!"

On the podium, the homeroom teacher, Ms. Wang, tapped the desk with a blackboard eraser, sending up a cloud of white chalk dust.

"Repeat after the teacher: a——o——e——"

"a——o——e——!"

Forty-five tiny, innocent mouths opened wide, uttering a unified shout.

The sound was full of untamed vitality, making the classroom windows vibrate.

Chen Zhuo, sitting in the second-to-last row by the window, felt like his skull was about to be blown off.

He frowned slightly, his eyes somewhat unfocused as he stared at the heat rash around the back of the chubby boy's head in the front row.

This is a form of punishment.

For an adult soul with a psychological age of over thirty and an extremely high need for logical thinking, being forced to repeat these pinyin letters that offer no additional information every day in a classroom of less than forty square meters is tantamount to a form of mental torture.

Chen Zhuo glanced down at the watch on his wrist.

It was an old pocket watch that his father had given him. To make it easier for him, his mother, Liu Xiuying, sewed a cloth cover for it and tied it to his thin wrist.

2:15 PM.

Only ten minutes have passed in this Chinese class.

We need to endure it for another thirty-five minutes.

Thirty-five minutes is enough time for him to derive a set of nonlinear equations or to mentally construct a cross-sectional diagram of a miniature turbocharger.

But now, he can only sit here, like a puppet, feeling the meaningless passing of life amidst the repeated shouts of "open your mouth wide aaa".

"This can't go on any longer."

Chen Zhuo sighed inwardly.

His mind was parched.

As the body develops at the age of seven, the brain that used to often malfunction has recently begun to enter a period of activity.

It's like a computer that has just had its memory upgraded. If you don't feed it enough complex data to process, it will overheat and cause an indescribable sense of anxiety and dizziness.

He gave this feeling a name: "mental hunger".

He needs something substantial.

He needs logic, structure, and complex geometric lines, not a "white rabbit, all white and fluffy".

Chen Zhuo looked around.

My deskmate is a little girl with pigtails who is biting an eraser so badly it's covered in teeth marks.

The chubby boy diagonally in front of me is secretly picking his nose and trying to smear it under his desk.

Teacher Wang turned around to write on the blackboard, the chalk making a squeaking sound as it rubbed against the board.

In that instant, Chen Zhuo reached into his schoolbag.

He didn't take out the book "Soviet Secondary School Physics" that he had borrowed from the library, because it was too conspicuous, and if he took it out, he would definitely be regarded as a monster who could read incomprehensible books.

He pulled out a piece of draft paper.

It was the back of a used mimeographed exam paper; the paper was rough and somewhat yellowed.

Chen Zhuo pressed the draft paper under the Chinese textbook, leaving only a blank space in the lower right corner exposed.

He then took out a sharpened Chinese pencil and a not-so-straight plastic ruler from his pencil case.

The world fell silent at that moment.

The moment the pen tip touches the paper, the surrounding noise, heat, and smell of sweat seem to be shut out by an invisible barrier.

He is drawing.

It's not a stick figure or a cannon or airplane that a child casually doodles, but a set of planetary gear reduction structures.

This is what he saw in his father's machine shop workshop last weekend.

The imported German machine tool broke down at the time, and after taking it apart, he was fascinated by its intricate meshing structure for a whole day.

Although he had not yet learned the specific mechanical principles, his abnormal observation skills and the spatial imagination he had deliberately trained over the years allowed him to completely replicate the structure on paper.

"The sun gear is in the center... three planetary gears surround it... the outer gear ring is fixed..."

Chen Zhuo's hands were very steady.

Although his seven-year-old fingers were still a bit soft, his pen-holding posture was extremely scientific, using the fulcrum of his wrist to control the straightness of the lines.

One straight line, two arcs, one point of tangency.

The pencil made a soft scratching sound on the paper; this damped friction sound was, to Chen Zhuo, the most beautiful music in the world.

His brain began to work at lightning speed.

He wasn't just painting; he was simulating.

In his mind, the two-dimensional image was three-dimensional and dynamic.

He can see the gears turning, feel the torque transmission, and calculate the approximate reduction ratio.

"If the input speed is 1,500 RPM, after this stage of reduction, the output speed will be about 300 RPM... The efficiency loss is mainly due to tooth surface friction and the viscous resistance of the lubricating oil..."

This intense mental activity quickly depleted his blood sugar, but it also relieved the anxiety caused by boredom.

He was completely absorbed in it.

He forgot about Teacher Wang, who was still leading the class in reading pinyin on the podium, forgot about the cicadas outside the window, and forgot that he was still a seven-year-old primary school student.

until--

A shadow suddenly fell over his desk.

The shadow blocked out the light and also cut off the gears that were turning in his mind.

Chen Zhuo's fingers stiffened slightly.

As an adult, his first reaction wasn't to frantically crumple the paper into a ball, because that would be the most foolish thing to do; it would be a sign of a guilty conscience.

He slowly put down his pen, without covering it, and instead raised his head, his face displaying a bewildered expression that said, "I'm being good, but I don't know what happened."

Standing in front of him was his homeroom teacher, Ms. Wang.

Teacher Wang is very young, having graduated from teachers' college less than two years ago. She has her hair tied in a ponytail, and fine beads of sweat are visible on the tip of her nose.

At that moment, her expression was not good.

She had noticed Chen Zhuo long ago.

This child is an oddball in the class.

He doesn't make a fuss, doesn't talk, doesn't raise his hand, and doesn't wet his pants.

He was so quiet, as quiet as a wisp of air.

Every time she lectured, the other children's eyes were eager and unfocused, but Chen Zhuo, although sitting upright, always had a sense of... detachment in his eyes.

It's like an adult being forced to sit among a group of children.

Just now, she saw Chen Zhuo with his head down, his focused expression clearly indicating he wasn't looking at a textbook.

"Chen Zhuo".

Teacher Wang's voice was very low, with a hint of offended sternness.

"What are you doing?"

All forty-five heads in the class turned around instantly, like sunflowers.

The chubby boy in the front row who was picking his nose stared wide-eyed at the scene with glee.

Chen Zhuo stood up.

His height of 1.2 meters meant he had to look up at Teacher Wang.

"I'm...drawing," Chen Zhuo answered honestly.

This is the truth, and also the safest excuse. A child who daydreams in class will at most get a few words of criticism.

"draw?"

Teacher Wang reached out, and her fingers, which were dry from years of handling chalk, pinched the draft paper under Chen Zhuo's textbook.

"Take it out."

Chen Zhuo did not resist and released his grip.

The mimeograph paper was pulled out and exposed to the afternoon sun.

Teacher Wang originally thought he would see Ultraman, Black Cat Detective, or some random graffiti.

She had even prepared a set of excuses, such as "It's a good drawing, but it depends on the occasion."

However, when her gaze fell on the paper, she froze.

That's not a painting.

Or rather, it wasn't something she knew a first-grade elementary school student could draw.

There was no color on the paper, only dense lines.

The perfectly concentric circles drawn by the compass, the straight tangents drawn by the ruler, and those serrated structures that, though naive, clearly exhibit a certain regularity.

Next to the graphic, there were some strange symbols and numbers.

Although there are no written explanations, the austere beauty unique to industrial drawings is immediately apparent.

It's like finding a Leonardo da Vinci manuscript mixed in with a bunch of children's simple drawings.

Ms. Wang teaches Chinese, and she doesn't understand what this is.

But she could understand that kind of order.

That kind of rigorous, precise order is completely out of place for a seven-year-old child.

"This...you drew it?"

Teacher Wang's voice was a little unsteady. She subconsciously glanced at Chen Zhuo's hand, which was still covered in pencil dust.

"Um."

Chen Zhuo nodded.

"I got tired of listening to the lecture, so I just drew for fun."

Play?

Looking at the complex concentric circle structure, Teacher Wang felt that her common sense had been challenged.

"What is this?"

She pointed to the gear in the middle that looked like the sun.

"wheel."

Chen Zhu blinked, trying to make his vocabulary seem impoverished.

"The wheels from Dad's factory."

"Did you copy this?"

"No, I remembered it from memory."

The classroom was completely silent.

Although the students couldn't understand what they were saying, they could sense that Teacher Wang's expression was strange.

It wasn't anger, nor happiness, but rather an expression... like someone who had seen a ghost.

Teacher Wang took a deep breath.

She realized that this matter was beyond her control.

If it's a painting, she can confiscate it.

If she's daydreaming, she can be punished by standing in the corner.

But if it's this kind of... this kind of almost monstrous display of talent, she can't handle it hastily.

She was a responsible teacher, and she had a vague feeling that she might have encountered an extraordinary child.

"Chen Zhuo, pack your schoolbag."

Teacher Wang carefully tucked the draft paper into the lesson plan, her tone no longer critical, but unusually complex.

"Come to my office. And...do you remember your dad's work phone number?"

Chen Zhuo's heart skipped a beat.

"Please call the parents."

This is the instinctive physiological reaction that all Chinese students, whether they have traveled through time or not, will have when they hear these three words.

But he quickly calmed down.

Yeah.

Since we can't hide it anymore, let's lay it all out.

He couldn't stand this inefficient teaching for even a day longer.

If I could use this opportunity to gain some freedom or skip a grade, even if it meant getting a spanking from my father, it would be worth it.

Chen Zhuo silently packed his schoolbag and, amidst the awe-inspiring yet sympathetic gazes of his classmates, followed Teacher Wang out of the classroom.

The cicadas were still chirping in the corridor.

But Chen Zhuo listened and felt that the sound didn't seem so harsh anymore.

……

3 PM, Principal's Office.

The principal's office at Yuhong Elementary School is small. A banner with the slogan "Study hard and make progress every day" hangs on the wall, and several stacks of new textbooks are piled up in the corner.

An old-fashioned ceiling fan swayed overhead, making a teeth-grinding screeching sound.

Chen Zhuo sat on the old leather sofa meant for guests, his feet dangling in mid-air, swaying back and forth.

There were three people sitting opposite him.

Our homeroom teacher, Ms. Wang; our academic director, Mr. Zhang; and our elderly principal with a full head of white hair.

On the table was that sheet of draft paper.

"The Chen family's child?"

The old principal, wearing reading glasses, examined the blueprint, then looked up at Chen Zhuo with a glint of shrewdness in his eyes.

"Yes, Chen Jianguo's son."

Director Zhang chimed in from the side.

"Chen Jianguo was my student back then. That kid was good at physics, but he wasn't this... weird."

Director Zhang used one word: bizarre.

That's really weird.

They just had the math teacher come and take a look.

The math teacher looked at it for a long time and said that the geometric relationship between the circle and the tangent in the picture was very accurate. It was not drawn randomly at all, but definitely showed a foundation in spatial geometry.

Moreover, the meshing angle of that gear, although not measured with a protractor, had a very small visual error.

Is this a drawing from memory by a seven-year-old child?

"Chen Zhuo".

The old principal spoke with a smile.

"Tell Grandpa, why did you draw this?"

This is a trick question.

If you say it's "because it's fun," then it's just imitation.

To say it's "because I understand the principles" would be too monstrous.

Chen Zhuo looked at the old principal and saw a kind of kindness and curiosity in the old man's eyes.

So he decided to tell only half the truth.

"Because I'm bored."

Chen Zhuo said honestly.

"boring?"

Teacher Wang couldn't help but speak up.

"Do you find it boring when the teacher teaches pinyin?"

"Um."

Chen Zhuo nodded, his tone as calm as if he were stating an objective fact.

"I learned aoe in kindergarten. Writing it fifty times will make my hand ache, and it's useless. I can read it and write it."

"And what about your math? You find 1 plus 1 boring too?" Director Zhang teased him.

Chen Zhuo didn't speak, but glanced at Director Zhang, and there was a hint of... pity in his eyes?

Director Zhang felt a little uneasy under that gaze.

"teacher"

Chen Zhuo sighed, his childish voice carrying a sense of world-weariness beyond his years.

"Addition and subtraction are basic, I know that, but I already know them. Repeating what I already know is a waste of time."

"Oh ho, quite the boast," Director Zhang chuckled. "So what do you think wouldn't be a waste of time? Drawing this wheel?"

"This wheel is difficult to make."

Chen Zhuo pointed to the picture.

"To make it spin without getting stuck, the size of each tooth had to be calculated accurately. I was thinking about how it rotated, and as I was thinking, I drew it out."

The three adults looked at each other in bewilderment.

"Knock knock knock".

There was a knock on the office door.

The door was pushed open, and a man dressed in dark blue overalls, covered in sweat, rushed in.

He is Chen Zhuo's father, Chen Jianguo.

He had clearly just come out of the workshop; his hands were still covered in black machine oil, and there were two pens and a vernier caliper in the chest pocket of his work clothes.

"Teacher Wang, Principal!"

Chen Jianguo entered the room with a forced smile, still catching his breath.

"I'm so sorry, the factory is busy right now. Did my Chen Zhuo cause trouble? Did he get into a fight? Or did he break a window?"

He had mentally prepared himself on the way; his son was usually too reserved, and if he were to explode, it would definitely be a disaster.

"There was no fight." The old principal waved his hand and pointed to Chen Zhuo on the sofa. "Your son... thinks the lessons are too easy and doesn't want to attend."

"what?"

Chen Jianguo was stunned. He looked at his unharmed son and then at the piece of paper on the table.

"This... isn't this the gearbox from the German machine tool I repaired the other day?"

Chen Jianguo recognized him at a glance.

That was his pride, and also his nightmare.

That day, he and his son worked overtime, disassembling that machine all night.

"It was drawn by your son," Director Zhang said.

Chen Jianguo picked up the paper, his hand trembling slightly.

He's an expert.

Although this is a hand-drawn sketch without rulers and the lines are not professional enough, the structure is correct!

Even the position of the planet carrier, which is easy to install backwards, was drawn correctly.

"Son, how...how did you draw that?" Chen Jianguo's eyes widened.

"I saw you take it apart," Chen Zhuo said. "That big wheel had a small wheel inside it; it looked really nice."

Chen Jianguo slapped his thigh: "Genius! I knew my son was a genius! He takes after me! What's this called? This is called engineering intuition!"

"Cough cough."

The old headmaster coughed twice, interrupting the father's self-absorbed reverie.

"Jianguo, the problem now isn't whether he has intuition or not, but that he's not paying attention in class and is doing this kind of thing. This is affecting the teaching order."

Chen Jianguo's face instantly fell.

He was an honest technician who was most afraid of causing trouble for the organization.

"Yes, yes, I'll definitely teach him a lesson when I get back." Chen Jianguo glared at Chen Zhuo. "You brat, you think you're so clever just because you have a little bit of a head? Go back and copy those words a hundred times!"

Chen Zhuo neither refuted nor cried.

He simply looked at his father quietly, and then said something that surprised everyone.

"Dad, I can copy it a hundred times, but after I've copied it, will I forget what it is?"

Chen Jianguo was stunned.

Chen Zhuo continued, his voice not loud, but each word clear:

"I want to learn, but the school teaches too slowly, and I'm not getting enough to eat."

"Not enough to eat."

These three words were like a nail, driven into the hearts of all the adults present.

The old principal fell silent. He took off his glasses, wiped them, and then put them back on.

He taught his whole life and had seen mischievous students, stupid students, and smart students.

But he had never seen a seven-year-old child say "I'm not full" in such a rational, adult-like tone.

The longing in this child's eyes was genuine.

"Jianguo," the old principal began slowly, "do you think it's appropriate to let him follow the usual path and study in first grade?"

Chen Jianguo scratched his head, looking troubled: "Then... what can we do? He can't just stop going to school."

"Let's take the test."

The old principal opened a drawer, rummaged around for a while, and found a set of exam papers.

Those were backup exam papers from last year's third-grade final exams, including both Chinese and math papers.

"Chen Zhuo," the old principal placed the test paper on the coffee table and handed him a pen, "You said you weren't full, so Grandpa will serve you something substantial. These are third-grade questions. Try them out, do as many as you can, and don't just guess."

The atmosphere in the office instantly became tense.

Teacher Wang looked at Chen Zhuo with some nervousness.

Third grade?

Isn't that a bit of a leap?

First graders only learn addition and subtraction within 20, but third graders learn multiplication and division, word problems, and even composition!

Chen Zhuo looked at the two papers.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

finally come.

This was the opportunity he needed.

There's no need to provoke anyone or argue with the teacher like a fool.

If he shows even the slightest sign of something unusual, the adults will automatically fill in the blanks in their minds and then create a stage for him.

This is what is meant by "great skill appears clumsy".

He climbed off the sofa, leaned over the coffee table, and picked up a pen.

Without hesitation, without biting the pen, and without even having time to read the question.

Question 1: Mental arithmetic.

24 × 5 = ?

Chen Zhuo picked up his pen and wrote: 120.

Question 2: Fill in the blanks.

1 ton = () kilograms

1000.

He's very fast.

For him, this wasn't an exam at all; it was copying.

His brain displayed astonishing efficiency at that moment; the answer appeared the instant the question appeared on his screen.

Chen Jianguo stood to the side, barely daring to breathe, watching his son's pen dance across the paper, his eyes widening in disbelief.

When did this kid learn multiplication? When did he learn unit conversion?

He suddenly remembered that the dusty elementary school textbooks on the bottom shelf of his bookshelf seemed to have been frequently flipped through recently.

He thought his son had used it to prop up the corner of the table, but it turns out he taught himself?

Five minutes later, the first page of the math test was finished.

The word problem was finished in ten minutes.

Chen Zhuo didn't stop. He pushed the math test paper aside and pulled over the Chinese test paper.

Write Chinese characters based on pinyin.

Word formation.

Make a sentence.

For someone with the soul of a thirty-year-old, it's actually harder to hide one's shortcomings in Chinese than in mathematics.

Because it's difficult to imitate a child's tone of voice.

Sentence construction exercise: Although...but...

Chen Zhuo thought for a moment and wrote: Although this test paper was very difficult, I still managed to finish it.

(Actually, he wanted to write: Although I really want to build an atomic bomb, I have to pretend to be a primary school student first.)

Essay topic: My ideal.

Chen Zhuo paused for a moment.

This is a question that could give you an easy point, but it could also be a fatal one.

Writing about becoming a scientist? That's too cliché.

Writing about becoming an astronaut? That's too far-fetched.

He glanced at his father, who stood beside him, his hands covered in grease, his face filled with tension and anticipation.

Chen Zhuo's lips curled slightly upward as he picked up his pen and wrote:

"My dream is to become an engineer, like my dad. Holding calipers, I can fix the world's biggest machines. I also want to draw those beautiful gears, make them turn, and carry us faster..."

This essay is only two hundred words long.

But he wrote it very carefully.

Forty minutes later.

Chen Zhuo put down his pen and rubbed his sore wrist, which was his only weakness at the moment: insufficient endurance in his hand muscles.

"Finished writing."

He pushed the exam paper to the old principal.

The office was deathly silent.

No corrections are needed.

All the teachers present are experienced; a quick glance is enough to tell that this paper, even if not a perfect score, is at least 95 points or higher.

The handwriting is neat, the paper is clean, and the logic is clear.

Especially that essay.

Chen Jianguo leaned over and took a look. When he saw the phrase "like a father," the seven-foot-tall man's eyes instantly reddened.

He turned his head away and rubbed his eyes hard with the back of his oily hand.

The old principal held the exam paper, his hands trembling slightly.

He looked at Chen Zhuo as if he were looking at a piece of uncarved jade, or as if he were looking at a monster from the future.

"Jianguo, ah." The old principal's voice was a little hoarse.

"Oh, Principal."

"Is your ancestral grave... emitting auspicious smoke?"

Chen Jianguo grinned foolishly, not knowing what to say, and just kept rubbing his hands together.

"Let's skip a grade."

The old principal made the final decision, his tone leaving no room for doubt.

"Staying in first grade is indeed a crime. This child is already beyond the level of a third grader. His logical thinking is stronger than that of many fifth graders."

"What?! Skipping straight to third grade?" Teacher Wang exclaimed. "Isn't that too fast? The children are still young; can they psychologically adapt?"

"His mental state?" Director Zhang pointed to Chen Zhuo, who was sitting quietly on the sofa picking at his fingers. "Does he look like he's under psychological pressure? I tried to scare him earlier, and he looked at me like I was an idiot."

The old headmaster waved his hand: "No, I won't go to the third grade."

He looked at Chen Zhuo, his eyes flashing with an almost frantic anticipation.

"Let him audit fourth grade classes. If he can keep up, he can directly register for fourth grade next semester. If he can't adapt, he can go back to third grade."

"Fourth grade?!" Chen Jianguo exclaimed in surprise. "That's for ten-year-olds! He's only seven!"

"So what if he's seven?"

The old principal stood up, walked up to Chen Zhuo, and reached out to pat his head.

"Chen Zhuo, Grandpa is asking you, do you dare to go to fourth grade?"

Chen Zhuo raised his head.

He looked at the old principal, then at his father beside him, whose face was filled with worry yet also with pride.

He knew he had achieved his goal.

Although the fourth-grade curriculum was still child's play for him, at least there would be more complex word problems, science lessons, and less phonics copying.

More importantly, this means he saved three whole years of his life.

In these three years, he could have gone to the library to read more books, practiced the piano, and finished drawing the unfinished gearbox blueprint.

"dare."

Chen Zhuo nodded, his voice clear and crisp.

"good!"

The old principal burst into laughter.

"It's settled then! Old Zhang, go and handle the formalities. Jianguo, take the child home; he doesn't have to go to class today, take him out for a nice meal!"

……

When I walked out of the school gate, the sun was already almost setting.

The setting sun cast long shadows of the father and son.

Chen Jianguo pushed the old-fashioned bicycle, with Chen Zhuo sitting on the back seat.

The father remained silent until he had ridden quite a distance and passed a stall selling fried dough sticks.

"Boss, two fried dough sticks, and two tea eggs!" Chen Jianguo suddenly shouted, his voice full of bravado.

The father and son sat on small stools by the roadside.

Chen Jianguo peeled a tea egg, stuffed it into Chen Zhuo's hand, and suddenly laughed as he watched his son wolf it down.

"son."

"Hmm?" Chen Zhuo's mouth was stuffed full of eggs, his cheeks bulging.

"From now on... you can draw wheels whenever you want."

Chen Jianguo reached out his rough, large hand and wiped the egg yolk from the corner of his son's mouth.

"But there's one rule: don't overwork your brain. Your mom says that if you use your brain too much, you won't grow taller."

Chen Zhuo was taken aback.

He looked at his father's face, tanned dark by life and cooking fumes, and at the unreserved, clumsy love in his eyes.

In his previous life, he was busy with work and social engagements and rarely looked at his father so closely.

In this life, he had his chance.

"Dad, I'm not tired." Chen Zhu swallowed the egg and said earnestly, "I was very happy when I was drawing."

"As long as you're happy."

Chen Jianguo chuckled and took a big bite of the fried dough stick.

"Forget about geniuses or anything, he's my son, being happy is the most important thing! Come on, let's go home! I'll have your mom stew some meat for you! I'm really happy today, our Chen family has produced a top scholar!"

The bicycles are back on the road.

Chen Zhuo sat in the back seat, holding the hem of his father's work clothes with both hands.

The clothes smelled of oil, sweat, and a faint rust.

This is the flavor of this era.

It also has a safe taste.

The wind blew through Chen Zhuo's short hair. He looked up and gazed at the lights of thousands of homes gradually illuminating the distance.

At the age of seven, he skipped three grades and went straight to the fourth grade.

"I want to go to the library again."

Chen Zhuo silently made plans in his mind.

"Next time, I need to borrow that 'Mechanical Drawing' book. Drawing from memory is too slow; I need to learn how to draw with rulers and compasses..."

The crisp sound of bicycle bells echoed through the streets of 1999.

That year, Macau was about to return to China, the panic over the Y2K bug was still spreading, and the internet boom was just beginning.

In the twilight of this small southern town, a seven-year-old boy sits on the back of his father's bicycle.